The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-11-19

If cowpeas are plowed under in oc- tober or even early in November and the land left bare of vegetation throughout the winter. the warm weather of the fall may induce too rapid rotting. thus subjecting the high being dissolved and leached out by the winter rains.
 An additional strong argument for fall blowing Is the fact that only at this season can we be sure that the subsoil Is in condition to make the operation of subsoillng a thorough and profitable one. While there are ex- captions. yet as a rule, subsoiling to be feasible and immediately profitable must be done in the fall and early winter, before the subsoil has become sticky.
 JED.
 Seed Corn.
 Tn selecting seed corn many of our best farmers have but gross standards by which to measure the good quali- ties of an ear of corn. Weight. length of ear and color is enough for many growers. To these farmers all other points that go to make up seed corn are mere fancy points and have no practical value with practical men" Let us see if this be true. Tn select ing a bull or a stallion are we not particular to secure in addition to size, color and weight, strength in certain parts? We want a big heart girth to insure constitution, short straight legs for staying qualities short neck as & mark of feeding pow CT, not too high cut in the flank. etc. Finally we ask what is the sire?" We want to know about the breeding, nf Wa 1nnniFa about the dams disposition and of her owner 10 know whether or not the animal IS worth the money asked and If he Will return a profit on the weeks and months of labor given to his attention and the development of his offspring.
 In seed corn we have both the sire and the dam. Here are already mated the male and the female life princi- plesi What a wonderful thing is a grain of corn, how marvelously per- feet after is kind. how powerful in its reproductive functions! No race suicide here What kind of corn is 1t? Will it yield 100 fold or 1000 fold! Is it good for twenty bushels or for forty? If of the right breeding and perfect in its individual form or type it is as 1t for a race as Dan Patch. It may yield 100 bushels per acre If plant ed on the right farm by the right farmer.
 But, as with herses and cattle, so with corn, there are some things on the inside that are not clearly indt- cated, or even hinted at, by outside ap- pearances. The form of the ear, the arrangement of the kernels, the shape of the kernels-are all significant xea- tures-they have their meanings for the man who sknows corn. But there are subtitle characters possessed by animals ,AzsA aVA F- ance gives no indicition. Sometimes there are defects at others they are real virtues. Imported Bellfounder was a great horse, but his colts had curious tendency to go blind when about five years old. There was no out ward sign of this weakness in any of these valuable animals. We might cite other cases.
 Nor can we, by studying a grain of corn. analysing it ever so closely. tell a slow maturing corn from quick maturing kind. We may yearn this in time, but as yet that chapter has not been written in plant husbandry. But we can judge of earliness by the partn- tage, by pedigree. This Is far better than no light upon this feature. Okten the large, long cob indicates slow ma turity, but conditions sometimes arise that render this indeed misleading. what the Stalk Tells.
 The stalk is an index to many of the qualities of corn. Is the stalk tall slender, long -jointed, with long slender leaves, and armed with many root spurs near the ground? Such stalks usually set more than one ear and do not ma ture early. Stocky, heavyset stalks. on the contrary, are quicker to ripen and are less prone to be "prolifics." We have never seen these facts clearly sci forth, but 1t is time that our corn grow CTS, or at any rate, our "corn breed ars," were giving as much attention to these indications as the cattle grower gives to muZzle, to twist. to bone and l to loin. What Is the ideal stalk for s given rain belt, a given latitude. and ( certain class of soils? Doubtless oul farmers and corn growers would fec their way to the achievement of the correct, the perfect type of corn stall | in the course of time, but why walt tc blindly grope our way along the corr rows, hoping, yet all but helpless, tc improve the types of corn we are growing?
 What ise a desirable stalk of corn A dozen farmers in the same coun' | ty and on the same class or land vii | give at least three different and op' posing answers / if you could draw forth any expression at all from them We have no recognized standard. l The answers to this would be as var. ious as the language of the growers would permit them to frame. One far. mer wants "gourd-seed," another wants any. kind of red cern another is partia to corn with a red cob, still another likes white grain with a yellow crowI or tip. One farmer likes small cebs
 five farmers despise small cobs Where 1 is the truth? Who shall decide when these corn doctors disagree?
 The corn growers of the corn bel states had no ideals, no fixed types fo many years. They had no clear idea o what constituted a perfect ear of corr on thS prairies of Illinois. Iowa an' Kansas, until a few years ago the seed corn growers tsOk this matter up an' pounded 1t in their meetings until nov some order has been brought out of tn chaos that formerly existed. We hav their ideals expressed in literature, bu better than this they have made thei ideals to live on a thousand prairie where Western winds swing the heav, ears over rich black lauds,-and tn yields have been vastly increased.