THE VEGETABLE GARDEN I9I 



requires an abundance of plant food and moisture, 

 and on these light soils is very exhausting. J. E. 

 Homa, however, has given much attention to grow- 

 ing corn, and each year puts in six or seven acres. 

 His corn land is low and has plenty of moisture; it 

 is rotated in grass, strawberries, and corn, grass, 

 like corn, being an unusual crop in his locality. 



" Strawberries are picked two years. The beds 

 are fertilized with 600 or 700 pounds of fertilizer 

 each year, applied early in the spring. The two- 

 year-old beds are not cultivated in the spring, and 

 the entire surface becomes covered with a sod of 

 grass and strawberry plants. After picking, 

 usually about June 15, the land is plowed about 6 

 inches deep, broadcasted with 700 pounds of fer- 

 tilizer, costing about $28 a ton, harrowed until fine 

 and marked out in rows about 4 feet apart each 

 way. The land is not furrowed out for planting, 

 but a man makes a little hole with a spade, drops 

 the grain in it and covers it with the foot, doing all 

 the work quickly and at one operation. 



" The field is then repeatedly worked with a 

 weeder until the corn is several inches high and 

 then cultivated every week or ten days as long as 

 a horse can get through. Generally, it is hoed 

 once, but with a careful man to cultivate little hoe- 

 ing is needed. The variety is a hybrid of yellow 

 dent of local selection, maturing in about no 

 days." 



This practice will furnish a valuable hint for 

 raisers of sweet corn. Such quick-growing varie- 

 ties as the Corys and the Crosbys should prove 

 very profitable where there is a good market, and 

 even some of the slower growing sorts, such as 

 Country Gentleman, should be made to pay where 

 the seasons are not too short. 



