The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1905-03-11
TIE PROPAGATION OF CORN.
Methods Adopted to Promote the Produc-
ton Of This Important Cereal in
the Counties of This State.

the Counties of This State.
Apropos of the enlivened corn market and
the interest now being taken all over the Uni
ted States in the proper propagation of this
cereal, says the Baltimore Herald it will be of
more than passing interest to Marylanders
to know that their Governor is one of the
greatest enthusiasts In the newly advanced
''agronamtic' methods. Mr.. Warfield, with
Mr.. C. Bosley Littig, who has fine farm
near VanBihber, Hartford county, have made
long study of the new methods proposed and
have watched with interest the experiments
mace in this respect at the Maryland Agricul-
tural Experiment Station.
In speaking of this new departure in Mary
land, Director Harry J. Patterson, of the Agri-
tural College, says: "In some of the Western
states the railroads are running special trains
over their lines for the purpose of dissent
mating information regarding the proper selec-
ton of seed grain early in the year. The rail-
roads in the East are not offering the same CO.
operation, but the Baltimore and Ohio has
agreed to haul corn exhibits to all fairs, insti-
tutes, &C., along its lines free hereafter.
'At this station we have been breeding up
corn for three years, and have increased the
Weld at least two barrels per acre. There is
grown in Maryland annually about $4,000
acres of corn yielding about six barrels an acre.
The work of this station in corn breeding has
shown quite conclusively that by following the
results we have obtained the average yield
should be raised at least ten bushels an acre.
This increase would mean, at the average price
for corn, over 81, SOC, 600 annually in the far
mers' pockets. 1t has also been shown by in
vestigation that the feeding quality can be i'm
proved.
Average corn contains only about 8 per
cent. protein, while most of the 800 samples
that have been analysed here have shown over
10 per cent. protein, and some samples as high
as 1875 per cent. Surely with such prize
before us there should be greater effort than
at present to accomplish the result. In the
breeding plots last year white corn from which
breeding stock was selected in Hartford county,
the best half of the plot yielded twenty barrels
per acre, and the poorest half thirteen barrels
per acre. This difference was due to the quail
ity of the seed and its power to transmit its
qualities to the following crop.
1.-The method of selecting seed corn has
been shown at the fairs. There is no doubt
but that most important thing for corn grow
ers to take up is the improvement of seed by
getting better varieties or by improving the
varieties already grown by careful selection of
seed and breeding, by taking ears which have
desirable qualities and follow out or plant
them on q part of q field by themselves and
follow the progeny Of those ears from year to
year. selecting the seed from the stock which
has given the greatest yield.
III farmers would examine their fields they
would find that a considerable percentage of
the hills are missing or have missing stalks
due to the poor terminating quality of the
seed, and also some that does terminate but is
very weak and dies soon after comes through
the ground. Then, again. certain percentage
fails to produce any ears or are barren stalks.
Others, again, produce only imperfect ears, all
of which have great tendency to cut down
the yield. Farmers should aim TO have COM
plete stand of corn with each stalk producing
good ear weighing from fourteen to eighteen
ounces per ear. They can readily calculate
what this would mean in the yield per acre.
At the Maryland Agricultural Experiment
Station at present q number Of experiments
are being conducted along the following lines:
Il. Methods of manuring corn with stable
manure.
80. Methods of fertilization with CONNER
cial fertilizers.
'3. Different times of blowing for corn.
"a. Different manner of planting and culti-
waiting corn.
rs. Testing of twenty different standard
varieties of corn.
''6. Running six breeding plots of corn of
one acre each-three white and three yellow
corn.
From these pedigree seed is obtained for
next years plots and the seed for the general
field crop. The results obtained and the ma
terial which we have for illustrating TO farmers
better methods of selecting and growing corn
is Just as great in amount as that which is be-
ing exhibited on special trains run by the
Burlington, Illinois Central and the Great
North western railroads, and our station stands
ready to furnish material and men to address
the farmers if the railroads of Marylan feel
warranted in taking up the same class of work
as other roads in Iowa. Nebraska and Missouri.
It has been found that stable manure is much
better for raising good corn than commercial
fertilizers, and it is bestt apply it fresh rather
than to allow it to rot, and the longer that it
has been applied previous to planting the better
has been the results of the yield
"a point of considerable interest to dairy
men in the State who want q corn crop for
siage is the fact that much larger yields have
been obtained by growing corn in drills rather
than growing it in bills, one stalk to each fif-
teen inches Of row. Again it has been found
that by planting some cowpeas in with each
stalk of corn that the yield of siage corn would
be increased about three tons per acre, and the
quality of the silage will be Is per cent. richer
than corn grown without cowpeas.
"These peas planted in with the corn do not
act as weeds and decrease the yield, but, on the
other hand, part of the increase is due to the
cowpeas and part to the increase in yield of the
corn itself. From this we infer that having
nitrogen gathering plant like cowpeas growing
with corn enables the corn TO utilize some of
the nitrogen gathered by the peas"