GROWING SWEET CORN 189 



and warmth may be expected to continue. The date of planting 

 must be determined by the local attainment of these conditions. From 

 this time onward through the summer, planting may be done if 

 moisture enough can be retained in the soil. For this reason, on 

 moist or irrigated land, corn is planted after winter-growing crops 

 are cleared away, and large yields are secured. Near the coast 

 where the corn plant is constantly refreshed by ocean moisture in 

 the air, it will make good green growth with what remains from 

 winter rainfall on land from which a crop of beets or carrots, sown 

 the previous season, has been cleared away. In such rotation the 

 land should be plowed as early as possible after the roots have been 

 taken off, to keep down the growth of grass and weeds and retain 

 moisture till the proper time for planting corn, which will depend 

 a good deal on the wetness or dryness of the season. The earliness 

 of the first planting will depend mainly on the fitness of the land 

 and the situation, but for early use, some early variety of sweet 

 corn should be planted as soon as circumstances are favorable for 

 doing so, to be followed by several successive plantings, say through 

 May and June, and even into July. In suitable situations in south- 

 ern California sweet corn is planted through eight months of the 

 year; as early as February 1 in the Coachella valley and as late as 

 September near the coast, where roasting ears are expected in about 

 seventy days from planting on irrigated land. 



Hill or Rows. Growers differ as to the advantages of growing 

 in hills or in rows. Hills give opportunity to cultivate in two di- 

 rections with the horse. Rows have a tendency to check the draft 

 of dry winds when the rows run at right angles to their anticipated 

 direction. The general course of dry, hot summer winds is from 

 north to south (except where given a different trend by local topog- 

 raphy), consequently east and west rows oppose them and in some 

 measure shade the soil and the plant better from sun heat. But 

 when prevailing practice shows that the ground in the row usually 

 goes untouched by tools and consequently becomes hard and dry, 

 it is quite a question whether the separation of the plants into hills 

 for free cultivation both ways is not on the whole much the better 

 method. But choice may be governed by local conditions. Planting 

 in hills at 3^ feet square takes about nine pounds of seed to the 

 acre. 



Laying Off and Planting. Distance in corn planting depends 

 upon the habit of growth of the variety. Small early kinds may be 

 planted in hills three feet apart each way or in rows three feet 

 apart, but larger kinds may need wider spacing, even up to five 

 feet. Seed should always be planted in excess: five or six kernels 

 to the hill, to be thinned to the three or four strongest plants ; four 

 inches apart in the row, to be thinned to ten or fifteen inches ac- 

 cording to size of variety. 



For laying off hills in straight lines after plowing and harrow- 

 ing, a marker should be used both ways and the corn planted at 



