| Show TIME FOR harvesting GRAIN if I 1 left uncut until dead ripe many varieties loses both in quality and quantity y ROBERT 11 II among the eunicious luini nuni cious mista mistakes hes that lead to enormous wastes on the farm few at ire more worthy of attention than baull that mat of letting grain oats wheat rye corn etc got get too ripe before harvesting no one can ride about the country III in sum summer mer without being struck and amazed at the prevalence of this error you will notice field after field that has reached or la Is approaching the period of dead ripeness and that ought to have been harvested several days before the loss arising from this source Is more appreciable and more easily estimated ti perhaps in wheat of which we cultivate comparatively little than it Is in other grains like oats and rye but the same general principle applies to all it if wheat Is cut two weeks or so before it fully ripens it contains more gluten and starch and a bushel will weigh more and it will make a larger quantity and a better quality of flour with a less quantity of bran or than if it were allowed to ripen this Is by no means a matter of theory it Is the result of careful observation the straw will begin to change color slightly two or three weeks before the grain comes to complete maturity in the best and most favorable seasons it will begin to ripen and change color at the bottom in some less favorable seasons the upper joints turn fl first rs t in the greit great growing sections of the fir far east where wheat growing Is carried on to a much greater extent than it ts Is here heie they have studied this point more carefully than we have the best farmers begin to cut while a Tort portion lon of the stalk is green as soon as the kernel hernel has passed from the milky to the doughy state the stalk has then begun to change color sometimes from the bottom sometimes for three or four inches be low the head A most careful and accurate experiment was made to ascertain the difference taking wheat first when it was vaa green second a week after when it was changing color and third when fully ripe tho the result was in the atit case 13 19 bushels an acre in the second 23 in the third 23 S and the same difference was found in the straw the total value an acre was in that cut green 62 30 in that cut one week after when the stalk was yellow below the ear in that cut one week after when fully ripe the first two productions had more fine flour and less brin bran thin than that cut last showing that thai gluten Is converted into starch in standing to get fully ripe when either end of the stalk turns yellow the sip sap ceases to flow and the covering or shell shelf of the kernel thickens ind and becomes hard and of course gives a larger proportion of bran and less lesa one flour beside in early cutting there is le less les s loss from shelling out in handling and from froin high winds which involves a very heavy loss in ripened grain now what Is true of wheat is in the main also true of other small grains e kalns oats and rye if we raise them for seed to sow again they ought to be allowed to ripen fully but it if for grinding or for feed for animals they should bo be cut early it if they would be in their best and most nutritive condition |
