The Green Forest tribune., 1902-05-10
< CULTIVATE CORN RIGHT.
IfDry Weather Prevails Deep
 Blowing May Shorten Crop.

At tue request of 1. T. Shahan THE TRIBUNE gladly gives space to the following article on how to cultivate corn this year. which is taken from the columns of the Farm Visitor:
 There has probably never been
 aperiod in the history of the United States when it was so inn
 portant as it is this year that
 Everything possible should be
 done to insure a large crop of corn. The shortage of 1901 over the entire corn belt, as well as the
 failure of other feed crops, makes Unnecessary to grow full crop in
 1902. This necessity is greatly Emphasized by the fact that the
 Thought of 1901 is still practically
 unbroken over almost the entire
 corn belt. It is true the wheat
 crop was sown last fall and has
 been looking well until recently.
 and the oat crop has been sown
 and some corn planted; but there iSEalready such deficiency in soil moisture that the wheat is now Suffering. 1t is therefore imper- } atiVe that the corn crop this year be planted and cultivated so as to
 make all conditions favorable to the best results.
 We publish below some con- clusions about the proper cultiva- tion of corn, drawn from careful ly conducted experiments. These Especially refer to the damage dpne to corn by the pruning of the roots done in deep blowing The information here given was Supplied by Professor Shamel in the first quarterly report of the Kansas State Board of Agricul- lture for 1902:
 The cultivation of the corn crop Sfnust depend upon the conditions f4OA 9NetoCIio, DUH dIlQ GliC tGlllOullU OI ssssWeeds in the field. The cultiva- tion of the crop is for the purpose of destroying weeds, conserving sol moisture and aerating the soil. The weediness of the field will depend upon the work done on the seed- bed. If the seed bed has been properly handled pre- paratory to planting, most of the Needs will have been destroyed, So that the principal object of GU ltiyation is that of conserving the soil-moisture.
 2 At the Wisconsin Experiment Btation it has been found that it Acquires about BIO pounds of Water to produce a single pound 0f dry matter. By figuring up the &mount of dry matter in an 80- acre field of corn, and multiply Ing by BIO, the pounds of water Required to produce the crop will be secured. The result is as- aDnishing.
 |s It does not seem possible that 5l ch an enormous quantity of Moisture can be secured by the corn plants during the growing Reason; and more important than 1, this moisture in most part is Eused during June, July and August, the months of leastrain- 8fall in the year; so it can easily Nbe seen that the conservation of the moisture in the soil is a most Important problem, and one which Nmust be investigated by the corn groWer.
 M The Illinois station conducted Exhaustive tests of the compara- tive amount of moisture consumed by the different methods of cul- hvation. Two things were found sto be true: First, that deep cul- 8tivation conserves soil moisture; a4nd, second, that frequent culti- NYauon conserves the moisture Amost effectively of all kinds of plans for cultivation. It was
 pund thatin the deep cultiva- 4ons, despite the excess of mois-
 pre-, the yield was very low, &ompared with shallow culture. x b find the cause of this, an ex- enslve series of experiments with ne pruning or cutting off the root III corn were conducted.
 # In this root-pruning experiment
 held of corn was selected, and E*he row was root-pruned two
 pches deep. This root-pruning