III.] PREPARATION. 



arise from soil and preparation like this; but 

 crops do arise from it, if there be due and 

 true after cuUivationy upon which the common 

 farmer in America principally relies nine times 

 out of ten. In England an old ley; that is 

 to say, a field which has lain for two or three 

 years after barley and clover, would do very well, 

 ploughed up in February, and planted either in 

 hills or in rows, with just a little manure imme- 

 diately under the seeds to give them a start, as 

 the Americans call it. It is the after cultivatmi 

 upon which the corn planter may, on the TtJL- 

 LIAN principle, place his principal reliance. 



40. The best preparation for corn, I should 

 think to be the same as that for barley, the land 

 prepared in precisely the same manner, and to 

 be ready for planting in barley-sowing time. 

 There is, too, one very cogent reason for prefer-^ 

 ring this preparation to that before mentioned ; 

 and that is, that here, you are not exposed to the 

 ravages of the black, or rather the brown grub, 

 or the wire-worm, both of which are apt to be 

 found in great abundance amongst the crops that 

 succeed leys, or any ground that has long been 

 unploughed. When wheat is sowed in this 

 country upon a ley with a once ploughing, the 

 plant is very frequently much injured by these 

 mischievous things. The wire-worm enters the 

 spear, just above the seed, and eats out the heart. 



