Monroe City Democrat. (Monroe City, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1911-12-21

Some Good Things Said On the Sub
ject By S. N, Jordan, the Mis-
souri, Corn Man.

matter of the quality of seed corn.
The past year is one of the worst
that | have ever seen for the pro-
duction of a high quality of seed.
Even with the best care that can be
exercised we may possibly be dis
appointed. 1t of coutse is too late
now to select seed corn of the best
quality | have never asked peo-
pie to use a greater degree of intel
ligence and good Judgment in corn
work than they do in handling
their live stock. But, l do insist
! that they use the same degree of
judgment No animal can be
good one that has poor lungs or
poor digestive capacity. These two
Kings are absolutely essential to a
good breeding animal and if the
farmer should buy one of them he
has done so because he has made a
mistake in his judgment The plant
has its organs that correspond iden-
tically to the lungs and digestion of
the animal.
The leaves of the plant are the
organs that manufacture plant food
into plant tissue. Corn blades man
ufacture the plant food into the
corn. The roots of the plant are
t he means by which the plant food
of the soil is taken up by the plant
and the root system land the blade
system of the plant correspond to
the lungs and digestion of the ami
NAL. The blade system on the stalk
of corn is indicated largely by the
length of the joints. A short-joint-
ed stalk will of course have a better
leaf system with the same soil than
a long-jointed stalk. The brace
roots around a plant indicate large
ly the extent of the root system be-
low the ground, and, of course,
plant cannot be better than its root
system makes it. These things be-
ing true a seed ear should be taken
only from a plant that has good
bracing roots, and the joints short
and the stalk strong. The seed
corn should be gathered as soon as
the first ears ripen. 1t may be OBJ
served by many farmers that some
ears ripen several days ahead of
others in the same field of corn. 1t
will usually also be seen that those
early ripening ears are rather low
on the stalk, also that they are
nearly always ears of good size. II
these early maturing ears that are
sufficient in size be selected from a
patch one year and used in a seed
plat the next year and the early
maturing ears each year selected in
this way will most certainly shorten
the growing period of corn without
reducing the yield, which is a very
desirable thing to dc. We have ac-
cOmplished this very thing in all
our lines Of live stock. We are to.
day producing a 200 pound hog in
about half the time and a smaller
amount Of feed than we did many
years ago. In horses and cattle we
have not only shortened the grow
ing period but have increased the
size at the same time. If this seed
is selected as indicated above and
as soon as taken from the field
hung in a dry, well-ventilated place
that it may dry out before freezing
weather there is little danger in a
failure to get a stand of corn so far
as the seed may be concerned. One
of the worst difficulties the past year
has been that of insect pests Per
haps the most common of these is
the corn root louise. This is little
bluish-ereen bug about the size of a
pin-head that sucks the juices from