280 ON THE CULTURE OF THE CEREALS. 



the plant through the ascending sap. They there generate in the tissue where they happen to 

 lodge, or any where upon the stalk or ear. This fungus becomes troublesome, and where 

 successive crops are raised upon the same field, the smut increases in quantity : no remedy 

 has been discovered. The evil, however, has not been felt as a great one ; still I have known 

 almost every hill in a garden plat infected with it. How tenacious of life the spores may be 

 is not determined. New grounds are not at all, as I have seen, affected with smut, while in 

 old, it is common. It is called the Maize Brand, or Uredo mais. All infected stalks should 

 be removed from the field and burnt ; it seems to be the only way of stopping efiFectually this 

 smutty infection. 



It has not been a part of my plan to enter minutely upon the details of practical husbandry. 

 There are general principles which lie at the foundation of all kinds of culture. These gene- 

 ral principles are necessarily simple and few : but there are necessarily differences in practice, 

 in different parts of New- York, which do not conflict with them. These minor differences re- 

 sult from location and other circumstances. No where is it supposed that a crop of corn can 

 be raised, unless the ground is duly prepared ; neither can a crop be expected, unless the soil 

 has fertilizing matter in it ; and, lastly, no one expects to be successful in the midst of weeds. 

 The time of planting, the kind of fertilizer, the special mode of managing tl^ young and ma- 

 turing plants must differ somewhat in the six agricultural districts. What would be good 

 practice in the first district, might succeed only indifferently in the fourth. But the practice 

 and desire of attaining the different modes of culture in these districts is laudable and highly 

 useful. How much, too, is due to the season : even its effect upon the fertilizer itself is great. 

 The forwardness of a crop at the commencement of a drought, is another important item to be 

 considefed, in estimating the value of different modes of culture. We may regard the country 

 in a condition in which we shall ever be subject to a deficiency of rain during some parts of 

 the season of a maturing crop. One great desideratum in growing a crop, of corn especially, 

 is to push it forward rapidly in the earlier part of the season, that the ground may be shaded 

 by the plants, provided the rains should be deficient to meet the wants of vegetation. It is for 

 this reason, in part, that corn should be planted early. The importance of this view is sus- 

 tained by observation. Compare two adjacent fields, one of which is well advanced by the 

 first of July, and the other is but a few inches high, at most it is too sparse to shade and pro- 

 tect the soil from drying : the first will stand a severe drought, without sustaining much injury, 

 the other will be nearly destroyed. The safety of the first arises from two causes ; the protec- 

 tion of the ground from the direct rays of the sun, and the greater amount of dew, during the 

 night. Soil which is protected by a crop, even though a stiff clay, will rarely crack, if covered 

 with a dense vegetation, as a good crop of clover, unless the drought is extreme. The dif- 

 ference is seen at once in the same field. Where, for instance, the farmer has seeded down a 

 field of this description, that part where the seed has well germinated and grown will protect 

 the soil, while the part which has winter killed will crack, and present a rough and naked 

 aspect, with the appearance of barrenness. It is true that, frequently, late planted com pre- 

 sents to the eye very little difference from the early. When harvested, however, the real dif- 



