FARM PR4 JTICE IN THE CULTIVATION OF CORN. 
65 
cane are grown only on the bottom lands. In collecting the data 
shown in Table XXX only those farms which grow corn were 
visited. Some alfalfa is grown on the bottom lands and in favor- 
able seasons does well. 
Most of the land is farmed by the owners, or the farmer may own a 
farm and rent other land in addition. The average size of the farms 
visited in this county is 655 acres, with 331 acres under cultivation. 
These farms are somewhat larger than the average for this region. 
The land in this section is very fertile and productive, and the limit- 
ing factor in crop yields is the amount of rainfall. 
The bottom-land farmers, because they can grow forage crops, 
keep more cattle and swine than the upland farmers, and their 
sources of farm income are cattle, hogs, and wheat. For the upland 
farms the income is principally from wheat. Not enough fruit or 
truck is grown to supply home demands. 
The tillage methods with corn here are exceptionally uniform 
and represent the methods employed throughout the semiarid region 
of western Kansas and western 
Nebraska. Corn usually follows 
corn or kafir. The land is gen- 
erally harrowed in the spring 
with a disk harrow, and without 
plowing or further preparation 
corn is planted with a 4-horse 
combination lister and planter. 
This planter has a double mold- 
board and usually runs about 5 
inches deep, throwing the dirt 
in both directions, and the corn 
is planted in the bottom of this 
furrow. The rows are usually 
3 J feet apart, with one stalk 
every 18 or 20 inches in the 
drill. In opening up this furrow most of the land is broken, but there 
is a strip directly between the rows which is not plowed. This strip 
is broken up during the cultivation. 
After the corn is up, the first cultivation is most often given with 
a 4-horse 2-row disk cultivator designed for cultivating listed corn. 
At this cultivation the dirt is thrown away from the corn and the 
ridges made higher. These ridges are next harrowed with a spike- 
tooth harrow or plank drag and partly torn down. The next culti- 
vation is given with the same 4-horse 2-row cultivator, with the disks 
adjusted so as to throw dirt to the corn, tearing down the ridges 
between the rows. The next and last cultivation is usually given 
Fig. 40. — A 2-horse 4-shovel cultivator with 
sweeps attached instead of shovels. This 
implement is extensively used in cultivat- 
ing corn in Texas and Oklahoma. 
