CHAPTER IX 

 PREPARATION OF LAND FOR CORN 



UNDER the chapters discussing " Soil for Corn " and " Cropping 

 Systems" attempt has been made to show how land can best be 

 maintained in a productive state for corn production. It takes 

 years to " run down " or make unproductive a good piece of land by 

 even the most exhaustive cropping method. It takes even longer to 

 restore production to an exhausted field. The important consider- 

 ation in crop production is maintaining the productivity of the land. 



Preparation, Secondary. The crop depends not so much on the 

 preparation just preceding planting (provided it is reasonably good) 

 as it does on the treatment the land has had for the previous ten or 

 twenty years. 



To thoroughly plow, pulverize, and free from weeds is all the 

 preparation good land needs. 



Plowing Corn Land. Experiments have not shown an exact 

 relationship between depth or time of plowing and yield. This is 

 probably because the temporary effect of deep or shallow plowing may 

 be very small, owing to other more important factors, and also be- 

 cause results appear to vary some with soils and seasons. 



In the rather loose loam soils of the semi-arid regions at the west 

 edge of the corn belt, in central Kansas and Nebraska, more than 

 one-half of the corn land is not plowed at all. The land may be 

 disk-harrowed in early spring, to preserve moisture, and perhaps 

 again just before planting to kill weeds. The corn is planted with a 

 lister, which is a double mould-board plow that opens up a furrow, 

 planting the corn in the bottom. 



In the South corn is also planted in a furrow, on the drier sandy 

 lands. The " listing " method then is confined to the loose, drier 

 soils in the West and South. In all other places the land is pre- 

 pared by plowing. 



The reason seems to be that practically all heavy land in humid 



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