16 The Bulletin. 



It should be the ambition of every farmer to grow not less than a 

 five-hundred-pound bale of cotton on every acre he cultivates, and if a 

 system of farming is adopted as herein outlined it will only be a short 

 while until it can be done. 



THE COEN CROP. 



The corn crop, because of its adaptability to every part of the 

 State and of its value as a food crop for both man and beast, is per- 

 haps the most important crop we grow. Every farmer attempts, or 

 should do so, to grow the corn needed for his family and live stock. 

 There is no crop, its importance considered, that has been more 

 neglected and less care exercised in its economical production than 

 has been the corn crop. For forty years the average production per 

 acre of com in the State was between thirteen and fourteen bushels. 

 Every thoughtful farmer knows that growing corn on twelve-to-fifteen- 

 bushels to the acre land is produced, all things considered, at too high 

 a cost, that there is no profit or pleasure in such farming. It has 

 been proven conclusively, and demonstrated time and again, that when 

 proper methods are adopted corn can be grown as cheaply in North 

 Carolina and as much per acre as can be grown anywhere. Many 

 farmers, who have never produced an average of over fifteen bushels 

 per acre, boast that they have never bought corn, but they have pro- 

 duced this corn at too great a cost and have derived little or no profit 

 from such farming. They have made a living, it is true, but it has 

 been at the cost of lots of hard work. 



It should be the aim and ambition of every farmer to grow a 

 minimum of not less than forty to fifty bushels of corn on every acre 

 he cultivates. That it will take time and labor to do it, is true ; deep 

 plowing will have to be done, vegetable matter will have to be incor- 

 porated with the soil as already outlined, but there is not near the 

 trouble in this that has been experienced in growing fifteen bushels 

 per acre. 



If three hundred bushels of corn are needed to meet the require- 

 ments of the farmer's family and the live stock on the farm, it will 

 be much easier to grow it on six acres and at much less cost of labor 

 and horse-power than to grow it on twenty. Besides, the other four- 

 teen acres could be utilized for pasture, growing forage crops, or soil 

 renovating crops, to be followed with corn or cotton, and in this way 

 the standard of fifty bushels of corn or a bale of cotton to the acre can 

 be realized and maintained all over the farm. The principal causes 

 of the low corn yields in the State are shallow plowing, which has 

 not given the proper depth of soil ; the lack of vegetable matter, which 

 is so much needed to furnish plant food and moisture ; inferior seed, 

 and faulty or improper cultivation. Large crops of corn can not be 

 grown on a shallow soil. Soils that are not well supplied with humus, 



