The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-05-17
Cultivation of Corn and Cotton.

it deserves. Many farmers altogether miss the
great object of cultivation. They regard the kill
ing of weeds as the prime object. This is not SO.
Whilst the killing of weeds is important, it Is
much more important that the soil should be so
frequently stirred as to prevent their growth, and
to SO thoroughly aerate it as to render available
the plant food in the soil and permit of the fine
~rootlets of the plants permeating every foot of
the land and gathering from it the food needed
for the growth of the crop. It is much easier
to prevent the growth of weeds than to destroy
them after they are grown. When the soil is so
frequently stirred as to prevent a growth of weeds
the terminating weed seeds are killed before there
is time for the weeds to rob the corn plants of
food and moisture. Every day weeds are permit
ted to grow they are robbing the soil of food and
moisture and decreasing the supply for the corn
crop. Cultivation, when properly done, conserves
moisture and prevents weed growth. The cult
vation which meets these requirements is not deep
blowing with a turn plow-plowing off the soil
from the plant and then turning it back again at
the next working. A turning pillow has no place
in a corn field after the crop has been planted.
All it's work should have been done before the
planting of the crop. It's use afterwards simply
means the tearing of the fine ~rootlets of the plants
and injury to the crop. The implement needed is
a harrow or weeder for the first two or three work
ings, and a cultivator for the later workings, and
these should not be set to disturb more than the
top three inches of soil. Land cultivated in
this way, kept level, and covered with a fine mulch
of soil, will retain moisture to the surface and
thus conduce to the rapid growth of the crop.
Let the first cultivation be given with the harrow
W<weeder, running the same over all the land and
not merely between the rows, before the plants
break through the soil or Immediately they have
begun to appear, and especially is this important
when a rain has fallen after the seed has been
planted, but before it has had time to break
through the surface. This system of cultivation
with the weeder or harrow can, with advantage,
be continued until the plants are six or eight
inches high. Deep cultivation with the pillow as
compared with shallow, level cultivation with a
cultivator, has been tested at many of the Expert
ment Stations, and the results have been invari-
ably in favor of shallow, level cultivation. At
the Illinois station in 1893 the yield per acre of
corn on land cultivated shallow and with a care
full avoidance of root injury or disturbance was
one hundred bushels to the acre, as against
seventy-eight bushels per acre on land where the
roots were disturbed and pruned by deep ~cultiva-
ton. Let the cultivation of the crop be continued
as long as it is practicable to go through the
rows without doing injury to the stalks, and pre-
vlous to the last cultivation sow either COW peas,
crimson clover or sapling clover broadcast and
work in with the cultivator. Do not follow the
old practice of throwing a hill to the corn at
this last working. It only tends to reduce the
moisture content of the soil by leaving a larger
surface exposed to the suns rays. 1t is of i'm
portance to conserve this moisture and not to
waste it. The idea that a furrow thrown to the
row will hold up the corn is a fallacious one. 1t
poirh+ houo hoon &r,o uhop ,,n1or tho old
of cultivation with a pillow, the roots had been