THE CULTURE OF CORN. 



87 



field on very poor land, fertilized with twelve hundred pounds 

 (two acres) of the same fertilizer. The first-mentioned plat 

 was cultivated by hand up to the time the ears were forming, 

 and was raked over with a hand-rake after that, which proba- 

 bly helped the yield somewhat. Others have done better 

 than I have. E. S. Carman, Esq., the editor of " The Rural 

 New-Yorker," raised last season, upon his Long-Island farm, 

 one hundred and thirty-four bushels and one-half per acre 

 of shelled corn on seven-eighths of an acre, fertilized with 

 five hundred pounds of the same fertilizer, and one hundred 

 and fifty-nine bushels and one-third on the best acre of a 

 four-acre field, the average being one hundred and thirteen 

 bushels and seven-tenths on the whole, with three hundred 

 and fifty pounds per acre of the same fertilizer. This fer- 

 tilizer is intended as a substitute for the best barnyard 

 manure, and to contain all the ingredients required for the 

 corn-crop. It is well known and understood now that it 

 matters not in what form these elements are supplied, so 

 that they are soluble, and that the artificial manure is so 

 much better than the ordinary manure because it is soluble 

 and available. If we compare the composition of the manure 

 with that of the crop, we should have the following : — 



Nitrogen. 



Phosphoric 

 Acid. 



Potash. 



Fifty bushels of shelled com contain . 

 Six hundred pounds Mapes complete 



corn-manure 



Pounds. 



44.67 

 23.36 



Pounds. 



15.84 



66.00 



Pounds. 



9.34 

 39.00 



It is seen that there is a deficiency in the nitrogen, and 

 an excess in the other ingredients, in the fertilizer. But, 

 with our understanding of the character of the corn-plant, 

 we can easily perceive that this should be no disadvantage, 

 and should exert precisely the effect that may be noted in 

 the crop ; for, as in the six hundred pounds of fertilizer there 

 are phosphoric acid and potash enough for more than two 

 hundred bushels of grain, and we know that more than one 

 hundred bushels per acre may be grown without increasing 

 the stalks in the least by simply producing one large ear to 



