Disking For Corn

A few years ago planting corn on ground which had been prepared in any other way than by plowing with the stirring plow and then smoothed and rednced to good tiltil with the roller and harrow wonld have beeo regarded as an agricultural heresy, but now, as the Iowa Homestead tells, it is not uncommon to see farmers who are growing corn after corn in a six or even a four erop rotation prepare the ground with the disk instead of the plow. The journal mentioned affirms that if the land has beeii in clover and only one corn erop taken from ifc since the clover was turned under, it will be in fine condition to prepare with the disk, and many claim that better corn can be grown with this kind of preparation thau wheu it is done in the usual way with the plow. Some farmers do uot think this kind of preparatiou effects much saving of labor, while others do. Many do not keep a large enough forcé of teams to work a disk as it should be worked, while others do not follow a rotation that keeps the ground clean enough for this kind of preparation. They hitch two horses to a pïow and work day after day until at length they are ready to plant. In diskiug oue can disk twice or doublé diskasraay be preferred, there being no difference except that with doublé disking there are no ridges or "dead furrows. " The stalks must be broken before the frost is all out of the ground or harrowed on a dry day and raked and burned, otherwise the corn will uot work so well nor will the cultivator, when the time comes to use it. The field is prepared a day or two before planting time and is then harrowed two or three times before planting.