^ AND 



i 



"^^fiRlCAN HERD-BOOTi 



DEVOTED TO 

 AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND RURAL AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 



Perfect Apiculture is the true foundation of all trade and industry. — Libbio. 



Vol. XI.— No. 10.1 



5th mo. (3Iay) 15th, 1847. 



[Whole No. 148. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY, 



BY J O S I A H T A T U M, 



EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR, 



No. 50 North Fourth Street, 



PHILADELPHIA. 



Price one dollar per year.— Forconditions see last page. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Cultivation of Indian Corn in Europe. 



Mr. Editor, — In looking into a work of 

 travels among some of the wilder and less 

 frequented portions of Europe, I was struck 

 at the extent in which that noble vegetable, 

 the staple of our country, Indian corn, is 

 used. It may be a matter of equal interest 

 and curiosity to some of your readers, to 

 know what are the foreign opinions concern- 

 ing it — what countries make use of it, and 

 in what form, as well as the mode of culti- 

 vation. It is not easy to get at facts that 

 give any clear ideas on those points. Very 

 few of those who travel have any taste for 

 agriculture; they are generally persons of 

 leisure and pleasure, with minds of some re- 

 finement, but of little strength or activity — 

 or idle and rich, and without any knowledge 

 of any one subject of general interest. Their 

 travels are for the purpose of ridding them- 

 selves of an accumulated excitement, that 

 puts them in motion, without any de6nite 

 purpose in view. But their habits of thought 



Cab.— Vol. XL— No. 10. 



lead them to remark upon society and its 

 customs, to examine churches, specimens of 

 architecture, and other fine arts — perhaps to 

 speculate in politics ; while that great art, 

 on which rests the welfare of nations, is 

 completely neglected. There is something 

 too humble in the simple and laborious art 

 of agriculture, for such per'sons; and they 

 forget that they themselves would never 

 have reached their present pretensions — that 

 they would perhaps be at the plough, and 

 their fortunes torn to fragments, if it were 

 not appreciated both by rulers and the peo- 

 ple, or held no rank in the economy of na- 

 tions. 



Arthur Young, who travelled in France 

 more than fifty years ago, says nothing more 

 of the Indian corn than that it is an extreme- 

 ly good substitute for a fallow, but he gives 

 neither its mode of cultivation, nor any one 

 particular concerning it — a seeming con- 

 temptuous neglect, that may be easily ac- 

 counted for, when we consider that the 

 United States had at that time risen to very 

 little importance, that her resources and 

 power were very little known, or her ca- 

 pability of feeding the starving masses of 

 other countries. From this writer, who 

 made what he called an agricultural tour, 

 we have gained very little information. Mor- 

 ris Birkbeck, who travelled in France in 

 1814, expressly also to examine its agricul- 

 ture, has done no more for us than to make 

 known, that in some parts Indian corn is 

 ^sown in May, as an early fodder, and that 



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