The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1917-09-27
THE GRANDEST GIFT .
TO FARMERS--CORN
Ii Goes Right on Growing Regardless
of What the Pessimist Saws
BY G.. III. Carroll

mist. Spring too fate" Nights
too cold We have one hot day
THAT fixed the corn Then a hail.
What the hot day did not do the hail
has done" The corn pays no atten-
ton to the pessimist, but goes right
on, sending its roots right and left
in the soil in search OF nutriment for
the growing stalks. Each little root
knows what it wants to select, and
with it's tiny mouth it selects what it
wants. 1t knows more than the infant
that swallows its mothers thimble.
The circulation carries this nutriment
up the stalk, in the dark, like the little
boats on the Canals of Venice, depos-
iting its freight always at the proper
station. What starts for leaf makes
leaf, never stem or fiber. No COLI
siOns, no mistakes. Man might learn
something from all this about hand
ling freight and express.
h But the pessimist says as the silks
and tassels begin to show up, THE
corn seems so short, and the danger
is in an early frost; new moon soon,
and hat often brings frost" This
pessimist m in from the field. His
wife to encour"#e him hands him a
dOughnut right out OF the hot lard.
Instead of eating it and asking for
another, he wonders why she is so
wasteful of -four as to make a hole
in the doughnut.
But on comes the corn like a be-
lated train making up lost time, and
finally it comes in under the wire
ahead of the frost with its beautiful
ears pushing their ends out of the
husks and rebuking a whole lot of us
pessimistic farmers who said we
would have no corn. 1t is so nearly
every year. Too many of us plant
corn in this country, not expecting
anything and surprised if we get any
thing, while we should al plant corn.
expecting a crop and be surprised if
we don't get one. Let us do like Iowa
and Illinois farmers. They used to
do like we are doing now.
The grandest gift to the farmer is
corn, and there's a reason. The Bible
says that Jacobs crops yielded one
hundred fold. That sounds big, but
corn yields twice that much. That is,
n bushel planted in May yields two
hundred bushel in November. An
other thing, you find high-priced land
and prosperous people where the
corn grows. The seed for an acre OF
corn last spring cost ten cents, for an
acre of wheat two dollars; for an acre
of potatoes thirty dollars. What
about harvesting these crops? The
wheat must be harvested in the month
of August, potatoes in the cellar be-
fOrefrost, corn-well, you can take
ali winter for that. That is all
right" says one, "but are we in the
corn belt?" Some are, some are not,
and they may all be in the same town
ship too. The man who raises corr
is always in the corn belt. The other
man; never.
Don't try to- raise big corn this far
north. The seasons are too short. ]
know we all delight in handling a big
ear, stove wood size, but no use, il
Will not get ripe. Don't forget thai
corn is a tropical plant, coaxed along
until it is a good ways from home up
here in Dakota. Another thing, don't
think you can plant big corn year
after ear till you get it "acclimated''
as they say. If you really could live
long enough, you and your grand
children, to see it acclimated, Nature,
who had been keeping her eye on you
all the time, would see to it that your
corn was as small as the kind she
had fitted to your locality in the first
place. Let US not &c contrary to Ma
ture, The perpetual motion men have
tried that. Result. a lot of them are
In the asylum. But let us lock arms
with Nature and be led Oh by her
toward well filled granaries, and fat,
sleek herds. The rad is plain. Ma
ture is kind to man, but she will not
let him get ahead OF her.
EaSe o saved your seed corn?