160 PRACTICAL CORN CULTURE 
The corn is harrowed once or twice before it comes up. I plow 
my corn at least four times with four and six-shovel plows. The last 
cultivating is given the corn when it begins to tassel. About silking 
time I plow between the rows with a five shovel, one-horse cultivator. 
When it is necessary to plow in the spring, where corn follows corn, I 
prefer to plow as early as possible, since early plowing is not affected 
so much by a dry spell in July and August. I never, under any cir- 
cumstances, burn any stalks. This is a ruinous practice with us, and 
I believe will do more harm than good in any country. 
Yours truly, JOHN L. NOVAK. 
Mr. Novak is a breeder of Poland China Hogs. 
Senath, Missouri, April 25th, 1913. 
Mr. W. T. Ainsworth, Mason City, Illinois. 
Dear Sir:—In reply to your letter of the 8th, I will say that 
I just haven’t had time to spare to write you in regard to my method 
of preparing the seed bed and growing corn. 
To begin with, the soil here is a light level soil. We plow our stalk 
ground mostly in the spring, as we sow peas in the cornfield at laying 
by time. I think it best for the land and also for the following crop 
to plow in the fall, but because of the fact that I depend on stalk 
fields for pasture until winter or early spring, it is impossible for me 
to plow in the fall. I plow my land from seven to eight inches deep 
and I think that is deep enough for this land. I cut my stalks and 
plow them under because that and the cowpeas are all that we have 
to keep our land up. The first thing I do in the spring is to cut the 
stalks and dise the rows down; then I turn and cross dise again before 
plowing. If I+plant at once I run a three-horse section harrow and 
plant, but if the ground is not planted at once I don’t harrow, since 
the winds will blow it so bad. If the ground is allowed to lay for 
some time before planting, I double dise to kill the weeds and harrow 
with a drag harrow before planting. I plant with a two-row drill, 
three and one-half feet apart, and set to drill the two rows from 
twenty to thirty inches apart, owing to the richness of the soil. f 
used to plant thick, and later thin out every other stalk, but I have 
quit this because I can’t do all the work myself, and if one plants 
too thick he generally does not thin enough. Of late years I have 
planted for a stand, and I usually get plenty of corn, in fact, if you 
get your land in good condition for the seed, there’s no likelihood of 
