1336.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



661 



tity was 118 loads, each of 36 bushels, 

 amount of manure which may be thus obtainedis 

 indeed so considerable, that forty-five oxen, litter- 

 ed, while fatting, with20 wagon-loads of stubble, 

 are said to have produced 600 tons of rotten dung; 

 and so invariably has it been found that the value 

 of the manure is in proportion to the nutriment 

 contained in the food, that, on comparing the dung 

 of cattle fed upon oil-cake with that from the 

 common farm-yard, it was Ibund that the effects ol 

 12 loads ol the former, when spread on an acre ot 

 land, considerably exceeded that of 24 loads of 

 the latter.j 



[To be continued.] 



For the Farmers' Register. 

 EXPERIMENTS OF THE INJURY TO CORX 

 CAUSED BY GATHERING THE FODDER. 



Several publications in the Register have stated 

 the increase of Indian corn, matured with the 

 blades and tops. The common usage in this 

 county, which I have followed, is, to gather the 

 blades as soon as they begin to spot, and to cut 

 the tops immediately upon securing the blades. 

 About the first of September last, I stripped the 

 blades from several rows in one of my corn-fields, 

 leaving a row alternately undisturbed — and cut 

 the tons about the 7th of the month, in like man- 

 ner. As I designed to make a fair and satis- 

 factory experiment, I suffered both blades and 

 tops to be much withered before I took them from 

 the stalks. The last of November I gathered the 

 corn from the stripped and unstripped rows, when 

 it was dry, and in good condition, and put it away 

 in my barn in separate parcels, in the shucks, from 

 both of which I husked out, the sixth of the pre- 

 sent month, one hundred ears, without particular 

 selection, and now subjoin their weight and mea- 

 surement. I am sensible that this experiment 

 will not precisely correspond with others which 

 may be made. The result of such experiments 

 will be influenced by the quality of the soil, the 

 goodness of the crop, the manner of planting, 

 and the maturity of the corn at the time the blades 

 and tops are gathered. My experiment was made 

 from a field planted four leet each way, which 

 had an early, vigorous growth, unchecked by in- 

 sect or drought, and which produced more than 

 forty-five bushels to the acre. I made other dif- 

 ferent trials upon the parcels I have mentioned, 

 both by weight and measurement, which I think 

 unnecessary to state, as they all tended to the 

 same result; but perhaps I ought not omit to men- 

 tion, that the weight of the cobs of the unstripped 

 corn was double the weight of the stripped, as il 

 proves that subtracting the blades and tops dries 

 up that part of the plant which immediately- sup- 

 plies aliment to the grain. To this cause I also 

 attribute the perfection of the grain to the end of 

 the cob of the unstripped corn, whilst that on the 



* Papers of the Bath and West of England Society, 

 vol. iii. p. 3. 



fBy another trial it appears that -sixty cows itrh 

 and four horses, when tied up, ate 50 tons of hay, and 

 had 20 acres of straw for litter, with which they made 

 200 loads of dune; - , in rotten order for the land; but 

 the weigrht of neither the straw nor the dung is stated. 

 — Complete Grazier, 5th edit., p. 100. 



stripped had, for the most part, withered or per- 

 ished. 



lbs. 

 One hundred ears of Indian corn matu- 

 red with blades and tops — weight on 

 cob, _.___- 54 



Do. shelled, - 46 



Do. measurement, 26 quarts, 1 pint, 

 100 ears of Indian coin stripped of blades 



and tops — weight on cob, - 50 



Do. shelled, ----- 41 



Do. measurement, 21 quarts. 



1 have long desired to abandon gathering fod- 

 der; but it is hard to depart from common usage, 

 especially, if the deviation has the appearance of 

 negligence. The month of September is usually 

 devoted by farmers to this work; the dews are 

 then heavy, and highly injurious to laborers; it 

 is the season tor intermittent fevers, which I be- 

 lieve arc often contracted in this employment. 

 The month of September might, be most usefully 

 devoted to drawing out marl and other manures, 

 and preparing fallows for wheat. When the 

 wheat is sown and the corn gathered at full ma- 

 turity, the corn-stalks with the blades and tops; 

 afford some provender and excellent litter for cat- 

 tle. Few formers have such floating capital, as 

 justify them in entering upon schemes of improve- 

 ment without calculating the cost and probable 

 result. The provender afforded by Indian corn 

 cannot be abandoned, unless an equivalent be 

 supplied. A farm divided into four or five fields, 

 of forty acres each, and one of them annually in 

 Indian corn, will not produce fodder, even if the 

 land be in an improved state, beyond five hun- 

 dred pounds to the acre — equal to ten tons. Four 

 acres set in orchard-grass and clover, will, if 

 marled and manured, at two cuttings yield ten 

 tons of hay. A gentleman in an adjoining coun- 

 ty, in whom 1 have entire confidence, assured me 

 that from one acre, very highly improved, he gath- 

 ered six tons in one year. I estimate the enclosing, 

 marling, manuring, and setting in grass four acres, 

 atone hundred dollars per acre, and the land thus 

 diverted from the usual purposes of agriculture, at 

 twenty-five dollars per acre, amounting in the 

 whole to five hundred dollars. The capital thus 

 invested, is not sunk, but is safe and sound, and the 

 interest upon this sum, together with the cost of 

 cutting and securing the hay, which I estimate at 

 forty-live dollars, is the price to be paid annually 

 for hay, in lieu of blades and tops. A field of forty 

 acres of Indian corn which now yields, under the 

 old system of gathering, forty bushels to the acre 

 — equal to one thousand bushels, if my experi- 

 ment, or that of others, be not entirely fallacious, 

 will produce an additional fifth, amounting to one 

 thousand nine hundred and thirty-three and a third 

 bushels; thereby producing a gain of three hun- 

 dred and thirty-three and a third bushels — equal, at 

 fifty cents a bushel, to one hundred and sixty-six; 

 dollars and two-thirds, to which is to be added the 

 value of the labor saved, and the grazing after 

 ihe hay is secured, which is worth something. 

 If a lot be once well set in orchard-grass and oc- 

 casionally dressed with manure from the stable, 

 where the grass is fed it will remain in a state of 

 undiminished production for many years — in this 

 I feel confidence, from my own observation. 



I have one pit of blue marl in which I have 

 found "gunpowder marl." It exhibits no lime by 



