62 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



Question. Did it produce stalks with two ears ? 



Mr. Hart. In a great many instances it did. From year 

 to year, the number of stalks that produced two ears to the 

 stalk increased. 



Dr. Riggs. I live near Hartford, and I have not gone into 

 corn statistics as much, perhaps, as I ought to have done. 

 With tobacco bearing so high a price, we find it more profitable 

 on our soils to raise tobacco and buy our corn than to raise 

 corn for our home consumption. To subdue land, however, 

 I frequently plant to corn, and generally have a small piece 

 every year. This year, I had about four acres of land that I 

 suppose had not been plowed for twenty or thirty years. It 

 lies a little inclined, and the soil above it was a light sandy 

 loam, just right for tobacco, from six to eight inches deep, 

 these resting upon a sub-soil of red gravel, containing a good 

 deal of iron. This gravel runs down then, so that a well dug 

 upon the upland where the houses stand, enters the clay hard- 

 pan at the depth of thirty or thirty-two feet. This ground 

 from the well begins to slope to the east, at a very slight in- 

 cline — so small, that it is fine arable land, and raises the best 

 tobacco. Below this, this particular stratum of soil, resting 

 on the gravel, seemed to stop, and this red gravel began to 

 crop out a little, and from that came small rivulets of water, 

 springs bubbling up in the spring in several places along the 

 lot, and running down on to this almost level land. I 

 found it necessary, in order to make it cultivatable at all, to 

 underdrain ; and this last spring, I took hold of the job. 

 I broke that up with a double Michigan plow. The wild 

 grasses had extended their roots quite deep, and were just 

 like wires, I had three yoke of oxen part of the time, and 

 part of the time I used a pair of heavy horses and two pair 

 of cattle, breaking it up as near as I could to the depth of ten 

 or twelve inches. I am not afraid of deep plowing. I put 

 no manure upon the surface, because the sod was so thick 

 that, as soon as I got the water off, I knew that the fermen- 

 tation and heat of the sod would produce plant fooJ enough. 

 Before planting, I covered the surface with barn-yard manure, 

 made from hay, corn-fodder, cotton-seed meal, and some coriv 



