Corn As a Second Crop 
E. S. Hubbard. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
The vegetable crops of Florida are 
mainly grown in the winter and early 
spring, and whether profitable or not the 
greatest economy in farm management 
the grower can accomplish is to follow 
the vegetable crops as far as necessary 
with forage crops for the farm animals 
and poultry, and of these forage crops the 
most important is corn. 
The southern types of corn are richer 
in protein than the more starchy north¬ 
ern varieties and form a more complete 
food for stock. The Michigan Experi¬ 
ment Station has shown that horses will 
endure as much work on the same weight 
of corn as of oats at less expense, and I 
have kept my own horses in good health 
and condition for several years on no 
other grain than home grown corn. 
Ground on the cob with addition of a lit¬ 
tle cotton seed meal, home grown corn 
makes an inexpensive food for milk 
cows and the feed bill for poultry be¬ 
comes almost a negligible quantity where 
there is a well filled corn crib to draw on 
with a sheller standing by the door. 
In choosing varieties the flinty ones 
should be selected to minimize the loss by 
weevils and the farmer should select his 
seed carefully to improve and perpetuate 
the type he wants. Taking one season 
with another I do not consider it profita¬ 
ble on my soil to grow the socalled pro¬ 
lific varieties setting several small ears 
to the stalk which under unfavorable con¬ 
ditions go largely to nubbins and require 
a great deal more labor to harvest and 
shell. For the past three years I have 
been growing Cocke’s Prolific which I 
think gives me better average results than 
any I have tried. This variety shows 
eight, ten and twelve row ears, the ten 
row predominating, and sets mostly two 
ears to the stalk. By selecting twelve 
row flinty ears I have largely eliminated 
the eight row and reduced the number 
of ten row ears. Under my conditions 
two ears to the stalk, twelve rows to the 
ear seems to produce the maximum yield 
at the minimum expense of handling. 
I plant in drills with a two row west¬ 
ern style planter after digging Irish po¬ 
tatoes last of April, without giving the 
land any preparation and the dried up 
vines give very little trouble. 
This planter puts in one and one-half 
acres per hour with fair length rows. I 
plant in rows three feet four inches apart 
the same width as my Irish potato rows 
and lay by the corn in similar ridges as 
for Irish potatoes, driiling cow peas in 
the furrows with the planter when laying 
by the corn. When the corn crop is har- 
