CULTIVATION OF CORN. 



467 



something like 1,800 pounds of potash for potatoes and 1,000 for ber- 

 ries. These crops also demand much labor and care for planting, 

 cultivating, gathering, and marketing. An experienced grower at 

 Newbern estimated that one team of mules or horses to every 10 acres 

 is the minimum requirement, for a truck farm. In addition to the 

 expense of producing a crop, the uncertainty of the yield, and espe- 

 cially of the market, must be taken into consideration. It can be 

 safely said that no branch of agriculture in the United States makes 

 heavier demands upon the courage, the industry, and the intelligence 

 of the farmer than does truck growing. 



CEREALS. 



The only important cereal and, next to the truck crops, the most 

 important agricultural product, of the Dismal Swamp region is corn. 

 Corn is largely raised on the truck soils, after one or two earlier 

 crops of garden vegetables have been removed. But land of this 

 character is too light and has too little bottom to yield a first-class 

 crop, even if the «orn were planted early enough to make its full 

 growth. The stalks are usually short and thin and the total leaf sur- 

 face is small and has not the line green color which corn at its best 

 should have. Consequently the cars are neither large nor full, and 

 the crop hardly meets the local demand. 



The heavier lands of the interior, in Norfolk and Princess Anne 

 counties, are naturally belter for cereals than are the coast soils, hav- 

 ing a greater content of silt or of clay and therefore holding water 

 better. But in many places they have been exhausted by long culti- 

 vation in corn or cotton, without the practice of intelligent rotation. 



The finest corn land of the region is unquestionably that which has 

 been cleared from the wooded swamps. Extensive bodies of such 

 land occur along the Dismal Swamp Canal, and are largely in corn. 

 When first cleared, the best type of black-gum land brings, without 

 application of lime or fertilizers, 80 bushels of corn to the acre. The 

 stalks are often 10, 12, and sometimes 16 feet high. Even after several 

 years of cultivation such hind, with little or no treatment, continues 

 to yield 40 bushels. One field, said to have been in corn almost con- 

 tinuously for at least forty years, still produces 20 to 25 bushels of 

 corn to the acre. It has been allowed to lie idle sometimes for a year 

 or two, but rotation has not been practiced. Most of the corn raised 

 on the largest farm in the section (about 800 acres in extent) is exported 

 to Germany, where it is used for seed. It is a White Dent with a very, 

 long grain, and is known as "Horse-tooth Corn" (PI. LXXVI). 



Swamp lands at Newbern are usually planted in corn immediately 

 after clearing, without the application of fertilizers. The first year 

 two or three crops are made. Then the stumps are burnt off and cul- 

 tivation is begun. Land of this character at Newbern will produce 



