TRANSPLANTING INDIAN CORN 



think he agreed with me, that it would be at the rate of about 

 forty bushels to the acre. All that now remained was to harvest 

 the Corn, in a few weeks time, to shell, to weigh it ; and to obtain 

 a couple of rows of equal length of every neighbour surrounding 

 me ; and then, make the comparison, the triumphant result of 

 which I anticipated with so much certainty, that my impatience 

 for the harvest exceeded in degree the heat of the weather, though 

 that continued broiling hot. That very night ! the night following 

 the day when Mr. JUDGE LAWRENCE saw the Corn, eight or nine 

 steers and heifers leaped, or broke, into my pasture from the road, 

 kindly poked down the fence of the field to take with them four 

 oxen of my own which had their heads tied down, and in they all 

 went just upon the transplanted Corn, of which they left neither 

 ear nor stem, except about two bushels of ears which they had, in 

 their haste, trampled under foot ! What a mortification ! Half 

 an acre of fine cabbages nearly destroyed by the biting a hole in 

 the hearts of a great part of them ; turnips torn up and trampled 

 about ; a scene of destruction and waste, which, at another time, 

 would have made me stamp and rave (if not swear) like a mad 

 man, seemed now nothing at all. The Corn was such a blow, 

 that nothing else was felt. I was, too, both hand-tied and tongue- 

 tied. I had nothing to wreak my vengeance on. In the case of 

 the Boroughmongers I can repay blow with blow, and, as they 

 have already felt, with interest and compound interest. But, 

 there was no human being that I could blame ; and, as to the 

 depredators themselves, though in this instance, their conduct 

 did seem worthy of another being, whom priests have chosen to 

 furnish with horns as well as tail, what was I to do against them ? 

 In short, I had, for once in my life, to submit peaceably and 

 quietly, and to content myself with a firm resolution never to 

 plant, or sow, again without the protection of a fence, which an 

 ox cannot get over and which a pig cannot go under. 



220. This Corn had every disadvantage to contend with : poor 

 land ; no manure but earth-ashes burnt out of that same land ; 

 planted in dry earth ; planted in dry and hot weather ; no rain 

 to enter two inches, until the 8th of August, nine and thirty days 

 after the transplanting ; and yet, every plant had one good perfect 

 ear, and, besides, a small ear to each plant : and some of the plants 

 had three ears, two perfect and one imperfect. Even the two 

 last-planted rows, though they were not so good, were not bad. 

 My opinion is, that their produce would have been at the rate of 

 25 bushels to the acre ; and this is not a bad crop of Corn. 



221. For my part, if I should cultivate Corn again, I shall 

 transplant it to a certainty. Ten days earlier, perhaps ; but I 

 shall certainly transplant what I grow. I know, that the labour 

 will be less, and I believe that the crop will be far greater. No 

 dropping the seed ; no hand-hoeing ; no patching after the cut 

 worm, or brown grub : no suckers : no grass and weeds ; no 

 stifling : every plant has its proper space ; all is clean ; and one 



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