The National tribune., 1882-06-24

- -. .hsISE III -. HN &.
- -s.Ef-5tsC lsle-
A NEW METHOD OF GROWING CORN
Mr.. J. s. Winter, of Montgomery, Ala, mas
been making experiments IN growing corn.
From letter explaining his views and their
results we extract the following, which will
explain his method. His first experiments
was in planting in rows II feet apart and
foot apart in the drill, or at the rate OF 364O
stalks to the acre, to correspond with the
number common 20 the acre when sown IN
the usual feet by feet way. The returns
from this trial induced a further experiments
Twenty acres were put down in rows y feet
wide and / foot apart in the drill, and not
withstanding the prevailing and unusually
disastrous drouth of last season the crop
realized was double the best grown on the
land for years, and twice that grown on the
infinitely richer adjoining bottom lands cul-
tvated with equal care but planted in the
ordinary mode and ordinarily producing
double the crop usual to the land devoted TO
the experiment; the increased return being
greatly due to the increased exposure of the
plants to the influences of light and air, as
also in measure to the greater moisture
retaining capacity of the wider and amply
cultivated spaces incident to the change.
After making several efforts in the demon
stration of the greatly superior advantages
of the wider row system of corn culture Mr..
Winter regards with most favor the plan of
planting two rows feet apart, with the
distance in the drill say from 9 inches to
feet, determined and regulated by the quality
of the land; then skipping 16 feet-two
other 4-feet rows, followed as before, and so
on throughout the yet wider beds being
necessary, as he conceives, to the freer and
leSs-hindered use of the intervening spaces
for the adiunctive crops which he has in
view as part of the system, such as field
peas, millet, fodder corn, &c, to be put in
after the corn crop has received its final
cultivation.
Mr.. Winter remarks that "the distance in
the drill thought best Oh the particular
lands devoted to these experiments is foot,
so that the number of stalks to the acre will.
in theory at least, be 1853, or Just third
more than the 3,640 due to the current by
method; while the latest experiments war-
rants expectation, under averages conditions,
of one-half more weight of corn to the stalk
Mr.. Winter thus further sums up the
advantages of this system: "And thus 20
scres of the 100, say, ordinarily surrendered
10 the corn crop, it seems possible indeed to
gather-and especially in seasons of pro-
tracted drought, for the wider beds secure
absolute immunity from its usual preju-
dice-double the corn to be otherwise pro-
duced on the entire 100 acres, and Of vastly
better quality; while the field pea sown as
early as the 1st of May may be alternated
with German millet, fodder corn, and other
quickly maturing crops, to be put down in
this latitude as late even as the middle Of
July and gathered by the 1st of September,
and these in turn by the native crab-grass,
which will be all the better for the later start.
sand the promise is accordingly, of ad-
jurCtive crops rivalliDg in value and in their
uses, TO the practical farmer particularly, the
main or corn crop; while, again, the cost Of
growing and gathering each and every Of the
entire Of these products is infinitely re-
duced, if aided in the work by the improved
power implements nowadays at every good
and thrifty farmers command"