20 PRACTICAL CORN CULTURE 



when it was too wet. The results have always been very 

 unsatisfactory, since a dry August will make the corn fire 

 much more quickly than it would had the grounjd been broken 

 at the right time. In plowing stalk ground that has first 

 been disced, it is well not to allow too much time to inter- 

 vene between the two operations. It is a good plan to harrow 

 each morning what has been plowed the previous day. Time 

 is gained rather than lost by this practice since the plowed 

 ground must be harrowed and disced several times before a 

 satisfactory seed bed can be made. An hour 's work on freshly 

 plowed ground will do more toward making this seed bed 

 than can be accomplished in two hours' time after the wind 

 has been allowed to dry out the surface. 



Another good reason for keeping plowed ground harrowed 

 is to conserve the moisture. One man and four horses with 

 a 120-tooth harrow Will get over from twenty-five to thirty-five 

 acres in one day. This will prevent the escape of more mois- 

 ture and consequently will grow more bushels of corn than 

 if an additional five acres had been plowed and the moisture 

 allowed to escape from the thirty acres. 



The argument is often advanced that spring plowed ground 

 should not be worked down until the time to plant the corn 

 since beating rains would n|ke the soil too compact. This 

 idea is wrong. If hard rains do come and pack the soil, an 

 almost ideal seed bed can be secured by single or double 

 discing. If the looked for rains do not come, the farmer who 

 has worked his ground as he went along may have a seed bed 

 when it would be impossible, even with double the work, to 

 make one where the grqacd had been allowed to lie until 

 planting time. 



Every effort should be made to get the fields all plowed 

 and harrowed down before the weeds have an opportunity 

 to grow up in the stalk fields. A growth of weeds before 



