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Show FARM AND HOUSEHOLD. HINTS ABOUT KAFFIR CORN CULTURE. 1 Kannan Who Ha llutl Sucre With It 1'aH In for rroflt Toinutoe (or rl Knuiliige Talk Orer-iuti Orer-iuti Farm Notes. Kaflir C orn Cult ure. 0. P. Norton in the Council Grove. Kj?isas, Republican: I have received ; many inquiries about Kaffir com, its growth, method of planting, cultivation, cul-tivation, harvesting, etc., that I would like space to answer all at once through your column" ind save time. When planted for grain, we use the lister, and make rows abrmt thres feet wid". The plate for planting corn will not do. (Jet a blank plate and have small holes drilled in it same as 'or sorghum, as tho seed is about the same size. One bushel will seed twenty acres. It grows much like sorghum snu needs the same cultiva-vation cultiva-vation as it and corn. The seed should be covered two or three indies deep. The foliage Is simply immense, three times as much as sorghum or corn. It heads out like sorghum, but the heads are much more compact and the crop of sel very much greater, It should be planted as early as corn und not later than May 1. There are two methods of harvesting; first, cut up when seed is ripe, with sled, and shock samo as corn. It has to be cut very low to get all the fodder. Then we throw down the shocks and even up the hoids in urm fuls, hold them on u block ami chop the heads olT with an axe and :v.-thock the fodder. The seed is threshed like any other grain. Nome rMW heads off with knife before cut-tiivYiip, cut-tiivYiip, and then cut and shock atter-wuriis, atter-wuriis, or turn in tho cattle, same as cornlfodder. 1 liiay say that harvesting Kaflir corn Is a very slow and tedious process, but t(io crop a good one, too is certain cer-tain tio be there, wet or dry, and if tho hurvrsting is tedious, the crop will bo a bonanza, if your corn is a failure; and it beiits paying 60 cents a bushel for corn,! or going without feed, if you have i.'o money to buy. I am confident the havvesting may bo done with a header, same as wheat, by enlarging the wheels of the header so as to get the siklo high enough. When this is done Shero will be more Kaffir corn than tjmts raised in Kansas. But if a crop ff Kaffir seed is a good thing to have W the end of a drouth, when your ccrn is a failure, a crop of Kaffir corn is no less a bonanza when millet is killed by a drouth, and prairie grass not Mgtt enough to cut. !Sow a bushel to the aVre, broadcast or drill it in with ft wiheat drill, get it well covered so as to isure a good stand, and you are as certain to have a good crop of the best feed that grows as that your taxes or mortgages will some time be due. The writer thereof has made arrangements to put in 100 acres of Kaffir for Imy and grain the coming sonHon, and ho does not expect to buy any feed of any kind to winter thirty head of horses and colts and seventy-five seventy-five hoad of Shorthorn cattle. Sow Kaffir corn on the highest driest thinnest soil you have; the crop will be there all the same. |
