CORN LETTERS FROM THIRTY FARMERS 157 
be as deep as six or eight inches and started as soon as the frost is 
out of the ground, provided the ground is dry enough. 
I consider it a bad mistake to burn stalks. They should be cut with 
a disc harrow and plowed under to root and help hold the moisture. 
If the ground is well disced before plowing in the early spring it 
should not be harrowed or worked down before time to plant. 
PLANTING AND CULTIVATION 
If the ground has been plowed in the fall or early spring and has 
settled or run together into a hard compact mass, it should be double 
disced. By this I mean the disc should be lapped half each time. 
This method does away with the furrow or ridge and leaves the ground 
level. I finish up by using a smoothing harrow. I precede the planter 
with the furrowing machine. 
This machine consists of two fourteen-inch single shovel plows, 
set the same distance apart as the width of my two-row planter runners. 
The planter follows and runs in the middle and bottom of the furrows. 
By using this machine my corn is planted in furrows. I run the dise, 
smoothing harrow, and furrowing machine all the same way, so that 
one implement does not have to finish its work before the other is 
started. 
The planter should not start until the furrow has dried enough so 
that the fresh dirt in the bottom of the furrow will not stick to the 
runners or planter wheels, but will have a dust mulch over the corn 
rows. I use good seed and get a good stand, unless the fields are 
flooded with heavy rains before the corn gets well sprouted. 
As soon as the corn is up enough to insure a good stand, I start a 
light smoothing harrow, and if the weather is favorable I harrow two 
or three times before starting to cultivate. If the season is wet I do 
not use the harrow, but start cultivating as soon as the corn is up well 
enough to see each hill down the row. I start with a six-shovel cul- 
tivator and plow as deep as the shovels will reach, which is about four 
inches. 
I plow my corn as many times as I can before it gets big enough 
to bend under the cultivator arch. The last plowing should not cut 
many roots; at the same time it should be deep enough to make the 
shovels throw the dirt well up around the butts of the stalks. 
S. E. HARVEY. 
