282 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Next coincs the ground and the preparation of it. I prefer a sod, clover if 

 possible, with all the manure and fertilizers you can apply. I do not think you 

 can get the ground too rich for corn, and I have seen groat beneCt irom the 

 sowing of from 80 to 100 pounds of plaster to the acre before plowing. 



The plowing should be from six and a-half to seven inches deep (it is not 

 best to get the fertilizers too deep) with a jointer, as it helps to make the 

 ground mellow, and puts all tlie manure, grass and foul seeds in the bottom of 

 the furrow, thus giving the corn a chance to get the start of all else. It is well 

 to have the ground made fine and smooth before planting, when there is noth- 

 ing in the way. Let the plowing be done as early as possible, some say in the 

 fall, but there has been so little of that done, I have been unable to judge of it. 

 I have seen a difference in favor of the earliest plowing where forty acres were 

 plowed with one team. You could distinctly see each week's plowing, the 

 earliest being the best. I have seen great benefit in having the manure spread 

 on the ground in the fall, even where it was not near so good a quality as that 

 put on in the spring, making a difference of from one-quarter to one-third in 

 the yield of the crop. 



At times we have been troubled with the cut-worm, and pieces of corn have 

 been destroyed by them. The best remedy I have seen for them is to dissolve 

 about three-quarters of a pound of copperas in water sufficient to cover one 

 bushel of corn ; soak it for twelve liours ; then dry it, if you wish, before plant- 

 ing (it will help the dropping). I once saw a twenty-acre field, all but twenty 

 rows planted one season, when the cutworms were very bad, with seed prepared 

 in this way, in which you could not find a missing hill. The twenty rows were 

 planted the same day by the same hands and with the same seed-corn, with 

 the exception that it was not soaked in the copperas water, and I could not find 

 more than one perfect hill in ten, and many were missing altogether. That 

 which was soaked in the copperas water, when it came up was of a darker 

 green, grew faster, and produced the best corn, attracting the attention of per- 

 sons as they passed along the road. Some persons after soaking their corn roll 

 it in plaster; that interferes with the dropping, and if you should have a cold, 

 Avet time after ]")lanting it, sometimes causes it to rot. I prefer to put the 

 plaster in the hill dry. 



In marking out the ground I prefer a marker worked by two horses, made 

 with runners three feet long, with a piece running out behind with a leg 

 attached, on which is a cultivator shovel running in the track of the runner, 

 as it will make the mark deeper and leave the ground loose and mellow. 



Instead of stakes in marking out the ground I prefer a guide that makes a 

 mark which is followed by the middle runner, as I think it better, and I can 

 get along faster. 



In regard to the culture or tending of the corn, a great deal depends on cir- 

 cumstances. If you should have a hard rain soon after planting it might be 

 well to drag the ground about the time or before it comes up, the ground 

 should be kept loose and clean, gradually deepening the culture until the corn 

 roots occupy the ground, then lessening the depth until it is finished, which 

 should be so long that no weeds or grass should have time from the time you 

 quit working it until the frost comes, to mature their seeds, thus cleaning your 

 ground and insuring you a good cro]") of corn. 



Tiie crop can also be increased and tlie maturing hastened by tlie application 

 of ashes, plaster, or salt. I know a person who last year left a part of his field 

 without and tried the above mentioned fertilizer to the other parts of the field, 



