News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-02-02
A THIRTY ACRE CORN FIELD.
A Statement of the Result of Five
Years Experiments.

A. W. Ross, Mortified, Mass, after
five years successive experiments on a
field of thirty acres, planted with corn,
sent the following statement of the re-
suits to the. Department of agriculture
at Washington
"In different sections of the field the |
soil is light sand, sandy loan, clay loan
and wet, heavy, cold, black soil, thus
giving quite variety to work on. My
method of preparation was, the first |
year, to pillow in the fall and cultivate in
the spring before planting. The second
year plowed late in the fall and Gull
tivated before planting. The third year
I plowed in the spring the fourth year
I plowed in the fall, and the fifth and
sixth years in the spring, in all cases
preparing the ground well before plant
ing. Manure from the barn is always
spread broadcast; if old stubble land,
and there is time, it is plowed in; il not,
it is spread after blowing and cultivated
in. Always spread the manure quite |
literally as far as it goes, and generally
use wood ashes for the remainder of the
piece. I never have used much of fer
tilizers which are manufactured for sale. |
excepting in the drill, with the seed
when planting, from 100 to 200 pounds
per acre. as might happen. The ashes
and other fertilizers used outside of the
drill are spread broadcast and cultivated
in the same as barn manure, but never
plowed under. The manures from the
barn are used on the wet, heavy soils ;
the ashes on the lighter soilsyl The
manufactured fertilizers do best on the |
moist land, unless there is plenty of
rain. After the land is prepared it is
planted with the Ross horse-planter,
which moves all the rubbish out of the
way, prepares the seed-bed, makes the
furrow, drops the seed, fertilizes, covers
and rolls the land over the seed. 1t also
marks for the next row. If the land is
weedy and requires early cultivation, I
use the Ross hand wheel-hoe, by which
man can hoe from four to six acres a
day; if not, when the corn is large
enough use the Ross horse cultivator
first and afterward the hilling-
machines. The work is done better
with these machines than men can do it |
with hand-hoes.
tThe above is my method of raising
corn. It never fails. For fifteen years
no drought has troubled my crops. The
first year 1 used no manure, and the
yield was not over thirty bushels shelled |
corn per acre. Since that time there |
have been barn manure, ashes and some
superphosphate applied every year, and
the result has been yearly increase of |
the crop. As we raise corn it does not |
cost over 81. % per acre to plant and hoe
it through the season. Do you ask how
it was done? I pay my hired man $15 |
per month and board him on the farm.
He will plant and hoe, with little as
sistance, the thirty acres, and do enough
other work to nearly or quite pay for
his board. We are thus able, on good
farming land not worth over $75 per
acre, to produce corn at very small
expense. In the New England States
the fodder, if properly managed, will
about pay the whole cost of raking the
crop and leave the corn for net profit.
"When corn is grown, cut up, bound
and stocked in the field it is then raised
and ready for feed. Then commences
another branch of the business is
to say, marketing. We may waste the
whole crop, or feed or dispose of it in
such way as to nearly or quite double
its value. From my own experience for
fifteen years past am satisfied that to
husk, bin, shell, carry to mill, pay the
miller for grinding and return to the
barn in meal, costs from thirty to forty
cents per bushel, according to wages,
the distance from mills, etc. That be-
ing the fact, if is really worth but little
at the present prices of fifty or fifty-five
cents per bushel. I have for two years
past used a husking machine in the barn
and done the Smelling and grinding by
horsepower, and yet am of the opinion
that there is more net profit in feeding
corn and fodder in the bundle and buy
ing Western corn than in husking and
grinding our own corn in the Eastern
States. We have for six years fedmuch
of our corn in that way and used the
money it would have cost to harvest
and get our own corn into meal to buy
surplus meal for our extra feed and ma
nure heap, which has great tendency
to improve the farm"
Tim ,orin n,nnrrnrnn,,t ,.r..ol