No. 4.] CATTLE FOODS. 45 



high we started with a couple of Thomas smoothing harrows 

 to harrow it. The colored individual who drove the mules 

 AV'hen set to work by the superintendent to harrow it over 

 said, " jSIassa George, does Mr. Hale know you are going 

 to do this?" He said, "Yes, he understands it," "I 

 dunno," says tlie darkey, "I never see nothing like that 

 in this yerc place before." A neighl^oring planter came 

 along and called out across the field, " Hullo, j^ou old nigger, 

 what are you doing?" Says he, " Massa George done told 

 me to do this." He says, "He told you to do something 

 else, and your stupid head don't know what he wants." He 

 drove up to the house and told the superintendent the trou])]e 

 that that cotton field was getting into with that stupid nigger. 

 " Oh," says he, " that is all right ; that is the way we grow 

 corn in Yankee land." So the field was harrowed all over, 

 and in ten days it Avas all harrowed over again. It had three 

 harrowino-s with a Thomas harrow. The last harrowins; did 

 break off" some of the corn, and perhaps did some little 

 injury. Afterwards the cultivator was put into the field, 

 but there was never a hoe put into it. We harvested from 

 that eighty-acre field in central Georgia al)()ut forty-five 

 bushels of shelled corn to the acre. I attribute the result 

 to most thorouiili and everlastinij culture. 



Mr. AVp:st. The professors have said l)ut little al)out 

 potash. From my own experience I have found that much 

 of the soil where I live is deficient in potash, and by the 

 application of one hundred and sixty pounds of muriate 

 of potash to the acre I have increased my corn from thirty 

 to forty bushels per acre. As Professor Roberts has said 

 nothing about the application of potash, I think perhaps his 

 soil has plenty of it. He can plough up a lirickyard or 

 almost anything else, and by cultivation can raise a splendid 

 crop of corn. I have my doubts al)out that lieing done in 

 Massachusetts, where our soil is deficient in potash. 



Professor Roberts. I think possibly I may have led the 

 audience astray. I came to Cornell University a number of 

 years ago, and found what was termed an old, worn-out 

 farm, and it has been a great study with me to bring it up 

 and make it fertile, productive and profitable, — for that is 

 the point we all want to get to finally. I soon learned that 



