or stirring of the soil. Water, as you know, rises in the ground and
coming to the surface evaporates. Now the point is to keep the moisture
in the ground for the plant's food supply. So if one keeps stirring the
soil he makes a layer of earth which stops the water as it rises. We
call this a mulch.

When the shoots are six inches high choose the three finest little corn
seedlings in the group of five. Pull the others out. The reason for
putting in five kernels in the first place, instead of three, is that
some may not come up. And, too, some that do come up may be poor and
sickly.

Myron did a very stupid thing. At least he called it stupid. Some one
sent him a packet of seed popcorn. Myron thought it would be pretty
interesting to raise some and supply the club with popcorn at its
meetings all the next winter. Now Myron did not know that from the corn
tassels the pollen when ripe or dry blows all over the corn field. This
pollen falls on the silk of corn plants anywhere in the field. The
pollen fertilizes the plant and the ear of corn sets and grows. Because
the pollen being light is blown to such distances and because different
kinds of corn can interpollinate, is reason enough for not planting
different varieties of corn in one patch.

Myron's popcorn and sweet corn fertilized each other and he got a corn
which was a cross between the sweet corn and popcorn. He learned a
lesson of pollination, but at the expense of the corn crop.

One may plant early and late corn in the same patch but otherwise he
should stick to one kind of corn.