The Dickinson press., 1910-10-01
NORTH DAKOTA GROWN CORN
Some Of Essential Points Are Thor
ouoh Curing Of Seed, Early
Planting and Cultivation.

Corn is wonderful adaptive and has
shown this quality to a marked degree
In this state. Dean shepperd states
that corn. II frozen back here, will
readily grow again, az q dry cold does
less harm than cold and wet, while
further south this is not the Ease. In
fact, it will stand to be frozen back
a second and even a third time. He
also states that cool nights do not
seem to have any backward effect on
the corn, but he thinks the orr plant
makes more growth in the twenty-four
hours here than In the so-called corn
belt, as the hours of sunshine are
longer and there is less cloudy wealth.
or to interfere with the suns work.
So w must learn corn anew in North
Dakota, al Indiana, Illinois, or Iowa
methods will not do here. Some of
the points to keep in mind, however,
are: Thorough curing Of the seed
corn, early planting and shallow cul.
tivation.
The value of the corn crop is very
forcibly set forth in the following
statements of Senator Greeley of
South Dakota in the Farmers 1nsti.
tute Annual:
Not long ago while looking over
some wheat fields northwest of
Whapeton, we came across one so dis.
tinctly better and cleaner than any
adjoining field, that we strongly sus-
pected corn had been grown there the
year before. The owner was not at
home and one hired man whom we in
terviewed said he had been there two
years and no corn had been grown
there during that time. We hunted
up another man working further from
the road, but he made the same as
sertion, but when he insisted that
corn alone could get the soil to the
fine, clean condition it was in, this
last man finally said: oh, yes, l re-
call now that corn stalks troubled my
drill a little when I was seeding that
aeld the first year I was here"
Farther on was another field Of 100
acres or so getting the same dose of
clean, well-handled corn. This man
knew what he was doing, and judging
from the clean, splendid crops follow
ing this rotation, could also we'll af-
ford to throw his corn away and still
be ahead.
Over in Manitoba the past fall we
talked with wheat growers who said
and seemed to meal it that they
would readily value their Canada land
as high again If it were possible for
them to mature a crop Of good corn
on 1t, and still all, too many Of our
farmers who are in q comparatively
safe corr country are growing no
more corn than these same far North
Canadian farmers.
A growing r field is a forest for
the time and furnishes to the soil
the air around it, forest conditions. In
passing to the leeward Of corn fields
at such times one will readily detect
a GOODNESS similar to that felt on the
northeast side of a lake or forrest
when the hot or warm wind is from
the south or southwest.
But some will say that this is not a
corn country. From considerable ex-
perience in the northern part Of South
Dakota and wide observation in this
state wo do not hesitate to say that
these people are mistaken: and we
sometimes think we have a more per-
feet all around corn country than
some Of the so-called corn-belt Sec
lions.
Nrst.-Our corn and corr fodder is
as much richer. than the coarser,
taller varieties Of the south as our ma
tive grasses are richer than the
coarser, more watery grasses of the
south and east. No who has fed
out our corn and corr fodder and wild
hay, who has aver tried to feed Mis-.
souri, fodder and wild hay, will ques-
ton this for q moment. Again, owing
largely to our longer sunshine days,
and to the quicker maturing caused
by northern sun and climate, we ma
ture corn in much less time from
planting, and "a grow nor stocks in
the hill than can be grown farther
south where the stalks are much
taller but of less value, thus giving
us more and finer fodder, and, if
grown right, as much or more orr
though smaller ears. One good stalk
in a hill is enough in southern Mis-
souri,, two In southern Iowa, three in
most of South Dakota, and four If not
five in North Dakota. This, at least,
is our experience and observation,
and there is much better. fodder and
as much or more corn in the three or
four smaller North Dakota ears than
in the one or even two Missouri ears.
It is claimed that three small, say
e%ight-ounce ears, on a hill, If the corn
is planted as closely as it can be in
the north, and usually it., will yield
Is bushels to the acre. We have never
figured this out, but we do know that
1t would take a pretty big one-ear-to-
the-hill. four feet apart, to do this, and
that their corn grows very tall and
rank, the stalk have to be- few and far
apart or they will shade the soil too
much. A ten.foot stalk will shade and
a.