CHAPTER XXI 

 HARVESTING AND STORING THE CORN CROP 



WITHIN the last fifteen years much progress has been 

 made in the methods of harvesting the corn crop in the 

 cotton-belt. Yet it is unquestionably true that the har- 

 vesting practices now in general use by the southern 

 corn-growers are more crude and unprofitable than those 

 commonly employed by farmers in any other region of 

 the United States. The primary reasons for the southern 

 farmers' relatively slow progress in corn harvesting meth- 

 ods are: (1) the limited area devoted to corn on the aver- 

 age cotton-belt farm; (2) the poor adaptability of a large 

 percentage of southern farms, as regards size, shape, and 

 topography of fields, to the use of improved machinery; 

 (3) the excessive height to which southern corn grows 

 under certain conditions, rendering the use of the corn 

 harvester impractical; (4) the climatic conditions in the 

 greater part of the cotton-belt are more unfavorable to the 

 proper field curing of corn fodder than in other regions 

 of the United States. 



HARVESTING CORN 



304. Time of harvesting. Corn should be harvested 

 when the largest amount of digestible food can be 

 secured. Both the total dry weight and valuable feed- 

 ing nutrients continue to increase until the crop is 



251 



