294: INDIAN CORN. 



ent set of principles and system of practice, though 

 it may have some slight or apparent foundation in the 

 difference of conditions, is nevertheless pregnant with 

 mischievous error. 



Whatever the distinction is, or ought to be, be- 

 tween the modes of culture practised in the two sec- 

 tions of the country, it is supposed to be founded on 

 the fact that in one of these localities land is cheap 

 and labor is dear, while in the other the case is re- 

 versed; and also perhaps on the further fact, that 

 where the land is lowest in price, and most abundant, 

 it is, at the same time, the most productive. This at 

 least appears to be the general argument for the West- 

 ern system. 



It does not, however, very clearly appear how the 

 low price and fertile quality of Western land, or even 

 the high price of Western labor, can justify the 

 repudiation of some of the soundest maxims of hus- 

 bandry. It is not entirely evident that a given 

 amount of corn is more profitably raised from a ]arge 

 area of land than from one of half the extent, even 

 admitting the land to cost less and the labor more 

 than they do at the East. That this may be the case 

 to a limited extent, and in exceptional instances, is 

 very possible. But that it is true in general and in 

 the long run, it would be hard to show. Nor is it 

 easy to perceive the economy of turning cattle into 

 the cornfield during fall and winter to browse on the 

 hard and juiceless remnants of a once nutritious stover 

 from which alternate frost and sun have expelled all 

 the nutriment. Equally difficult also would it be to 



