110 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



that result, I will give you my idea ;' and it is a practical 

 one, and one which has been tested during the last thirty 

 years with hardly a failure, I may say without any failure, 

 to secure a good crop of corn. When the corn is up so that 

 it can be seen in rows (and the corn is planted three feet 

 and a half apart, so that there will be rows both ways), a com- 

 mon horse-plough is run through the corn, and the earth is 

 turned from the corn on each side, thus making a back fur- 

 row through two rows of corn. The fir^t time of ploughing, 

 the plough should be run across the field: if it is sward-land, 

 it will always plough better. The corn is not touched at all 

 with a hoe ; but it is allowed to remain for a week or ten 

 days, depending somewhat upon the weather. Then the 

 plough h viin through lengthwise of the field in the same wa3% 

 thus making a back furrow that way ; and, as you will readi- 

 ly see, it leaves the corn on a little square, flat hill, and this 

 gives the corn a chance to feel more readily the warm suns 

 of May and June. It will grow much better in consequence 

 of this than it will if you turn the earth the other way, and 

 cover the roots deeper. If you do that, the sun does not get 

 at the roots of the corn so readily as it would if you turned 

 it the other way, and left it on a little square hill. It has 

 been our practice not to touch it at all Avith the hoe, but to 

 allow it to remain in this way until it is found that the roots 

 have approached about to the edge of the hill, and that will 

 be generally about the first of July. After the manure is 

 harrowed in, you see you have a compost heap really : a'ou 

 have scraped up all the manure in the winter, and there it 

 lies fermenting. About the first week in July a connnon 

 cultivator is run through, and, if you do not want to do any 

 hand-work, run it through both ways, and thus level the 

 ground off, and fill up those furrows. Your land at that time, 

 if you have put on a fair amount of manure, w^ll be in a very 

 excellent condition for the growth of the roots of the corn, 

 and it will also be in a better condition to resist the dry 

 weather which is to follow. 



Now, if there are any weeds in the centre of the hill, of 

 course they must be taken out ; and it has been our practice 

 to go over it with a common hoe, and it can be done very 

 rapidly, and without very much expense. Very nearly all 

 of the work can be done by horse-power; and in this way I 



