UNCLE SAM'S CHAMPION JUVENILE CORN GROWERS
Fawcett, Waldon
Uncle Sam's Champion Juvenile Corn Growers Prize Winning Boys who have Established New Records in Production of Corn By WALDON FAWCETT THE proud corn country of the Central States and the Middle...
...Incidental to bringing about a virtual expansion of our corn-growing territory, the Department of Agriculture aims to induce a greatly increased corn production per acre, no matter where any acre may be located...
...When Secretary of Agriculture Wilson personally presented a diploma of merit to each of the boys who came to Washington as "grand prize" winners he told them that he would like to send them as missionaries to the regular "corn belt" on both sides of the Mississippi where there are many farmers who have been neglecting "gold mines" according to the disclosures of Uncle Sam's new volunteer boy demonstrators...
...But what has already been accomplished proves that the Department's ambition to make "two blades of grass grow where only one grew before" is being realized in its application to the corn growing business...
...And each boy corn grower, in computing the cost of his crop had to charge up all the time he spent in cultivation at ten cents per hour and also allow five cents per hour for the time of the horse or mule employed for plowing...
...Strictly Business Methods Required THE BOYS WERE REQUIRED to adopt thoroughly business-like methods in the bookkeeping record of his crop which each was required to keep...
...As the result of exhaustive investigation and experiment, the farming experts in the service of the government came to the conclusion that as good or better corn than America has ever known could be raised in prolific quantity south of the old Mason and Dixon line,—if only the people of that region could be aroused to the possibilities lying dormant at their doors...
...It was felt that to insure the best results from systematic efforts and also to facilitate the holding of competitive contests, the lads engaged in the new-fangled corn culture should be banded together in some sort of an organization...
...In another county in the same State 142 boys averaged 62 bushels per acre...
...He was even required to charge up $5 against himself as rent for the acre of land he tilled, even though his father, as was usually the case, let him have the use of the land free of charge...
...In a word, it is a scheme for extending the "corn belt...
...There was one boy in this year's competition who by the sale of his corn added to his cash prizes realized $1,000 from his acre...
...All this is important, for, in makng up records and awarding prizes each year the government officials take into account cost of cultivation quite as much as they do mere quantity of yield...
...It will mean only a fraction more time and work and it means production doubled or trebled or quadrupled...
...What is more, many of the fathers have taken the lessons to heart and after seeing, with their own eyes, what phenomenal yields can be made if corn be cultivated as the "book chaps" at the Department of Agriculture prescribe, they have become converts to the new ideas and have announced that henceforth they will cultivate corn the way their sons have been doing these past few months...
...It was nothing less than a scheme for enrolling the farmer boys of Dixie in a country-wide organization for proving that the new "fairy tales" about corn can come true...
...Contests to be Extended NEXT SEASON the scope of the corn-growing competition will probably be greatly extended...
...In one Mississippi county, 48 boys averaged 92 bushels per acre...
...It has worked like a charm...
...The winners in these contests are awarded all sorts of prizes,—township prizes, village prizes, county prizes, State prizes, and goodness knows what all in the way of special trophies...
...Certainly some scheme will be devised for extending the scope of the Corn Club work to the Middle West and incidently the officials will hearken to the demands of the country girls of the United States who want to be given a hand in the corn contest, or, if that be thought impracticable to have Uncle Sam foster competitive vegetable growing, with canning and preserving as a "side line,"—a brand new departure in which a beginning was made on a small scale in South Carolina this past season by the Departmental officials who were in that territory to look after the corn-growing competition and who, out of pure good nature, yielded to the pleadings of the girls, footing the incidental bills out of their own pockets...
...One leads to the delightfully obvious but not so easily attained goal of increased production in the territory already devoted to corn growing...
...Truly astonishing yields were made during the past season by some of the boy corn growers,—so much so that many of the records are almost past the belief of farmers who have been getting an average of, say, 32 to 40 bushes of corn per acre in the choice corn country of the Middle West...
...Indeed, to this knowledge on the fertilizer question quite as much as to their following of instructions to plow to a depth of 8 to 16 inches is to be attributed the achievement of these untried lads in securing at the first go-off better crops than their fathers have been able to produce with all the experience back of them...
...On the contrary, the Department of Agriculture declares that with intelligent methods any practical farmer can duplicate the performances of its young proteges if he will devote one-fourth more time at present to his cultivating work...
...Accordingly the officers of the Division of Farmers' Cooperative Demonstration Work (the branch of the Department of Agriculture which has charge of this and other similar educational crusades) organized what are known as Corn Clubs all over the land, the township being the standard unit of organization,—and there are county clubs in about six hundred dif...
...In evidence of what may be accomplished with this simple home remedy it may be cited that in the South, where a beginning has been made, but where, of course only a portion of the farmers have been converted to the new corn gospel, the aggregate production has so increased that the region has jump from the position of producer of one-sixth of the nation's corn crop to that of grower of one-third of the entire crop...
...Furthermore the Department of Agriculture has had its own officers in the field all the while, keeping an eye on the work and investigating any suspicious reports of phenomenal yields...
...The other points to the scarcely less alluring prospect of corn crops in regions where corn, if not unknown, has at least been cultivated indifferently...
...ferent counties...
...Uncle Sam has no money available for such purposes just now, but the officials of the Department of Agriculture hatched the scheme and got the public spirited citizens of more than a dozen States so interested that they put up the needed prizes...
...Fundamentally, all the government does to induce this era of higher intelligence in corn culture is to give instructions to the boys as to how to till the soil in the most advantageous manner but indirectly Uncle Sam has fostered competitive contests in corn growing which have been largely instrumental in arousing the enthusiasm that is carrying the whole movement to success...
...To fanners who have been looking upon corn as a highly developed crop and to all the chesty folk who have been taking satisfaction in the dependence of the whole world upon our corn crop, this latest "missionary work" of the government's farm office may seem an unnecessary move...
...S. A. Knapp, the government expert who is the Solomon of this movement, are prepared and sent several times during the year to each individual boy enrolled in the work...
...That there has been mighty little fraud needs no assurance when one considers that all over the South there have been keenly interested boys watching the crops of other boys like hawks...
...How the Boys Are Taught EARLY IN THE SPRING, the boys receive bulletins dealing with seed selection and the preparation of the soil...
...As the season advances, this novel course of instruction by mail brings them advice as to the various steps in the progress of cultivation...
...It was realized, however, that waking up Southern farmers to their neglected opportunities was not going to prove any easy task...
...And the best thing about this new plan of corn growing is that it is not intensive farming so specialized and requiring such constant attention that it would be practicable only for a person who could devote his sole attention to one favored acre...
...An El Dorado in the Southland TO THE LAYMAN with a superficial knowledge of the corn growing industry, it might have appeared that the only chance for conquering a new world for King Corn would be in the great expanses of the West where irrigation is working or promising its modern miracles...
...Competition has, naturally, been very keen among the boys have been seeking to establish new world's records in corn growing and it has been essential that the computing and comparing of yields be done on the most accurate and systematic basis that would take into account all influencing conditions...
...Uncle Sam's Champion Juvenile Corn Growers Prize Winning Boys who have Established New Records in Production of Corn By WALDON FAWCETT THE proud corn country of the Central States and the Middle West—the great "corn belt," including such states as Indiana and Illinois and Iowa and Nebraska, —may soon be called upon to look to its laurels...
...Two avenues of escape from any impending corn famine opened before Uncle Sam's experts and they have been exploring both simultaneously...
...Jerry Moore, of Winona, South Carolina, the champion corn grower of the world, got the amazing yield of 228 bushels per acre and it cost him the moderate sum of 43 cents per acre,—that is, moderate compared with the operating expenses of some of the men who engage in farming for a living...
...all the long-range counsel being supplemented by the suggestions of the field workers of the Department who are continually traveling about to supervise and give practical instruction...
...Although many of the lads who are engaged in this new order of farming are very young, still the government experts have been giving their young charges a pretty heavy literary diet on the subject of fertilization which, as every scientific farmer realizes, is the keynote of the whole situation...
...Circulars of instruction, prepared by Dr...
...So the officials back of the project nit upon a novel expedient...
...Individuals such as bankers and merchants and others interested in seeing an increase in the wealth of their district, and organizations such as boards of trade, county superintendents of education, chambers of commerce, etc., contributed to the list of prizes this past season and some of the Department of Agriculture officials got so interested that they paid for prizes out of their own pockets...
...Moreover, the youngsters have "bucked up" nobly under the load of technical lore ano most of them have mastered a general knowledge of nitrogen, potash, phosphorus, etc., as agricultural aids as well as infcrmatioh on the action of wood mould, barnyard manure, etc...
...40,000 in Prizes NOW, OP COURSE, the government does not offer these prizes...
...the whole list of bonus offerings in each State cul minating in a "grand prize" in the form of a sight-seeing trip to Washington, all expenses paid, for one boy who has made the best record in the whole commonwealth...
...The United States Government has engineered a new movement that promises to revolutionize conditions in the corn growing industry...
...In a county in South Carolina 20 boys produced 1,700 bushels of corn on 20 acres...
...On the other hand, Steve Henry of Louisiana who carried off the nation's highest honors for economical farming produced nearly 140 bushels to the acre (four times the average in many a traditional corn-growing section) and yet he obtained this yield at a cost of only a little over 13 cents per bushel...
...The grand total throughout the country footed up more than $40,000 in value and the list included in addition to the Washington excursions, cash purses, farm implements, outings, ponies, pigs, bicycles, watches, etc., not to mention a raft of smaller prizes...
...Joe Stone of Georgia, the youngest and smallest of the national prize winners, is only eleven years old and small for his age but he produced 102 bushels to the acre at a cost of 29 cents per acre and when the practical farmers on the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives cross-examined him severely on his methods, he answered all queries with the ready confidence of a veteran who had his business at his finger-tips...
...Furthermore, each boy who aspires to win a prize, big or little, must prove to his neighbors and the people of his own community that he has really "made good" as a champion corn grower by exhibiting his best ten ears of corn at the county fair in his county, and finally, he must prepare a written history of his crop that is taken into account when prizes are being awarded...
...Not so with the officials of the Department of Agriculture...
...During the past season more than 46,000 boys have taken a hand, with all the enthusiasm of youth, in this odd "demonstration work," and it seems as though a beginning had only been made in a movement that will likely extend to every nook and corner of the country and will ere long enlist the farmer girls in corresponding activities Learning from the Children IN MORE THAN A DOZEN STATES, during the season just closed, the lads in this new volunteer army of juvenile ruralists have been giving their fathers object lessons right at home...
...They "prospected" the entire country with an eye to corn-growing possibilities and they have discovered what they believe to be their El Dorado in the Southland where cotton and tobacco have been regarded as the only crops worth while and corn has been scorned as a makeshift...
...Indeed not all the boys who won the "grand prizes" and were personally congratulated by President Taft at the White House in Washington, made the largest yields in their respective States...
Vol. 3 • January 1911 • No. 2
