CORN. 151 



the greatest number of ears, so as to make it more prolific. 

 Seed-corn should always be selected from the top ear of those 

 stalks that bear the largest number, because on the top ear is 

 always found the genuine typical grain, the others below not 

 having developed sufficiently to produce good seed, on account 

 of an insufficient amount of pollen. Seed-corn should always 

 be saved from those stalks that ripen earliest, to make the 

 season of its maturity as short as possible. Seed-corn should 

 be taken from well-formed ears, tapering uniformly, with straight 

 rows, because they are more easily and better protected by 

 the husk, and bear more grain in regular than irregular and 

 crooked rows." 



Another matter of great importance is to plant on 

 Soil Adapted to the Crop. If a New Englander view- 

 ing our rich western lands should ask me, " Why is your aver- 

 age so much below ours ? " I should say one great reason is be- 

 cause so much corn is planted on land unsuited to it. Corn 

 delights in warm black and sandy lands, and you will notice in 

 the reports of the "Hundred Bushel Club," that "sugar tree 

 land," " burr oak land," " drained pond," and " black swamp " lands 

 are mentioned. A large per cent of the land planted in corn is 

 unsuited to the crop. Land which is undrained and so full of 

 water that it remains cold till late in the season, or land which 

 is so hilly that plowing involves great loss from washing, is 

 planted in corn year after year, although it will not produce a 

 crop that will pay for the labor expended on it, and might be 

 profitable if kept in grass 



Corn is not an exhaustive crop, and it will pay to underdrain 

 thoroughly your best lands and keep them up by a rotation 

 which will give clover every fourth year, and by applying a 

 liberal dressing of manure to the wheat on which you sow the 

 clover. If this is done, and the clover not pastured at all after 

 harvest, we can often get a heavy growth to plow under the 

 following spring, and grow three successive crops of corn in the 

 rotation. There are some lands so well adapted to corn as to 

 bear continuous cropping. I am familiar with a bottom field in 

 Union County, Indiana, which my grandfather bought in 1838, 



