CORN TILLAGE 159 



by two horses. At each trip it cuts into bits, about a foot 

 long, the stalks on one row. In the absence of the stalk- 

 cutter, corn stalks are cut into two or three sections with 

 the hoe, and large cotton stalks are chopped with a 

 stalk-cutter or broken by beating them with a heavy 

 stick, preferably on some frosty morning in winter. 



In plowing under weeds or other litter, the work can be 

 much better done by dragging the loop of a heavy chain, 

 one end attached to the beam and the other end to the outer 

 end of the single-tree on the same side as the moldboard. 

 The loop of this heavy chain runs just in front of and above 

 the share of the plow and bends the weeds down so that 

 they can be completely covered by the inverted soil. 



148. Time of plowing. — The time must vary with 

 conditions. The stiffer the soil and the larger the amount 

 of vegetation to be plowed under, the earlier should plow- 

 ing be done. On stiff soil plowing may well begin in 

 November and be completed before Christmas. While 

 land plowed at this time will have become compacted on 

 the surface by planting time, this surface crust can easily 

 be hghtened by the use of a disk-harrow just before planting. 



There is considerable leaching, or waste of fertility, from 

 plowed soils left bare during the winter, especially from 

 sandy soils. This loss is greater the earlier in the fall the 

 plowing is done. Hence the preparation of sandy soil 

 may be postponed until the stiffer soils have been prepared, 

 but even sandy soils should be prepared for corn before the 

 teams are monopolized in the preparation of land for. cotton. 



149. Ridging versus flush plowing. — The main systems 

 of preparing land for corn may be classified as follows : — ■ 



(1) Ridging, or forming beds on which the rows of corn 



