224 



Missouri Agricultural Report. 



the ground about five or six iuclies deep. After it was plowed, and 

 when it was getting to be about planting time, I harrowed it. Then I 

 found a few cut worms in the field and harrowed it again. I put off 

 planting awhile on account of the cut worms ; then the weather got bad. 

 Finally, about the last of May, I planted it. 



"I harrowed it three times just ahead of the planter. I marked 

 the rows off with a two-horse planter. Then I followed these rows 

 with a single shovel, making small furrows; .1 drilled the corn in these 

 furrows. 



** First of all, I knew a great deal depended upon the quality of seed, 

 so I picked good seed. It was from some high-yielding rows of my 

 father's 1909 yielding plot. I drilled it thicker than I wanted it to 

 stand and after it was up so I could tell the good stalks from the bad, 

 I pulled the bad ones out. Any time during the season I saw a bad 

 stalk I pulled it out, no matter how thin the corn was in that particular 

 place. I also kept the suckers pulled off. 



"I plowed this corn carefully three times with a four-shovel riding 

 cultivator, and hoed it once. After it was laid by, I fixed up a corn 

 planter wheel, putting spikes in one side, and dragged this between the 

 rows with one horse. Of course, this was not as good as a plowing, but 

 is a good way when the corn is too large to plow. 



"Before I could use this drag a second time, a storm came and 

 bent some of the stalks over between the rows, so as to prevent using it 

 without damaging the corn. 



"We had a storm about the time it was tasseling that broke off 

 many of the best stalks. I estimated the number of stalks broken off, and 

 think I would have made about 110 bushels on this acre if it had not been 

 for the storm. At harvesting time I measured off one acre, and gathered 

 the corn and weighed it. It weighed out 91 bushels and 15 pounds." 



Grand Champion Ten Ears, Missouri State Corn Show, January, 1911. Champion 

 Ten Ears Yellow Corn, National Corn Exposition, Columbus, Ohio, Feb- 

 ruary, 1911. , 



