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Show New Corn Culture Uses Spray to Replace Hoe mmm- - :Mhwt2i' ".- yjPfft f-jjj xk "- ' if ii m t V if-- M M H M hi .PPHi ill IMm-v K ' :' ' - W ' " IMK PLANT IN SQUARES TO INSURE ! . 'TO K2r-!!jy V':" : " ' - POLLINATION. CORN MAY BE P3 -' N. - . PLANTED A5 CL05E AS ONE v. .. - .11 '" :-v:.. FOOT APART AS CULTIVATION ..- .- - L' 5 PRAY CORN PATCH SILK -- WITH 2,4-D AFTER ; Ktti il-X BE TOUCHED CORN HAS BEEN . fPtSiT BY POLLEN TO PLANTED BUT BEFOUE 'M&k- PRODUCE A )T SHOWS ABOVE CROWD. -Nff KERNEL. y A new corn culture, which combines less work with promises of increased yields so large as to be fantastic, is available to amateurs this year. Still in the experimental stage, it should only be used with the understanding that it is risky. No special skill is involved, you merely sow your corn closer together than you have ever done before; spray the field with 2,4D, after sowing, sow-ing, then go away and don't bother to cultivate. Come back only when you dust with D. D. T. to kill the borers. Experiment stations that have tried this system say the 2,4D, applied to the soil in about the same strength used on the lawn, keeps weeds from growing until the corn is tall enough to shade the ground. Since there is no cultivation, the plants can be grown as close as a foot apart each way. The roots are undisturbed by garden tools, the soil remains loose and porous because the plants prevent pre-vent rains from beating it down. This culture, In short, abandons many practices which the most advanced ad-vanced scientists have been attacking for several years, and if it is finally proved successful it will not only produce bumper corn crops, but will probably change methods of growing many other crops. There Is no better place to try this new culture than on a small patch of sweet com in a home garden. The soil should be well fed, with at least 4 pounds of plant food to each 100 square feet. Use hybird varieties of sweet corn. If the corn borer is active in youi vicinity, when the plants are knee high dust them with five percent D. D. T. Repeat this in 10 days, as a minimum protection. It is better to dust four times, five days apart. Seed should be sown as soon ax danger of frost is over. If you wish to cultivate, space the rows of early varieties two feet apart, later and taller kinds three feet apart A sowing should be made In four short rows rather than in a single long row. This insures that when the pollen is ripe, a cross wind will carry it to the silk in the young ears of an adjoining row, rather than wasting it on the ground, as might be the case in a single row. Each silk must be fertilized by pollen, in order to produce pro-duce a kernel, and many failures with com are traceable to poor pollination. In drills, sow three or four seeds to a foot, later to be thinned out to six inches apart for dwarf growing varieties or a foot apart for tall ones. Deep cultivation of corn must be avoided because the plants have shallow shal-low roots; but all weeds should be kept down and the soil stirred, to break its crust, until the plants are half grown. Side shoots and suckers need not be removed. |