Farming for self sufficiency

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Winter wheat can come nicely after potatoes. After the potatoes have been ploughed out the land has only to be cultivated a few times to make a seed bed for wheat. Wheat does not need too fine a seed bed. Potatoes are always manured heavily, and this is good preparation for a succeeding wheat crop. If wheat comes after 'seeds', meaning a grass and clover ley, you can just plough the ley and broadcast the wheat on the ploughed land and then harrow it in.

SOWING

Sowing can be done by drilling or broadcasting. Broadcasting is the oldest method, very Biblical. It is one of the most satisfying occupations in the world. You split a sack down, tie two corners of it to make a kind of bag-sling, hang it over one shoulder, fill it with wheat, and walk down the field scattering it. Some people use both hands; I prefer one. Winter wheat should be broadcast at the rate of about three bushels an acre, spring wheat perhaps four. Winter wheat tillers more-that is one seed branches out into numerous plants, therefore you don't need so much seed. As to how to broadcast, so long as you are covering the ground evenly with seed, leaving no 'holidays' (bare patches), nor clumps, and making your three or four bushels more or less stretch to an acre, you are doing all right. The only way to learn is to use the common sense that God has given you. If there are no parallel lines, like furrows, along the field that you can use as guidelines put a white wand at each end of each stretch that you sow (or a white rag on a bush) and walk straight for that.

With a drill you need less.seed, perhaps a bushel less an acre. It is noteworthy that where we live in Wales the farmers, who all tried seed drills, have mostly gone back'to hand broadcasting of oats and barley. They don't grow wheat nowadays, although they used to. Whether you drill or broadcast it is a good plan to harrow afterwards: you must in the case of broadcasting or the birds will get all your seed. Then all you have to do is to wait for the crop to get ripe and reap it, although it helps to run a roller over it in the spring and maybe give it a hundredweight an acre of nitrogenous fertilizer. If wireworm are a trouble rolling helps to restrict their nefarious movements. If you run hens over your land after you have ploughed it you won't have many wireworms; unringed pigs are also doughty wireworm slayers.

HARVESTING

Cut the wheat as late as you can before it begins to shed—that is knock out when you cut it. You can cut it with a sickle, a scythe, a grass mower, a binder, or a combine.

The sickle is laborious beyond words. The scythe in the hands of a good man should cut an acre a day, but it will take two other people coming behind the scythe to bind the sheaves. Traditionally this work was done by women and children: the use of the scythe is a man's job if there ever was one.

MOWING

Mowing, as cutting with the scythe is called, is an arduous but delightful job. The blade should frequently be whetted with a rough stone (grass needs a very fine-grained stone), and the throat of the mower should frequently be whetted with not-too-strong home brewed ale.

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