184 THD BOOK OF CORN 



wet season in order to dry out the land as much as pos- 

 sible. In a drouth, cultivate shallow to secure a fine 

 surface mulch. 



HARVESTING AND CURING 



The advent of the corn harvester, which cuts and 

 binds the corn into small bundles at one operation, is 

 working a revolution in the methods of harvesting 

 corn. The harvester can be worked successfully on 

 most rolling fields not too steep for mowers, reapers or 

 other harvesting machinery. If the corn is to be put in 

 the silo, the bundles are loaded onto wagons and drawn 

 to the cutter. If the corn is to be cured and husked, 

 the bundles are carried together and set up in large 

 shocks or "stooks," as commonly known in New Eng- 

 land, being tied at the top with a stout twine or braid 

 of straw. Where the harvester is not employed, har- 

 vesting is commonly done by two methods. Upon this 

 subject, Professor Levi Stockbridge, ex-president of 

 the Massachusetts agricultural college and an eminent 

 authority, says : 



"Harvest by cutting the fodder with the ears upon it, and 

 secure the whole from injury by placing it in comoact stooks. 

 It will cure sound and hard in average seasons if it is har- 

 vested with the stalk, when it is getting out of the milk, and 

 the outer end of the kernel is beginning to glaze. As all the 

 ears of a field will not be in the same condition at any given 

 time, harvest when an average shows a surface too hard to be 

 easily indented with the thumb nail ; but at the same time 

 regard must be had to the condition of the stalk and leaf, and 

 the season. 



"Whether ripe or green, it rhould be secured in the stook 

 before frost. The grain will not perfect itself after the leaves 

 and stalks have been frozen ; and the fodder is nearly worth- 

 less. When the leaves and stalks have changed their dark 

 green to a straw color, the lower leaves and the tops of some 

 of the upper ones will have begun to shrivel, the whole crop is 

 in a condition to harvest with the greatest profit. The precise 

 method pursued in harvesting will be determined somewhat by 

 the after-use which is to be made of the land, and the charac- 

 ter of the help employed. If the field is to be sown to winter 



