SUCKERING CORN. 201 



SUCKERING CORN. 



We hope more experiments will be made to try the 

 effect of pulling off suckers from corn. For ourselves, 

 we think it injurious, but we have made no great trial 

 of it. A few years ago we had a fine looking field of 

 corn, from which we hoped for nearly one hundred 

 bushels to the acre. It was a large kind of eight- 

 rowed corn. 



It grew very rank, and we were satisfied that, in con- 

 sequence, it was quite too thick: the hills were three 

 feet apart each way ; many suckers shot out from the 

 bottom ; and, when the corn was six to seven feet high, 

 we pulled off every sucker, in order to admit the air 

 and light more freely. These suckers were from two 

 to three feet in length. 



We have always fancied we hurt our corn by this 

 process, but we left none unsuckered, and cannot be 

 positive. Soon after, we learned that others had tried 

 the experiment with a like result, and it was noted by 

 them as well as by us that the corn eared out remarka- 

 bly high. Whether this suckering could have this 

 effect we cannot say, but we had a much less crop than 

 the stalks gave promise of, and believe we injured it 

 by pulling off the suckers, notwithstanding the corn 

 was too thick. 



In reasoning upon the practice, we are led to think 

 it injurious to pluck off the suckers after they have 

 grown large. When the ear is filling, a draft is made 

 upon all the parts of the stalk for ^its surplus juices, 

 and, as there is a free communication between all the 

 branches of the stalk, we see not why it should not be 

 as injurious to pluck off the full-grown suckers before 

 the ear is filled, as to cut off the stalks above the ear 

 while there are any juices in them that may be 

 drafted to make the ear full. 



Many experiments should be tried, at difterent sea- 

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