San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1882-10-12
A New Meth cd Of Growing Corn.
Saunders In Tribune.

Saunders In Tribune.
Mr.. j. s. Winter, OF Montgomery,
Ala, has been making experiments in
growing corn. From a letter explain
ing his views and their results, we ex-
tract the following, which will explain
his method. His first experiment was
in planting in rows fourteen feet apart
and one foot apart in the drill, or at
the rate CT 3,640 stalks to the acre, TO
correspond with the number common
to the acre when sown in the usual
three by four feet way. The returns
|. from this trial induced further expert
ment. Twenty acres were put down in
rows twelve feet wide and one foot apart
in the drill, and Notwithstanding the
prevailing and unusual disastrous
drouth of the last season the crop real
lied was double the best grown on the
land for years, and twice that grown on
the infinitely richer adjoining bottom
lands cultivated with equal care, but
planted in the ordinary mode and or
dinarily producing double the crop
usual to the land devoted to the expo
sure of the plants to the influences of
light and air, as also in measure to the
greater misunderstanding capacity of
the wider and amply cultivated spaces
incident to the change.
After making several efforts in the
demonstration of the greatly superior
advantages of the wider row system of
corn culture, Mr.. Winter rewards with
most favor the planting two rows four
feet apart, with the distacce in the drill
say from nine inches to two feet, deter
mined and regulated by the quality of
the land then skipping sixteen feet
two other four-feet rows, followed as
before, and 80 throughout, the yet
wider beds being necessary, as he con-
ceives, to the freer and less hindered
use of the intervening spaces for the
adjunctive crops which he has in view
as part of the system, such as field peas,
millet, fodder corn, ETC., to be put in
after the corn crop has received its final
cultivation.
Mr.. Winter remarks that "the dis
lance in the drill thought best on the
particular lands devoted to these expert
ments is one foot,so that the number of
stocks to the acre will, in theory at
least, be 1854, or just third more
than the 3,640 due to the current three
by-four method; while the latest expert
ment warrants expectation, under aver
age conditions, o. one.half more weight
of corn to the stalk"
Mr.. Winter thus further sums up the
advantages of this system: And thus
20 acres of the 100, say, ordinarily sur
rendered to the corn crop, it seems
possible indeed to gether-and espe-
cially in seasons of protracted drought,
for the wider beds secure absolute i'm
munity from its usual prejudice-double
the corn to be otherwise produced on
the entire 100 acres, and of vastly bet
ter quality; while the field pea sown as
early as the LIST of May may be altern-
ated 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 gather
cred by the first of September, and
these in turn by the native crab grass,
which will be all the better for the later
start.
"And the promise is, accordingly, of
adjunctive crops rivalling 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 reduced,
if aided in the work by the improved
power implements naw-a-days at every
good and thrifty farmers command"