Norwich bulletin., 1912-05-18

CWritten Specially For The Bulletin-)
 l don't know but you've all planted your corn, including that acre Tor Ths Bulletins competition. But while 1t certainly is time and more than time that the thing was done, with me the rains have been so constant and soaking that I'm not yet through with the job 1t is just two weeks ago last night since the whip-poor- will first sung on my mountain. the century old sign for corn planting time on this farm. Of the fourteen intervening days two were Sundays, nine were rainy, two-On two separate weeks. had to be devoted to letting the muddy soil dry out. By working like the old Scratch every minute the weather man and the mud would let us. we've managed to blow and plant about one whole acre of corn in the last fortnight We hope to get the rest in by the middle of July, if weather conditions continue as here tofore!
 Perhaps some others of you may have had similar experience. In that case. it wont be too late for you to find some service in the experience of twenty-seven Minnesota farmers, last year, with their corn. They started a sort of neighbor hood competition, the twenty seven of them, to see who could raise the most and best corn, per acre. that season. A kind of go- as-you- please corn race. Each one had his own ideas about the proper way 10 raise it, and no one was will ing to accept enother's methods as even possibly better than his own. So they decided to clear up the situation by taking a fair start on even terms, doing their individual best, and letting the result teach what lesson it would. Each one rode his hobby for the sum mer for all it was worth made it do all that was in lt.
 That they all knew something about growing corn IS proved by the fact that none of the twenty-seven har- vested less than fifty-tive bushels of shelled corn to the acre. But the win ner took the cake" with a record of a hundred and six bushels, also of shened corn, from a single measured acre.
 And here comes in the interesting point about this particular contest: that winners success was due solely Go his care in selection of seed.
 When the thing was summed up, late in the fall, it was found that the whole twenty seven had pursued practically the same methods of cd- tivation and fertilization It was al- ready known that their land was all about the same sort And of course, as they lived in a bunch, their weather was about alike. But the winner, one Carlsted, had for several years been making a speciality of selecting the best seed. While his next-door neigh bor had as good ground as he and the same weather, and did practically the same tillage and maturing Carlsted just about doubled his yield solely through care in breeding and select ing the seed corn.
 Now, thers isn't as much corn raised in Eastern Connecticut as there could and should be. A good many farmers think it doesn't pay" Prob ably it doesn't, with the present yields But, if those present yields can be more than doubled, without any in crease in the present cost of caring for the crop, what about the profit, then? Forty bushels to the acre are not profitable, perhaps; but might not hundred bushels pay big, if they could be produced on the same acre without any added expense for rais- ing? The price of the forty bushels may not be enough to pay for labor and manure and interest and taxes. etc. But the hundred bushels would sell for enough to pay all producing costs and leave a mighty snug profit too.
 1t takes little trouble to make sure of perfect seed, as Carlsted does Also 1t takes a small piece of extra ground for seed-plant That's au
 He IS a rather big farmer, as com