10 PRACTICAL CORN CULTURE 



to do the work of two or three. Our own experience has 

 taught us that too much work can hardly be put on good corn 

 ground when the crop is worth from fifty to sixty-five cents 

 per bushel. In every case additional work with us has meant 

 an increase in the margin of profit. 



Spurred on by this we have gradually increased our farm 

 equipment until ^today we are employing considerably more 

 men by the year than we did ten years ago. Although we 

 grow fewer acres of corn and small grain, we have many 

 more horses in the field. This increase in equipment for the 

 purpose of better farming, (including the building of houses 

 for farm help), has cost us several thousand dollars, but 

 what are the results? 



In the first place we are building up our farms by having 

 more time to haul manure from town. With three spreaders 

 we haul annually eight hundred tons of manure from the 

 town of Mason City. (See Chapter VII.) We are growing on 

 an average fifteen bushels of corn more per acre than we did 

 as late as ten years ago. With better land to start with we 

 are able to cut the stalks and double disc before plowing, 

 where corn follows corn. The corn is cultivated four to six 

 times, the last time being with a high arch gopher cultivator. 

 If the corn is too thick, it is thinned and suckered after the 

 last plowing. This sums up briefly what we are accomplishing 

 with our additional investment in equipment. 



We are sure that what we have invested along the line of 

 more intensive farming has paid us well in dollars and cents, 

 and still better in satisfaction. What we have done is being 

 done by others and can be done by every land owner and 

 farmer in the corn belt. 



What about the tenant farmer? Many tenant farmers 

 are among our best farmers and the tenant really has the 

 same opportunity as the landlord farmer, provided he has 

 been given a long term lease. A tenant would be more 



