226 INDIAN CORN. 



enlarging to any extent, by accurate trials, that may 

 be indefinitely multiplied and repeated. 



When the best faculties of the owner are thus 

 brought in contact with his soil, a striking and mirac- 

 ulous change is at once visible. Every fertilizer is 

 made richer, every mode of treatment becomes a best 

 method, and all the processes of vegetation are gal- 

 vanized into new life by the seething battery of his 

 ever-active brain. Any man can follow out a process 

 mechanically when the rules are laid down. But the 

 intelligent, well-read farmer will improve upon the 

 rules, and reach higher results. His success is a mat- 

 ter of philosophical necessity. 



Let the cultivator of the soil, then, remember that 

 there is in all this no grand secret nor profound mys- 

 tery. The triumphs of agriculture are simply the 

 results of patient thought and study. The humblest 

 farmer, whose scanty acres are hidden among the 

 Alleghanies, may communicate to his rock-bound soil 

 the prolific affluence of his thoughtful mind, till every 

 acre shall teem with incredible tons of hay or with 

 unprecedented bushels of corn. 



Every increased yield per acre should show, and 

 if obtained on sound principles will show a diminu- 

 tion in the cost of production. Yiewed in this light, 

 a large yield of corn becomes a subject of peculiar 

 interest, and a general and material increase in the 

 acreable product of the country would be equivalent 

 to a reduction of the cost of living for our whole pop- 

 ulation. At the same time, such an increase in the 

 yield would possess another important significance. 



