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Rural School Leaflet 



About a week after the corn shoots can be plainly seen in the rows it is 

 time to begin using the cultivator. A quiet, steady horse hitched to a 

 single cultivator, or a team and a wheel cultivator with small blades 

 should be used to stir the soil between the rows of com. Cultivation 

 kills the weeds, airs the soil, and prevents the evaporation of moisture 

 from the deeper soil. Corn is benefited by frequent cultivation, at first 

 moderately deep, then more lightly as the roots spread out through the 

 soil, and when the hot, dry days of summer come, and the corn is tasseling, 

 a small-toothed cultivator that leaves the surface soil fine and nearly 

 level will be most useful. Unless weather conditions interfere, the com 

 plat should be cultivated four times or more. The soil between the 

 hills in the row needs to be hoed as often as weeds appear. Never hoe 

 nor cultivate the com plat when the soil is so moist that it feels sticky 

 if squeezed in the hands. 



Enemies. — While the com plant is young one must watch for its 

 enemies. The crows and large blackbirds must be frightened away from 

 the field until the corn is too large for them to pull it up. Sometimes 

 a cutworm can be fotind lurking near a com hill and killed before it has 

 cut off all of the stalks. 



Thinning. — When the com plants are about six inches high and danger 

 from birds and insects seems to be past, every hill that has more than 

 three stalks should have the extra ones removed by pulling them out, 

 leaving the three most vigorous ones. 



Harvesting. — In September when the lower leaves on the cornstalks 

 begin to die and many of the husks are turning dry, it is time to cut and 

 shock the com crop if one wishes to save the fodder for feed. About 

 sixty hills of com may be gathered into a shock and the tops bound together 

 to make the shock stand up. Too large a shock will not ciu-e properly 

 and some of the ears may thus be spoiled. Six weeks of good autimin 

 weather will cure the com shocks sufficiently for husking. If one does 

 not care for the fodder the ears will be better if left on the standing stalks 

 imtil the latter are dead and dry and the ears are thoroughly ripened. 

 After husking, corn ears should be stored where air can circulate 

 between them but where rats and mice can not get in. 



