CORN LETTERS FROM THIRTY FARMERS 157 



be as deep as six or eight inches and started as soon as the frost is 

 out of the ground, provided the ground is dry enough. 



I consider it a bad mistake to burn stalks. They^ should be cut with 

 a disc harrow and plowed under to root and help hold the moisture. 



If the ground is well disced before plowing in the early spring it 

 should not be harrowed or worked down before time to plant. 



' PLANTING AND CULTIVATION 



If the ground has been plowed in the fall or early spring and has 

 settled or run together into a hard compact mass, it should be double 

 disced. By this I mean the disc should be lapped half each time. 

 This method does away with the furrow or ridge and leaves the ground 

 level. I finish up by using a smoothing harrow. I precede the planter 

 with the furrowing machine. 



This machine consists of two fourteen-inch single shovel plows, 

 set the same distance apart as the width of my two-row planter runners. 

 The planter follows and runs in the middle and bottom of the furrows. 

 By using this machine my corn is planted in furrows. I run the disc, 

 smoothing harrow, and furrowing machine all the same way, so that 

 one implement does not have to finish its work before the other is 

 started. 



The planter should not start until the furrow has dried enough so 

 that the fresh dirt in the bottom of the furrow will not stick to the 

 runners or planter wheels, but will have a dust mulch over the corn 

 rows. I use good seed and get a good stand, unless the fields are 

 flooded with heavy rains before the corn gets well sprouted. 



As soon as the corn is up enough to insure a good stand, I start a 

 light smoothing harrow, and if the weather is favorable I harrow two 

 or three times before starting to cultivate. If the season is wet I do 

 not use the harrow, but start cultivating as soon as the corn is up well 

 enough to see each hill down the row. I start with a six-shovel cul- 

 tivator and plow as deep as the shovels will reach, which is about four 

 inches. 



I plow my corn as many times as I can before it gets big enough 

 to bend under the cultivator arch. The last plowing should not cut 

 many roots; at the same time it should be deep enough to make the 

 shovels throw the dirt well up around the butts of the stalks. 



S. E. HAEVEY. 



