50 AGRICULTURE 



4. Why does keeping the soil pulverized and loose on 

 top prevent loss of moisture? What causes the corn to 

 look yellow and stunted when the ground becomes baked? 



5. Suppose a careless boy covers up five hills out of 

 every hundred in plowing a field of forty acres of corn. 

 The crop yields thirty-eight bushels to the acre. How much 

 would it have yielded if he had covered up none? How 

 much did his carelessness cost if corn is worth fifty cents 

 a bushel ? 



13. Harvesting and Storing the Corn 



Corn is harvested in three principal ways: (1) it is 

 husked from the standing stalks and the ears stored in 

 cribs; (2) it is cut while partially green and either shocked 

 in the field or stored in a silo; and (3) stock, especially 

 hogs, are turned into the field to do the harvesting for them- 

 selves. 



Field husking. By far the greater part of the corn 

 produced, especially in the great corn belt, is husked in 

 the field from the standing stalks. This is the method 

 used when corn is raised for the grain, and the fodder, or 

 stover, is a secondary consideration. 



Field husking is the cheapest and quickest way of secur- 

 ing the grain. In good corn, from sixty to more than one 

 hundred bushels a day can be gathered by one man with a 

 team, at a cost of from three to 'four cents a bushel. Ma- 

 chines for husking from the standing stalks are also in use 

 on many large farms. Corn can be picked by a husking 

 machine at the rate of from seven to eight acres a day, and, 

 where the acreage is large, at a cost per bushel slightly less 

 than for hand picking. No machine yet invented does the 

 husking as satisfactorily as by hand. The machine misses 

 some ears, breaks others, shells off more or less corn, and 

 pulls up or breaks many stalks. The corn-picking machine 

 is not always a complete success. 



