Knoxville Whig and chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1875-1882, 1875-04-14
Corn as an American Staple.
From the Rural Southerner.l

In good seasons we raise something
over one thousand million bushels of corn
in the United States and allowing as
high an average as twenty bushels per
acre. more than fifty million acres are
planted to this crop. In the south and
west very little pains is taken to prevent
the washing of foreground, when the
crop is growing. or for several years after,
if allowed to rest. This is a great error
in farming. At the last working Of corn,
a fine-tooth harrow should be used to
make the soil fine, clean and level, to pre-
vent water running between the rows.
Instead of permitting the ground to lie
naked, or grow up in weeds, it should be
seeded at once with clover and grass seed
in the standing corn. The new crop will
not grow TO do any harm before the corn
is ripe while the fall growth will shelter
the otherwise nakedness of the recently
titled land, prevent embarrassing, and
recuperate the depleted soil. All know,
or at least ought to know, that clover is a
renovating plant, and that nearly all
cOrn-ground needs some amendment.
BY running fifty million acres, more or
less, in corn every year, with much wash
ing and little or no restitution, we most
certainly fill our country with sorry-lOOk-
ing old fields. The intelligence and good
sense Of every farmer should condemn
the practice, and try to change it for the
better. \ great deal Of southern land Is
planted in corn which is too poor to pro
duce more than from seven TO ten bushels
to the acre. What is to be done with
such ground, to double its fruitfulness
We answer let it rest in clover and Herds
grass, with one or two hundred pounds Of
n tho PLANT Tnngh loss
surface in corn and cotton, and manure
that.
We have so many fields in the south
that require additional fertility that, in
stead of doing our best to make corn and
cotton at once, we should do our best to
raise the raw materials out of which these
great staples are formed. To perform all
the work on a field that ought to give a
harvest Of thirty or forty bushels of corn
per acre, and gather little crop of less
than ten bushels, may be honest farming,
but it is not wise farming. Some of the
essential elements used by nature in
farming corn are lacking in the soil, in an
aYailableform. If these can not be sup
piled by the cultiyator, he should try to
find something better to do than filling
poor soil in corn. OF all the labor per-
formed in the United States, this is the
poorest paid 10 individuals and the pub
lie. Practically, 1t makes poor land
poorer still while poor people are apt to
become as poor rs they can be. 1t is I'M
pleasant to write about poverty, or even
think about il. But when durable NAL
ady is fastened upon a friend and his
family, although the task may be unpleas-
ant, it is better to 90 TO their relief than
to shun them. The owners Of poor land
in the south are not half so poor, nor SC
sick of farming as they imagine. They
simply use their farms in the wrong way,
When corn ground is thin and Hnpromis'
ing, they plant double quantity to get
the bushels they want looking to corn
alone for an income. This mistake throw;
away full half Of their labor, and help,
Kill the old plantation. Stock it full witt
calves that will become good cows in two
or three years when one hundred calye;
that cost three dollars ahead, will be
come worth thirty dollars ahead, or three
thousand dollars. Don't be afraid that
well-raiscd young cows will not sell
They will pay fifty per cent. interest, ant
keep them on your improving farm
Such land and stock will give an easy
fortune.