Importance of Corn in North Carolina, 1945

By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State University, Raleigh, as published in the Wilmington Star, April 2, 1945

It is gratifying to see, at long last, that our agricultural leaders will attempt to do something about the production of corn in North Carolina. We have tried various means of increasing our supply for feed or livestock and poultry. Some have claimed that barley is easier and cheaper to grow than corn and have called it “winter corn”, which is an admission that it is only a substitute. We have stressed pastures, winter and summer grazing crops, hay crops, and all the other kinds of feedstuffs that can be produced on our soils. Year around grazing has been attempted by many farmers following the fine example set by Hugh MacRae on his now famous lime-laden Invershiel Farm near Wilmington.

The truth is that all of these are good and have their respective places of great importance in North Carolina’s farming economy. Every person, owning land, should give these crops and these feed-producing plans the utmost consideration and should adopt those which seem to best fit the needs of his own particular soil and his location.

Yet, as I have claimed in this column many times, we have never given corn production the consideration which it deserves. Corn is nothing but a glorified grass. Down through the years it has been improved and perfected. It has been bred so that its various varieties have become adapted to different uses and it is the backbone of the livestock industry. If one wishes to know about the hog crop of the mid-west, he needs only to know about the corn crop. One reason why there is a shortage of hogs in North Carolina right now is that the OPA placed a ceiling on pork and allowed the price of feed, including corn, to find his own place. Corn influences the production of meat from the smallest frying-sized chicken to the largest beef steer. Apparently, then, we must still consider corn as the backbone of our livestock production.

But, in recent years, we have had much dry weather during the critical period of corn growth in summer. This is one reason why the barley enthusiasts urge that this feed is grown in winter when there is much more moisture. Our acre yields of corn seem to have become fixed at about 22 bushels on acre average for the state. Yet we have definite proven instances of where different men and boys are about over North Carolina are producing 100 and more bushels an acre every season. Some people are skeptical about these large acre yields. I have been so myself, but, I made it to a point to go out and check several of them, watching the corn pulled from the stalks, and seeing it shucked and weighed. After I had witnessed a few such yields and had seen yields of from 100 to 138 bushels of green corn from a measured acre weighed in at the scales, then I knew that is possible to produce the yields about which I had heard. Nor was there anything remarkable about it. Many farmers tell me that it is easy to make 100 bushels [and that] should be an ordinary, every-day sort of yield.

Now that we know about using winter legumes and summer legumes to improve the land and increase its water-holding capacity; we know about good seed and their tremendous importance; we know about shallow cultivation; we know about the use of fertilizer under the corn and the value of nitrogen side applications around the growing crop—there should be no further mystery as to how we might double the acre yield of corn in the next 10 years. In other words, if we would increase our present average yield from 22 to 44 or 50 bushels an acre, there should be no reason why we should not continue as a great livestock state. The late W.W. Shay, practical hog man, used to say that no man who grew less than an average of 35 bushels per acre had any business trying to grow and finish hogs for the market. If he could not produce as much as 35 bushels of corn an acre, he would fail as a hog grower, or he would become an “in and outer” depending upon the price of pork as compared with the p rice he could afford to play his neighbors for his surplus corn. Mr. Shay set the lowest profitable yield of corn for livestock at 35 bushels an acre and he was wise beyond his day.

Any man who tries to farm and have livestock should look after his corn supply. He ought to be able to feed corn to every animal and chicken on the place. Most of us grudgingly count out a few ears and nubbins of our workstock and feel that we have really “done something” when we give the hardworking mules an extra ear. 

We ought to be able to shovel it out to our hogs, to mix it in feed for our cows, to crush it for our beef steers, to crack it for our chickens, and to have ample for cornbread and grits on our own table. The way to do this is to use our own commonsense and grow it as we know how to do. Make it a crop of importance. Use more nitrogen and get seed of some of the adapted hybrids. These hybrids have strong root systems and will withstand the effects of dry weather. Not all of them are adapted to our conditions, however, and rather than use one that is not, it is better to use a local, standard, named variety with which we are familiar.

There is a definite need for more corn. The need is particularly vital this year. Dr. James H. Hilton, native North Carolina from Catawba County, who recently returned from Purdue University in Indiana to head the animal industry division at State College, says that we shall produce feed more abundantly or we shall go out of the livestock business. To do this would be a calamity. We have come too far to retreat and we should have learned through bitter experience that we cannot depend on crops alone. We need to keep the livestock that we have and to develop it further on a sound and sensible basis. Such a basis has its foundation in the production of ample feed at home.