QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 17 



by Philadelphia commission merchants is one dollar per bushel. The 

 highest price is about three dollars per bushel and the lowest price about 

 sixty cents per bushel. Green corn packed loosely in slatted bushel bas- 

 kets will, in early season, carry safely for forty hours. In larger packages 

 it may become injured by heating. Caution. — Seed corn in bulk should 

 be taken out of the bags as soon as received and spread out in a dry place. 



84. Q. How many varieties of corn are there? Corn. 

 A. Indian corn as a family may be divided into six divisions : as — pop, 



flint, dent, soft, sweet, and pod or primitive. 



85. Q. I have a variety of corn, many stalks of which are bearing three seed Corn, 

 large ears, and I write to inquire, if I take my seed for next year from 



the stalks bearing three ears will the next crop also bear three ears? 



A. There is no assurance that corn grown from ears of which there 

 were three on a stalk will reproduce that same character. There is, how- 

 ever, a strong probability, and were it not for the disposition of heredity 

 in plants of all kinds, there would be no encouragement whatever for the 

 farmer to endeavor to improve by selection. 



86. Q. Why is it that sugar corn is often weak in germinating force ? Com 

 A. Sugar corn is among the most delicate of all seeds to cure and keep^**^ ^' 



in good condition. If kept over Winter in sacks it will often lose half its 

 vitality from heating or sweating. It should accordingly be kept spread storage. 

 out upon floors or trays in a dry cool place. 



87. Q. How should a vegetable garden be laid out? Vegetable 

 A. The old style of garden, laid out in squares to be dug and culti- *'**" *'"' 



vated exclusively by hand, is becoming a thing of the past. The vegeta- 

 ble garden is now laid out in parallel rows or drills, ranging from two to 

 three feet apart, and the cultivation in the greater part done by horse- 

 power. The seeds should be all sown in drills or rows so as to be adapted 

 to horse culture ; hand labor is the dearest of all and should be avoided. 

 The land, if circumstances will permit, should not be of a less length than 

 seventy -five yards, and may with advantage be extended to two hundred, 

 according to the quantity of vegetables required. Long lands where ani- 

 mal power is used are much to be preferred to short fields, as much time 

 is saved in turning ; for example, a plow team in a journey of eight hours, 

 plowing land seventy-eight yards long, spends four hours and thirty-nine 

 minutes on the headlands, whereas were the furrows two hundred and 

 seventy-four yards long, the time spent in turning would be but one hour 

 and nineteen minutes. The tillage of the garden should be with the most 

 approved labor-saving implements — wheel-hoes, for hand use, scarifiers and 

 cultivators for horse ; the seeds should be sown with hand-drills, and fer- 

 tilizers of the guano class applied with similar apparatus, and thus, with- 

 out interfering with the labor of the farm, be made to yield vegetables in 

 profusion, when if the spade and hoe be relied on they are produced in 

 stinted quantities. 



The amateur gardener, and the expert as well, should make out a list 

 of the varieties of vegetables he desires to have, and then lay off on paper 



