SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART I. 17 



33 bushels or the average yield for the state at large, and this where the 

 stand of corn is rated as good. This difference of 100 per cent in the 

 yield of our staple crops, assuming the seed used to be good, is some- 

 thing well worth considering, worth taking up on special train, in farm 

 institutes, at the short course at Ames and by all our agricultural papers. 

 What we need to do is not to raise more bushels of corn but to raise it on 

 fewer acres — raise 60 bushels where we now raise 30 . There is cer- 

 tainly more pleasure and profit in raising 1200 bushels of corn on 20 

 acres rather than on 40 acres. Corn following corn prevents a proper 

 preparation of the seed bed for the crop as it prohibits early fall plowing 

 which is of itself an indispensable factor in the production of a good 

 and early maturing crop; further, it is a gross violation of a natural 

 law to persist in growing the same crop year after year on the same land 

 and the penalty for the violation of this law is plainly to be seen all over 

 the state in the ravages of the corn root worm and the many barren and 

 worthless stalks to be found in our corn fields. 



A good seed bed for corn implies a sensible rotation of crops. A 

 rotation easy of adoption and well suited to the average Iowa farm is 

 this: Say the field is in corn this year; sow with small grain crop next 

 spring and seed down liberally with clover; the next year take a crop of 

 clover hay and then plow under the second crop not later than the mid- 

 dle of September, then the following year plant to corn. This treatment 

 will furnish a model seed bed for the corn crop; the clover will have 

 subsoiled the land with its roots, will have mellowed and put the soil 

 in almost perfect mechanical condition, will have furnished a much need- 

 ed supply of humus and stored up for the corn crop in the soil a lot of 

 available nitrogen, the most valuable of all of our fertilizers. Given 

 good seed, good cultivation and a good season one may reasonably expect 

 50 bushels an acre on a field so treated. Following this corn crop re- 

 peat the order of rotation and the second crop of corn will give 60 bushels 

 per acre and probably more. The temptation to grow two or three crops 

 of corn instead of one will be very strong but stick to the text and don't 

 do it and grow but one. This rotation followed up will double the pro- 

 ductive capacity of nearly one-half of all of the corn fields of the state 

 inside of six years. Coupled with this method should be the careful sav- 

 ing and using of all of the manure on the farm, which may be applied 

 with the spreader at the rate of five or six loads per acre on the clover 

 during the winter, or after the hay is cut, or it may be put on the corn 

 field after plowing the clover under and before preparing the seed bed. 

 The preparation of this clover sod for the corn is not difficult, as the 

 action of the frost and the clover combined have produced that mellow- 

 ness of tilth which insures the largest available amount of plant food for 

 the crop. Such a seed bed will in the course of six years, or two terms 

 of such a rotation, become measurably free from weeds if proper culti- 

 vation is given the corn crop. A double discing early in the spring fol- 

 lowed by the harrow and another thorough harrowing just before plant- 

 ing will put this seed bed in the best possible condition, permit of 

 a uniform depth of planting and the most effective work in subsequent 

 cultivation. 

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