THE IKKIGATION AGE. 



149 



CORRESPONDENCE 





GROWING CORN UNDER IRRIGATION. 



Editor IRRIGATION AGE: 



I am not only going to tell you how to grow coTn, 

 but I want to show you I can produce the goods. 



I have been asked to give my results in growing corn 

 and preparing the land under irrigation. It is a long-used 

 expression, "You must like the work or you will not 

 succeed." 



My first experience in growing corn was in Pennsyl- 

 vania, and a short time after in Nebraska, where I grew 

 20 bushels of corn to the acre, and it only received one 

 light shower from the time it was planted the last of 

 May until it was harvested in October. My neighbors 

 asked me how I did it. I told them the best I could. I 

 was only about 19 at that time. I sold that corn that year 

 at 50 cents a bushel. 



When I came to Idaho more than 25 years ago I 

 asked about growing corn. "Yes, we raise a little sweet 

 corn here, and some few have tried field corn, but we 

 have such a peculiar climate here the nights are so cold 

 in summer that corn suckers very badly, so we do not 

 grow it, and we raise wheat on the land to raise more 

 wheat to buy more land to raise more wheat." 



Some of the old bottom land, at this time, would not 

 grow wheat. I bought 80 acres of this land, and they told 

 me the crops that had been growing there for several 

 years were sunflowers. 



I plowed this land the latter part of May, about eight 

 inches deep. Some time in June I went over it with a 

 harrow. In July I cultivated it to get out every sun- 

 flower I could see. 



During that winter we completed an irrigating ditch 

 that had been started two years before. 



During this time I had been watching for a patch of 

 corn around the neighborhood that I could get some seed 

 from to plant. I wanted seed that was acclimated. I 

 finally succeeded in getting a bushel. 



In March the following year we turned the water into 

 the ditch. A week later the ditch broke one night and 

 flooded over a part of this land that I was going to plant 

 to corn. As soon as it got dry enough to work, I plowed 

 this with the rest of the tract, about eight acres. I then 

 took an "A" harrow, turned it upside down and put a 

 plank across it, and rode the harrow. Why did I do that? 

 I was going to irrigate this tract of land to raise corn on, 

 and it had never been leveled. While it did not require 

 much leveling, still there were a few bumps on the land, 

 and I was aiming to settle this ground down as well as 

 to settle the newly plowed land. 



I reversed the harrow and went over the ground twice, 

 standing on the harrow the last time. 



About the middle of April I went over to one of my 

 neighbors and borrowed an old Acme harrow, and went 

 over the ground three or four times until it- looked more 

 like an onion field than a corn field, and as it was on the 

 side of a main traveled road I could hear all kinds of 

 remarks about that piece of ground. 



Five days after planting that corn it was up, and I 

 noticed the ground that had been flooded was so moist 

 and worked so fine that when it was time to irrigate I 

 desired not to irrigate this part, but the part of the field 

 that I thought required the moisture. 



Shortly after this irrigating I noticed the corn throw- 

 ing out suckers, while the other side that flooded and was 

 not irrigated did not throw out suckers. I was interested, 

 and I did some hard thinking as well as work the next 

 five years experimenting with corn. 



Some_of you will say that is the way we grew corn 

 in Washington in the early days, but here in Idaho we 

 are 3,000 feet higher, and our soil is different. Let us see 

 what Idaho soil and sunshine did last year for me: 



We moved over from Washington and located one 

 mile south and one mile east of Nampa. We arrived at 

 night, and the next morning I went down Main street and 

 saw some very good looking corn in the window of a real 



estate office. I went inside and asked the gentleman if I 

 could examine the corn. "Well," he thought, "here is a 

 corn sucker sure enough," and I had to shut him off by 

 saying that the corn had stood shipping remarkably well. 

 That corn was raised here, but he could not tell me by 

 whom, or where I could get some seed. 



On the place we moved to there was a five-acre tract 

 called pasture. There was a little bluegrass sod to be 

 seen in small spots, but the most I saw was weeds about 

 four inches long. It had been tramped to death by the 

 stock because the little stable was so filthy that the stock 

 had to be turned out in that lot. 



This tract of land should have been plowed in the 

 fall, or early winter, but it was not. 



In April I started to plow, using two horses to a 

 common turning plow or stubble plow. The horses 

 weighed 1,140 pounds, and the plow was a 12-inch walking 

 plow. 



I had some experience preparing ground for corn, 

 but this was the most discouraging that I ever undertook 

 until the plants were up and looking fine. 



The ground was rather dry no water available, for 

 it was not turned into 'the ditches. I wanted to plow 

 about six inches deep, but it was so tramped and so hard 

 that I could not do it. It ran all the way from two 

 inches to 10 inches. Part of the time I was walking, and 

 part of the time I was riding the handles of the plow. 

 The team was walking rather slow and very steady, but I 

 tell you I was not. I plowed about an acre a day, and 

 hitched on to the harrow every half acre I plowed. 



The day I finished up my nearest neighbor came 

 over, and told me he thought it best for me to sow oats 

 or.-barley. I told him I wanted corn, as it was the cow 

 feed I was after, and if I could get it wet up a Httle bit 

 later I would try and plant any time in May. 



I had a four-horse Cutaway disk. A neighbor allowed 

 me the use of his team a little later, as I only had the 

 two horses to put on the four-horse disk, and there was 

 not horsepower enough to do a good job. 



Three days after disking I floated the ground down 

 with a leveler. This leveler consisted of two pieces 2x6x16 

 feet by 5 feet wide, and constructed in such a way as to 

 be perfectly rigid. 



Three days more went by, and it began to look like 

 rain, and I hitched two horses on the four-horse disk and 

 disked the ground the same way I plowed. 



I had been making inquiries as to where I could get 

 seed. Here is where the business men of the town can 

 help out the farmer. In this case he was a lumber dealer, 

 but was as enthusiastic over the possibility of growing 

 corn in Idaho as I was, and he said he knew men who 

 could put me in touch with someone who had seed that 

 was acclimated, and he did so. 



On the 20th of April water came, and Saturday even- 

 ing I ran some furrows, and was going to float this 

 ground over Monday. Saturday night it rained, and Sun 

 day afternoon it rained a heavy shower, doing a bettei 

 job of irrigating than I could. It was four days before 

 I could disk this piece of ground. I floated it down again 

 after disking, and let it lay two days. 



I used what is known as "100-day Yellow Dent corn," 

 purchased from the John A. Saltzer Seed Company, and 

 was supposed to have been grown in South Dakota under 

 irrigation. I decided to plant this corn three feet each 

 way. 



As the weather was nice, I harrowed it over with a 

 common harrow, then disked it again, and floated it down 

 readv to irrigate, but it rained again that night. 



The 16th of May I harrowed it over, and made the 

 soil fine and the 19th and 20th I planted the corn with a 

 hand machine set to plant two to three grains in a hill. 



I expected to have this corn up in five days, but there 

 came along a couple of those peculiar cold nights, and it 

 was seven days before it showed up nicely. It did not 

 all come up. There was some adobe spots still a little 

 rough, and I had to plant the corn deeper in these spots 

 than on the other land. 



On the 1st of June we had a wet cold spell which 

 lasted several days. The corn turned yellow, and then it 

 got hot. and I put one horse on one section of the har- 

 row, and went down one row and back up the other. It 

 looked like I was just tearing that corn out as fast as I 



