The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-01-08
Time and Trouble are Required
For Farmer TO Raise Corn Crop

miles of travel required for these oper-
atoms. he will walk about fifey miles.
perhaps more; and the walking over
the plowed ground is much more tire
some than following the pillow. Those
who have never experienced the pleas
ure, or lack of pleasure, rather, of fol-
lowing harrow over plowed ground.
can get an idea of how tiresome it is
by walking back and forth through a
pile of sand for about An hour or two.
Along with this work in the field,
our farmer must take a little light ex-
ercise. night and morning for about an
hour and half. doing the chores. This
of course. is necessary to keep him in
good physical condition for the regu-
lar farm work.
Sometimes it is necessary to drag or
roll the field before planting. and that
requires considerable extra work, and
more pleasure-driving for a distance
of from twenty-five to thirty-five
moles. However, our corn grower,
which We are now observing, is not go
ing to do this extra work; he is some
, what behind with his work owing to
1nclement weather.
Corn planting time has arrived and
here comes our farmer with the corn
planter to take another drive of about
, twenty-eight miles; but this trive will
! be little more pleasant than the pre-
vious ones, because he will drive fast
er than he did on the other trips in
order that he can make straight rows
for the passerby to see and comment
about.
| The corn is now planted and our
corn grower will take a short rest un-
til the corn is large enough to begin
the cultivating, and whole he is rest
| ing he will put in about fourteen hours
day doing chores, looking after the
other crops, hoeing weeds. making
garden and doing many other jobs
around the farm that are always there
to be done.
1t does not take many days for the
corn to come up and grow to size
large enough to begin cultivating; and
as we want this crop to be good one,
we will have the farmer get out his
corn pillow, and commence to destroy
the little weeds, but the soil must be
kept in good condition so that the
yield will be seventy-five bushel per
| acre instead of forty.
This cultivating job is where our
corn grower makes marathon record.
OF course, he rides but he must use
his feet to guide the plows. In doing
this work he goes down one row and
back another-and so on until he cul-
! tivates the entire one hundred and
! lightweight rows which are one hun
dred rods long. Once over the field
he has travelled fifty-seven miles; and
if he cultivates the crop four times,
drcd and twenty-eight miles. l.. B.
Clore, the corn king, says that the corn
crop should be cultivated at least six
| or seven times.
In cultivating the field of corn four
times, our corn grower has cultivated
the same as one row that would reach
from Richmond, Indiana to Chicago,
Illinois and then some; and if he had
followed the advice of Mr.. Clore he
would have cultivated a row equal in
length to the distance from Chicago
" NdSnFlllc, 1cuuCoScc.
After the cultivating is all done, or
when the corn is laid by as we say. our
corn grower will attend to some of the
other farm work until husking time.
He is not going to cut his corn this
year because he has enough other
rough to feed. We are afraid if he
undertook to cut all of the corn in this
twenty-five acre field by himself he
would not get it done in time for us to
season. However, there are some
speedy corn cutters.
Now comes the corn husking, and
what big job it looks like. There are
one hundred and eighty-eight rows,
! each one hundred rods long; joined
together, end to end, they would
make Que row fifty-seven miles in
length. This means that when he
starts in to do the husking he will
him that will reach from Richmond to
a point eight miles the other side OF
Anderson, Indiana. On that long row
or corn, providing it yields seventy.
five bushels per acre, he must husk
eighteen hundred and seventy-five
bushels of corn. At the rate of sixty
ears to the bushel he must handle
1850 ears and in husking each cal
he will be compelled to make from
four to six moves with his hands
Looks as though he has to move a lit
tie, doesn't it?
Many farmers, of course, handle the
corn crop with greater dispatch than