268 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



together by the husks and hang them over poles or ropes in the top of 

 the granary or barn, or anywhere in a dry, well-ventilated place. If tha 

 corn is perfectly dry when husk, every grower knows that it can be pre- 

 served in a granary in bulk without serious injury. Kiln-drying of seed 

 corn Is claimed by some growers to be of decided value in securing first 

 class seed, and while this method of treating seed corn is doubtless desir- 

 able where the necessary facilities are at hand, yet it is certainly not 

 necessary that corn should be kiln-dried in order to give an excellent 

 percentage of germination and good vigorous plants. 



WHEN CORN SHOULD BE PLOWED DEEP. 



Homestead. 



Much of the experimental data that accumulated during recent years 

 on the subject of corn cultivation has tended to conclusively prove that 

 shallow plowing is followed by better results than is deep plowing. 

 While this is true in a general way yet it must not be understood that 

 under no conditions is it a good policy to plow corn deeply. There are 

 many instances this year where deep plowing will give much more satis- 

 factory results than will shallow. The exceedingly heavy rains that 

 have fallen in some districts have not only kept the soil in a saturated 

 condition until weeds made a strong growth, but have compacted the 

 soil in such a way as to leave it in a baked condition. Where the heavy 

 rains fell before corn planting it frequently necessitated the complete 

 preparation of the soil over again, and in some cases this has been per- 

 formed as many as three times. Our attention has been called to in- 

 stances where it was necessary to plow the soil twice in order to pre- 

 pare a propter seed bed. 



Where compaction of the soil has taken place after corn has been 

 planted and rainfalls have been so frequent as to prevent plowing at the 

 proper intervals it may be absolutely essential to plow or cultivate much 

 more deeply than would be suggested by the correct theory of corn cul- 

 tivation. This may be necessary even after corn has attained consider- 

 able growth, and under such conditions we would not hesitate to lay corn 

 by after plowing it to a depth of four or five inches. Such a stirring as 

 this may tend to destroy a few surface roots, but on the other hand this 

 injurious effect would be much more than compensated for by the de- 

 struction of weeds and the free aeration of the soil that it would bring 

 about. There will be many instances this year where the shallow 

 shovel plows will be discarded, owing to their utter disability to destroy 

 the strong weeds and loosen the soil. 



While as a general thing the four shovel plows are generally beinu 

 displaced by the six or eight shovel implements, nevertheless there are 

 instances when the former will do much more effective service than the 

 latter, and we believe that the conditions prevail this year under which 

 the four shovel plows are having their innings. 



