HARVESTING — CORN. 635 



in the same as wheat, and at the same cost. I recommend 

 rollin;^ after the grain gets about three or four inches high, for 

 it packs the soil around and helps the roots. 



HAU VESTING. 



I harvest about the middle of July, which is not the labor 

 it formerly was, as two men with a good improved self-binding 

 harvester will cut and shock from ten to fifteen acres per ihiy. 

 This will cost about one and one-fourth dollars per acre. The 

 expense of stacking, threshing and marketing amount to two 

 dollars per acre, which gives me a total cost of four dollars and 

 seventy-five cents per acre, without estimating the seed. My 

 yield, for the last eight years, has been about eighteen bushels 

 to the acre. 



CORN. 



I commence plowing for corn as soon as the small grain is 

 all sown. I find I can do this for one dollar per acre. I then 

 harrow the ground thoroughly, so as to have it good and smooth 

 for marking and planting, which 1 do with a two-horse planter, 

 at an expense of about one dollar per acre. I harrow as soon 

 as planted, and when the corn is about three inches high, I 

 begin cultivating the same with a two-horse cultivator, and 

 work it through twice each way. It is then ready to lay by, 

 and has cost about eiglity-five cents per acre. Gathering 

 and cribbing cost one and one-quarter dollars per acre more, 

 which makes a total outlay of four dollars and five cents an 

 acre. Fifty bushels per acre has been the average yield for the 

 past eight years. About half of the corn I raise I ship to 

 Eastern markets, the remainder I turn into pork. 



noGS. 

 The breeds I raise are the Berkshire and the Poland China. 

 Both are generally ready for market at any time after they are 

 six months old, if they have received care and attention. They 

 arc very hardy and not liable to disease of any kind. 



TIMBER CULTURE. 



I find the best method of stocking our prairies with timber 



