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Show CORN ON DRY FARM Conservation of Rainfall Is Key to Success. Enough Live Stock Should Be Kept to Pay Most of Farm Expenses in Semi-Arid Regions Hay and Pasturage Short. In all dry farming areas the conservation conser-vation of the rainfall in the soil where it becomes available to growing crops is the keystone of successful agriculture, agricul-ture, writes W. R. Porter in the Farm, Stock and Home. ; This is generally done by the cultivation culti-vation of the soil during the entire growing season. If no crop is produced pro-duced on the land this operation is called summer fallow or summer culture. cul-ture. Over most of the dry farming area nearly if not as good grain cVops can be grown following a cultivated culti-vated crop as after the summer fallowed fal-lowed land. When the bare fallow system Is used a whole year elapses without any returns either on the investment or for the labor performed. If a cultivated culti-vated crop can be grown with as good crops following it should more than pay its expense, which will consist of seed, planting and harvesting; the cultivation cul-tivation would have to be done anyway, any-way, so this would not be counted against the cost of production of a crop of corn. Corn is pre-eminently this crop, . first, because it produces an abundance of cheap feed; second, it shades the soil during the excessively exces-sively hot days of July and August, thereby preventing loss of soil fertility, fertil-ity, and third, a corn field has a cooling cool-ing rather than a heating influence on the winds that blow across it. This may have a very berfficial effect on surrounding crops when the temperature tempera-ture Is near the 100 degree mark. On most farms in the dry farming area enough live stock should be kept to pay most of the running expenses of the farm. Hay and pasturage are very short in such areas and consequently too dear for cheap live stock production. produc-tion. Enough corn should be grown to supply, first, the work horses with roughage during the winter if not the working season; second, to supplement supple-ment the pastures of the summer and fall as a soiling crop or in the form of ensilage and to from the bulk of their winter ration; third, to supply the heep and hogs a cheap fattening food for finishing them off in the fall. The first essential to corn culture on the dry farms is live stock, for without such there is no way of utilizing util-izing the corn crop, but if live stock are kept feed must be had, the corn crop can be converted into beef, pork, mutton, wool, butter and eggs, commodities com-modities that can always be converted convert-ed into cash or its equivalent. The by-product of live stock (manure) should go back onto the land to replenish re-plenish the diminishing supply of humus hu-mus and fertilizing elements so essential essen-tial to large yields. The second essential to corn culture is a conviction that it will pay to grow live stock on the corn crop produced and a determination to grow corn as' their chief feed in spite of adverse circumstances. In order to be successful success-ful In growing corn on a dry farm the selection of the proper variety is essential. es-sential. In western North Dakota and eastern Montana Squaw, Gehu, Mercer, King Phillip and Triumph will probably prove the best flint varieties, va-rieties, while Golden dent and Northwestern North-western dent will probably prove the best dent varieties. Good seed is very important. It should always germinate strong and 95 per cent, or better. The time to seed is from the tenth to the fifteenth of May In a well prepared pre-pared seed bed which has been manured and plowed the fall before and which has been harrowed at intervals inter-vals from the time the soil had thawed out in the spring until the time of seeding. Thorough cultivation is very important as it warms the soil, decreases de-creases evaporation of soil water, and forces the corn ahead very rapidly. On the dry farms the corn should be cultivated cul-tivated after every rain as soon as possible in order to bottle all water possible in the soil. As soon as the corn is cut the land should be disked lightly but it should not be plowed. Should any heavy soaking rains come after this in the fall the land should again be harrowed. In the spring-wheat spring-wheat should be sown as early as possible pos-sible but very rarely should the corn land be plowed before seeding wheat. |
