YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 119 



consideration, as much energy and skill are necessary to pro 

 duce profitable crops of corn at the west, as at the east. At 

 all events, the difference is not as great as is generally suppos 

 ed. Levi Bartlett states, that of thirty-five crops of Indian 

 corn offered for premiums in Massachusetts, the average profit 

 over all expense exceeded $51 per acre. 



Corn will succeed on land that is too low and mucky for wheat, 

 but though this is true, it is vain to hope for good crops if the 

 land is surcharged with stagnant water. All the sunshine of our 

 hottest summers cannot make such land warm. The heat is 

 expended in evaporating the water instead of warming the 

 soil. In passing along the various railroads of the country, I 

 have been often saddened at the sight of thousands and tens 

 of thousands of acres planted to corn, which by a little under- 

 draining would have produced magnificent crops of this king 

 of cereals, but which presented a miserable spectacle of yellow, 

 sickly, stunted, half-starved plants, struggling for very life. 

 Until the land is freed from stagnant water, all our efforts to 

 produce good crops of corn will prove ineffectual. When this 

 is accomplished, good cultivation will be most abundantly re 

 warded. 



I have made some experiments with manures for Indian corn, 

 on a field which had been under a scourging system of cropping 

 with the cereals, and had never been manured for twenty 

 years. 



Unleached wood ashes had no effect on the corn, in this 

 field ; and 300 pounds of super-phosphate of lime per acre, 

 though it gave the plants an early start, produced at harvest 

 no larger a crop than 100 pounds of gypsum. But whenever 

 ammonia was used, the crop was materially increased more 

 than doubled in one instance. The only deduction I would 

 draw from this is, that the majority of our soils, relatively to 

 ammonia, are not deficient in potash, soda, and phosphoric acid, 

 so far as the growth of corn is concerned. 



It is quite probable that there are soils where ashes and 



