190G 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



1077 



wife woukl uot be ashamed to have it aiuoug 

 her tlowers. Get some old sawdust and s<jali 

 it over night in water. Now do not for- 

 get and think spriidiin.g the sawdust will do 

 just as well. It must be thoi'oughly soaked 

 l;efore it is put into that tray. Squeeze out 

 the water until it holds just at)out as mueh 

 as it will without dripping through on the 

 Hoor. When it is packed down smooth and 

 level in this box. spread over the sawdust a 

 piece of white cotton cloth. This is tirst to 

 be marked in .squares about 2^ inches 

 across. These squares are to be numbered 

 1, 10, 20, 30. just like your ears of corn. 

 After the cloth is patted down on top of the 

 wet sawdust, place six grains of corn inside 

 of each sipiare. You see this will show you 

 what eai's of corn the grain in each S(piai"e 

 came from. On top of the corn that is 

 placed on the cloth, spread another cloth: 

 and on this a little mat or cushion filled with 

 sawdust just like the other. Buntlle it up 

 well so as to keep it from tlrying out. The 

 average farmer can tell you just about what 

 amount of dampness is needed for that corn 

 to germinate. Mow keep w^atch. If the six 

 grains in No. 1 all start at once, and send 

 up a strong vigorous shoot, keep that ear of 

 corn for seed, but not otherw'ise. Do not 

 save a single ear that produces some kernels 

 that failed to germinate or some that are 

 even slow in germinating. It pays a tre- 

 mendous l>ig interest on the time invested in 

 getting the very .best seed, and in having 

 every kernel that is planted in the Held 

 germinate strong and promptly. A corn 

 plant that comes up a little behind the others 

 will always he inferior. We can afford to 

 give ro(.)m to nothing but the very l^est. 

 Yes, I know some of you iMg stout men will 

 say this is too much fuss and bother. Prof. 

 Hold'en looked so good-natured that you 

 could not imagine he was ever ••mad" in 

 his life. But he said he did get mad only a 

 few tlays ago. I think it was somewhere in 

 the South where he was giving one of his 

 talks, and a big pompous iniluential man 

 came up and said something like this: 



••Prof. Holden. I have enjoyed your talk 

 immensely: but I grow se^'era^hunch■ed acres 

 of corn; and. of course, w^here we do things 

 on a })ig scale like that, we can not afford to 

 bother with such complications." 



I do not know what Prof. Holden replied, 

 but he said such talk just made him mad. 



The average cost jjer acre for selecting 

 said corn, according to the way I have de- 

 scril")ed, should not exceed six ceid.'i. Just 

 think! only six rents per acre, and yet this 

 simple little thing may raise the yield from 

 80 to 40 Inishels per acre, up to 90 or even 

 100. It has been done over and over again. 

 No wonder the farmers are getting wild and 

 crazy over the corn crop in Iowa since Prof. 

 Holden opened up this wonderful gold-mine; 

 and it is a gold-mine. - The average farmer 

 — you, my friend, who are reading this — 

 when you grow corn, if you have not got 

 hold of this new wrinkle you throw away 

 from three to live hoiirs a day as the boy 

 said of the cornstalks with no ears on them. 



Your wife and girls fool away from three 

 to live hours a day to get three good square 

 meals for you. take care of your clothing so 

 as to make you look decent, and then you 

 fool away almost half of your time just be- 

 cause you did not remember our text and 

 put it in practice. 



Now. there is lots more that I can not tell 

 you about here. When you are ready to 

 shell these extra select ears, sort them out 

 into three pii^s — the ears having the largest 

 kernels, those having medium-sized kernels, 

 and those having the smallest kernels. Do 

 not get the different sizes mixed. You w^ant 

 your corn-planter to put just four grains in 

 a hill. After your corn is shelled and I'eady 

 to plant, spread it on a table, just one ker- 

 nel deep; then get all hands to pick out 

 broken or imperfect kernels. Do not let one 

 get into the planter that is not of average 

 size, and perfect in every respect. Do not 

 grumble about the ••fuss/' It can all be 

 done at a cost of six cents per acz'e whei-e 

 you put in several acres of corn.* 



Now, the man who has been thus careful 

 about his seed corn will he very likely to be 

 careful about preparing his ground and tak- 

 ing care of his crop. His cornfield will be a 

 standing object-lesson. I do not know that 

 Prof. Holden said so, but he said a good 

 mauv things along the same line, that this 

 cornfield would I)e a standing object-lesson 

 to the glory of God. The man who owns it 

 will be a i)etter man: his children will be 

 better children, and his wife will l^e a better 

 woman, and his neighbors around him will 

 soon have a cornfield something like it. The 

 boys and girls will get into a strife — that is. 

 a friendly neighiwrly one— to see who will 

 beat; and" pretty soon the whole locality will 

 be on ••higher ground." 



There is a lot more to tell about corn, and 

 there is one thing that hits the bee-keepers. 

 He held up one of his poor scrubby stalks of 

 corn and said. ••Look here, friends, these 

 poor scrubs send up a tassel, even if they do 

 not bear any corn. This tassel spreads' out 

 its arms and lets loose millions of pollen 

 grains. If you think I am stating it too 

 high, you set to work and count them as the 

 breeze sets them tioating in the air. These 

 pollen grains fertilize the kernels of corn. 

 In all we have been doing we have secured 

 a good mother for our kernels of corn, but 

 how much w'ould it amount to to have the 

 best kind of mother if you have only a '•scrub 

 father" — one of the kind that stands around 

 all summer ••doing nothiu'"'/ And that 

 hits the bee-keepers. We have got the good 

 mother, and have the parentage w-orked 

 down to something pretty fine; but up to 



* Out in Iowa, where the.v are gettinjir to be experts 

 in this kind of work, a farmer succeeded in getimg a 

 whole bijr cornfield with 98 per cent of perfect .stalks. 

 Just think of the ditferenee between tliis and the av- 

 erage per cent of stands throuKhout the cornfields of 

 Ohio I He says: "Your averatre crop in this State is 

 ■29 bushels to the acre. Do .vou know that one twelve- 

 ounce nubbin to the hill will give a yield of 38 bushels 

 to the acre ': You raise an avera^'■e of less than a 

 nubbin to the hill on the leading crop of your State. 

 Do you know that two seventeen-ounce ears to the 

 hill would give a yield of 117 bushels to the acre '- " 



