EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 



441 



A consideration of the results of our own experiments in connection 

 with a study of the work elsewhere would lead to the conclusion that with 

 our ordinary varieties of corn planted for silage in Michigan, a safe dis- 

 tance apart would be three feet and six inches for the rows with kernels 

 three to six inches apart in the row. 



CULTIVATION. 



The corn ground is plowed to aerate it, to loosen it, and inake it easily 

 penetrable by the roots of the growing corn plant. It is harrowed to 

 make the particles fine, to break up clods and to give an even tilth to a 

 considerable depth so that the soil may receive and retain the water that 

 falls upon it. After the corn is planted the object of cultivation is two- 

 fold, to destroy the weeds and by creating a soft fine earth mulch at the 

 surface, prevent the escape of moisture through evaporation. Some ex- 

 periments, necessarily tentative and preliminary, were made during the 

 season of 1S97, to test the effect of cultivation on the conservation of soil 

 moisture. 



The work was carried on by Mr. M. W. Fulton in the regular corn field. 

 Field 8. This field had been heavily coated with barn manures during the 

 winter previous, applied to a crimson clover stubble. The ground was 

 plowed early in the spring, thoroughly harrowed and planted to corn May 

 8, in hills three feet and nine inches apart each way. The corn was har- 

 rowed with a Breed's weeder and had been cultivated on two different 

 dates with a two-horse cultivator prior to June 25th, when the three plots 

 were laid off for this test. Each of these plots measured one hundred and 

 twenty-four feet by eleven feet and three inches. The soil was reasonably 

 uniform on the three plots, a sandy loam over a subsoil which inclined 

 to become hard when dry. A mechanical analysis of the soil and subsoil 

 shows the following results: 



Mechanical composition of the soil in cultivation experiments in 1897. 



The analysis was made by the method recommended by the Division of 

 Soils,, of the Department of Agriculture at Washington. The high per- 

 cent of sand with the somewhat low per cent of clay and the ample suj>ply 

 of organic matter classes his soil with the loams. It contains more sand 

 and less clay than a typical wheat soil. The subsoil, as would be ex- 

 pected, contains less organic matter than the soil. It also has more of the 

 finest soil particles, fine silt and clay; aside from this the soil and subsoil 

 do not differ materially. 



The samples of soil were taken from to 8 inches, the subsoil from 8 to 

 24 inches. 



According to the plan of the test, Plot 1 was left without cultivation. 

 Plot 2 was cultivated twice per week up to July 31, and again August 6. 

 56 



