INDIAN CORN OR MAIZE. 15 



can assuredly be grown and turned to good account. 

 The reference here is to much of the tillable land in 

 the region named that cannot be supplied with irri- 

 gating waters. Some moisture is precipitated on 

 these lands every winter and spring. Now, if the 

 land has been plowed in the autumn previously, and 

 if pains is taken to so stir the surface of the ground 

 in the early spring that the ground moisture will not 

 escape by evaporation until the season has come for 

 corn planting, the moisture thus retained in the soil 

 is likely to grow a good crop of corn forage. If not 

 eaten off when grown, it will cure on the ground 

 when the moisture fails; but still it will provide 

 much food. 



Place in the Rotation. Corn for forage may be 

 given any place in the rotation. First, it may with 

 propriety be made to follow a cereal crop that has 

 been grown on foul land which requires to be 

 cleaned. Or, second, it may follow a hay or pasture 

 crop when the presence of vegetable matter in the 

 soil is an important consideration. Or, third, it may 

 with peculiar fitness be grown as a catch crop. When 

 grown as a catch crop, it may come after rye that has 

 just been pastured off ; after any kind of spring grain 

 that may have failed to grow ; after a stand of grass 

 pastured off early, but that is not good enough to 

 retain ; after winter oats, or crimson clover that has 

 been eaten clown or harvested ; or, where the season 

 is long enough, it may follow rape eaten down. There 

 may also be instances when it would be prudent to 

 sow corn again, although the principle of thus grow- 

 ing two crops upon the same land in succession is 

 not a good one. And it may, with much propriety, 

 be sown on the bare fallow. 



