Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1914-04-08
Argentine Corn VS.. Soft Corn.

pie and no grade. This flint corn
from the Argentine will make trou-
bic for these grades, says Wallace's
Farmer.
We refer to this just now to rein
force the warning and advice we
have been giving to our readers in
the northern part of the corn belt
for years. They have uniformly
been growing corn too big for the
latitude; and the better improved
the corn is, the more nearly it ap-
proaches the ideal, the greater is the
danger of soft corn.
lie big ear of corn appeals to the
farmer much in the same way that a
pretty girl does to the farmers boy
of eighteen or twenty; as the beauty
of the mountain, or of the cataract,
or of the ocean, or of the flower, APP
peals to the artists. There is love of
beauty of some kind in all of us;
and there is a constant tendency 20
allow our love of the beautiful to ov
erbalance our judgment. The farm
er's weakness is for big ear of corn.
Hence all these years, and particular
ly since the gospel of corn improve
ment has been preached so effective
ly, farmers have been growing corn
too big for the climate. When there
comes year of abnormal heat, and
corn natures up to the northern linn
it, the temptation is all the greater
to grow that same kind of big corn
the next year.
Our readers may not all have no.
| ticed this, but in year of drOuth
like 1894, 1901, 1910 or 1913, when
the corn crops of Oklahoma, Mis-
souri,, and southern Iowa have been
cut short by drouth, northern Iowa,
Minnesota, and Wisconsin have
grown corn surprising their expec-
tations; and farmers have concluded
that the climate is changing. This
is one of the great illusions of farm
ers-that climate changes. Taking
! a series of ten or twenty years, the
climate does not change; and a very
warm, dry season in the north, in
stead of being a reason for expecting
the same kind OF year to follow, is
a good reason for expecting the OPP
posite.
! There will be millions Of acres of
corn planted in the northern part OF
the corn belt, ard much of it I by
readers of Wallaces' Farmer Let
us beg of you to grow corn of size
adapted to the number of heat units
in your latitude, not of last year, but
/ of the normal year. Don't under any
circumstances try to grow as large
a variety of corn as you can. If you
do, you will have soft corn. You
will have to compete with Argentine
corn, and will have to accept a price
several cents bushel lower than you
otherwise would.
Don't plant corn brought from a
more southern latitude. 1t will not
know that it is out of it's latitude an
] til caring time, and then it will be too
been grown in your neighborhood,
and that is sound every year. 1t
does not matter much whether that
corn is filled out at the butts and tips
or not, whether it has straight or
crooked rows. II does not matter
much if it does not dent at the
points; but becomes hard, fiinty, at
the end 1t does not matter If the
rows are not as close together as
you would like to have them, or the
grains as deep as you would like.
The question is: How many BUSH
els of sound corn does it produce
year after year? 1t is corn you want,
sound corn, corn that will keep, corn
that you don't need to ship OF at
once to market, corn that the eleva-
tor man does not need to dry out and
| get rid of surplus water. He is not
going to pay you for that water. He
| is going to pay you on the basis OF
sound corn with definite percentage
of water. What's the use of trying
to grow water, hauling 1t to town,
and giving 1t away?
The experience. of the last fifteen
years in corn growing, under the in
fiuence and inspiration of the new
corn gospel, has developed types of
corn in the northern part of the corn
belt that do not fit the climate until
tried and tested for years. In adapt
/ ing themselves to the new environ
ment, they develop types that do not
| fit. Some of these are named and
some not. The ordinary farmer is
not growing corn for show. He is
growing corn for the dry matter of
the ear, for the stuff that puts fat on
the ribs and milk in the pail What
he wants is to take a variety of corn,
no mater what it's name, that has
been grown in the neighbOrhood for
/ years, and has always matured. Some
years, like last year, you may be
throwing away heat units by not hav-
ing type Of corn big enough to use
them all. Some other years, when
the summer temperature is consider
ably below normal, your corn will not
come up to your expectations. In
average years, however, you will get
more by growing type of corn that
is adapted to your climate, that cor
responds to the units of heat the eli
mate affords. What you want is
corn that will utilize all the heat
units as far as possible, but not corn
that is in danger of failing in quality
because there is not enough heat TO
mature it,
Another thing: Don't regard flint
corn, or flinty appearance in the
corn you grow, as something to be
always and altogether avoided Dent
corn grows in warm climates, because
there the season can not only provide
for the germ and the protein, but
has an opportunity to put i'm the
starch. 1t puts it on the tip of the
grain, and as that shrinks it is dent
ed. If you have not enough heat
units to produce dent corn, don't try