George Washington Carver: A National Agricultural Library Digital Exhibit

1898

National Agricultural Library

The South has special advantages for the raising of corn, in the long season during which it may be grown and in the ready sale for the crop at remunerative prices. Planting may be done as early as February in the Gulf States, or it may be deferred until after a crop of oats or clover has been gathered from the land in June. Killing frosts rarely occur before November, so that oven the latest plantings have ample time to mature, while the early plantings may be harvested in time for growing hay or for sowing winter oats or some other crop on the same ground. Notwithstanding the great increase the local demand is not yet fully supplied and in most localities the entire crop finds a ready sale in the home market and at prices which Western corn growers would regard as very high. In a few localities it has been sold occasionally as low as 25 cents per bushel, but that price has been rare and local, 50 cents per bushel being nearer the average through the Gulf States, the price being somewhat less than that in the northern section and higher farther south.

With a soil and climate well suited to its growth and with an increasing home demand for the crop the cultivation of corn is certain to become one of the leading farm industries of the South in the near future. Methods of culture and of handling the crop necessarily differ in many ways from those followed in other parts of the country, and it is the aim of this bulletin to describe briefly those practices which have been found most profitable and economical in the region south of the Ohio River.

Corn Culture in the South