GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



High-pressure Gardening 



BARREN CORNSTALKS;, ETC. 



Just now the whole wide world is inter- 

 ested ill eliminating" the hen that does not 

 lay eggs and the cow that does not give her 

 share of the milk, etc. On page 578, Aug. 

 15, I have given you a glimpse of my patch 

 of sweet corn. Well, during the severe 

 drouth during the fore part of August our 

 two cows gnawed down their pasture lot so 

 that it was very desirable to give them some 

 green food to keep up the flow of milk; 

 and as their pasture lot was close up to the 

 sweet corn I began cutting out the stalks 

 containing no ears. There were three if 

 not four varieties of sweet corn — Golden 

 Bantam, Black Mexican, and Stowell's 

 Evergreen. Almost every stalk of the Gold- 

 en Bantam contained one or more ears. 

 But with the two others I found one and 

 sometimes two stalks, quite often, in a hill, 

 with no ear on at all; and I went over the 

 whole patch, cutting out these useless stalks. 

 One reason why I took the time and pains 

 was because I wanted to study the matter. 

 First, I decided the barren stalks were 

 mostly found where there were four or five 

 stalks in a hill, indicating too heavy seed- 

 ing. But this does not explain it all. Ow- 

 ing to the bad weather I have mentioned, 

 there were many hills with only one or two 

 stalks; and several times when there was 

 only one gi'eat stalk in a hill, ten feet high 

 or more, there was not an ear of corn nor 

 a sign of an ear. I think 1 may safely say 

 that in that patch of sweet corn ten per 

 cent of the stalks were barren. 



T once heard Professor Holden say in an 

 addi-ess that your seed corn should be grown 

 and saved iii a little patch by itself, and 

 that you should take great care to cut every 

 barren stalk before the tassels could shed 

 their pollen. In other words, he claimed 

 that these barren stalks were the result of 

 letting barren stalks stand in the field the 

 generation before. Now, if this is tme it is 

 an exceedingly important matter. T have 

 for years gone through our cornfield and 

 selected my ears for planting. A neighbor 

 of ours who got some of our seed corn be- 

 cause his was poor, said he got 49 healthy 

 plants from 50 kernels of corn that T fur- 

 nished him. Now. this is all well and good : 

 hut what is the use of having corn that will 

 STOW if ten ])er cent of the good thrifty 

 stalks bear no corn? And if Mr. Holden 

 is right, we can not afford to get our seed 

 corn out of any cornfield. Our seed must 

 be grown in a piece of corn remote fi'om 

 other cornfields, with the barren stalks or 

 barren tassels carefully cut out. Tt is too 



late now to do any thing this year ; but shall 

 we not make careful preparation to have 

 some seed corn next year that will produce 

 one or more ears on every stalk? A neigh- 

 bor of mine has just told me that he found 

 more barren stalks in the field this year 

 than in any other season he could remem- 

 ber. Is it possible that the cold and unfa- 

 vorable weather at planting-time had some- 

 thing to do with it? Of course, the above 

 refers particularly to the saving of seed for 

 field corn. I believe the Boys' Corn Club 

 has been discussing this vei-y matter; and 

 these boys are more careful than their fa- 

 thers have ever been to have the very best 

 seed that care and skill can furnish. 



Later. — Since the above was dictated I 

 have been out among our field corn; and 

 the stalks with no ears are not any thing 

 like as frequent as with sweet corn in the 

 garden. In fact, I do not think there are 

 more than four or five stalks in a hundred 

 with no ears on. Where there are too many 

 stalks in a hill the few sijindling stalks are 

 apt to be without ears; but this shows 

 plainly that it is the result of overseeding 

 — too many stalks in a hill. But in our 

 sweet corn several times I found four great 

 lusty stalks in one hill, and almost nothing 

 in sight to indicate where the ear ought to 

 be. I think it must be the strain of seed, 

 for our Evergreen sweet corn is worse in 

 tliis respect than any other one of the three 

 kinds planted on the same piece of ground. 

 Another thing, the field corn this year was 

 planted with a drill, aiming to get a stalk 

 of corn about once every foot. Perhaps 

 such planting would give fewer barren 

 stalks than three or four stalks in a hill, 

 say four feet each way; but by the latter 

 plan, when cultivating both ways we find it 

 much easier to keep out the weeds — that is, 

 much less hand work is required. 



SELECTING THE SEED CORN. 



The above reminds me that, about the 

 time this reaches our readers, they will need 

 to be selecting corn for planting next year. 

 Do not listen to the old farmers who insist 

 that you pick your seed corn out of the 

 cornerib. A man of experience may, I 

 grant, pick out better ears simply by the 

 looks as they lie in the crib ; but neither he 

 nor any one else can tell by looking at the 

 ears the circumstances under which they 

 wei'e grown. The following, which we quote- 

 from the North Carolina Bulletin on the 

 Selection of Seed Corn, touches the point: 



Go through the field, row by row, marking those 

 stalks which come nearest your ideal, remembering 

 that if a desirable plant is anywhere nrar a barren 



