THE CULTURE OF CORN. 405 



the doctor, I have been placed for the fund of information 

 derived from his elaborate experiments and his life's work. 

 We can never too highly appreciate the services he has con- 

 ferred upon American agriculture ; and I am not without 

 some hope that perhaps we in America may some day be abl« 

 to add something to the great mass of information which has 

 been gathered up at Rothamsted, through our investigations 

 here, under somewhat different circumstances of climate, soil, 

 and crops. 



On careful study of Dr. Lawes's communication (see " Rural 

 New-Yorker " of July 2), I must confess that I fail to see 

 any serious point of difference between his views and mine 

 in regard to this question. I don't wish to discuss it in 

 regard to wheat, because I have not given so much atten- 

 tion to wheat-growing as to corn-growing, and confess, that, 

 so far as regards the former crop, I have not yet been able 

 to produce it here so cheaply as I could buy the Western 

 grain ; and I doubt very much if we Eastern farmers can com- 

 pete in wheat production with the West any better than the 

 English farmers can. But I would like to say, that I do not 

 think it depends altogether upon the supply of nitrogen in 

 the soil ; that it is not so much a question of fertility as of 

 cheapness of culture. Here in the East our lands cost too 

 much, and our farms are not large enough for the use of 

 the labor-saving implements and machines ; so that the cost 

 of a crop of even forty bushels of wheat per acre is not 

 repaid by the price fixed by tlie cost of the smaller crop of 

 eigliteen or twenty bushels grown in jMinnesota or Dakota. 

 The very same difficulty exists in England as regards this 

 crop, but with regard to corn this difficulty is greatly les- 

 sened. Corn cannot be grown and harvested as cheaply as 

 wheat in the West. The Western corn must be cut and 

 shocked and husked by hand, and at the same cost as in 

 the East ; so that the relative disability of the Eastern farmer 

 is not so great as in the case of wheat. It is therefore 

 wholly a question of fertility with corn; while the element of 

 labor enters into the question as regards wheat, to the greater 

 detriment of the Eastern-American and the English farmer. 

 Then, if the cost of the artificial fertilizer required to pro- 

 duce a bushel of corn in New Jersey is less than the freight 

 on it from Chicago, I hope to be able to compete successfully 



