The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1883-05-11
The Culture Of Corn.


about thirty bushels per acre in a good
year. When the season is unfaYorable
this yield is reduced to twenty-five BUSH
els per acre or less. In 1880 there were
81, 368,504 acres under this crop, and
the aggregate product was LISA, $751;
646 bushels, or an average of fraction
more than tWenty-eight bushels, per
acre. At an average of thirty cents
per bushel, or a little more, the addition
al value of the aggregate product would
be $20,000,O0 for each additional
bushel per acre. But it is quite possible
to double the average product of this
crop by better culture than is now given
to it, and the extra income thus. gained
would pay the taxes of every farm in
the country, amounting in the whole to
100000. 900 in the year with an or
binary product. It is thus readily seen
what an important question is the one
now under consideration not only to
the farmers personally, but to the gen
eral public interests. The bulk
OF the corn grown is simply
put in the ground and no care
full cultivation is given to it. The
principal purposeis to get the largest
acreage possible without consideration
for the amount of yield per acre. The
crop is laid by as early as may be, and
is then left to struggle with the ram
pant weeds which soon get an even race
with it on the rich warm soil. The
crop of the great corn-producing Safes
is generally grown in this manner, and
it is there that the average is reduced
so much. The States of New Hamp-
shire and Massachusetts surpass Illinois,
Indiana and Kansas in the average
yield, and very closely approach that of
Iowa, where drainage and the most
skillful methods of culture are rapidly
pushing that rich State to the very head
of ALL But yet Iowa, with its unsur-
passed soil and climate and the energy
and skill Of its farmers, only produces
forty-one bushels to the acre in a good
year, as in 1880, which was the last CEN
sus year. New York, Pennsylvania
and Ohio fall very little below nlincis
in the yield of this crop, and yet in
these States there are hundreds of farm
ers who produce in fair seasons seyensy-
five to eighty bushels per acre.
This is not strange, because it is easier
to grow crop of this amount upon the
poorer soils of the East than it is to
produce an equal yield upon the rich
prairie soils of the West, where the land
is actually too fertile to produce the
maximum yield of grain, and upon
which the excess of fertility in the soil
is expended upon stalk and leaf rather
than upon the ear. And this peculiarly
of corn is all in favor of the farmer
whose soil has been under long cultiya-
ton, and which is more amenable to the
influences of skillful culture. For, in
the first place, the condition of the
ground may be made to suit the crop
precisely, and the requirements of the
plant met in the best manner by the ex-
actly needed manuring or fertilizlng, so
that the whole strength of the plant
may be directed to the ear rather than
to an enormous growth of stalk and
leaf. In the second place, the seed
may be chosen in regard to the capabil-
ity of the soil and climate, and thirdly,
but not last, the plant may be so trained
or bred as to become in the greatest de-
gree prolific and productive. All these
points are very important, as may be
easily shown.
Corn is now better understood, and
its habits of growth better known, than
they have been heretofore. This has
been learned by good deal of expert
menting and observation, and the
knowledge is of the greatest value to
the farmer. 1t is now known that soil
or manure rich in nitrogen is detriment-
al to the yield, inasmuch as it develops
the stalk and foliage too much. 1t is
with corn as it is with fruit tree, which
in rich soil produces wood and leaf
abundantly, but very sparely of fruit
With heterogeneous manuring, or in soil
over-rich in nitrogen, corn produces
large stalks, mainly suckers, a wealth
of foliage, and one ear, and it is this
richness of the virgin soils of the West
which prevents the corn there grown
from bearing so abundantly of grain,
while it produces much heavier stalks
and leaves than the corn of the East
At the same time the trained soils, so to
speak, of the East, have proved their
ability, even in Massachusetts, to pro-
duce eighty bushels per acre of such a
small grain as the hard yellow flint, and
more than one hundred bushels of
the more prolific dent varieties. This is
explained by the fact that corn grows
the most rapidly when the process of
notification of the organic matter in it
is most active, and when the atmos-
pheric contribution of nitrates is the
largest, and is thus able, more than any
other crop, to supply itself with nitrogen
from the soil. Corn, too, is remark
ably vigorous feeder, and like clover is
able to gather its supply of nitrogen
from the soil far more effectively than
wheat, and these facts have a very i'm
portant bearing upon the proper system
of culture required for the production
of maximum crop. Because it has
been found, in every case in which it
has been grown experimentally for a
maximum yield, that an excess of nitro
gen in the fertilizer has failed to in
crease the yield of grain, but has largely
increased the growth of stalk, while in
other cases the yield of grain, by judi
cious fertilizing, with only a moderate
quantity Of nitrogen in the manure, has
run up the product of grain consider
ably over one hundred bushels. And
such cases have been so numerous as to
establish the possibility of making this
large product a matter of measurable
certainty. N Y. Times.