Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-12-01
HOW TO IMPROVE SOUTHERN
COIN

CORN.
DR.. d. Lee, of this State, contribute
the following TO the Country Gentle
man
In 1846 while residing in Augusta, Ga.
measured corn plants growing on TIN
Savannah bottoms which were eighteen
feet high, with stalk and leaf in proper
ton. Had the yield of seed correspondent
with this magnificent development o.
stem and woody tissue, the harvest
should have been at least 200 bushels Of
corn per acre. But instead of this it was
only sixty bushels. Coming from the
rich valley of the Genesee in Western
New York, where similar land produces
seventy five or eighty bushels to the acre,
it occurred to me that by planting the
best seed corn to be had in New York OF
New England, it might not be difficult to
lessen the growth of what appeared an
excess of stalk and leaf, aud increase
that of grain. Where the climate and
soil are very favorable to the longevity of
a plant nature appears to regard any
provision for the next generation through
the medium of seeds, as of secondary
moment. Under such conditions, fruit
fulness ia often suspended or indefinitely
delayed. Upfruitful apple and pear trees
are familiar instances Of this kind.
Planters often top cotton plants to make
them more fruitful. They pinch off the
terminal buds of Lima beans, shorten the
runners of strawberries, and prune fruit
trees and grapevines to check the natural
tendency to form undesirable wood, and
encourage the organization of fruit in its
place.
Root pruning corn with the pillow or
cultivation is quite practicable, but a
rather unsafe operation in our climate, in
the judgment of the writer. Probably
an infusion of the dwarf habit and OBJ
vious fruitfulness of the best Northern
corn into the constitution of our native
seed, by cross, would give acclimated
plants peculiar value. To obtain cross
of this character, Northern seed should
be planted in hills of Southern corn some
thirty days after the latter is planted !;
otherwise the silk on the early Northera
corn will be dry and dead before any an
Their dust is formed on the tassels of the
late Southern plant.
Some varieties of northern corn, say
those grown 800 miles north of my farm
in southern Ohio and Indiana, need not
be planted more than ten days later than
ours to have the organs of reproduction
in both simultaneously formed. Having
developed these at the same time, two kinds
of crossing the vital principle are easily
made. prefer to have the more fruitful
parent for the mother; and therefore i'm
pregnate the silk of northern corn with
the pollen of southern. A different cross
will be made if we fertilize the silks of
southern corn with pollen from The spikes
of northern. In doing this with the esrli-
est varieties of northern, | have to raise
by hand dust from the low stalks of small
northern corn, several feet to reach the
nascent ears on tall southern. Not one
ear in ten is low enough at harvest for me
to reach it without bending down the
stalk.
When connected with the University of
Georgia, made many new seedlings from
parents acclimated in different parts of
this continent; bat their practical value
had not been satisfactorily determined,
when q calamitous war arrested my eX-
periments. Problems relating to the
constitutional value of new agricultural
plants, often require years for their solu-
ton; and nothing is more common than
to give to facts too large or too. small a
meaning in our profession. That the
vital activity and fruitfulness of corn may
be greatly changed by simply changing its
climate, are facts of far more significance
than any superficial thinker viii believe.
There are thousands of Southern farmers
who annually procure their seed potatoes
from the North because the vitality in
these tubers is best developed in north
ern climate. At the risk of being mis-
taken, l remark that were my land plant
ed with northern seed corn so that a six
foot man might reach the highest ears
without bending down the stalks, the
yield would probably be an average of
some eight TO ten bushels more to the
acre. ID. LEE.
KNOX Co., Tenn.