BOX ANT. 91 



the season; some years it does better, but, on the whole, our 

 Irish potatoe is unequal to those raised in a colder region, in 

 Western New York, or Canada. 



Our Indian corn is unsurpassed, by all the other corn in the 

 world. We raise the gourd-seed corn, with twenty four, or 

 or even with thirty rows on the cob. One bushel and a half 

 of ears, produce one bushel of shelled corn. It excels all 

 other corn, in sweetness, and produces two quarts more Whis- 

 key to the bushel, than the New York corn. This plant grows 

 only in the richest land, and requires so long a summer, as 

 rarely to come to perfection, above 41° 30' north latitude. 

 This corn was originally cultivated in this region, by the Indi- 

 ans, from whom we derived it. It grows on the most fertile 

 lands, from lake Erie, to the Mexican gulph. It grows, along 

 the Mississippi, from Rock Island, downwards, and indeed, in 

 the whole valley of the Mississippi, below 41° 30' north. It 

 produces, sometimes in favoraUe seasons, ninety bushels of corn 

 to the acre, in the Miami and Scioto vallies; but fifty bushels 

 are perhaps a common crop. The ground is plowed, but the corn 

 is never hoed. Four boys, and four good horses, can cultivate 

 one hundred acres of this corn, after it is planted. If hoed, as 

 in the east, this grain would be better in quality, and the 

 product would be one third greater, for the hotter culture. 



Wheat succeeds well within one half of our territorial 

 limits. Our country produces from twenty to forty bushels to 

 the acre, on all good lands well cultivated. It is now, April 

 1837, worth one dollar a bushel, it sells even higher. Let us 

 calculate, a farmer's profits, in the Scioto and Miami valleys; 

 if he raises corn, or wheat, it does not cost him, more than ten 

 dollars an acre to cultivate, get out and carry his crop to a 

 market. If a crop of corn, at fifty bushels to the acre, at fifty 

 cents a bushel, is twenty-five dollars; deduct ten dollars, leaves 

 fifteen dollars an acre, clear profit. Suppose, that he raises 

 three hundred acres of corn annually, which amounts to four 

 thousand five hundred dollars. If he raises wheat, say one 

 hundred acres, at forty dollars an acre, deducting ten dollars 

 for expenses, leaves thirty dollars an acre, three thousand dol- 



