The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., March 12, 1910, CORN SPECIAL, Page 178, Image 2

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

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Professor Massey’s
Editorial Page.
Big Corn Crops and Good Farming.
HERE ARE SOME letters I seldom answer.
When I mentioned the great corn crop that
Mr. Batts made I at once got over a hun
dred letters asking for his address, as they wanted ,
toe get some of that corn. Many, In fact, most of
-these letters, were from farmers North, where the j
seed would do no good, and I had no right to bur
den Mr. Batts with correspondence, and there
fore declined to tell where he lived.
This morning, sitting down to my desk with
taearly seventy-five letters piled up and each writ
<«r expecting an Immediate reply to questions
'•bout soil treatment, I find a number of people
writing for the address of the farmer whose letter
T quoted last week telling of raising a good crop
wf corn. Now, I quoted that letter and threw it
•side, and for the life of me, I could not tell you
who wrote It. Now, if the writer of that letter
o.honRPR to r.nma out In the naDer and _
tell just how he made 3,000 bushels
■■of corn on seventy-five acres It would
probably help some others. But if
remembered the address, I would
wot give it. as I have no right to
burden a correspondent with letters
that he may not care to be bothered
with.
Jl
That making 3,000 bushels of corn
wn seventy-five acres of land should
be considered wonderful, rather puz
ules me, for I can name many farm
wrs who grow more. I have a friend
who made last summer 971 bushels
per acre of corn over a thirty-acre
'#eld without an ounce of fertiliza
tion. Only a crimson clover sod
turned under. Here was almost the
•,000 bushels on less than half the
ceventy-flve acres. It Is easy for
wny one, who will farm right and
follow what we have for years been
trying to impress on our readers
Wbout corn, to Improve his seed corn
mnd Improve his land and make as
■good crops as those who do these
things. This last-named farmer has
brought his land up by good farm
big. and had he used his manure on
tfeat thirty-acre field, I have no
•oubt that he would have over 100
bushels per acre. But he avoided
nuring that field as he was grow
the crop for seed and did not
wish to have abnormal conditions In
•he soil, but a perfect uniformity In
rw trup. x wiu iue ueia as me
born was being cut, and it was the only corn field
I have examined in all my life where I could not
find a 3ingle stalk without an ear. WhyY Be
cause he has for years never allowed a barren
wtalk to ripen a tassel in bis field, and has finally
bred out all tendency to barrenness.
Do you go through your field when the green
tassels are being made, and pull out the tassels
^rom barren stalks? If you do not, you will never
%ave less than 10 per cent, and probably more, of
‘•talks that make no ear, and are breeding more
‘barren stalks all round them from their scattered
\pollen.
Jt
A letter at hand from a farmer asks me how
Ao make the greatest amount of corn on an acre.
*I*sa not at all interested in that. That is, I am
"not interested in these contests on single acres. If
our friend wants to enter a contest, I would sug
vgest that he take the account that Mr. Batts has
given of the growing of his great crop.
f am far more interested in trying to help
Carmers to farm profitably over their whole field
^trather than to wastefully fertilize a single acre
get a prize. At a farmers’ institute last week
^jlbe director of a station said that some assume
fc&aft corn does not respond to commercial fer
tilisers, evidently referring to what I have often
K«id that it does not pay to use commercial fer
tilizers on corn. But corn, like any other plant,
»^!Fi, of course, respond to the available plant food
given it either in commercial fertilizers or stable
manure. But the point I have tried to make is,
that the corn made by the use of commercial fer
tilizers cost too much as compared with that
grown through the use of crimson clover and
manure. At present high prices for corn, the ap
plication of fertilizers may show a profit, but at
the average price of corn it will be found that all
the extra corn made has been made at a very good
market price. |
What I have for years been trying to impress
cp the Southern farmers is that we can improve
our soil, and make it pay its way in the improve
ment, by depending on legumes and the feeding
of them with the cottonseed meal and corn stover
more economically and profitably than by depend
ing on commercial fertilizers for every crop
grown.
J*
I have often mentioned the experience of the
wheat growers in eastern Maryland. *ho have
seen their land increase wonderfully in produc
tiveness while buying no fertilizer for any crop
but the wheat, and then usually only acid phos
phate. The farmer whose crop of 971 bushels per
acre I have mentioned, seldom makes less than
40 bushels of wheat per acre, and usually more,
and right alongside his corn field I saw a field
that would not make over 25 bushels of corn on
Examination of Kernels.
DIFFERENT TfPZ OF KERNELS.
In selecting seed corn a superficial examination at the ears is not sufficient if the bent
results are to be secured. The illustration herewith shows three types of hesmda. eta.:
medium, shallow, and deep. The top row shows good kernels at sack type. The three left
head groups (marked A.) show medium depth kernels, well filled out, with targe gems and
and high feed value. Thrw arm (he beet Corn at this type will give larger percentage at
corn to cob than the middle groups and will mature earlier than the right hand groups
(marked C.) which, while giving a large yield, mature late and tend tochaffincasattherrewm.
All at the medium group# (A) are good, while the shallow (B) and deep (C) groups are
beat at top. poorer in next row, and poorest at bottom, the lowest showing very poor kemsia.
poorly filled at tip and with smaller germs. The ears from which these kernels were taken
appeared to be good from the outdlde.—From **Mort and Better Com." (Deere A Mansur
Co.)
land that la naturally as good. If not batter, than
bla. And such fields can be seen In the best farm
ing sections, where the farmer has expected the
corn to make itself, while the grass gets as high
as the corn ears.
The one-acre contests have done good In show
ing how much corn our Southern acres can be
made to produce, and these crops have excited in
terest in corn in the South, and should make us
ashamed of the low average of the corn crop in
the South, where by good farming far more pro
fitable crops of corn may be made through a good
system of crop rotation without Bpending so much
money for commercial fertilizers. The man who
depends simply on making corn, cotton, oats, aud
wheat by the use of commercial fertilizers only,
will never have a rich farm, and will be ever writ
ing, as hundreds are doing all the time, to know
what formula and how much per acre be shall
use for this, that or the other crop; and they will
spend every year more money for fertilizers than
would enable them to get their land up to making
the ninety-seven and one-half bushels per acre
through good farming with only a clover crop
turned under.
Jl
Replying weekly to fully 100 letters to farmers
in the South, this matter of how much fertilizer
for every crop planted is the burden of the ma
jority, instead of studying how little they need to
buy if they farmed right. Our best farmers have
found that with good farming, plenty of legume
; forage and plenty of manure made from feeding
them, they never need to buy an ounce or am
monia, and only last night I was loklng over a
station bulletin on fertilizers which showed that
in some of the mixtures the nitrogen cost 28.C
cents per pound. In some samples the buyer got
for $30, 74 pounds of nitrogen, while in other
mixtures his $30 bought him only 25 pounds of
nitrogen. Why should we spend our money for
what we can get free and can make a profit to
our land In the getting?
Corn Breeding : Wise and Unwise
Methods.
r^TTlS THE SPRING time conies the corn crop
I 'ML is always a matter of Interest. As our
readers know, I have for years been bat
tling for real corn seed improvement, and Instat
ing that what the farmers need, what the country
needs, is more productiveness of corn per acre.
But all over the country we hear of students be
ing taught corn judging, and corn shows are held
everywhere. In which the whole Idea la to show
corn of a typical characted of ear. Only this sad
nothing more.
There would be no objection to this corn Judf
_ ing If It had ever been shown that
the typical ears mai raw me re
quirement of lbs score-card estab
lished by the corn Judges did neces
sarily carry with them an Increased
yield per acre.
Hut the score-card does nothing
of the sort. It simply says that a
certain ear la better shaped than an
other according to the requirements
of the score-card. It does not show
that the score-card ear has behind U
an Inheritance of productiveness. In
fact, I have seen ear* at these shows
that did not get a ribbon, which, I
believe, would make more corn par
acre than those which did get a
prise.
The score-card esteems highly the
rar that shows a complete covering
of the tip with grains and as near
as possible the same character In
the butt. But why Insist on these
tip grains? They are always reject
ed for seed, and an ear of this char
acter will tend to make an ear no
longer, but rather shorter than the
seed ear, while an ear with a snoet
shows an effort on the part of the
plant to make It longer.
The fault with all this corn Judg
ing Is, that It Induces growers is
work for a single feature In the corn
plant, and to neglect other charao
tern of more value to the farmer.
N'o breeding, either of plants or ani
mals, is good breeding If It does not
take the whole plant or the whole *
animat into consideration, in me
corn shows the judge* pay more attention to the
Bite and form of the ear than to anything else,
and thoae competing In the shows pay their whole
attention to the getting of such ear*.
These big ahow ear* are Invariably the only
ear on the plant, and 1 have proved time and
again that two medium-sited ears on a plant will
make more corn than one big ear. At a Farmers*
Institute the past winter 1 stated this, and gave
an Illustration by shelling ear* from different
plants to prove my point. The director present
called on a corn breeder in the audience, and
, asked If he did not prefer the one big ear. He
aald that he did. The fact was. that he had never
bred anything else, for he was a breeder for the
corn shows, and, of course, bred for the big score
card ears.
I knew this man's fine farm, and knew that he
had land that would make 100 bushels of eorn
per acre with a prolific corn, while with his ahow
ears he did sometimes make 70 bushels, for he
Is an excellent farmer, and has n highly Im
proved farm.
When we have corn shows that ahow the whole
plant, and accompanied with certificate of yield
per acre, and the awards are made for the beat
corn rather than the prettiest ears, we will have
corn shows that will advance corn culture. Con
ducted as they now are. the corn shows are of no
value to the farmer, and only bring money to the
producer of pretty ears.
Our advertisers are guaranteed. •
A