FIELD CROPS 409 



IMPROVEMENT IN CONDITION OF SOIL. 



The opportunity for the improvement of the soil offers a wide 

 and inviting field of effort to the intelligent and progressive farmer. 

 While the methods to be adopted vary with the character and condi- 

 tion of the soil, the climatic condition, and the use that is to be made 

 of the land, the general principles involved are here presented in the 

 hope that they may prove helpful to farmers in all sections where 

 corn is grown. 



While it is true that proper attention to seed selection and meth- 

 ods of cultivation will greatly increase the average production per 

 acre for all land now devoted to corn growing, it is equally true that 

 the cultivation of corn will never be found profitable on very poor 

 land. Some growers, from force of habit, perhaps, every spring 

 plant corn on land which they know is too poor to produce a prof- 

 itable crop. 



While this practice continues, the soil as well as the farmer will 

 remain poor. The plowing and cultivating of poor soil is as expensive 

 as the plowing and cultivating of fertile soil. The man who cultivates 

 poor soil and harvests poor crops can not profitably compete with his 

 neighbor who grows good crops with but little, if any, greater ex- 

 penditure of labor or capital. Corn growing should not be attempted 

 on poor land until it is brought into a fertile condition by the grow- 

 ing and plowing under of leguminous crops, the application of ma- 

 nure, etc. In the meantime some crops that require less fertility than 

 corn may be grown. It should be remembered that the nature of the 

 corn plant is such that it will not produce grain unless the soil is rich 

 enough to afford a considerable growth of stalk, and that, in general, 

 the richer the soil the heavier will be the yield of grain. For this 

 reason some other plants will produce fair crops on soil too poor to 

 produce corn. A cotton plant adjusts its yield of lint to the fertility 

 of the soil, a small plant producing a small number of bolls contain- 

 ing lint of as good a quality as that from a larger plant bearing 

 many more bolls. A hay crop is also in quite regular proportion to 

 the fertility of the soil. This is not true, however, of corn. When 

 poor soil dwarfs grass to half its normal size, the crop of hay is re- 

 duced by about one-half, but when poor soil dwarfs the corn plants 

 to half their normal size it is probable that there will be no grain 

 yield, or if any ears are produced they will be small and inferior. 



Even in the best corn-producing States there is some land so 

 poorly cared for that farmers who persist in attempts to grow corn on 

 it receive but little for their labor. Such land, however, in a few 

 years' time can be made to produce good corn crops. The growers 

 who are quickest to learn the futility of attempting to grow corn on 

 impoverished land are those whose farms contain some poor upland 

 fields and some fertile bottom land. They find it necessary to fertilize 

 and renovate the poor fields or confine corn growing to the bottoms. 

 In most regions creek bottoms and river valleys are particularly 

 adapted to corn growing, as they usually have a fertile soil and a 

 subsoil well supplied with moisture. 



Another explanation of the low yield per acre on many farms 



