CHAPTER III. 



On the soil and the preparation of it, proper for 

 the Corn, and on the season for plantiyig it in 

 England, 



34. Corn, like grain and most other things 

 of any value, grows best, and is most productive, 

 in good land ; but, with some very few excep- 

 tions, with regard to the very wet and stiff clays, 

 and with regard to shade particularly, I know of 

 hardly any land in England, on which there might 

 not be produced a tolerably good crop of Indian 

 Corn, which would certainly succeed, in nume- 

 rous cases, on land much too poor to yield a 

 good crop of wheat, or even a good crop of bar- 

 ley, or oats, or rye. I have seen it grown in Ame- 

 rica, in fields which would have borne neither of 

 these, and this in thousands and thousands of 

 instances. It is regarded as what we call 2ifaUoiu- 

 crop, as well as a productive crop. I have seen 

 fields which have lain for several years without 

 producing any thing but a little miserable grass, 

 liberally mixed with red sorrel and other weeds, 

 which will live when all other plants will perish. 

 Such a field as this is ploughed up, shallowly, as 

 soon as the frost is out of the ground in the spring, 



