62 VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



weeds to steal and eat up the plant food that the corn should 

 have. It means conserving the moisture, as by forming an earth 

 mulch the water will pass up through the roots, stems and leaves 

 of the plants. 



For each pound's growth of dry matter that the corn plant 

 makes, three hundred pounds of water has to pass through its 

 roots, stock and leaves. 



We start the Morgan spading harrow, the best pulverizer for 

 our soil, as soon as the ground is sufficiently dry ; and like to 

 go over it three or four times, at intervals, before it is time to 

 plant the corn. This warms and pulverizes it, and destroys 

 many weed seeds that germinate. Going over it with a steel 

 roller will pulverize and fine the lumps. A perfect seed bed is 

 necessary. One man plants the corn with a two rowed planter, 

 using about eight or nine quarts of seed per acre. It marks the 

 middle of the next two rows so that the driver, by keeping the 

 pole over the mark, can get them even and straight, thus enab- 

 ling us to care for and harvest the corn much better. The rows 

 are three and one half feet apart, and hills eighteen inches. 

 We go over the corn twice with a Thomas smoothing harrow, 

 the second time just as it is beginning to come up. Once in 

 four to six days thereafter, until it is too large, it is gone over 

 with a weeder. If a heavy rain packs the clay soil the weeder 

 is preceded by a fine tooth cultivator. 



Should the weeds, during several days of wet weather, get 

 their heads above ground, we follow the fine tooth cultivator 

 with Prout's tobacco hoe to smother those between the hills, 

 by a shallow covering. These tools are used until the corn is 

 two feet or more high. In this way clean fields can be had 

 with no hand hoeing. 



With corn raised on dry soil, when it is well glazed it is in 

 the best condition for the silo. On our clay soil, the corn keeps 

 green and contains a large amount of water until frost comes. 

 We let it stand and grow until about frost time and then par- 

 tially dry it. It makes better silage to be partially dried by 

 frost than to be put in with too much water in it. Slow or rapid 

 filling will not make sweet silage, but the right condition of the 

 corn will. The sweetest and best silage we ever had was from 

 corn cut the last of September, before frost, put up in large 

 stooks and cut into the silo in about two weeks. 



For covering the silage, any wet material, the finer the 

 better, that will pack close and form an air tight covering, will 

 be all right. For several years past we have not covered ours, 

 but kept it well tread and fed from the whole surface every day, 

 and like to feed it 365 days in a year. As a summer feed for 

 our dairy to supplement the pastures, good silage is the niost 



