Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 120, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1916 — SUNFLOWERS A PAYING CROP [ARTICLE]

SUNFLOWERS A PAYING CROP

Raised by Farmers in Southeast Missouri on as Large a Scale as Corn. Kansas City, Mo. —In southeast Missouri farmers raise sunflowers to feed chickens. Many farmers in New Madrid county, Missouri, are growing sunflowers for seed on as large a scale as they grow corn. The seed is high in oil and protein and makes an excellent feed. It is used chiefly as a feed for parrots and as a part of the commercial poultry feeds. The seed is purchased each fall by general seed buyers from SL Louis. The soils in which sunflowers are grown are the once swampy lands and range from sandy loams to clays. The average production Is about 8,000 to 15,000 pounds of seed to the acre. The usual selling price is from 2% to 4 cents a pound. The average return is about S4O for each acre. Some of the farmers are growing the sunflowers in place of corn. The crop Is planted about the same as com. In the labor required in handling and cultivation, the two crops are alike. When the crop matures, a wagon is taken into the field and the heads are cut off and thrown into the wagon. The seeds are then threshed out with a threshing machine.