VOL. XXXI.
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., APRIL 11, 1896.
NO. 15
EXPERIENCE DEPARTMENT.
gow Do You Prepare a Seed for Corn?
Selection and Care of Seed?
lst Premium.—It would be impossible to
lay down any rule to be followed under
all circumstances, and in all seasons in
preparing a seed bed for corn. We always aim to do a great deal of our preparation by carefully breaking and turning
the soil in plowing. Harrow cross wise
the first time, if the land is not stiff sod,
using a steel spike tooth double harrow
with GO teeth. Put on three horses and
weight the harrow down if it Isnotheavy
enough to level the soil. When ready to
plant, keep ahead of the planter the other
way across the field, being careful to give
rough spots and turning corners extra
harrowings. In ordinary seasons this
treatment will put ground in nice order
for planting with the check rower or the
drill. If cloddy or very loose,, use the
roller. In my experience the soil will
not bake and become hard after the roller
when beaten down by heavy rains; and
weeds will not start to grow as after the
harrow or drag.   Try it and be convinced.
Seed.—When the eorn is late in maturing we go through our best corn early in
October and gather the ripest and best
ears, and hang them by a strip of the
husk in a dry airy place, and leave it till
spring;.but if the corn ripens early, like
it has oi! late years we select while husking. Keep in a dry place, not piled up
very much, where the rats will not destroy it. Shell carefully by hand and select ideal ears, having grains of uniform
size. W. H. Lafuse.
Union Co.
2d Premium.   If I do not fail to get  a
catch of clover, I always have clover sod
lor corn.  What manure I have is hauled
out in the summer or fall, after the clover
is cut, and spread thinly over the poorer
spots in the field.   As early in the spring
as the ground will work well, I want my
ground broken to a good depth, the exact
depth depending to a large extent on the
depth it was formerly   broken.   For example,  if I  am  plowing   a   field   that
lias never been broken  more  than  five
inches, I would not want to go down more
than one inch further, and thus bring up
one inch of clay to the surface.   But year
after year, I would  deepen the  plowing
until it was eight or more inches.   About
the first of May  I  begin  working  my
"round, so as to be ready to plant by the
10th to the 15th of May.   The tools I use
'or this purpose are a 12 foot steel harrow,
plank drag, and a roller.   I have no set
*"'ork to do on a field, but continue to roll
'fag and harrow  until  the ground  is
thoroughly pulverized.   A  man's judgment must tell him how much to use each
mplement, as that all depends upon the
reason, and the character of his  ground.
Seed.—The selection of the seed is of the
itmost importance—not for oue year, but
°~ all time, thus to perpetuate the  good
iMlities of the seed, and eliminate the bad.
being my idea, year after year I go
trough my fields as soon as the ears be-
in to get hard, and with sack on  shoul-
er> I select the most shapely  ears  from
p>" most perfect stalks, leaving a tuft of
■Jick on each ear by which I hang it up
* dry.   I thus have before any freeze,
J" best corn for seed, thoroughly dried,
["& have the satisfaction of knowing it is
"'only a good  ear,  but  from  a  good
"a"'. with ancestors  for  many  genera-
0n9 of the same high quality.   You can
■is in a few years have "thorough bred"
orD- and   experimental   stations  have
r°ven that the yield can thus be greatly
3!a~ged. W. W. Prigo,
•Unry Co.
i"4 Premium.—A   seed   bed   for   corn
^"ttfd be  well drained  to start with.
"ea I like to have clover sod with a
coat of manure on it; then break as deep
as I can with a good turning plow, and if
I can, would put some manure on the
poorest places, then I drag and harrow
until loose and mellow. The harrowing
should be done thoroughly, so there are
no clods in the way, and the corn has a
good chance to send its roots out into the
loose seed bed, and start to grow as soon
as planted. I don't like to plant corn after corn.
Selection of Seed—I go through the
field before I cut up any corn, with a basket and select the ripest and most perfect
ears. I leave a little piece of shuck, large
enough to tie two ears together. I swing
some small poles to the rafters of the
barn, and hung my corn on them and let it
remain until spring. By gathering it
early it gets dry before cold weather, and
my corn saved in this way will nearty all
grow. I have tested some selected this
way, and 99 out of every 100 grains will
grow.   I never fijrp dried any.
Hamilton Co.   " Jksse Cox.
REVIEW.
Nature makes all kinds of seed beds.
One is well drained with gravel; another
is underlaid with hardpan, another with
a cold clay. One is dry and open; another's soggy, heavy, clammy and cold.
Flags and willows revel in tho swamps.
Light grasses and special forest trees prefer the clay soils, while the most lavish
growth of succulent food producers flourishes ~ih the medium grades of soil; loamy
not hard, neither dry nor wet.
Corn has its choice of soils. We tear it
from its habitat and try to force it to
grow in all kinds of soils and forbidding
climates.
Its wonderful ability to adapt itself to
wide variations in both soil and climate
makes corn our most helpful cereal. But
with a little thought we may greatly
modify conditions and help our good
friend do its best.
In selecting a soil we should remember
that corn is a grass and a surface feeder,
while it often grows roots four to ten feet
deep in porous earth.
My father owned one field of slick clay
that did not respond to manure. We run
a tile through it, some ten feet deep, to
reach a pond and it became fertile and
easily worked. Corn is such a rank
grower that it will use a deep soil and
pay big for its liberty, if you give it a
chance.
My friends above suggest deep breaking. Probably this is well on most Indiana soils. But I have surely ruined more
than one corn crop on new ground, full
of trash, by breaking deep and planting
near the top. There are many soils
where breaking four inches, to give a
mulch to cultivate and kill weeds and
hold moisture, with the corn planted on
the porous, firm dirt below will bring
bigger crops these dry years. Close, firm
soil should surely be broken deep. Also
hilly land, lest a heavy rain wash it away.
In preparing a seed bed for corn we
should remember that its whorls of roots
will feed just as near the top as conditions
will allow, and that the best aired soil is
the best rotted soil.
Nature don't turn the soil at all, you
know, she lifts it and plants on top, and
covers with a mulch giving the crop the
very top soil.
After all, the condition of the seed bed
is of most importance. Both breaking
and working are aimed to reach a firm,
mellow, seed bed. Usually the rain of
spring firms it for us.
For a few springs past no heavy rains
fell and the man who plowed a tramped
cloddy seed bed, or who turned down a
feather bed of clover or rye to cut him off
from subsoil moisture, lost his crop. Nature's seed bed shades imperceptibly from
a very mellow surface, easy for roots to
start in, into a firm and yet firmer soil below, always keeping perfect connection
with the sub-soil moisture.
There are two objections to a hard or a
cloddy seed bed often not thought of.
One is that it takes moisture right out of
the earth until the very life blood of the
crop Is gone. I have seen corn grow rank
near an old stable where the soil was
rich, on a seed bed so hard that a double
shovel could not be forced into it. It was
a sort of gravelly cement soil, yet corn
produced large ears. But we had plenty
of rain. Dry weather would have utterly
ruined it.
The second objection is that a puddled
seed bed, liko any old Held lacking in
vegetable mold, and plowed shallow, or
worked wet, or puddled by heavy rain in
May, does not admit the air. The solvent
agents in the air are very much diluted
any how, and it requires quite a free circulation to rot the insoluble plant food
and vegetable fibre and furnish soluble
nourishment for plant growth, especially
for rank feeders like corn.
In a four inch seed bed, if the ground is
firm below, there is but small solvent action of the air, and cropping soon exhausts the available fertility. More soil
should be turned to the air, and a deeper
soil developed.
Nature never plants on a cloddy seed
bed. She is too old for that. The farmer's drag is responsible for manyabomni-
able seed beds. It crushes and levels the
surface and makes it lik° a whited sepul-
cher. It appears well on the suriwe, but
within is.full of clods, air oh ***■•-""■
all imperfections..
Seed.—The principle of •'life" in plants
has never been understood. It is known
that it is the result of delicate chemical
and physiological changes, caused by
heat, moisture and cell action.
And it would be strange If we could
force the corn plant out of its natural
home in the sub-tropics and Into a temperature ranging from zero to 40 below and
handle the seed as recklessly as we do
and not greatly weaken its vitality.
Nature protects the grain by bedding
its seed end in a cushion of velvet, touching a dry cob as an absorbent, and covers
all with several ply of shucks, usually 12
to 14 in number which batten cracks and
turn rain. They are mere skeletons, full
of dead air spaces; they take up dampness from the air and prevent sudden
changes of temperature.
Man strips off these coverings and
throws his corn in an open crib, or cords
it up in a brace in the barn. If we have
a very cold spell, and it is followed by
muggy, damp, warm weather, every rock
will sweat from moisture condensed from
the warmer damp air. Corn, also, being
unprotected by shucks, absorbs this
moisture, and suddenly a cold wave
chills and weakens its vitality.
Keep seed corn dry and it will bear almost any temperature. But it is Nature's
method to keep it both dry and to protect
from sudden extreme changes of temperature. Witness also, the hull on clover
seed, on ragweed, on burdock, and on all
our semi-tender plants that survive our
vigorous climate.   It means something.
At Winchester institute bne farmer said
he dried his seed corn thoroughly, then
kept it in barrels mixed with threshed
oats. This man had Nature's conditions
perfectly. The oats protect from sudden
changes of both moisture and temperature as did the shuck.
Experiment shows that seed carefully
kept, when planted beside exposed seed,
comes quicker and stronger and is more
easily tended, also makes a much better
stand and yield. E. II. Collins.
surance or stock companies?   Why?
This Department is under tbe editorial
charge of E.H.Collins, Carmel, Hamilton
county, to whom all copy should be addressed. The success of this department
depends upon the copy sent by practical
farmers. A premium of 'I, 75 cents and
50 cents is given to the best three articles
sent us, as we wish to encourage writing
right from tho field. Don't wait on some
one else.   We thank you for past favors.
No. 9. April 18. How do you plant and
cultivate corn?
No. 10. April 25.—How do you fight
drouth?
No. 11. May. 2. What is the best farm
fence and cost per rod?
No. 12. May 9. Do you pre/ r mutual in-
A Word to Managers of County Faira.
Editors Indiana Fabmer:
I see in your issue of the 15th inst, a
suggestion to State fairs in regard to
showing the possibilities of our soils, etc.
Now why not apply this suggestion also
to county fairs? for the law creating the
county fairs requires them to do this
thing, yet there are not five county fairs
in the State that pay any attention to this
provision of the statutes. Why is there
no attention paid to this part of the statutes? They oiler immense premiums on
the time track, a thing that is not mentioned in the statutes, and pay no attention to the improvement of the soils, a
thing that is more strongly urged than
any other one thing in the law organizing county agricultural societies. The
highest aim of every farmer should be to
learn how to raise the largest and best
crops possiblc.with the least expense and
labor; at the same   time   increasing   the
 _.-»__s»5- ot *..-• Roil n»5c*a.jshieh   he gr..*^.**—
them. This being the case it should be
and is the bounden duty of every agricultural society to pay strict attention to
this part of the statutes creating them.
Our society from the beginning has encouraged, by the offering of goodsubstan-
tial premiums, a better cultivation of the
soil. And I believe with marked effect.
At the annual election of officers and directors of the society each year, the statements filed with the entries, showing tbe
manner of tillage, cost of production, and
profits derived from the experiments
with the different crops are read; thus
giving the members of the society and all
others present the benefits of the various
experiments made during tbe year, and
as I said I believed with marked effect,
as a comparison of statements at the beginning with recent ones will show. The
first statement in regard to wheat, and it
was considered a good showing Will show
this.
The statement was as follows: One
acre wheat upland on oats stubble.
Plowing I 1 50
Harrowing       *"*»
Seed IH buBhels    100
Drilling       50
Harvesting    125
Hauling In       50
Threshing, lSbuehels <i_ 5 cents* per bushel—      75
To hands      50
Boarding hands and horses       50
Marketing.        75
Taxes and interest    1 W
Total cost * 9 00
15buBhcU @ 80 cents per bu ^12 00
Profits * 8 00
Recent statement on clover sowing:
Breaking * 100
Harrowing and rolling       50
Fertilizer    150
Drilling      30
Seed, IK bushels       HO
Harvesting    1 75
Hauling and threshing, 45 bu. (__: 7c. per bu....   8 15
Boarding handB and teams       .50
Taxes and interest on land    1 50
Marketing    1 35
Total costs ~12 4"
45 bushels © 80 cents W0 CO  ■
Profit st-35.5
These are true copies from statements
filed and read it the annual meeting of
the society. Showing the wisdom of the
law, and the great benefits to be derived
from the law when fully adhered to. Remember that these results are from land
that thirty years ago people were selling
or most giving away, in order that they
might get a place where they could raise
better crops with less labor.
Corydon. J. Q. A. Sieq,
V