AND OTHER .FORAGE PLANTS. 125 



tieated and wild, besides hosts of insects feeding on the roots, 

 stem, pith, leaves, blossoms and seed green and ripe. Where 

 can another plant be found feeding and keeping alive such a 

 number of genera, species, tribes and hosts of living creatures? 

 Annually it is adapting itself to other localities and seems 

 destined to become almost cosmopolitan and thus the u staif of 

 life" to numerous other tribes of living beings ! ! Yet what 

 countless millions of dollars are annually sent from Europe and 

 from our own southern States for the purchase of this cheap sup- 

 porter of life !!! What the depth of dependence and poverty in- 

 to which the southern States are voluntarily plunging them- 

 selves, by skimming away the essence of the soil and pouring 

 their hard earnings in golden streams into the coffers of the 

 western corn growers ! 



The varieties of corn almost numberless adapting it to all 

 soils and many climates and to many special purposes, and the 

 modes of culture are so varied by differences of soil, climate and 

 objects, that our space will not admit of their discussion. Nor 

 can we consider in detail the valuable medicines furnished by 

 this plant, nor the virulent poisons developed upon and from 

 the grain. 



Whether corn be planted for the grain or for fodder, in rows, 

 drilled, checks or broadcast, th* 1 land should first be broken 

 very deeply, but without turning up much clay. It should 

 have repeated plowings and harrowings if necessary to put the 

 ground in a light, mellow condition. Planted on- land so pre- 

 pared, a crop may be made almost without any rain ; each stalk, 

 not too much crowded, throwing out innumerable fibrous roots 

 with an aggregate length of many thousand feet, and (where un- 

 der the well prepared soil the sub-soil can be penetrated) to a 

 depth of several feet beyond that generally imagined. 



In one neighborhood this year, (1881), a crop of corn planted 

 on very old land prepared as above described has yielded four 

 times as much as any other in the whole region. This was 

 planted later than other fields and never had rain to lay the 

 dust ; w r hile others having an earlier start and some of them 

 plenty of rain have yielded very little. Most of the labor re- 

 quired for making a good crop of corn on old land in the south, 

 should be expended before planting. With such preparation 

 the plants grow rapidly and need much less work ; and often 

 make a large yield with no labor after planting. Employing 

 this mode of preparation, since 185], I am convinced that in 

 most parts of the south a fair corn crop can be made every year 

 whether there be rain or not, on clay soils. 



No other plant is so much and so generally used in the south- 

 ern States for forage avast number of planters depending sole- 

 ly upon corn, stalk, blade, husk, (or shuck), grain and even cob; 



