374 STATE BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



flections is the memory of the bowl of mush and milk and the golden coni- 

 dodger. 



One of the first things attended to by the pioneers of Cass county was to get 

 in a patch of corn ; it was food for the family, and winter forage for the stock. 



In a proper rotation of crops the corn should have a conspicuous part, and 

 in fact it is indispensable for the purpose of cleaning the land of foul stuff. 

 There is no other crop that will so thoroughly and so cheaply clean the land 

 from sorrel, thistles, cockle and chess, as the cultivation of corn. Two suc- 

 ceeding corn crops will clean the worst infested fields. AVherevcr you find a 

 successful corn raiser you will find a good farmer. The time has come in the 

 history of Cass county when brains should enter more largely into the opera- 

 tions of the farm. There is too much haphazard, unthinking, careless work 

 done for profitable farming. When our soils were in their virgin fertility all 

 that seemed necessary was to sow the seed and reap the harvest, without much 

 care or thought on the ])art of the farmer. But that time is past, and a more 

 reasonable and rational one should be inaugurated. We should raise more 

 corn, grass, more stock, and consequently more manure. I think the corn 

 crop the least exhausting to the soil of any of the cereals. I have known 

 three successive corn crops taken from an old cultivated field without any ap- 

 parent decrease of yield, and the land left in the best condition for seeding to 

 clover. On the other hand, a succession of as many wheat crops leave the field 

 much the worse of wear, and well stocked with chess, cockle, sorrel and other 

 "weeds, so that it can not be seeded with clover until it has been cultivated with 

 corn at least two seasons in succession. A little space devoted to the considera- 

 tion of the different varieties of corn will, I think, be proper in this discus- 

 sion. The varieties are too numerous to mention or discuss in this paper. I 

 shall therefore mention but few of them, that are the most generally culti- 

 vated in this vicinity. In the discussion of varieties, for the sake of conve- 

 nience, I shall consider them in two classes, the Dent and the Flint. In each 

 class there are many varieties, differing materially in regard to size, color, 

 habits of growth and maturity. 



The flint varieties are but little raised in this county. I think it might 

 be profitably raised for the purpose of feeding off in the field with hogs. It 

 ripens early and yields well, and serves a good purpose for fattening hogs early 

 and leaves the land in good condition for seeding to wheat. The stalks being 

 short are easily plowed under, and it rijiens so early that it can be fed off in 

 good season for -wheat, and therefore desirable for that purpose. But for a 

 field crop it would not be a desirable variety to raise, on account of its ears 

 liaving a large sobby butt, being hard to break off, and is liable to mould in the 

 crib, and when thoroughly dried is too hard and flinty to be profitably eaten 

 by stock, unless ground or cooked. The Dent corn also has a number of varie- 

 ties and of different shades of color. The most common are the white and 

 yellow. The yellow is the most common and generally raised and preferred by 

 farmers. The general opinion of farmers is that the yellow corn posesses the 

 most nutritive value; but I believe Prof. Kedzie has by chemical analyses 

 proved to the contrary. But so strong does tiiis opinion prevail that but little 

 of tlie white corn is raised in my neighborhood, and, I believe, in tiic county. 

 I presume there is but little difference in regard to yield or early maturity. 



Of the Yellow Dent there are many varieties, and perhaps none entirely pure. 

 Tiie different varieties of corn are so easily mixed that so long as several 

 of them are raised in the same neigliborliood it would be impossible to keej) 

 them entirely pure, unless great pains were taken. Tlie pollen is so light that 



