TPIE GROWING OF CORN. 115 



weeds exhaust the nutriment. Vfhere weeds stand, they 

 prevent the development of the corn : there is no doubt 

 about that. Now, how far is any one warranted in recom- 

 mending a course of cultivation that is going to fill your 

 land with weeds ? That is the point I want to make. They 

 ripen up their seed, and tliey 1111 the land with weed-seeds. 

 I was at the doctor's farm with some gentlemen two or three 

 years ago, and saw some weeds growing in the rows of corn ; 

 and I said to Dr. Sturtcvant, " Why don't you dig up those 

 weeds ? " Said he, '' I have gone just as far as profit will 

 warrant me in going in raising that crop." Now, in my judg- 

 ment (and I think I shall be indorsed by some gentlemen 

 here before me), those weeds could have been pulled out 

 of an acre, at the proper time, with one half-day's work ; 

 and in my judgment those weeds made a difference of five 

 bushels in the crop. And what would have been the result 

 afterwards ? The result would have been, that the next year 

 the labor of keeping down the weeds would not have been 

 half as much. 



I don't like to see any young man (old men have got their 

 habits fixed, perhaps) encouraged to grow weeds. I have 

 cultivated land for a long while, and I have cultivated just 

 as good a crop of weeds as any man ever thought of grow- 

 ing, and it paid me the least of any crop I ever grew. You 

 cannot afford to grow them ; and the time to kill them is 

 on their first appearance. But, in that crop of corn, I could 

 see how easily the weeds could have been kept out. 



Now, one word further. I believe that the corn-crop is a 

 valuable crop to grow. If a man has light land, and has not 

 good grass-land, it is very desirable for him to have corn- 

 fodder. I believe, further than that, when you say you can 

 raise corn for thirty, forty, or fifty cents a bushel, when it is 

 worth sixty, you can undoubtedly grow it for less than you 

 can buy it. But I do not believe that is the question 3-0U 

 are to decide. I believe the question you are to decide is, 

 whether you can raise on a given piece of ground more 

 dollars' worth of corn than you can of something else. 

 That is exactly the point you have got to decide. Now, Dr. 

 Sturtevant's land is not good grass-land : it is what I call 

 light soil. He wants fodder to feed to his cattle, and I 

 think raising corn is perhaps one of the easiest modes of 



