Corn Growers' Association. 299 



"Twas the women who in springtime 



Planted the broad fields and fruitful, 



Buried in the earth Mondamin. 

 ****** 



" Once when all the maize was planted 

 Hiawatha, wise and thoughtful, 

 Spoke and said to Minnehaha, 

 To his wife, the Laughing Water, 

 You shall bless tonight the corn fields; 

 Draw a magic circle round them 

 To protect them from destruction, 

 Blast of mildew, blight of insect. 

 Wagemin, the thief of corn fields, 

 Paimosaid, who steals the maine ear, 

 In the night when all is silent, 

 In the night when all is darkness. 

 When the spirit of sleep Nepa win, 

 Shut the doors of all the wigwams. 

 So that not an ear can hear you, 

 So that not an eye can see you, 

 Rise up in your bed in silence. 

 Lay aside your garments wholly, 

 Walk around the fields you planted. 

 Round the border of the corn fields, 

 Covered by your tresses only, 

 Robed with darkness as a garment; 

 Thus the fields shall be more fruitful. 



•T' »{* •?* "l* "I* •I' 



" 'Twas the women who in autumn 

 Stripped the yellow husks of harvest. 

 Stripped the garments from Mondamin, 

 Even as Hiawatha taught them. 

 And whene'er some lucky maiden 

 Found a red ear in the husking. 

 Found a maize ear red as blood is, 

 'Nushka'! cried they all together, 

 'Nushka'! You shall have a sweetheart. 

 You shall have a handsome husband". 



How crude this great problem of crops! We have gathered 

 together the fragments of useful information of three centuries, and 

 today stand together under the triumphal arch of better Missouri 

 corn. 



Let us select corn. Let us breed com. Let us show corn. 

 Let us say to ourselves : If ashamed to show be ashamed to grow. 

 But hum, not "an old love tune," but rather one of our own liking : 

 "Glad to groiv and glad to show." 



THE SEED AND THE SEED BED. 



(A. M. Ten Eyck, Professor of Agronomy, Kansas Agricultural College, Manhattan, 



Kansas). 



Mr. Chairman and Farmers of Missouri: You have a long 

 program, and I do not want to lengthen the talk on this subject 

 above what will be necessary, in order to present a few of the im- 

 portant principles on the subject of "The Seed and the Seed Bed." 



Good seed is the first requisite in producing large yields of crop'^ 



