With fall wheat, time must be allowed for suffi cient growth of the young plants to be able to with stand the rigors of win ter. Wheat has the abil ity to germinate and grow at comparatively low tem peratures, but due care should be exercised not to subject the early growth either to severe frost or to sudden changes of the season. No best time for seeding can be given for any locality. As a rule, the depth of seeding will vary with the porosity of the soil—the lighter the soil the greater the depth. The seed should be planted not less than one nor more than three inches deep, and by the use of such machinery as will place it uniformly and secure perfect covering by the soil.
Many factors enter into the question of the proper amount of seed to sow per acre. The yield will not depend on the quantity of seed sown, for the differences in varieties are very great ; size of seed, quality, condition of seed-bed and time of seeding, character of the soil and climatic influ ences all have to be considered. Repeated experi ments in many states lead to the conclusion that six to eight pecks would be the proper range for quantity.
As a rule, wheat is not cultivated after being planted. The practice of harrowing, once followed in England, has never been universally adopted in America. There are some wheat-growing sections where it is an advantage to harrow winter-sown land in the spring in order to break up the crust on the surface and thereby retain the moisture, as well as give the plants better conditions for growth.
Harvesting (Figs. 903, 904).
The period of growth needed to bring the wheat plant from seeding to maturity varies greatly. With fall-sown grain there is a long dormant period of almost if not quite half a year when there are few indications of activity or even life. With spring sown grain where the growth is continuous and unbroken, the period will range from ninety to one hundred and twenty days. In the United States, harvesting begins in Texas as early as May, but may continue as late as September or even October in North Dakota and Washington. In the eastern states grain must be cut as soon as sufficiently ripe, and the entire crop must be put in the shock within a brief period. West of the Rocky mountains, where little or no rain falls during the summer months, harvesting is pursued more deliberately, and as the Club varieties are largely grown in these regions, the fields are often left standing for weeks or even months after the wheat is fully ripe.
Harvesting machinery.—The methods employed in harvesting wheat have undergone great changes during the past century. From the hand sickle,
with which it was possible to reap but a small area each day, to the perfected harvester or the great combined machine, is but a brief step in point of time, but it rep resents a wonderful advance in human invention and application. At the present time machinery of some kind is universally used in America for harvesting wheat. So perfect is this that the grain is scarcely touched by the human hand during the entire harvesting process. Until within twenty years of the close of the past cen tury the most perfect machine in use was the self-rake reaper, which mechanically cut and placed the wheat in bundles on the ground ready to be bound in bundles by hand. This machine was replaced by the self-binder, which at first used wire instead of twine. When a proper knotting device had been devised, the self-binder made pos sible a great expansion of the wheat industry. In many parts of the West the header is commonly used, but only in those regions where the wheat car. be left standing after maturity until it can be harvested. With this machine only sufficient straw is cut to insure gathering the heads of the grain. The header cuts ten to twelve feet wide, and is pushed forward through the grain by six or eight horses. The headed grain may be taken immediately to the thresher or shocked.
The threshing of grain where the header or self binder is used is generally done by threshers oper succeeding crop becoming infected through the blossoms. No satisfactory treatment has as yet been worked out. The stinking smut or "bunt" (caused by Tilletia tritici or T. jirtens) destroys only the kernel. It may be prevented by the use of either of the following solutions : (1) Formalin : Use a solution of one pound of formalin to fifty gallons of water. Sprinkle the wheat, covering afterwards with cloths soaked in the solution, or immerse the sacks for thirty minutes.
(2) Blue Stone. Make a solution of copper sul fate at the rate of one pound to five gallons of water ; immerse the sacks for ten minutes and ated by steam- or horse-power. Various devices calculated to reduce manual labor to a minimum are employed in this connection : self-feeders, band cutters, straw carriers, elevators and sackers are all used, and even attachments to bale the straw for market directly from the thresher. By far the larger part of the wheat crop in the United States is cut by the binder and threshed directly from the field.