CHAPTER X 

 TILLAGE FOR CORN 



Tillage Machinery. Up to within comparatively recent times 

 agriculture was practically without tools for intertillage. In fact, 

 most of the crops, as wheat, oats, and barley, did not require inter- 

 tillage. The hoe was the only special tool for this purpose, although 

 the primitive wooden plow was also driven between the rows. The 

 one-horse mould-board plow was quite generally used up to 1850 for 

 corn and potato cultivation, and is still used in some parts of the 

 South. 



The great intertilled crops are corn, potatoes and cotton. Since 

 1850 there has been a rapid increase in the number and kinds of 

 intertillage tools. The first tools were the " single shovel " and 

 " double shovel " one-horse cultivators. The principal course of 

 evolution has been to first attach two double shovel gangs to a sulky, 

 so that a row could be cultivated at one time, then four gangs, so that 

 two rows could be cultivated. The principal change in shovels has 

 been to reduce the width and increase the number up to three to five 

 shovels in the place of two. 



Disk gangs are also used in place of shovels, and do excellent work 

 on level loam soils. 



Broad shears or blades which shave off a shallow surface are also 

 successful where the ground is free from trash or stones, and the 

 principal object is weed killing. 



Weeders. A class of tools with very narrow, flexible teeth, 

 called weeders, are very useful in killing small weeds when the soil 

 is in good tilth, but are not effective on compact soil. The weeder is 

 extensively used in cultivating young corn the first three weeks after 

 up, as it will destroy weeds in the hill without injury to the corn 

 plants. 



Lister Cultivators. There have been devised for listed corn a 



number of special tools. The first of these tools was essentially a 



pair of wooden runners, set close together to follow the furrow left 



by the lister, with knives or shovels to work the ridge on either side 



74 



