FARM PRACTICE IF THE CULTIVATION OF CORN. 5 



For the reasons above stated this bulletin should not be expected 

 to embody a so-called best method of conducting tillage operations 

 everywhere applicable to corn growing. Such detailed information 

 as is here presented amounts, as it were, to taking the reader on a 

 tour of study to visit not only his neighboring corn-raising farmers, 

 but representative corn growers in all the important corn-producing 

 regions of the United States. On such a trip one would expect to 

 get ideas and suggestions to be brought home and tried out. It would 

 be unsafe to recommend for general adoption in any corn-growing 

 region practices which have never been tested there, however success- 

 ful such practices may have proved in other sections, but in many 

 cases it would be highly desirable for a farmer to try methods which 

 have elsewhere proved successful. These studies, then, should be of 

 great suggestive value to both experimenters and practical farmers. 



GROUPS OF CORN-GROWING AREAS. 



The regions in which surveys were made may be grouped into five 

 divisions, as follows: (1) The central western, (2) the southeastern, 

 (3) the south central, (4) the southwestern, and (5) the northeastern. 

 In each of these divisions more or less distinct methods and practices 

 are employed. 



The first division includes the corn belt proper. Here the tillage 

 practices are very uniform. The land is level or gently rolling. 

 Heavy teams are employed for breaking and preparing the land; 

 gang plows, 2-horse checkrow planters, and 2-horse 6-shovel culti- 

 vators are generally used. Corn is usually planted level and in 

 checks. 



In the southeastern division, including in the main the cotton belt, 

 a radically different type of tillage is practiced. Here mostly 1-horse 

 implements are employed. Corn is usually planted in the water 

 furrow between beds or in rows laid off with a lister, or middle buster. 

 In cultivating, 1-horse turning plows, cotton sweeps, and 1-horse 

 cultivators are largely employed. The furrow in which the corn is 

 planted is gradually filled up by cultivating until the field is prac- 

 tically level at the last cultivation. 



The south-central division, composed of Tennessee, Kentucky, and 

 western North Carolina, is located between the corn and cotton belts 

 and has: tillage methods which combine practices from both regions. 

 Here little uniformity is found. 



The southwestern division, which includes northern Texas, Okla- 

 homa, and western Kansas, constitutes a comparatively new agri- 

 cultural region with tillage methods peculiar to that section. Most, 



of the corn is listed, as is the ease in all the Southern States, but 



here heavy teams are employed. The land is bedded with •"> horse or 



I hor e Listers, accomplishing the same result with one furrow as the 



