0?i Indian Corn, Potatoes^ tsfc. 305 



\v in high estimation ; for it being known to every 

 farmer, that they cannot be grown profitably on thin 

 soils, without manure, he readily submits to this ne- 

 cessity ; but finding that Indian corn will grow year 

 after year, without manure, he continues the destruc- 

 tive practice of cultivating it in that way, until his 

 fields are ruined, and without due consideration, blames 

 the corn plant for exhausting his soil ; an opinion in 

 which he is confirmed from observing the poor crops of 

 wheat he gathers from those fields which have been 

 sown with that grain, among his corn, after the ground 

 had been nearly exhausted, and often overrun with 

 weeds ; but being seldom disappointed in obtaining 

 good crops of this or other small grain, after potatoes 

 or turnips, he conceives those plants are exclusively 

 friendly to the soil : they are indeed friendly ; for the 

 cultivator is compelled to use them kindly, or lose 

 the labour bestowed on them. 



The product of Indian corn being vastly more abun- 

 dant than any other corn crop, it will demand a due 

 proportion of nutriment from the soil, but will also re- 

 turn much back to it again, 'even when the grain is not 

 expended on the farm ; for the fodder from one acre of 

 luxuriant maize, is fully equal in quantity and nutri- 

 ment, to one ton of good hay, and the stalks more than 

 equal in value to one ton of straw, for littering the cat- 

 tle yard ; and but few, if any other summer fallow 

 crop, is capable of returning back to the soil, half this 

 amount, unless the most nutritive and most valuable 

 proportion of the crop is added to the amount ; and if 

 the grain and fodder of a crop of maize are applied to 

 VOL. III. c^q 



