Many farmers, because their fathers did so before them, plow their
corn lands very shallow before planting; but make up for it in deep
plowing while dressing the corn crop. Why is corn plowed at all?
1. TO DESTROY WEEDS.—In this climate if a plow is not kept lively in
the early part of the season, weeds will completely take the crop. The
soil is like a table full of food. Every man who sits down to it makes
it less. Every weed eats up a part of the soil, and takes away,
needlessly, so much from the corn. But it is not merely the nutritive
ingredients which are extracted—but what, on some soils, in some
seasons, is even worse—weeds drink up the moisture. There are many
soils which could afford to lose much mineral and vegetable substance
without lessening the supply for corn; but, in this climate, in
ordinary seasons, no soil can afford to squander its moisture.
But a corn crop is often put in to act as a cleanser of the soil when
it has become foul. This end can only be answered by a rigid
persecution and destruction of the weeds throughout the whole growing
season. Some farmers, strangely enough, will deal thoroughly with
their fields, but allow the edges and fence rows to swarm with weeds
that luxuriate and ripen seed which the winds scatter all over the
field. This is as if a man should busy himself all day long, in
driving hogs out of his field, but leave all the holes open where they
broke in. The soil should be thoroughly worked.
2. TO PREVENT DRYNESS.—Nothing is wider of the truth, than letting
corn alone in dry weather for fear of “firing” it. If the plow begins
early, and is kept going, no drought likely to occur in our climate
can do much injury; especially if the ground has been broken up deep
before planting.
Where the atmosphere is very dry, very hot and windy, the evaporation
of moisture from the plant, and from the surface of the soil, is
excessive. A hill of corn will exhale many pounds of moisture in a
day. There is no remedy for excessive exhalation from plants; but this
renders it yet more necessary that a supply should be kept up at the
roots. If the soil therefore, is permitted to evaporate from its
surface, the double draught upon its moisture—through the plant, and
from the surface—will soon exhaust its water.
Everybody knows that if a board or cloth be put upon the ground, in
dry weather, the earth under it will remain moist—its aqueous
particles being checked in their passage upward. If a shovelful of
fine manure be laid in a heap upon a spot of ground, the same effect
will be produced. Gardeners are accustomed to cover the earth about
shrubs with an inch or two of fine sand; experience teaching them that
it preserves the moisture of the soil. Now, if the soil, instead of
being covered with sand, or light manure, be itself pulverized, the
same effect will be produced—and for reasons which will appear. When
the soil is compact the moisture ascends from particle to particle
without obstruction. Every crevice which separates the particles of
earth, checks the passage of the moisture. This may be more readily
seen in an analogous case—the transmission of heat. Take two
nail-rods, lay the end of one in the fire; divide the other into inch
pieces and lay them in a row from the fire, each piece touching the
other. The transmission of heat in the rod made up of pieces will be
checked at each point of division, while the uncut rod will heat
rapidly. On this principle, an iron chain two feet long, with one end
thrust into fire, will not transmit heat through its length near so
soon as a solid bar of the same length.
If this reasoning be true, and experience bears it out, the plow
should be kept running in dry times to save a crop from drought. But
if the farmer has neglected his corn, waiting for rain, and begins to
plow after his ground is very dry, and plows deep, _breaking the
roots_ of his corn, the crop will be “fired;” for, in this case,
besides the evaporation from the leaves and the dryness of the soil,
he commences breaking the roots by which the crop drinks what little
water there may be left for it. Of course it despairs when it is
attacked on one side by the heat, and on the other by the foolish
farmer, and underneath by a treacherously dry soil. Begin, then,
early, and plow often, and you may defy dry summers and cram your crib
with hearty crops of corn.
BREAKING THE ROOTS.—Many farmers study to break the roots of their
corn. We have heard them boast of ripping them up with a big plow till
they clogged it up like bundles of yarn. It is done by some because
others do it; those who attempt to reason, say, that if a root be
broken it immediately puts out many more from the point of breakage;
and the practice of root-pruning fruit-trees is cited, to show that
the fruitfulness of a plant is increased by reducing the root and
checking the growth of the wood. It is not true that the fruitfulness
of a tree is increased by root-pruning, but, it is made to yield its
fruit _earlier_. It is a device to bring trees rapidly into bearing. A
pear-tree (grafted) requires from five to eight years before it is
matured enough to commence bearing. By mutilation of root, bending of
branches, or by a poor gravelly soil, the tree is partially forbidden
to grow, and obliged to ripen its wood and fit it for fruit-bearing.
But had it grown to its natural size, it would then have borne even
more fruit than when dwarfed.
No such practice is required upon annual plants, whose ripening is not
delayed through years, but which come up and ripen and die within the
limits of a single season. They need no artificial treatment to
accelerate the fruiting, because it ordinarily makes no difference
whether the corn crop comes in September or October. It is better to
select varieties of corn which ripen within the limits of the season
natural to the region where it is planted. Then there will be no
occasion to break roots, or to apply any other artificial and violent
process to accelerate maturation.