456 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
Mr. Bronson urges the necessity of sheltering barn-yard manure from 
sun and rain, and the propriety of utilizing fully the manurial resources 
of the farmer’s own neighborhood before resorting to commercial fer- 
tilizers. 
One hundred and five bushels per acre.—Dr. Nichols, of the Boston 
Journal of Chemistry, states the following experiment in raising corn 
on green sward, turned over in the fall of 1868: In the spring barn- 
-yard manure was spread on the furrows at the rate of four cords per 
acre, and harrowed in, and the soil finely pulverized with a Geddes 
harrow. Hills were marked three feet apart, and a handful of his “ bone 
and ashes mixture” (see Report for 1869, p. 431.) was placed in each, a 
slight covering of earth being then drawn over, and five kernels of corn 
dropped upon it. The growth of the field was so luxuriant that it was 
cultivated but once after planting. The stalks bore two or three ears 
each, many of them fourteen inches long, and the kernels were large and 
full, and of a brilliant yellow. The product was 105 bushels of shelled 
corn per acre. This success is attributed to fall plowing, thorough pul- 
verization of the soil in the spring, manure in which was preserved the 
liquid excrement of the animal, the application of this manure to the 
surface of the soil, and the use of the bone and ash mixture in the hills. 
Charging the corn crop with one-half of the cost of the fertilizers em- 
ployed, the cost of the corn was 45 cents per bushel. The market value 
of the quality grown was $1 25 per bushel, leaving a profit of 80 cents 
per bushel, or $84 per acre, besides the value of the fodder. 
Two hundred bushels per acre.-—In the proceedings of the annual con- 
vention of the South Carolina Agricultural and Mechanical Society for 
1869 is a report by Mr. J. W. Parker of experiments in growing corn, of 
which the following is an abstract: Selection was made of a quagmire 
grown over with rushes, willows, and sour grass, abounding with snakes 
and malaria, and traversed by a winding, sluggish stream. Thorough 
drainage was attained by the construction of a canal and underdrains, 
and during the summer the land was cleared, leveled, and broken up 
with a two-horse plow. In November a heavy coat of cow-house ma- 
nure was applied and plowed under, and the process was repeated in 
January, and again in March, with subsoiling. In April, the weeds, 
having attained a luxuriant growth, were limed and turned under; 
in May another coat of manure was plowed under, and the land was 
harrowed perfectly leve] and laid off in rows three feet apart. In the 
furrows were applied Peruvian guano, salt, and plaster, at the rate of 
200 pounds of each per acre. The seed corn, having been soaked in a 
solution of niter and rolled in plaster, was dropped ten inches apart in 
the rows, and covered with rakes, after which the land was rolled. The 
corn was up in five days from planting, and, as soon as it was sufii- 
ciently large, a long, narrow plow was run around it, followed by the 
hoe, the crop being kept clean by shallow, level culture until it began 
to shoot and tassel. The field was then irrigated by conveying from a 
reservoir a gentle flow of water through every alternate row. The yield 
on two acres was 147 bushels per acre. The following year the experi- 
ment was repeated in like manner, except that the rows were laid off 
two and one-half feet apart. One acre yielded 2003 bushels, as attested 
by a viewing committee. Mr. Parker received premiums on these crops 
from the society named. He attributes much to irrigation in these in- 
stances of extraordinary product, and concludes from these and former 
experiments that success in corn-growing depends greatly on thorough 
preparation of the soil during fall and winter by deep plowing, with 
under-draining of moist lands, this preparation to be followed by judi- 
