only recently come to our farm and I wish it hadn't. It is said to be true that the same bacteria affects it as affects alfalfa and earth taken from the soil that is growing sweet clover will grow alfalfa, will inoculate the field. A Member-You will probably get the sweet clover seed, too. Mr. Hill-I do not think we need to worry about that. It is my own observation that sweet clover will not grow where anything else grows. It is a waste plant. It will grow where nothing else will grow and alfalfa will do the same thing. Mr. Nordman-Did your alfalfa develop those nodules on the roots like clover? Mr. Hill-Yes, in some places. It was uneven, some of it was not over six inches high, and in other places it was two feet and a half. Mr. Nordman-Yes, and the low places were the places where there were no nodules on the roots. Mr. Hill-Yes, you would dig down there and find there were no nodules on the roots, or practically none, while in the other places there were plenty. What made the difference I cannot tell. The places where it was best was where years ago we had an onion bed.. A Member-How was it last year on those bad places? Mr. Hill-It continued to improve all last year. It was heavily seeded all over and all it lacked was inoculation. I might say that the land was the poorest piece of land on the farm, and I am confident now that if I had manured it thoroughly I should have had no trouble. Mr. Hill-It will come later on, it will live through the winter and you will get them all right. A Member-I found when I sowed some alfalfa seed that I got a dose of this sweet clover in it which 1 never had on the farm before. Mr. Hill-Did the sweet clover die down after you cut it? The Member-I pulled most of it out by the roots. Lots of people think it is worse than Canada thistles, that it will live through a rotation of crops. Supt. McKerrow-We have had it for 15 years on our roadsides and in our fields, but it does not bother us in the rotation. Where do you get your seed, Mr. Hill? Mr. Hill-I got it of Salzer, of La Crosse. Prof. Moore recommended it to me and it was remarkably fine seed. Mr. Martiny-I secured some alfalfa seed at Madison and I also got some inoculated soil. I tried to grow alfalfa without inoculation, and by the fall I could hardly see any alfalfa on that strip, while on the strip that was inoculated it was about 18 inches high, So I think it would be impossible to start alfalfa up in Manitowoc county without inoculating the soil. Mr. Hill-Mr. Wing is sure that if your ground is covered with fresh cow stable manure, that you will "ct be bothered about inoculation. A Member-Wouldn't it be a good idea to sow a little alfalfa with your clover? Mr. Hill-That is a good question. I never will sow a bit of clover seed without putting two pounds of alfal Mr. Nordman-I sowed about 11 fa seed with the clover seed on every acres in alfalfa last year and of it developed any nodules. nore acre of land, and in that way your farm will gradually be inoculated. 40 Selecting the Seed. a school house, I picked up one of the | dispute it, it seems to me that it is text books, turned over the leaves worth our while to have the best seed and ran across this subject of cora, in order to grow the biggest crops, and the statement was there made and in order to get the best seed, it that if all the corn grown in his is worth our while to take considercountry in one year was piled up able pains the city of Chicago and we could start and load a wagon with bushels of shelled corn and start it on its way toward New York and start another load right behind it, it would make a good long string of corn, longer than I ever thought of. I asked the question once in a Fariners' Institute if they thought it would reach to New York, and one man said, "No, sir." Well, the statement in that book was that it would I believe the best way is to select the seed in the field. I not only want an ear of corn that is good, that has lots of vitality, is of good form and is as nearly perfect as we can get, but I want an ear of corn that is grown upon a good stalk, that is well furnished with good foliage, because that kind of an ear will give the oest food value in our corn. So, then, we select our seed corn as it is standing | year after year and it will only be a in the field. We go through he few years before you will have a type field and when we find an ear of corn of corn that when you take it to that pleases us, and upon a stalk market or have it in your own crib, that pleases us, a stalk that is well you will be proud of. furnished with a goodly number of broad, healthy leaves, that is the ear we are after. Now, having selected this ear of corn, we must either mark it in some manner or cut it. I prefer to cut the stalk at this time, take it to the outside of the field and let it cure in the shock, just as our shock is cured a little later on. Then, before we have any hard freezing weather, this corn is husked and placed where it is exposed to a current of warm, dry air, until it is very thoroughly cured. In this way we believe we have the best corn grown in the field and that we have preserved all the vitality of that seed and therefore we have the best seed corn. We all of us know that a goodly proportion of the corn that is planted in this country, or any other country, has a very low vitality; in fact, I believe that 40 per cent of the corn that is planted ought never to be planted at all, and a crop that is of so great importance to the Wisconsin farmer ought to have the advantage of the best seed that can be grown, and every planter ought to know to a certainty that he has the very best of seed. Now, Mr. Chairman, I do not care to make a long talk, but I do want to say this much; before you go into your field to select your seed corn, you want to have a type of corn in your mind that you want to select for, and then select every ear as nearly as possible to that type. Do not select an ear of one type this year and the next year select an ear of another type, but get it uniform, have the type you want clearly defined in your mind, and then select every ear as nearly as possible to that particular type. Follow this up DISCUSSION. A Member-What kind of corn is that No. 7 that is spoken of in the "Wisconsin Agriculturist?" Mr. Coe-I do not know. Mr. Martiny-Wisconsin No. 7 is what they call the Iowa Silver King. grew it this last year for the first time. It is a white corn, and down in Sauk county it matured about the I same time as the North Star and the Pride of the North and it very greatly out-yielded those two varieties. The Member-Would you recom mend it for this section of the country? Mr. Martiny-I hardly think I would, it is a little bit too late. A Member-I have a sample out in the exhibit room that I grew up in Manitowoc county. A Member-No. 7 in Sheboygan county was pretty nearly a failure this year, it is too far north. They recommend another corn, No. 8, for these northern counties. Mr. Everett-This No. 8 corn is what was known in Minnesota as No. 13, it is a yellow corn, quite early, which was developed by Prof. Hays. He propagated it and developed it until he got a corn that was a very good producing corn for the latitude of St. Paul, Minn., and they brought it in Wisconsin and called it Wisconsin No. 8. It is a yellow Dent corn, and I should think that would be better developed in this part of the state. Mr. Coe-The statement that a certain kind of corn will do well in the northern counties of the state is somewhat misleading, because we probably all know that in the western part of the state, the limit is very much farther north than it is in the eastern part of state, the corn belt | the hard freezing weather comes and starting from Racine county runs way it is liable to injure the germ. up to the latitude of St. Paul. It would seem to me that on this side of the state the Flint corn might be better than the Dent varieties. Mr. Convey-If the corn is thoroughly dry, you can subject it to a lower temperature after that. I saved quite a lot of seed corn one year and had A Member-The Flint corn is all a lot left over. It was very satisfacright, the Summer Yellow or Catory the first year, but the second nadian, but the stalk is so small. year it would not grow at all. I am satisfied that if you have damp weather, it will take up enough moisture to spoil it later on. Mr. Nordman-I do not take much stock in this matter as the gentleman has stated it. I planted Dent corn for two or three years and got a certain amount of feed for my silo. This year I planted Flint corn of a variety that matured in that country up there in Waupaca county, and off of my nine acres I got more fodder than I did before off of 12. It was done by planting it a little closer, I got just as much corn to the acre and a great deal more fodder. The Chairman-You raised this crop in Langlade county. Did it mature there? Mr. Nordman-The Flint did, the Dent did not, but that was very much on account of the season two years ago. A Member-Sheboygan county farmers, nine-tenths of them, have their corn hanging up in the barn under the eaves. Mr. Coe-It may grow pretty well, but I do not think it is the best place. If you will take a little more pains with it and be sure to keep it dry, I am sure it wiH pay. Mr. Martiny-What method do you employ in testing your seed corn? Mr. Coe-Just about the same method that Mr. Hill does in his clover seed. Get a common pie tin and a piece of canton flannel, moisten it, put your seed on that and another tin over it and keep it warm. A Member-If a man saves his seed A Member-Where would you keep corn and treats it the way it should dry seed corn? Mr. Coe-It is best to have a loft of some kind and if you have a loft where the kitchen chimney goes that is a good place, but put it thin enough so you get a good circulation of this warm air. I have a place where there is a slat floor and the air goes through there and dries it, but be particular that you save your seed corn before a hard freeze comes, because if it is full of moisture, then be treated, I do not think there is any need of testing it. I never have done it for 40 years. Mr. Coe-It is a measure of safety. I had a neighbor who a few years ago said that he had never tested his seed corn, and it never failed, but that season was pretty cold and wet, particularly in the spring, and it failed him and he had to go and buy some seed at a high price, and he had a failure that year. CORN CULTURE. Thos. Convey, Ridgeway, Wis. He who would not consider it important to secure sound seed of a good variety, never can expect to make a success of corn growing. Independent of this, there are two important divisions of corn culture; the first, the condition of the land, the second, the cultivation of the crop. Some Erroneous Ideas Corrected. When to Plow for Best Results. Everything is spring plowed. Twenty years ago I was an advocate of fall plowing for everything, but I know better now. This, of course, in connection with clover growing. If any one is fool enough to think he can keep a fall plowed field in as good condition as a clover field, especially for corn, he had better experiment a little and find out. We have been at this now for 20 years It is a common opinion that only and it is no experiment with us. the best land on the farm can be ex pected to yield a satisfactory crop. The system of farming is not right if that is the case. All parts of the farm that are cultivated should be capable of producing a good crop, because if not capable of producing good corn, it is not much good for anything else. No farmer who is worthy of the name ignores rotation of crops. It is a necessity and no crop is more satisfactory in a rotation than corn. There is a mistaken notion that corn does not take much from the soil. It takes about twice as much as oats and about three times as much as wheat in fertility to make an average crop in each instance, and yet all crops do well after corn. Our system of cropping is a three year rotation, being corn, small grain, usually oats, then grass, mostly clover, to be followed by corn, the grass being topdressed with manure. Since using a manure spreader, the entire field is top-dressed. The manure is applied just as soon as the hay crop is taken off and during the fall and winter, the earliest applications giving the best results. There is a little uncertainty in spring as when to plow. If the season is dry, it is safer to plow early, as the growing crop may rob the land of moisture, and in no case should it be deferred until the crop gets woody, as in that case it does not decay rapidly and would injure the corn. we Grass land top-dressed with manure does not dry out rapidly and usually leave it until the second week in May. As soon as we start to plow, we harrow after the plow, working the ground when the least work will do the most good, and just as soon as it is worth while we start the planter, thus one team is kept plowing, the other harrowing after the plow, then planting, then harrowing after the planter. Poor results would be obtained with spring plowing if it were allowed to get cloddy and dry before the harrow was used. A sharp harrow with upright teeth is the best implement that can be used in a corn field. It took me over 20 years to muster up courage to use it as much as we do now, which is until corn is six inches high at least. Always use plenty of seed (not more than 10 per cent of corn fields |