The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1911-10-19
Next Years Corn Crop.

Next Years Corn Crop.
Farmers should always be looking
a year ahead, and not merely looking,
but working, laying plans for the
crops of the coming year. 1t is too
early to plant corn yet. May will be
time enough for that; but it is not
too early to think about the cultiva-
ton of the land that the farmer in
tends to plant in corn. 1t is not too
early to select his seed, or to think
about how it can be kept safely
through the winter. If it is intended
to plant corn on sod, while it may be
too early to pillow in some sections,
it is not too early to think about it.
Many farmer is harvesting twen-
ty bushel crop of corn when he might
have had forty or more bushels per
acre, if he had simply thought and
planned a year ahead.
A farmer named Russell, over in
Illinois, has averaged seventy bushels
of corn per acre for the last ten
years. He grew 1913 bushels of corn
per acre on a ten-acre field in 1909,
and 9S1h bushels in 1910. The
state board of agriculture has given
him a certificate verifying these
yields.
Now this man has done nothing
that any, good farmer on naturally
good corn land could not do. He has
done nothing that has not been adj
vised from year to year by Wallaces'
Farmer. In this latitude (Warren
county, Illinois) it is proper to fall
pillow, and he generally does it. The
trouble with many farmers is that
they let their fall blowing stand with
out doing anything with it until
about time to plant corn. This man
disks and double disks, rolls if he
thinks it advisable, harrows thor
oughly, and sometimes rolls before
planting. In fact he has his corn
ground just like we'll cultivated
garden. He thinks it is impossible
to have the seed bed too we'll prepar-
ed. Then he plants, as is usual in
that state, three feet apart in the
row, rows three and a half feet apart,
with three kernals to the hill. This
is all right in Illinois, but it would
be too thick in drier sections of the
country or on poor land. He careful
ly selects his seed corn, lets it ma
ture, keeps it dry and tests it. He
gives thorough cultivation, harrow
ing twice before the corn is up and
from three to five civilizations after
wards.
Now there is nothing in this that
any farmer cannot do; but he must
think about it now. If he has clover
or blue grass sod, if the land is not
rich, then let him apply manure. APP
ply it now. Plow it during October,
and pillow half an inch or, an inch
deeper than it has been plowed be-
fore, if the land is an ordinarily deep
and naturally rich prairie soil. The
depth of blowing must be determined
by the nature of the soil. 1t is not
wise to throw up too much cold clay
all at once, but it is safer in the fall
of the year than in the spring. The
immediate thing to think about now
is how to get your land rich enough
for the crop by manuring, if necess-
airy, and how to get the next winters
freezing to help you in getting your
land ready for the seed.
The farmers of the United States
grow about two thirds of pound of
corn per hill of three stalks-miser-
able nubbins. Two pounds to the
hill is easily possible, and that is
about all that this Illinois farmer
does. 1t is even possible to grow
three pounds to the hill, and that
will possibly be done thirty or forty
years from now; but no man on nat
urally good land should be satisfied
with an average of less than seventy
bushels. This means that some years
he must grow eighty bushels or even
ninety.
We are not likely to achieve any
such results unless we think about it
along in October, and put our think
ing into practice by manuring and
blowing so as to get the forces of
nature in line with us instead of
against us. In sections in the ex-
IRENE south, however, where there is
no winter freezing, where the land is
heavy clay and likely to run togeth-
or, you had better plan to plow in the
spring., but manure now.-Wallaces'
Farmer.
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