FARM PRACTICE IN THE CULTIVATION OF CORN. 
13 
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purpose as tile drains, but occupy much land that might be culti- 
vated if tiling were used. It is probable that this land will be tiled 
when the relative value of the land occupied by the open 
ditches is equal to the cost of the tiles. 
Tile drainage is practiced extensively only on the most 
productive soils where land values are extremely high, as 
in the corn belt of Indiana and 
Illinois. 
Tillage before plowing is prac- 
ticed most often to break up the 
stalks left from the previous 
crop. Where the stalks (mostly 
cotton and corn) grow rank, 
better plowing can be done and 
this vegetable matter decays 
more quickly if broken up be- 
fore plowing. These stalks are 
usually cut with a disk harrow 
or stalk cutter (fig. 3). In a few 
localities tillage before plowing FlG - 3 -~ A stalk cutter - This implement is 
. used, before plowing, for chopping up 
IS practiced to Conserve moisture sta iks and other vegetable matter on the 
and to prevent the land from land - 
breaking up cloddy, as in western Kansas, where the land is har- 
rowed with a disk in the spring and the corn is planted with a lister 
without further preparation. 
PLOWING. 
The choice of time for plowing, whether in the fall or spring, is 
governed largely by the character of the crop which occupies the 
land the previous year and by the type of soil. When corn follows sod, 
more land is generally plowed 
in the fall than when corn fol- 
lows some cultivated crop. When 
land is plowed in the fall it is 
usually broken deeper than when 
plowed in the spring. 
In some sections corn land is 
plowed in the fall and replowed 
in the spring before planting. 
This practice is recorded in 
Table VI under " Fall and spring plowing." In a few sections 
the land is sometimes plowed in the fall and then listed in the 
spring with either a middle buster (fig. 4) or a combined lister and 
planter (fig. 15), which is almost equivalent to rebreaking. This 
practice is quite general in the Texas and Oklahoma areas and to 
some extent in the Kansas area. 
Fig. 4. — A lister, or middle buster, an im 
plement extensively used in the south 
western corn States. 
