The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., September 10, 1910, YOUNG FOLKS' SPECIAL., Page 622, Image 2

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

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Professor Massey’s
Editorial Page.
Methods of Cutting Corn.
WHAT MR. J. W. BUNCH says about cutting
corn reminds me that this is the com
mon practice in the fertile lands of south
ern Pennsylvania, where I saw field after field
from which the corn had been cut and the stumps
left were two feet or more high. This practice
answers very well there, for
they follow the corn with
spring oats, and during the
winter, when the ground is
hard frozen they hitch a horse
to each end of a piece of heavy
railroad rail and drag it across
the field to snap off the stumps
so that they can be plowed un
der easily in the spring.
Rut wlipre a fall erain cron
P*ofes assey. js f0How the corn the tall
stumps are badly in the way. The best thing is
to breed the corn to a better stature, and that
can be done without diminishing the crop, for I
have bred a tall corn down nearly tw’o feet in av
erage height by using the ear next the ground for
seed. The same result was found at the Illinois
Station.
For cutting corn by hand I would not use the
corn knife, which cuts too high and is apt to cut
the cutter’s shins. The best corn cutter is a
short-handled steel hoe set in an eye at right an
gles to the handle. A sharp hoe of this sort will
cut the butts off right at the ground, and the land
will be in much better shape for putting in a fall
crop of small grain.
The most expeditious method is, of course, to
use the corn binder that leaves the corn in
bunches that are easy to shock wide apart to make
an open ventilated shock.
Notes and Comments.
THE VELVET BEAN seldom matures seed
north of the southeastern part of North Car
olina. In the section along the Atlantic
Coast Line Railroad from Mount Olive southward
I am of the opinion that the velvet bean can be
made a very profitable crop. At Magnolia I have
seen immense growths of it, and even at Selma I
saw a vine trained on a porch that promised to
mature seed. One great advantage of the velvet
bean is that it takes so few seed to plant a large
area. At the Florida Station it was found that
k when planted in rows four feet apart and 10 to 15
f inches in the rows, one bushel planted four acres
and made 22.5 bushels of shelled beans an acre,
and when planted in rows eight feet apart, alter
nating with rows of corn, the yield of beans was
20.3 bushels and a crop of corn. Unfertilized
plots made greater increase than fertilized ones,
and fertilizing was done at a loss. It is interest
ing, therefore, to note what Mr. T. E. McFarland,
of Alabama, says about corn after velvet beans.
Evidently they have the same effect that is ob
served here with corn on a buried crimson clover
sod; that is, there is no firing. Here I have not
seen a fired field of corn that wras planted after
crimson clover was turned under, while I have
seen badly fired fields where there was no clover.
Southern farmers are gradually learning the value
of the humus-making character of the legume
crops. But why should any one want to turn un
der a great growth of the velvet bean when he
can make hay of the crop and recover the larger
part of its manurial value in better shape for ma
nure after making a profit from the feeding? The
feed is worth too much to use as manure direct.
J*
PREPARING LAND FOR FALL GRAIN.—f
fully agree with Dr. Butler in saying that if the
breaking can be done not less than a month be
fore seeding wheat, it is better to break well.
But after corn, or after cowpeas for which the
land has been deeply plowed in spring or early
summer, I have made better wheat from finely
preparing the surface and letting the lower soil
remain settled. One of the best wheat growers
in Maryland sows wheat after corn, and re-plows
the land. But then he uses the packer that the
dry farmers of the arid West use and packs down
the soil at once. Then his corn is cultivated so
clean that there is nothing turned under to make
the soil puffy as where a strong stubble is turned.
If every farmer had corn fields as clean as this
man, and used the same implement for packing
the soil down, I would say re-plow, hut where a
corn crop comes off and leaves the field covered
with peas and crabgrass it is best to keep the
trash on top rather than turn it under to prevent
the settling of the soil. But in any event, tramp
and harrow till the surface is fine.
J*
COTTON PROBLEMS.—From my own obser
vation I have advised against, the topping of cot
ton, but at the Mississippi Station it was found
that topped cotton excelled in yield that which
was untopped and had the advantage of earlier ma
turity. Actual test may be better than observa
tion, but from what I have seen in North Carolina
I was not impressed with the value of the prac
tice. But as I have made no actual experiments
personally, the station report is of more value
than my observation. In a three-year test at the
Mississippi Station the maximum average yield
of cotton, 2,17fi pounds of seed cotton per acre,
was made from an application of 2,000 pounds
of manure an acre. Again, we see the value of
I I
A GOOD TIME TO LIVE
of the pathetic things about the
agricultural revolution now going
on in the South is to find an old farmer
j who has lived his life out under less
favorable conditions and regrets that he
cannot see the splendid development
now begun. An exchange quotes an old
farmer as saying:
‘ I wish I could live to enjoy the devel
opment that modern scientific methods
of farming will bring to this country with
in the next decade, but I am too old to
enjoy much of it. Why, there is a young
man in my neighborhood who will make,
this year, as much corn on one acre of
ground as his father made on a two
horse farm, and he is doing it in sandy
soil the kind that was formerly con
sidered as not being adapted to corn."
Truly the young men of this day, when
they compare their conditions with those
that their fathers had to meet, should
be profoundly thankful.
manure wnen oniy a ton per acre makes the high
est average yield for three years over various fer
tilizer applications. This Station also found that
no benefit was had from an application of nitrate
of soda at platning time. The heaviest yield of
cotton, 2,310 pounds of seed cotton, was made
from Cook’s Improved.
J*
MORE ABOUT OATS.—Sow oats of the South
ern winter varieties in the early fall, of course,
and if you are ever compelled to sow oats In
spring, still sow the Southern winter oats, for even
when sown in spring they will make heavier oats
than the spring oats. The editor of one of the
Northern farm papers some years ago replied to a
correspondent that oats are oats, and that the
Northern spring oats were just as good for fall
sowing as the Southern winter oats If this cor
respondent had acted on that advice he would
have found that winter oats and spring oats are
very different. A friend of mine at Hampton. Va.,
once came to this conclusion, and having a lot of
spring oats in his store where he sold feed, he
showed them in the fall and had a fine growth till
hard freezing weather came, and then he had dead
vnpiuiui ami Maryland tne Cray Turf
oats are the most hardy, but further South the
Texas Rust-Proof and other varieties make a bet
ter yield.
J*
SHOCKING CORN.—In regard to the shocking
of corn, I have seen a plan proposed that seems
good for at once clearing the field and putting
the corn in a better position to cure. Lines of
poles are laid on crotched posts on one side of
the field. The corn is cut and loaded at once on
a low-down platform wagon and hauled to the
boles, which are similar to the gallows used for
hanging hogs at slaughtering time, and the corn
is set in hunches on alternate side of the poles,
and twine tied to each side of the bunch. In this
way there is a circulation of air through under
the whole line #f bunches, the stover haB the beet
< hanoe to cure and the bunches can not fall down.
Then, too, the field is entirely cleared and ready
for a small grain crop. Shocked in this way the
corn is all in one line, and the shucking and
hauling of the stover is facilitated, and the work
is really lighter than making and trying shocks.
A*
LOl'ISIAXA HtKJS AXI) OOHX.—Probably the
boll weevil has had something to do with this.
If so, it is not an unmixed evil, for anything that
will start the Southern farmer away from single
cropping with corn is, to some extent, a blessing.
And Mississippi is shipping butter and beef cattle.
Surely the day is breaking and the wave of farm
improvement is sweeping over the whole South.
Dr. Rogers tells what they are buying in the way
of improved implements, and they are doing this
because never before was there so many farm pa
pers taken and road in the South, and when men
get to reading and studying their profession they
are going to use the best means nt hand for im
provement. They are buying these implements
because they have heard of them and their vise
through the farm papers.
THK TWO FAItMKKS.—The Editor quote*
from two farmers, ami one said that he tried tho
shallow cultivation and did not mnk* a crop, while
the other one found it made good crops. I rather
expect that in the case of the first one he had
prepared his land by plowing three Inches deep
with a single mule, and under such conditions the
shallow cultivation did not work. Down In South
Carolina they tell of a man who tore up nn aere
with dynamite and has a wonderful crop Shal
low cultivation with shallow plowing will not
"•rk. The soil must he well broken deeply, and
then the shallow cultivation and perfectly level
laying-by of the corn crop will be found to work.
Half-way measures never give the best results.
v«
C'KIMSON CliOVKH.— \t the Delaware Station
it was shown that a good fall growth of crimson
clover may furnish 50 to 100 pounds of nitrogen
per acre, and he profitable even w here It is Winter
Killed The first month's growth In spring will
produce about one-third of the final yield of ni
trogen. When the hay Is removed, about 85 to
■10 per cent of the total nitrogen Is left In Hie
stubble and root# In southeast Maryland two or
three counties have a naturally poor and thin
sandy soil, but In these counties the use of cow
peas and crimson clover has had a wonderful ef
fect. and greater corn crops are being made thaa
in the more highly Improved counHes north of
them.
TRY IT A N11 SEE.—It tins not beea many year*
since It was declared that crimson clover would
not grow in the lower Mississippi Valley. Hut It
seems to grow for Mr. Mackey, and I have letters
from ax far south ax Hayou Sara, l.a.. tilling of
tine success with It. I do not bellexo there la any
part of the country where It will not thrive till we
get so far that It will not winter.
Where Oats Pay Better Than Wheat.
HERE I LIVE the lnnd la generally of a
sandy character, and not Rood wheat soil,
though farmers k#<i> sow Wig wheat here
Last fall we sowed a crop of Virginia turf oats
In September late. Side by Bide with these oats
was wheat on the same farm. The wheat made
about one-third the number of bushels that the
oats made. In the northern part of the Mary
)and-I)elaware peninsula they make great crops of
wheat, for they have the clay loam for wheat,
and it iH rather cold for winter oats Hut in the
xandv soils of the southern end of the peninsula
the oats will heat wheat every time, and the same
is true further South, ami more so. for in the
iuimi.1 climate of the Sooth Atlantic roast coon
try rust will always damage the wheat and shrivel
the grain, while winter oats thrive there and pro
duce crops on Improved soils that would ho the
envy of the Northern farmers. On the reclaimed
swamp lands oats will grow, while wheat will not
do anything there. I saw not long ago a held of
oats on swamp land near Norfolk, Va.. that prom
ised to make fully seventy-live bushels an uare.
I )< n uftr "inter oiitH one can grow a heavy crop
of pea hay, and the two crops will heat a cotton
crop sometimes.
% hen we say that acid phosphate is 16 per cent
it. simply means that there are 16 pounds of phos
phoric acid in each 100 pounds. Phosphoric sold
Ik the form In which we supply phosphorus to
Plants, for we can not get or use pure phosphorns,
as It burns up on exposure to the air. Hetice we
get It in some combination and the cheapen Is iu
the phosphoric acid that add phosphate eoutah.a.