FAKMERS' INSTITUTES. 145 



the point I wish to make is this: the food to support the young corn will be 

 furnished only when the conditions are favorable. Those conditions are a 

 loose or porous soil that the air and warmth and sunlight and the gases and 

 other useful elements can permeate and pervade. If we plant our corn before 

 the earth has become thoroughly wanned, and rejuvenated as it were by the 

 vitalizing force of light and heat, the seed will perhaps slowly germinate and 

 the young plant will receive but Just enougii nourishment to cause it to spring 

 up a few inches and then, like the tender lamb caught in a cold rain storm, it 

 droops and withers, and for lack of nourishment it sometimes dies, and like 

 the starved young animal it receives a shock from which it never fully recov- 

 ers. "And what will the harvest be then?" Perhaps thirty bushels per acre, 

 when sixty at least should and could have been grown. 



A good crop of corn cannot be grown without perfect and ra})iil germination 

 and a vigorous and continued steady growth tliroughout the season. These 

 conditions you cannot secure if you plant in a cold or wet or hard cloddy seed 

 bed, or in other words if you plant too early. 



Again I would say, do not adopt the modern practice of ''marking out" 

 with a sled or other device that will merely mark the surface. I would favor 

 the use of the planter were it not for this same fatal defect of leaving the 

 grain too near even or with the surface of the ground. We read in the good 

 book that certain seed which was good in itself and which fell perhaps on 

 good soil "perished" because it had no depth of earth. 



My experience of forty years active life on the farm has demonstrated that 

 invariaUy those farmers who have taken the time to mark out their fields so 

 as to drop the seed two or three inches below the surface were the most suc- 

 cessful corn raisers. This may appear to be a small matter, ait it is, I assure 

 you, worthy of your consideration. The only objection i; it requires more 

 time to prepare the field for planting in that way. But as .ne result of a whole 

 year's labor depends largely upon little things we cannot afford to be indiffer- 

 ent thereto. 



Mark the field both ways in rows three feet and eight inches apart and plant 

 three grains in each hill. Or better still, plant four or five grains in a hill 

 and after it is up thin out to three stalks in a hill and then cultivate properly, 

 and I believe our average will be very greatly increased. Kelative to cultiva- 

 tion after planting I will be as brief and explicit as possible. For reasons al- 

 ready assigned it is ajjparent that one of the essential objects in "corn 

 culture" is to keep the earth in a proper condition to nourish the young plant, 

 and this is to be done by keeping it constantly in a warm, loose or porous con- 

 dition. The second and only remaining object being to keep under subjection 

 the weeds and grasses that grow so abundantly during the warm months of 

 May, June and July. If the plowing has been done at the time and in the 

 manner described, the subsequent cultivation will be an easy and pleasant mat- 

 ter, for the soil will be loose and free from clods, and time will not have been 

 given for the weeds to grow. 



Tlie first working must be before the plant has made its appearance above 

 ground. Kiglit here a majority of farmers make a very serious mistake. They 

 plow and plant and then attend to other duties or pleasures for two or three 

 weeks or longer, thinking all is well, while all the time the earth is becoming 

 dry and hard, and the myriads of seeds in the soil are germinating and grow- 

 ing and sending out their millions of roots in every direction to lick up or 

 absorb tiie vitalizing elements so much needed to feed the growing corn. As 

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