78 The Bulletin. 



soon as it is up — before the grass gets a start) can be done with a weeder or 

 light harrow or by a cultivator run next to the corn as soon as it is up good 

 and has two or three blades on it. It should be the aim to do away with hoe 

 work entirely, or as little as possible. It is too expensive, and the labor can 

 be more profitably spent otherwise. The farmer who lets the grass and weeds 

 get such a start so as to make it necessary to use a hoe has lost out on the 

 corn crop. Ordinarily level and shallow cultivation give the best results. 

 Farmers use the one-horse plow too much. The plowing should be done be- 

 fore the corn is planted. One and two horse cultivation should be used. Get 

 your fields in such a shape that you can use a two-horse cultivator, and work 

 a row at a time. If you do this you can always keep ahead of the grass. 

 Corn should be stirred frequently — at least once a week — and if you do not 

 cultivate deep enough to disturb the roots, you can cultivate with profit until 

 corn is in the roasting-ear stage. 



I have seen much corn ruined (that might have made fairly good corn) by 

 waiting too long and then going into it to lay it by with a one-horse plow, 

 and tearing up the roots, and if it should be dry a short time the corn is 

 ruined. I do not believe it pays to replant corn. It does not pay me. Do away 

 with the hoe entirely, do not replant, and make it necessary to thin corn as 

 little as possible, and you have cut down the cost of the corn crop certainly 

 one-third. 



What I want to do is to get you more interested in your corn growing. You 

 must be the best judge of your farm and the conditions. You will work out 

 the details of what kind of implements to use, if I can get you to thinking, 

 and get you to make up your mind that you can and ought to grow more corn 

 per acre than you are doing. 



HARVESTING THE COBN CROP. 



As a rule, we are harvesting the corn crop just as we did a hundred years 

 ago. Contrast the way we save the corn crop with the improved methods now 

 in use to handle the wheat crop. Some of the older farmers remember when 

 we used to thresh wheat by having horses walk over it and tramp it out. 

 Now the improved threshing-machines will clean from 300 to 1,000 bushels per 

 day. Then they had the old sickle to cut, the farmer getting down on his 

 knees and grasping the grain in one hand and cutting with the other. Then 

 the common grain cradle and now the binder that cuts, ties the bundles and 

 drops them in a pile to be shocked. Where is the wheat farmer that would 

 go back to the old way? Yet machinery is made to handle the corn crop just 

 as well and just as economically as for the wheat crop. Corn should be cut at 

 the ground and shocked, either cut with a corn knife or a hoe with a short 

 handle, and light enough to use with one hand. Where the land is not too 

 rolling and rough and where the fields are not in patches, a corn harvester 

 that cuts and ties the corn into bundles can be used to great advantage. 



The mistake some farmers make is cutting their corn too green. It should 

 be a little riper than when you pull fodder. The shuck on the ear should be 

 brown. Farmers should unite and buy a shredder. Set your shredder in barn 

 lot, with blowpipe in barn, with an empty wagon under the elevator to catch 

 the corn; start two or three wagons to hauling the corn shocks from the 

 field, and you will be surprised how quickly you can shuck a field of corn. 

 When you are done your field is cleared of stalks, your corn is in the crib, 

 and you have a most valuable feed for stock already cut up and in the barn. 



I have for fifteen years cut my crop, but I have some good farmers on my 

 place who work for a part of the crop, who would not stay if they were de- 

 nied the privilege of pulling their fodder. It is sickening to pass by a field 

 that is stripped of its blades, and see about half of the corn green, knowing 

 that that corn is damaged more than the fodder is worth. Experiments have 

 proven this to be true. Farmers, go into your garden, when your corn is silk- 

 ing, and pull the blades off, and what is the result? The silk and cob shrivel 

 up. Why? Because you have taken off the leaves that feed the plant, and 

 the nearer this time and up to the fodder-pulling stage you take off these 

 blades your corn will suffer in proportion, and you will have a light, shriveled 

 grain. 



