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Qbsej'vatlons on Indian Corn and Potatoes, by M7\ John 

 Loi^ahiy of Philip shurgy Centre Co. Pennsylvania. 



Read February 8, 1814. 



Philipsbiirg, October 25, 1813. 



Dear Sir, 



I promised to write you on the early planting of 

 Indian corn, and the power which it possesses to with- 

 stand frost, in the earlier stages of its growth, and shall 

 now fulfil that engagement ; but conceive it will be 

 useful to commence with remarks on the general pro- 

 perties of this plant. 



The prevailing opinion is, that the cultivation of this 

 plant is preeminently injurious to the soil, this opinion 

 has been produced by a bad system of management, 

 originating from a thin population, deficiency in capi- 

 tal, and an abundance of fresh, uncultivated lands, for 

 those causes have retarded the progress of all improve- 

 ments in husbandry here.^ 



* It is well known, that many of the farmers in this country 

 think too little of returning back to the soil, the scanty aid which 

 even a bad system of management would readily afford, until their 

 fields have been entirely exhausted, and that some have been indu- 

 ced to remove their barns, rather than remove their manure, which 

 in process of time rendered admission to them inaccessible. 

 Only a single shovel full of this manure, applied to each hill of corn, 

 growing on their impoverished fields, would, year after year, (if the 

 practice had been continued,) have produced valuable crops, from 

 the same ground, and in a few years rendered the soil capable ol' 

 growing luxuriant crops of wheat and grass. 



