FERTILIZERS FOR THE CORN CROP 147 



good farming, but of extravagant expenditure for the result, was the crop 

 of 254 bushels per acre grown in Marlboro Co., S. C. Near the ocean, in 

 Southeast \irginia and Northeast North Carolina, there are wide areas of 

 reclaimed swamp lands, on which the owners have for generations been grow- 

 ing corn only, just as some have been doing on the black soils of a similar 

 nature in Illinois; both have been selling only corn, and sending off the fer- 

 tility of their lands. But most of the farmers of the Illinois black lands 

 have discovered the profit to be made in turning their corn into beef and 

 pork, while the Southern coast farmers, with land just as productive and 

 right at the ports from which the Western cattle go to Europe, still stick to 

 selling corn, though they could compete at a great advantage with the cattle 

 feeders of the West. 



But the greater part of the farmers in the country east of the Mississippi 

 River, are farming under conditions which make it essential that some syste- 

 matic method be used for keeping up and increasing the productiveness of 

 their lands, in corn as well as in other crops. 



HOW SHALL WE UTILIZE THE CORN CROP AS A FOOD CROP? 



Since in the case of far the greater number of farmers in the East the 

 corn crop is not produced as a sale crop of grain, but as a means for feeding 

 stock, and through this to raise manure for their crops, while making a 

 greater profit from the stock fed than they could possibly get from the sale 

 of the grain, the question of the best method of utilizing the corn crop on the 

 farm becomes a matter of prime importance. The great labor of gathering 

 the grain and saving the stover as dry food has led to many experiments for 

 economizing the labor and putting the crop into better shape for feeding. 



THE SILO AND ENSILAGE. 



No method for the utilization of the entire corn crop as food for stock 

 has ever been devised that has equalled the cutting of the matured crop, while 

 still succulent, and storing it in air-tight receptacles known as silos. A work 

 devoted to the feeding of plants would not be complete without some con- 

 sideration of this great method of making the corn crop one of the greatest 

 of fertilizing crops grown on the farm, and removing it from being an ex- 

 haustive crop merely, to one of the greatest of crops for the building up and 

 increasing the productiveness of the farm, through enabling the farmer to 

 feed more stock than was possible under the old plan. Having had a wide 

 experience in the making of silage, from the first experimental stages to the 

 present more perfect method, the writer feels qualified to speak with some 



