Sorghum Planting.

What is the best time to sow Egyptian corn; also how much per acre to sow?

All the sorghums, of which Egyptian corn is one, must be sown after frost danger is over — the time widely known as suitable for Indian corn, squashes and other tender plants.  Sow thinly in shallow furrows or “marks,” 3 1/2 or 4 feet apart and cultivate as long as you can easily get through the rows with a horse.  About 8 pounds of seed is used per acre.  If grown for green fodder, sow more thickly and make the rows closer, say 2 1/2 feet apart.

Buckwheat Growing.

Two or three farmers in this locality desire to plant buckwheat.  Not having done so heretofore they are in doubt as to the soil and other conditions that go to make a successful crop.

The growing of buckwheat in California is an exceedingly small affair.  The local market is very limited, as most California hot cakes are made of wheat flour.  There is no chance for outward shipment, and the crop itself, being capable of growing only during the frostless season, has to be planted on moist lands where there is not only abundant summer moisture but an air somewhat humid.  Irrigated uplands, even in the frostless season, are hardly suitable for the common buckwheat, although they may give the growth of Japanese buckwheat for beekeepers who use dark honey for bee feeding.  The Japanese buckwheat is well suited for this because it keeps blooming and produces a scattered crop of seed, but this characteristic makes it less suitable for a grain crop, and it has therefore never become very popular in this State.  We consider buckwheat as not worthy of much consideration by California farmers.

Variation in Russian Sunflowers.

In an acre of mammoth Russian sunflowers there seems to be three varieties, some of the plants bear but one large flower; others bear a flower at the top with many other smaller ones circling it, while others have long stalks just above the leaf stems from the ground level all the way up to the largest flower, which appears at the very top.  Are all these varieties true mammoth Russian sunflowers?  What explanation is there for these variations?  Will the seed from the variety carrying but one natural head produce seed that will reproduce true to the parent?

Your sunflowers are probably only playing the pranks their grandfathers enjoyed.  If seed is gathered indiscriminately from all the heads which appear in the crop, succeeding generations will keep reverting until they return to the wild type, or something near it.  If there is a clear idea of what is the best type (one great head or several heads, placed in a certain way) and seed is continually taken from such plants only for planting, more and more plants will be of this kind until the type becomes fixed and reversions will only rarely appear.  No seed should be kept for planting without selecting it from what you consider the best type of plant; no field should be grown for commercial seed without rogue-ing out the plants which show reversions or bad variations.  If you find sunflowers profitable as a crop in your locality, rigid selection of seed should be practiced by all growers, after careful comparison of views and a decision as to the best characters to select for.