The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., March 12, 1910, CORN SPECIAL, Page 188, Image 12

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

Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

                
How Some Readers Make Big Corn Yields
$203 PROFIT ON SIX ACRES.
And Tills Was Made in Spite of Un
favorable Seasons, Too.
Messrs. Editors: We all know the
floods of rain we had in May and
June and the four or five weeks
drouth in the summer, and the dry
cold northeast wind the last of
August and first part of September,
that came very near ruining the pea
crop. After all this, I made from
six acres (hill land and very rolling)
240 bushels of corn and gathered 60
bushels of peas and left some for
my stock.
In the spring I broke this land by
bedding out good and deep with a
turning plow and two mules, leaving
a five inch balk in the middle. When
I got ready to plant, I turned this out
with a middle burster, then taking
a showel plow went in the same place
just as deep as a mule could pull it
Then took the scrapings from around
my barn and put on about four acres
of this down in the furrow. On the
rest I put nothing. Then with a
small pony plow listed on this good
and deep.
i pianiea on mis list, intending to
work this on the Williamson plan, or
partly so. But after the rain I work
ed it on the plan I thought best to
kill grass. One time it looked as
though it would make nothing. I
like to have killed it first plowing
after the big rains. I began with
my cultivator around the corn and
in the middle as it needed it when
it first came up. Had plowed one
half day with a small sweep when
the rains began. I did not get back
there for four weeks or more. Next
plowing after this is when I injured
my corn.
Up to this time I had not used any
fertilizer. So I went in with Cole’s
guano distributor, with a long
straight khovel going deep (had to
do so) to kill burrs, weeds and grass,
which were plentiful by this time,
putting about 600 pounds per acre,
following this with a 6-inch half
shovel. Corn was about waist high
and higher. In two or three days
there were several leaves fired up at
the bottom, looked like fodder pull- 1
ing time, but the good Lord sent us
a nice little shower which seemed to
revive things. I ran out the middles 1
with a small half-shovel in order to j
kill vegetation.
1 ala not want to work my corn !
this way. but had to do it in self
defense. After this I went around my
^ corn with an 18-inch sweep shallow.
^^Then in about a week or ten days. I
|^r came along sowing my peas broad- j
y cast, putting from three-fourths to a'
bushel per acre.
I put my nitrate of soda in the'
upper side of sweep furrow. Then I
spread the middles Just as shallow :
as I could, leaving the beds as flat
as I could get them.
In a few days after I put the
nitrate of soda around the corn, the
blades that had fired up seemed to j
receive new life, and when my neigh
bors’ corn was burning up from the
drouth my corn was green from the
ground up.
The cost of making this corn, al- ;
lowing myself above average prices
for work, plowing, preparation of
land and cultivation: 26 days at |2
per day, |50; hauling manure, two
days, at $3 per day, $6; hauling
4,000 pounds of fertilizer from rail
road, at 16 cents per hundred, $6;
6 day’s hoeing, $6; 1 day putting
out nitrate of soda. $1; l day sow
ing peas, f 1; 2 days hauling corn,
16; pulling corn, |6; pulling fodder, i
$6; 3,600 pounds of guano, f35; 600
1
pounds nitrate of soda, $15. Total
cost, $136. The proceeds: 240
bushels of corn, at $1 per bushel,
$240; 1,400 bundles of fodder at
$1.50 per hundred, $21; and 60
bushels of peas at $2 per bushel,
$120.
Picking the peas cost $30; thresh
ing, $12. Grand total of expenditures
$178, which leaves a clear profit of
$203 off of six acres of land, making
my corn cost me 15 6-6 cents per
bushel.
L. V. STRICKLAND.
Union, Miss.
A Louisiana Farmer Who Credits Us
With His Com Crop.
Messrs Editors: If it had not been
for your advice in your wonderful
paper I would not have made any
corn, as I had seep water for six
months, and too much rain. But I
nave followed your instructions and
made 40 head of Poland-China hogs,
ten 250 pounds each. Although I did
not plant any cotton last year I am
not sorry, as I think those forty
head of hogs will equal 40 bales of
cotton. I have a pasture, 30 acres
or Bermuda, and 1,800 bushels of
corn, and I don't know the price of
meat. But I do know how to sell
meat. One hog, one year, $32. And
that beats making cotton.
J. P. PARRON.
Onega, La.
SOME PROFITABLE CORN GROW
ING.
How an Alabama Farmer Tries to
Prepare, Plant and Cultivate—A
Humus-Filled Soil the First Essen
tial of a Good Corn Crop.
Messrs. Editors: To successfully
raise corn we must begin our pre
paration at least one or two years
before planting. No land will pro
duce a profitable corn crop that is not
in good mechanical condition, and
we cannot get it in good mechanical
condition unless we have humus in
the soil. To get humus we must
plow under a crop of clover, peas or
even sorghum and peas, in the fall.
Humus makes our soil retentive of
heat and moisture and tends by
chemical action to liberate rhe min
eral plant foods. In fact, those who
use commercial fertilizers cannot ob
tain maximum results in a soil de
void or humus.
If the above conditions are com
piled with we will be ready for the
spring preparation, with a reasonable
certainty of a successful termination.
When the ground is dry enough to
thoroughly crumble, smooth it down
with a drag harrow so that
your disk barrow will be able
to take hold of the soil and pul
verize it thoroughly. Put on weight
and cut deep. If short on stock, take
off end disks double disk, lapping
one-half. This leaves the ground in a
level condition. Then run over with
your drag harrow, and you are
ready for the planter.
I UBe a two-horse check-row plann
er. Plant 3 feet, 6 Inches by 4 feet.
If early in the season, I plant shal
low; but later, when ground is warm
er and dryer, I put the grain down
deeper.
I watch the grain closely, and
when sprouted and nearly ready to
come up, I run the slant-tooth har
row over it. This gives it a good
working Just as it comes up and gives
me time to wait until it gets high
enough to work with my cultivators.
Now, any farmer, whether large or
small, can comply with these condl
ions. I could now tell you like
many writers, to go ahead with your
two-horse cultivators, plowing close
up to corn, and with each succeeding
plowing getting further from the
corn, and plowing to a less depth,
breaking the crust after each shower,
laying-by when corn begins to tassel.
This is the correct way and reads so
nice and looks so easy. It would all
be ideal if we controlled the weather.
But we don't, and have to take it as
it comes. There is no set rule that
can be followed by the Southern
farmer. The ideal cultivation is
often and shallow, but shallow culti
vation will not do after protracted
rains or even after a summer down
pour. Our Southern soil, so devoid
of humus, runs together, our warm
moist climate brings weeds and crab
grass as if by magic, and then we
must unavoidably do some root prun
ing in order to get the top soil thor
oughly broken up to admit air and to
kill weeds. We injure the growth of
our corn when we tear up some of the
roots, but the loss is not so great as
that done by a close compact soil
filled with weeds and grass.
One year in five I can cultivate
the ideal way, but some years It
taxes my knowledge to make a pro
fitable crop. I^ast year I had to
abandon my spring-tooth cultivators.
The Value of a Ginner to
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by the Quality of His Work
Any pin may turn out a fairly pood sample
under favorable condition*. The Muftr
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of conditions. Its perfect work in improving
and handling dirty or wet cotton in a stormy
picking season shuts down even* other pin
within hauling distance. A pinner with our
equipment gives growers a sample that bring*
a top-notch price. He can do it ever)* day |
*rom *nd of the season to the other. The
Munger System_
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