CORN LETTERS FROM THIRTY FARMERS 151 



enough to cultivate. I always work ground just before planting, so 

 that it will be clean and let the corn get ahead of the weeds. I gen- 

 erally plant corn twenty inches apart in the row, and the rows are 

 forty-two inches apart. I drill corn because we plow in lands that con- 

 tain from eight to ten rows. I harrow corn "before it comes up : in 

 case the planting was done in rough and cloddy ground, I harrow corn 

 after it is up, unless it is big enough to cultivate before I can use 

 the harrow. I want corn to be about three or three and one-half inches 

 high before I cultivate the first time, as I want to plow close and deep 

 and cover all little weeds and put just a little dirt around the corn 

 I plow about three inches deep and set fenders as high as possible, to 

 allow some of the dirt to drop around the corn plants. 



When laying corn by I plow deep enough to turn over and clean 

 the row, but I stay away from the corn and take the middle alt out. 

 I use shovel and disc plows. I always use shovels for first plowing. 

 The disc leaves too much ground undisturbed and the weeds grow 

 more quickly in the row than where plowed with shovels. I consider 

 shovels and discs best for this soil, since surface cultivation leaves the 

 ground too hard after a heavy rain. I try to cultivate my corn three 

 or four times and do if I am not delayed by rain or other work. In 

 laying corn by I have no set height or time, but plow when the ground 

 is in good mellow condition. I often plow my corn the last time 

 when it is three and four feet high. If I am delayed by some cause 

 or other I have laid corn by, with good results, when it was tasseling 

 out. CHAS. J. KEENBE. 



St. Croix, Indiana, April 28th, 1913. 

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



Gentlemen: My farm is located in Southern Indiana in the north- 

 eastern part of Perry County. Our land is a light clay loam soil and 

 inclined to be rolling while some is level; too level. I never follow 

 corn with corn, nor can anyone here and make farming pay. 



I bought my farm about twenty-five years ago. At the time I bought 

 it, it was considered a run-down farm and would not grow ten bushels 

 of corn per acre. Today I have no trouble in growing fifty to sixty 

 bushels per acre. I have brought this farm to its present state of 

 fertility by a rotation consisting of corn one year followed by wheat, 

 oats or cowpeas, then with clover and pasture. 



In this locality we plow early in the spring if the weather will 



