FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 283 



and by mcasaro found that the salt added fourteen bushels to the acre to the 

 crop it were applied when the corn was about six inches high. An old and one 

 of the best and largest corn raisers in our county told me tliat he invariably 

 applied ashes to liis corn, and when he did not have tlieni sent liis teams around 

 the country and gathered them up, paying in some instances as high as 13 

 cents per bushel, and thought it one of the best paying investments he could 

 make on his farm. 



In harvesting the crop some prefer to cut it up at the roots, thereby securing 

 a large amount of fodder, and adding very materially to the manure of the 

 farm. Otliers top their corn or cut the stalks above the ears, securing a large 

 amount of good feed, saving the handling of the butts of the stalks, and add 

 much to the facility of the husking. In husking from the hill it is generally 

 practiced to throw the corn directly into the Avagon, thus saving handling. 



The cost of raising an acre of corn is about 810, and if the product is 40 

 bushels the cost of a bushel is 25 cents. The 40 bushels at the present market 

 price (30 cents) would amount to $12 per acre and leave a profit of 82 per acre. 

 The cost of raising GO or 90 bushels is but a tritle more than 40 or less. If we 

 raise but 25 or 30 bushels it costs more than we can sell it for; but if 6G bush- 

 els, equal 100 bushels of ears, the profit 810 per aere and the cost about 17 

 cents per bushel. 



In regard to the amount of nutriment contained in the different kinds of 

 corn, I found, by experience which I had m distilling, that we could not only 

 get more spirits but also from one to one and one-half gallons of oil more from 

 25 bushels of Yellow Dent than we could get from the eight-rowed yellow or 

 flint or white dent corn. 



According to the report of the Department of Agriculture for 1877, I see 

 that the exportation of corn and cornmeal is very much on the increase. In 

 1876 we exported 40,493,752 bushels of corn and 354,240 barrels of meal, value 

 $34,510,307; in 1877, 70,800,983 bushels, 447,907 barrels of meal, valued at 

 843,132,397. This same report shows that there were but few States whose 

 average yield per acre is greater than ours. I also find by the second annual 

 report of the cereal products of Michigan that our county raised, in 1877, 

 910,680 bushels of corn at 30 bushels per acre. 



Now, if by care in the selection of seed and better culture we can increase 

 the yield 5 bushels per acre at the low price of twenty-five cents per bushel, we 

 will add to the value of our corn crop 838,195. 



Wni. Hull, of Lockport, read the following essay on 



ESSENTIAL OIL PLANTS. 



We live in a land of boundless resources. With a short notice and a suitable 

 stimulus in the way of prices, we could supply the world with bread and meat; 

 and tlie question to-day is, not so much how we shall increase our products as 

 how we shall market those we have at remunerative prices or even at cost 

 of production. It is as much the duty of the farmer to study the causes that 

 affect the prices of his products, be it legislative or otherwise, as it is to study 

 the soil or time of seeding. In 1871, when congress reduced the tariff on for- 

 eign wool, flooded the country with the foreign product and sent our own down 

 to twenty cents a pound, which checked that industry and increased other pro- 

 ducts which were already too large to obtain remunerative prices, I do not think 

 they meant to do us any harm, but they did not know any better, composed as 

 they were, of lawyers and bankers; they did not know that wool was a product 



