The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., March 12, 1910, CORN SPECIAL, Image 1

About The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920

Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

                
w v fl ■ ■
Volume XV, No. 10. _ SATURDAY. MARCH 12. 1910. Weekly: $1 a Year.
The South is the Real Corn Beit!
nave been advertising the
champion corn forms r of
the Com Belt last year, and
he made only ISS but he Is
on an acre. One of our
Southern readers mod* 226
bushels on an acre. It only
remains now for us to set
out to do on a large scale
what we have already suc
ceeded so overwhelmingly in
doing on a smalt scale.
As was pointed out last
week, we have the advantage
of the West in three points
—*temperature, sunshine,
and rainfall. They have the
advantage in one point
humus in the soil. We can get
this humus. And the best
way to get it is by growing
nitrogen-gathering crops —
cowpeas and clover, greatest
of all in addition to max
imum quon'ities of stable
manure. It has come to be
0 «
a saying among farmers that
a gocd c/ov ump doubles
the corn yield after it. And while this is not wholly true there
ie good reason for the rising proverb, "If corn is King, clover
is Queen.”
Keep this supreme fact in mind: We nied just one thing
to beat the West raising corn more humus in the soil.
Of course, this means that we must use the same progrts
sive methods that the Western farmer uses:
(i.) We must select our seed corn m re curefu'ly. We
must have prolific, ncll-brtd varieties, anil select seed in the
field, preferably from a seed patch; the best individual stalks,
and then the best ears from these best stalks.
(2 ) Then there must be better preparation of the land
and proper fertilization.
(J.) We must cultivate mere eheuply---with weeders, har
rows, two- horse cultivators, elc., doing us ay with expensive
hand-hoeing.
(4.) In laying-by we must avoid the old folly of cutting
j the roots by cultivating too deep. “Dsep preparation and
shallow cultivation ” should be our motto.
(5.) After having made the crop we should get the most
out of it by getting the full value of the stalk. Only 51 per
| cent, of the feeding value is in the ear, and the other 49 per
cent, must be had through
silage or shredding.
Join in the great corn
raising revival now sweeping
over the South. We have
failed with corn heretofore
because we have always
made it subordinate to cot
ton, giving cotton the best
land, the best fertilization,
the best attention and culti
vation; making com merely
a side issure. Let us change
our methods in 1910 and
prove by our general aver
age, as we have already
proved by individual yields,
that the South can beat the
so-called Com Belt itself
making this king of cereals.
The farmer who makes
the biggest com yield in his
county is coming to be a
bigger man than sheriff, and
the boys who lead in their
counties are honored like
the victors in the old Olym
pian games. And this is
welt for these men and boys are community-builders and State
builders.
FEATURES OF THIS ISSUE.
BIG CORN CROPS AND GOOD FARMING . ft
BE CAREFUL WITH WORK STOCK NOW . 1ft
BEST VARIETIES OF CORN. 7
DON’T BREED FOR PRETTY EARS ONLY . ft
GROWING WATERMELONS AND SWEET POTATOES. 17
GRAZING CROPS FOR HOGS. 1ft
IIOW TO FERTILIZE CORN. ft
HOW MR. FRENCH MAKES BIG CORN CROPS .. «
HOW TO SELECT SEED CORN. 10
HOW TO ORGANIZE A BOYS’ CORN CLUB. 1ft
HOW SOME READERS MAKE BIG CORN CROPS.1»
PREPARATION OF CORN LAND.
READING COURSE IN FERTILIZERS.1®
RAISING BROODER CHICKS. *•
J^HE biggest agricultural discovery the South has made t*ese
last five years is that we are in the Com Belt-that we
are, in fact, the real Corn Belt In point of temperature, sun
shine and rainfall, we have advantages over the West, and
every time individual Southern formers have set out to beat
the West in yields they have done if. The Western papers
GOOD EARS THAT WILL HELP MAKE GOOD CROPS.
ISce article “How to Select Seed Corn" on pave 10.)
(•oil gate u* these cotton land*, a goodly heritage, with the wise
injunction: "By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread"—not
make cotton to buy bread.—From the declaration of the Georgia
State Farmers’ I'niou.