The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1916-11-19
BY G. L. HETHERINGTON.

special acre. He is told how TO pre-
pare the soil, the kind of seed to use,
how to plant and cultivate during the
year.
Later in the season he is advised to
plant cowpeas, peanuts, velvet beans
or some other soil-building crop with
the corn, in order to give back some
thing to the soil, from which he is
taking so much.
Measured by DISTINGUISHED Parties.
The land and corn are measured By
disinterested parties. The entire cost
of growing the acre of corn is kept
by the club member during the year.
He selects ten ears of corn to exhibit
when he completes with other boys for
prizes.
The county is taken as a unit and
in the fall of the year contests are
held throughout the state. Boys from
all sections of the county come out
and get acquainted and spend the day
together These meetings are always
interesting and are usually well at
tended by the country people. Field
demonstrations, picnics and meetings,
where the boys themselves render a
program, are held at different seasons
of the year.
Since the purpose of the club work
is to educate the boys who are to be
the farmers in a few years, they are
given reading matter relating to their
work. Letters of instructions, bulle-
tins are furnished free of charge, and
oftentimes they are given subscrip-
tons to agricultural papers
A few of the country contests
have been held, and the results are
turning out well. The average yield
will be higher than that of last year
The cost of producing the corn will
be less than it was last year. The
high cost of commercial fertilizers
prevented most boys from using any.
They have depended upon other meth
DDS less costly for building up the
soil, and the results will show that
these methods are far more profit
able. The corn clubs extend into for
ty counties, with a membership of
about 1900 boys.
A good demonstration of corn has
a lasting influence in community,
where it is grown. Five years ago
the average farmer in the state made
ten bushels to the acre. Last year
the yield was fifteen bushels. 1t is
claimed by many that the boys corn
club work helped more to increase
the yield than any other one factor.
A good corn crop is sign of pros
perity, but We should not be interested
in the low freight rate recently made
to encourage shipping to other states.
AS rule, the Florida farmer should
not attempt to raise corn to market
as corn, and if the corn is sold it
should go to other sections of this
state. There are too many other cash
crops, and there are better ways of
utilizing the corn crop.
There is a tendency among farmers
to sell corn in the fall at 40 and 80
cents per bushel. They have more
than viii be needed for few months
and let it go at very low prices. In
the spring of the year, when the stock
is hard at work and require plenty of
feed, the same farmers find that their
supply of corn has become exhausted.
! During the rest of the season they
buy corn or other feeds at cost of
$1.00 to S1.25 per bushel.
If the state ships corn to other
parts of the country, it viii only be
during the fall of the year, when the
price is low. There has always been
more corn imported than exported,