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19S 



THE ILLINOIS FARMER. 



July 



With this treatment, winter rye is a most 

 triumphant success and we recommend it 

 without hesitation, even sown early in July. 

 We have two acres sown the twentieth day 

 of August— one and a half bushels to the 

 acre of seed, which is now all we could ask. 

 It stands even as if shaved, with long, well 

 filled heads^^Last fall it furnished a large 

 amount of pasturage. Farmers who are 

 short of autumn pasturage should not fail to 

 sow rye. 



One of our neighbors seeded a number of 

 acres among his standing corn, and says the 

 practice is a bad one, the corn shading the 

 rye it grows spindling and of little value for 

 feed. He attempted to pasture it in the 

 spring, but the cattle seriously damaged his 

 ground by stamping it up during the heavy 

 spring rains. He is down on the practice, 

 and well he may be, or any other farmer who 

 allows his stock to run out on plowed ground 

 in the spring. 



Sowing "Wheat Among Corn. 



Sowing wheat an:ong corn, after several 

 years of trial, has not given very good satis- 

 faction. We have never given it a personal 

 trial, but have watched the practice with 

 some solicitude, and have endeavored to de- 

 tect, if possible, the fault if fault there was. 

 There is a difficulty in sowing and harvest- 

 ing, but this is now pretty well remedied by 

 the use of Prof. Turner's one-horse drill, 

 which sows two drills at a time, and by pass- 

 ing twice through the rows the land is very 

 well seeded. In the next place the shade 

 produced by the rank corn gives the plant 

 but a sickly growth, and when winter sets 

 in it is too feeble to stand the severity of 

 the freezings and thawings that follow, To 

 remedy this we would recommend that the 

 corn be husked as early in the ftill as possi- 

 ble, and at once cut the stalks down even 

 with the surface, and scatter them over the 

 young grain as soon as possible, and the roll- 

 er over them so as to press them near the 

 soil. This would let in the sun and air so 



as to induce a good growth before winter 

 sets in, the plant would become well rooted 

 and the stalks would give it a good winter 

 protection. Corn stalks make the best pos- 

 sible mulch, keeping the surface moist, but 

 they should lie close to the ground so as not 

 to shade the young plants. Winter wheat 

 cannot endure shade, and therefore the corn 

 should be cut down early in the season as 

 possible. Let a man follow the buskers 

 with a cutting knife or a sharp hoe, remem- 

 ber no high stubs are to be left in the way 

 of the reaper, or to hold up the fallen stalks. 

 In a lew days the leaves of the corn will be 

 nearly decayed, and give the young wheat 

 the benefit of a top-dressing. So far as we 

 are aware the above is but a theory, never 

 having seen or heard of a trial of it, it be- 

 inc: the universal custom to let the stalks 

 stand until the latter part of winter, when 

 they are cut and s?attered over the surface, 

 and at harvest time are much in the way. 

 By the plan proposed, the stalks would be 

 well rotted and thus add to the growth of 

 the wheat ; in rich ground, it might tend 

 to lodge the grain by a too vigorous 

 growth. We think stalks thus treated must 

 have the eflFect to prevent winter killing. It 

 is well known that a light coating of straw 

 in the autumn on winter wheat has a won- 

 derful efiect to prevent heaving out, and we 

 can see no reason why corn sialks would not 

 have the same effect. 



We are sanguine in the belief that the 

 experiment is worth ihe trial, and should it 

 succeed will add thousands of dollars to the 

 value of each corn growing county in the 

 State, and besides would give us a first class 

 rotation. We must gmw even and this 

 would give us a rotation with one for corn. 

 That is wheat after clover, to follow with 

 corn and wheat sown with this, seed with 

 clover in the spring, mow or pasture the 

 next season until August, and again sow to 



wheat. 



But it is not settled that clover can be 



successfully grown in the basin of Egypt ; 



of this fact we are not quite certain, should 



