MARYLAND WEATHER SERVICE 335 



In the counties in which both green corn for canning, and field 

 corn for harvesting are grown, it is difficult to learn whether both 

 are included in the crop yield figures, or are kept separate as a can- 

 ning crop and a grain crop respectively. 



The counties giving the highest total crop are not identical in 

 rank with those having highest acreage, though the same ones form 

 the highest group of four in each case. 



In marketing two customs are evident. In those cases where 

 wagon haul is possible, the corn is usually sold in the ear. But 

 when the railroad is used the shelled corn is shipped, leaving the 

 cobs on the farm. On account of the relatively large amount of 

 mineral material (ash) in the cobs, it would be good farm practice 

 if the farmers would regularly shell their corn, and so sell it. The 

 cobs form an excellent fuel, for quick fires and efficient heat, match- 

 ing the best of cordwood. The ashes obtained, if kept from rains 

 \\hi i Id be efficient as a top dressing, on account of the potash and 

 phosphoric acid contained. 



Progressive farmers find it to their advantage to keep the mineral 

 substances used by their crops, and to restore them to the soil, 

 rather than to lose those elements and thereby diminish the fertility 

 of their fields. 



Wheat. — The great bread crop — wheat — is less concentrated than 

 is corn, on the basis of total yield for the county. The deep loams 

 of the Eastern Shore are favorable to the production of large crops, 

 and the level surface renders harvesting easy. The fields there are 

 less frequently disfigured with the bare areas left by the rows of 

 corn shocks than is the case elsewhere in the state. 



When the wheat is sown the shock rows are often left, and in the 

 spring in the Midland Zone oats are frequently sown in these spaces, 

 and left to ripen after the wheat has been harvested. Some farmers 

 plant as close as possible to the shocks, driving around them as they 

 come to the shock-row, but this leaves spots entirely bare where the 

 shocks stood, and makes the rows through that portion of the field 

 curved and crossed, an effect not liked by most farmers. 



The Coastal Zone has little need for the extensive barns of the 

 other areas, and the barnyard is less important as a feeding and 

 shelter place for stock. 



