Farm Filed And Garden

The advantages claimed by some for etacking wheat are: 1. Thrashing can be done from the stack at much less cost in a season when help is plentiful and easily obtained. 2. The wheat can be thrashed cleaner from the straw. Some claim enough is thus saved to pay the thrashers' bilí. 3. By going through a sweat in the stack the grain is of better quality, plumper and brighter in color, and by reason of going through a sweat in the stack is absolutelysafe to store in bulk of any desired amount. An Ohio farmer correspondent, while admitting that there are some grounds for these claims, thinks that thrashing from the shock is becoming generally popular of late years, especially in sections where considerable áreas are grown, and he gives the following reasons for tliis: Perhaps the decline in stacking results from the liability of farmers to get their wheat stacked in a manner to insure it keeping properly in case nrnch rain follows the stacking, as good wheat stackers are about as scarce as hens' teeth. Farmers generally have learned by bitter experience that it is safer to Ieave their wheat in the shock a considerable time if necessary, and incur some additional expense in thrashing from the shock, rather than run the risk of having their wheat stacked in a bungling, unskillful manner. If we are lucky enongh to have favorable weather and can exchange team work with a neighbor - which can usually be done - thrashing from the shock need not be attended with much if any greater cost than thrashing from the stack, as the extra number of teams required is the only item of additional cost. And if a balance be struck between the two methods of thrashing wi actúaíly find a saving (in favor of thrashing from the shock) of the labor of stacker, of the person handing sheaves to stacker and of the labor necessary to deliver the sheaves from the riek to the machine, labor, all told, will require four men to perfonn. The man who strikes a wet time in his first experience in thrashing from the shock will not be very enthusiastic in his praise of the practice, while if the weather proves favorable it will remain for some future season to appriee him of its many possible disadvantages. Since by experience I have become thoroughly initiated in this manner of thrashing, I find it best when a wet spell comes on to postpone operations indefinitely and discharge all hands until the weather shows signs of being settled and the wheat thoroughly dries out. Bear in mind that wheat thrashed wet or damp can never be properly dried, even with a very great expenditure of labor, and if stored in bulk in this condition the efforts of nature to get rid of the dampness result in a rise of temperature in the grain, according to the amount of dampness it contains. If the heat is excessive the grain cakes and molds, producing amusty smellnot only on the outside of the grain, but also extends tothe interior, resul ting in serious deterioration of both quality and value of the flour manufactured from it. The quickest, best and only place to dry wheat is while yet in the straw. A light shower or heavy dew will quickly dry, but in case of continued damp weather, though little rain falls, renders wheat unfit for thrashing from the shock. The length of time wheat should stand in the field before being threshed depends on the state of ripeness when cut and the weather following. It will need to stand longer than if the wheat is to be put in stack, and here is where stacking sometimes has an advantage over thrashing from the shock, as the wheat can be taken off the fields before the grass is killed under the shocks, which will be from six to ten days with clover and fif teen to twenty days with timothy.