198 INDIAN CORN. 



" Not able " is indeed a mischievous phrase, that 

 has done much harm in society as well as in agricul- 

 ture. The peculiarity of the evil is, that the want of 

 faith produces the inability. The assertion, in a cer- 

 tain sense, creates the fact, and makes that virtually 

 true which was not true before. This phrase is the 

 enemy of the farmer, and should be pursued and ex- 

 terminated with the same zeal that he employs in 

 pursuing the vermin that devour his crops, or the 

 weeds that infest his soil. 



We repeat, then, that every farmer who chooses 

 may raise one hundred bushels of corn, and even more 

 than this, upon an acre. How much better he can 

 do than this must depend upon himself. As this 

 question, however, is considered in a subsequent chap- 

 ter, it need not here be dwelt upon. 



Let us now compare the nutritive value of corn 

 per acre with that of some other leading crops, taking 

 the yield of the latter on the same scale as the above 

 yield of corn. It will probably be conceded that 

 sixty bushels of wheat, ninety bushels of oats, fifteen 

 tons of potatoes, and twenty tons, on an average, for 

 other root crops, per acre, would be at least as large 

 a yield in proportion for these crops as one hundred 

 bushels would be for corn. 



By referring the nutritive value of these several 

 products to the same standard as before, which was 

 good meadow hay, it will be found that the wheat 

 crop, as compared with corn, yields about one-half 

 the amount of nutritive value per acre ; the oat crop 

 still less than the wheat; the potato about threer 



