VII.] STACKING. 



no inconvenience to which hay is not liable ; and, 

 weight for weight, and weather for weather, an 

 acre of corn tops and blades will give more 

 nutriment to cattle, and is of course more 

 valuable. These tops and blades are, by the 

 American farmers, reserved as the food of their 

 horses or oxen, in March, April, and May, before 

 the grass comes, and when the cattle have the 

 greatest labours of the year to perform. They 

 are given to race-horses, and other delicate and 

 valuable^ or, at least, highly prized, horses. They 

 are excellent for cutting up into chaffy and, as 

 there are but very few oats grown in America, 

 and as corn is much more precious than rye or 

 barley, the cut chaff of corn tops is much given 

 to horses, mixed with whole barley or rye. 



124. My corn-topping this year was, in the 

 first place, very late, owing to the wet summer. 

 In the next place, my intervals were so narrow, 

 that the plants, as they remained after the 

 topping, in a great measure shaded the tops and 

 blades as they lay upon the ground. Then, my 

 tillage had been such (mere flat hoeings) as to 

 suffer summer weeds to come up, in July and 

 August, and to get on to a good height by the 

 time that my topping began ; so that the tops 

 had to be laid down amongst these weeds, upon 

 which the dew was kept to nine or ten o'clock 

 in the day, by the complete shade which^ the 



