St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1897-02-20
FARMER AND PLANTER.
CORN IN THE souTH.
The General Average OF Yield is Far Bs.
low What 1t Should BE.

low What 1t Should BE.
A few years a~o, in Marlboro coun.
ty. s. c., a farmer grew over 25o bush
yet the average yield Of corn in the
Carolinas is not over eight bushels per
acre. Now, it must be admitted that
where the first is possible, the general
average is Jar lower than it should be
with any proper system of farming.
The low average yield of corn is the
result of the one-crop system of cot
ton culture, in which no rotation of
crops was practiced, and corn was not
grown to any extent, the cotton grow
ers preferring to buy western corn out
of the proceeds OF the cotton crop.
wrongly imagining that they could
buy more cheaply than they
could grow it. This was proba-
bly, true in the impoverished
state of the land devoted to constant
clean culture in cotton. But with the
fall in price of cotton the necessity for
growing food crops, which the cotton
would no longer pay for, was forced
on the southern farmer.
More attention is being paid to the
corn crop, and there is general de-
sire to improve the production. One
OF the chief reasons for the lack of pro-
ductiveness in corn in the south is the
lack of systematic effort to improve the
seed planted, by careful selection in
the field, from the most productive
stalks. Corn must be improved for
cultivation in the latitude where it is
to be grown. The sending north or
south is not the way, for either must
be acclimated to the locality to do it's
pest. Tie numbe of stalks in our
sorn fields entirely barren of ears is
astonishing to one accustomed to good
corn growing, and these barren stalks
all bear tassels and pollen to aid in
perpetuating their kind. In field
where seed cora is to be saved no stalk
without an ear should be allowed to
mature tassel, and the seed should
be selected from those stalks that pro-
duce the most perfect ears, and from
the ear nearest the ground only. Per-
sistent saving Of seed in this way will
OF itself materially increase the yield.
But it is to the increased fertility of
the soil that we must look for the per-
lection of our crops. The lands of the
cotton belt have by the long, clean
culture in cotton and winter exposure
to rain. been SO exhausted of their
humus that any effort at Improvement
must include the restoration of the
vegetable matter. With plenty of
vegetable matter in tie soil corn needs
no application of nitrogenous manure,
as it grows all through the hottest
weather, when the nutrifcation in
this vegetable matter is most active.
This is one reason why stable
manure has better effect on
ers applied directly to it. The
vegetable matter in the manure keeps
mp the nitrifying process all summer
But unfortunately in the very parts of
the country where these matters are
needed most, stable manure is not
plentiful, from the fact that SO little
attention has been paid to stock raising
in the cotton belt. We are, however,
able so to initiate the action of stable
manure by means of leguminous crops,
in connection with potash salts and
acid phosphate, that its absence
need be no drawback to the improve
ment of our lands for either corn or
cotton.
The farmers in the north discovered
long ago that the best crops of corn
are grown on an inverted sod, buried
dt~ply, and tlte corn buried very shall
1owly above it, SO that the decaying
sod would feed the roots all summer.
While it is not possible, in many parts
OF the south, and particularly in the
cotton belt, to have the sod that the
northern farmer finds SO valuable. we
can still get an equal, if not a better
effect, from a crop of peas buried in
the soil. Let the peas attain their full
growth and die upon the land, and in
September sow crimson clover on the
land among the dying peas. The
clover will grow all winter and in the
spring all can be plowed under deeply
for corn.
There is no crop with which the
deepening of the soil can be better
aoaS OhUA " AVA NcE LIZ lac sU
common in the south. of cu1tivating
corn with plow is all wrong. 1t the
land is well broken in the first place,
the subsequent culture should be per-
feetly level and shallow. Never 'lay
by corn with a plow, and a big ridge,
under the impression that the ridge
keeps it from falling down in high
winds. It will throw out better brace
roots and stand the wind better on q
level surface than on a ridge, and the
crop will be far better for the shall low
culture than if the roots had been
mntilated by running a plow through
the rows late in the season.
Another practice in corn culture in
the south which | have proved to be an
error is that of giving corn, at least on
our red clay soils, SO much distance.
On land deeply brollen, and with a
good supply of vegetable matter
turned under, corn can be planted in
four-foot rows, and IS to 20 inches be-
tween stalks, more proftably than the
usual distance of I've to six feet be-
tween stalks. We have grown over
sixty bushels OF corn per acre on land
that three years before would hardly
grow any at all, mainly by deep plow-
ing and shallow culture. and am per-
fectly satisfied that on our red clay, In
an improved condition, corn can be
grown as closely as in the middle
states.
But 10 enable the previous crop of
peas and clover to gather the nitrogen
needed Tor the corn crop, it is essential
that the exhausted plant food should
be supplied. The peas and the clover
will restore the nitrogen, but in order
that they may do SO the mineral ele-