THE VEGETABLE GARDEN I9I 



requires an abundance of plant food and moisture, 

 and on these light soils is very exhausting. J. E. 

 Homa, however, has given much attention to grow- 

 ing corn, and each year puts in six or seven acres. 

 His corn land is low^ and has plenty of moisture; it 

 is rotated in grass, strawberries, and corn, grass, 

 like corn, being an unusual crop in his locality. 



'' Strawberries are picked two years. The beds 

 are fertilized with 600 or 700 pounds of fertilizer 

 each year, applied early in the spring. The two- 

 year-old beds are not cultivated in the spring, and 

 the entire surface becomes covered with a sod of 

 grass and strawberry plants. After picking, 

 usually about June 15, the land is plowed about 6 

 inches deep, broadcasted with 700 pounds of fer- 

 tilizer, costing about $28 a ton, harrowed until fine 

 and marked out in rows about 4 feet apart each 

 way. The land is not furrowed out for planting, 

 but a man makes a little hole with a spade, drops 

 the grain in it and covers it with the foot, doing all 

 the work quickly and at one operation. 



" The field is then repeatedly worked with a 

 weeder until the corn is several inches high and 

 then cultivated every week or ten days as long as 

 a horse can get through. Generally, it is hoed 

 once, but wath a careful man to cultivate little hoe- 

 ing is needed. The variety is a hybrid of yellow 

 dent of local selection, maturing in about no 

 days." 



This practice will furnish a valuable hint for 

 raisers of sweet corn. Such quick-growing varie- 

 ties as the Corys and the Crosbys should prove 

 very profitable where there is a good market, and 

 even some of the slower growing sorts, such as 

 Country Gentleman, should be made to pay where 

 the seasons are not too short. 



