Fertilization and Cultivation of 



Food for 

 Plants 



Corn and Cotton. ^°9 



Bulletin of North Carolina Department of Agriculture. 



By DR. B. W. KILGORE, Raleigh, N. C. 



Corn 



It unquestionably pays well to thoroughly Culture 

 break and broadcast harrow land for corn. 

 Using a two-horse plow and running it 8 to lo inches deep, 

 and afterwards harrowing with large smoothing harrow, 

 puts the land in nice condition. It is also well to run a small- 

 tooth harrow across corn rows about the time the plants are 

 coming up, and even after they are several inches high, slant- 

 ing the teeth of the harrow backward. Harrowing in this 

 way saves after-cultivation, and is a quick way of getting 

 over the land. The land being thoroughly broken before the 

 corn is put in the ground, only shallow, level cultivation with 

 some one of the considerable number of good cultivators 

 need be given during the growing season. The one-horse 

 cultivators cover corn rows in two to three furrows, and the 

 two-horse ones at a single trip. The cultivation should be 

 frequent — -about every ten days — and if possible just after 

 rains, so as to break any crust formed by showers, leaving a 

 dust mulch to retard the loss of moisture added to the soil in 

 the previous rains. Toward the end of the growing season 

 the cultivators should only be run one to one and a half 

 inches deep, so as to disturb as little as possible the roots of 

 the plants, which, by that time, are well into the middle of 

 the rows. 



The experimental work on the sandy soils p, ... 

 of the east, reports of which have been made . Pqj._ 

 previously, has progressed far enough, we 

 feel, to draw some conclusions m reference to the best 

 amounts and proportions of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and 

 potash for corn. As the results of the past two years' work 

 have not yet been published, the following formulas, based 

 on the result of the first two years' tests and tests in other 



