GRAIN CROPS. 63 



distance of rows and hills according to the variety of corn you 

 plant. Let most of your manure be spread a:id incorporated 

 with the soil as evenly as possible, so that every itinerant fibre 

 of the root shall find something to elaborate into corn. It is 

 difficult at earing lime to find a cubic inch of soil without some 

 of these fibres. Cut and stook your corn at the proper season, 

 and you will make a great saving in the value of the fodder, 

 and also in labor. Whan you cut up your corn, bind and stook 

 as fast as you cut, and your ears of corn will be heavier and 

 sounder than they will if you suffer your corn to wilt and dry 

 before binding and stooking, for in the green state the sap con- 

 tinues to flow some time after the corn is cut. And in the 

 cultivation of your corn crop, keep your field clean of all weeds, 

 for beans, turnips and pumpkins, in corn language, are weeds. 



Wheat. — It has been estimated that every person consumes a 

 barrel of flour yearly, and that a town of one thousand inhab- 

 itants will consume one thousand barrels of flour, which, at the 

 present prices, will be sixteen thousand dollars for every one 

 thousand inhabitants. If we should have such a tax imposed 

 on us for the support of paupers, schools and other town 

 charges, we might fear an insurrection, or a total breaking down 

 of our finances. 



Now what shall be done to obviate this evil ? Let us return 

 to the diet of our fathers, to the simplicity of the living of our 

 ancestors, who were blessed with constitutions and strength 

 which some of the men of our degenerate days believe to be 

 fabulous, and the record of which ought to be bound with such 

 books as " Robinson Crusoe" and the " Arabian Nights," or, 

 which perhaps is far better, raise our own wheat on our farms 

 — and it can be done. Let every farmer select an acre or two 

 on his farm for a crop of wheat annually, and either sow winter 

 wheat or spring wheat, according as the land is best adapted. 

 If he will sow winter wheat, let him prepare his land in good 

 season, so that he may sow as early as the first week in Septem- 

 ber. If he has a field in grass that needs re-seeding, plough it 

 well, and harrow in some good compost manure, or other ferti- 

 lizer, equal to sixteen or twenty loads to the acre ; then sow 

 with some clean wheat, free from chess, mullein pink, wheat 

 thief, or any other foul seed, which may be made so by sifting, 

 winnowing or washing. Sow no grass seed with the wheat ; the 



