The Bulletin. 63 



tie a string around it or mark it in some way so you will not loose the ear. Do 

 not pull any fodder from tlio oliosen stalk as you want as well-matured seed as 

 possible. If you are not satisfied with your selection when huskinj^ time comes, 

 make another seleetinn for the same type as you did in the field, selecting twice 

 the amount you expect to plant, and from that select your seed for the coming 

 crop. If you want a pure white corn select the seed with a white cob as corn 

 with a red cob has not the white cast the white cob has. Seed selection being 

 so important a ])art in the production of corn, we should take a small amount 

 of land, higiily manured or fertilized, and plant for seed purposes, letting the 

 corn stand without stripping the fodder until gatliering time, then you have a 

 strong, vigorous and well-matured ear. When you begin to shell your seed corn 

 (shell by hand) shell off a part of each end and use that for feed, taking the 

 largest and most vigorous grains for planting. By following this method you 

 will double the yield of your crop in a few years. If you buy seed corn take 

 it only in the ear, as there is so often fraud practiced on the farmer in de- 

 fective seeds. By following the above plan from year to year your ears will 

 in a few years increase in weight 40 to 50 per cent, and instead of having to take 

 120 ears to the bushel, as was the custom twenty-five years ago, you can select 

 plenty of ears which will weigh a pound to the ear. I know this to be a fact 

 as I have individually tried it, and can demonstrate it in my crib. 



Some agriculturists contend for low ear and stalk. I say from experience the 

 stalk should be what some call high, the ear not less than five feet high, the 

 stalk strong and large with large braces to support it. No one should plant 

 any other kind on our bottom or lowland, which is subject to overflow, as the 

 ears are above the water and the corn will not injure by souring after being 

 overflowed. I have just gone through a trial from last month (August) high 

 water and my corn is all 0. K. while some of ray neighbors are badly hurt by 

 having low corn. 



I am giving my individual experience in this article and not writing from a 

 theoretical standpoint. Every farmer should be to a certain extent an experi- 

 menter in his work. It is his duty to take all the Bulletins issued by the De- 

 partment of Agriculture and study them and see if he can not improve his farm 

 and also improve on the subject being discussed, and notify the Department 

 of Agriculture by writing an article on that particular line, giving his individual 

 experience, and by so doing he will show to the people the great work which is 

 being done by the Agricultural Department. The Department of Agriculture 

 is a State-wide school on agricultural lines; the various object lessons that 

 are being given 'by the experimental farms along all agricultural, horticultural 

 and veterinary lines, as well as the field work in a number of counties; the 

 institute work all over the State where the farmer and his wife can learn from 

 scientific and practical men and women how to apply science practically to their 

 farms and homes. If the farmer expects to succeed in the advancement along 

 agricultural lines he should, with his family, attend every Farmers' Institute 

 held in his county or section. 



REFORMS NEEDED ON THE FARM. 



E. S. MILLSAPPS. 



Friends and Fellow-Farmers: 



I am glad to have the opportunity to talk to you for a short while on a subject 

 of interest to all mankind. In the beginning let me say that we are at the 

 turning point in the history of Southern agriculture. For a hundred years or 

 more we have been engaged in a system of soil robbery that, but for our unsur- 

 passed climate and natural resources, would have brought poverty to any people. 

 The South is said to be poor, and reviewing the history of Southern agriculture 

 is it any wonder? When the South was first settled we had great areas of 

 magnificent forests and millions of acres of land as fertile as the sun of heaven 

 ever shone upon. The first thing our forefathers did was to cut off and destroy 

 the forests and get into cultivation some of the fertile land that was so abundant 



