44 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



[Jt 



4. In regions where there is less available water for the 

 growing crop (not necessarily a small rainfall) there is found 

 to exist the practice of more distant planting, and fewer 

 plants to the hill, than where the conditions of water supply 

 are more favorable. This may be illustrated practically by 

 the 5 by 5 feet intervals and single plants to the hill practiced 

 in the seaboard South, and the 3| by 3|^ feet intervals and 

 four plants to the hill of New England practice, or experi- 

 mentally by the following record of trial at the New York 

 Agricultural Experiment Station,* 1882 being a dry and 

 1883 a moister season : — 



The corollary from this table, which experience confirms, 

 I shall digress to state as a fact, viz : That in Massachusetts, 

 with a rainfall of 45 inches a year, it is as easy to grow one 

 hundred bushels of shelled corn per acre, as at Geneva, 

 N. Y., with its 25 inches of annual rainfall, it is to grow 

 seventy-five bushels, and this irrespective of the fertility 

 of the soil. 



5 . Weeds are great evaporators of water. By trial I have 

 found that a weed crop may be absolutely incompatible with 

 a corn crop, the corn crop showing in its curled leaf, stunted 

 growth and yellow color indications of suffering from 

 drought, and not bearing any merchantable ears. In the 

 experience of farmers such evidence becomes graded, and 

 can serve as a less intensified illustration than the one 

 quoted. 



The summary of this practical data is that crops, under 

 circumstances of intelligent farming, are more dependent 

 upon the water supply for their maximum increase than 

 upon any other single agency. 



Report N. Y. Ag. Ex. Sta., for 1883, p. 137. 



