CORN LETTERS FROM THIRTY FARMERS 149 



seeding. The ground should be plowed to a depth of about six inches, 

 rolling down every evening what has been plowed that day and follow- 

 ing up with a spring-tooth harrow or disc pulverizer. The field should 

 be gone over with these implements until a perfect seed bed is obtained. 

 I use a light roller immediately before planting and follow with a 

 two-horse planter with an open wheel planting about twelve inches for 

 silo and sixteen inches for husking. 



The third day after planting I use a smoothing harrow with teeth 

 set slanting and go over the field again about the sixth or seventh day 

 after the corn has the second leaf. Next I use a flat-tooth round point 

 weeder, going over the field about twice or until the corn is large enough 

 to use a two-horse cultivator with shields to keep dirt from rolling on 

 the corn. I follow the first plowing with the weeder, running cross- 

 ways, after which I cultivate about three times more during season with 

 the shields removed from the cultivator. The first cultivation may be 

 about three inches deep, after that from one and a half to two inches 

 is deep enough. I also use from two to three hundred pounds of 

 fertilizer analyzing about 1 8 4. We harvest with a corn binder 

 previous to silo filling, leaving it lay as the machine drops it for two 

 days. If it is husked it is set up in shocks a second or third day 

 after it is cut. In our latitude we like to plant between the twentieth 

 of May and the first of June, if corn is put into the silo. 



Yours truly, JOHN A. BAUSCH. 



Mr. Bausch makes a speciality of selling butter, eggs and pork 

 direct to the consumer. 



Greenfork, Indiana, April 15th, 1913. 

 W. T. Ainsworth & Sons, Mason City, Illinois. 



Dear Sirs: In this community most of the land is a white and red 

 clay, except where the ravines course along, but there is a good deal 

 of black ground, too. The land lays practically level, although nearer 

 the river it is a little rolling. 



I do not plow my stalk ground at all in the fall and do not want 

 much for spring plowing if it can be helped. With the exception of 

 new land we follow mostly a rotation of corn, wheat and clover. I like 

 to plow my ground five to six inches deep. If I had the machinery 

 I would always cut the cornstalks and plow them under, because I 

 believe it would loosen and enrich the land; as it is I find it necessary 



