The "Tractivator"Cultivating Corn on the Deere Experimental Farm 



Corn roots may grow deep or shallow. Some of them penetrate into 

 the subsoil, but those roots do not secure a great amount of plant food. 

 Most of the food-gathering roots are confined to the first eight inches of 

 soil, or the thickness of the seed-bed, many being only 2h inches from the 

 surface at a distance of six inches from the hill. If the sprmg is at all 

 dry, the roots grow deep, or, in other words, they follow the line of 

 moisture. If, on the contrary, the season is very wet, many roots will 

 be very close to the surface. 



It should be remembered that the little corn roots may extend not 

 only across one row, but often farther, gathering food and water for the 

 plant, and if disturbed in cultivating, their usefulness is impaired. 

 Corn growers who persist in running the shovels deep, believing that it 

 is beneficial to stir the soil to a depth of four or five inches, reduce their 

 yield very materially, and if during the last month or six weeks of the 

 season the weather is hot and dry, they are apt to lose their crop. Ex- 

 periments have demonstrated that if cultivator shovels are run deeper 

 than three inches after the roots have extended six or more inches from 

 the hill, the yield is lessened. 



Cultivators 



If the seed-bed has been poorly made and the surface is covered with 

 trash such as corn stubbles and corn stalks, or if weeds and morning 



