We cannot give a complete refutation of the impression that Eastern seed corn does not yield well the first season in California. It is a somewhat prevalent impression. All that we can announce now is that we have grown collections of Eastern seed corn and have found the product quite as good as could have been expected, and did not encounter, apparently, the trouble of which you write.
Need of Corn Suckering.
To insure the best crop of corn possible, does it pay to sucker it or not?
The removal of suckers is a matter of local conditions largely in California, and growers are getting out of the habit of suckering. In some places suckering is needed, and in others it apparently does not pay to do so, although with very rare exceptions a larger yield can be secured by suckering than without.
Cow Peas Not Preparatory for Corn.
What time of the year can cow peas be planted, and can the entire crop be plowed under in time for planting field corn?
Cowpeas are very subject to frost. They are really beans, and therefore can be grown in the winter time only in a few practically frostless places. Wherever frosts are likely to occur they must be planted, like beans and corn, when the frost danger is over. Field peas, Canadian peas and vetches are hardy against frost and therefore safer for winter growth, and treated as you propose they may be preparatory for corn-growing providing you plow them under soon enough to get a month or more for decay before planting the corn.
Oats and Rust
Is there any variety of oats that is rust-proof, or any method of treating oats that will render them rust resistant? We are situated on a mountain, only about 12 miles from the coast, and have considerable foggy weather, which most of the farmers here say is the cause of the rust.
There is no way of treating oats which will prevent smut, if the variety is liable to it. There is a great difference in the resistance of different varieties. A few dark-colored oats are practically rust-proof, and you can get seed of them from the seedsmen in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Such varieties are chiefly grown on the southern coast. Foggy weather has much to do with the rust, because it causes atmospheric moisture which is favorable to the growth of the fungus, which is usually checked by dry heat, and yet there are atmospheric conditions occasionally which favor the rust even in the driest parts of the State. The fog favors rust, but does not cause it. The cause is a fungus, long ago thoroughly understood and named puccinia graminis.