1837.J 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



685 



I have herein endeavored to give you my prac- with which I am very much pleased, havinor cul- 

 tical observations and opinions in answer to a part tivated, in corn, 160 acres with ten liands and four 

 of the twplftli inqtiirv, as stated in the 4ih vol. p. horses, witliout hoos and without ploiitrliF:. As 

 307, of tlie Memoirsof "The Philadelphia Socio- soon as we finished replanting, we commenced 

 ty for promotitia Agriculture." Should any thing \ thinnintv ; (or which purpose we used the hoc, with 



I have written, be considered ot" utility in aiding 

 the advimcement of agricultural science, it is en- 

 tirely at your service. 



I am, with great respect, &c. 



ROBERT G. JOHNSON. 

 RICHARD PKTERS, ESQ. 



EXPERIMENTS ON CORN. 



To the Editor of tlic Farmers' Register. 



King JVilliam Co., December 20, 1836. 



I this year made an experiment with corn and 

 cotton, planted together ; the result of which, I 

 will state, as I consider it as necessary to make 

 known our failures, as to publish our successful 

 experiments. 



Two acres of land with a very scant}' crop of clo- 

 ver on it, were well fallowed in the winter, after 

 spreadingalittle mannreon theparts where the clo- 

 ver was thinnest — and the last of April re-ploughed 

 and thrown into six lijet beds. These beds were 

 rrossed at intervals ol three feet, and planted the 

 2nd day of May — each hill alternately in corn 

 and cotton. The cotton seed and corn, were roll- 

 ed in plaster and ashes, and a small hatidful of 

 the mixture was put into each corn hill before 

 covering. The corn came up well, and grew ofT 

 beautifully, maintaining, all the season, a fine 

 deep green color — was left two stalks in the hill, 

 and cultivated in the usual way, and produced 7 

 barrels per acre. The seed corn used, was the 

 Maryland twin, which from this my first trial, I 

 should say was more productive than any other 

 variety I have tried. The cotton came up badly, 

 grew badly, and produced next to nothing — some- 

 thing like 100 lbs. seed per acre,, as 1 did not 

 weigh it. 



Five rows four (eet apart, after being planted in 

 cotton two feet apart in the rows, were planted in 

 twin corn between the cotton hills, and the corn 

 left two stalks in (he hill, and the cotton two stalks, 

 with a view of ascertaining whether the twin 

 would bear thicker planting than the common 

 large corn. The land was good and well cultiva- 

 ted. The product was one barrel of sound corn, 

 upon one-twelfth part of an acre, and no cotton, 

 that beinff completely smothered by the luxuriant 

 growth of corn, which satisfied me it would bear 

 planting at least one-third thicker than the com- 

 mon kind. Whether the product from the (wo 



the view of cutting up a bush or hunch of briers 

 we miirht meet with, and the hoes were never 

 used afterwards except to chop around ditches or 

 small places which could not be got at with the 

 cultivators, which are started as soon as the corn 

 is up, or even before all is up, and kept running 

 alternately the wide and narrow way until we lay 

 by, which is done with a skimmer. The corn of 

 course is laid off stri-.ighl both ways. I use a cul- 

 tivator of the common X kind, except that the 

 teeth are a little pointed instead of square, and 

 the edges of them turned back, which renders the 

 draft easier and makes them run deeper. This 

 methotl of course can only be practised on land 

 nearly or quite level. The field cultivated this 

 year, I am convinced, has produced more than it 

 did the two last years it was m corn, when plough- 

 ed in the usual way, and hoed three times, with a 

 saving of at .'east one third of the labor. We 

 cannot aflbrd to make corn in the old fashioned 

 way durini; the present great demand f^^r labor of' 

 all "kinds, even at the present high price of the 

 article. 



A nv disposition you m;iymake of the above will 

 be perfectly satisfactory to 



P. S. — Upon the supposition that the ccro^ of (he 

 Hessian fly is deposited upon the grain of wheat, I 

 this last seedinjr time, sowed a small parcel of 

 ituported German wheat, one-half of which was 

 oiled ; but regret to find not one grain in fifty came 

 up, either of that which was oiled, or the other 

 half not greased. It is a well known fact to every 

 good housewife, that their eggs, of all kinds, to 

 hatch at all, must be carefully kept fi-om grease or 

 oil. May it not prove equally as ef^!cacious, when 

 applied to the Hessian fly egg, as when applied 

 to the hen egg? H. 



For the Farmer's Register. 

 COTTON SEED OIL. 



1st. Tn Silliman's Journal of August 1824, is an 

 article on cotton seed gas, by Professor Olmsted, 

 then of the University of North Carolina, now of 

 Yale College, who found by experiment that 1 lb. 

 cotton seed would afford about 9i cubic feet of 

 gas, and hence made the following calculations. 



lbs. 

 Cotton made in United States, 1824, 100,000,000. 



Cotton seed, more than 



acres (14 barrels) was the result of planting twin 

 corn, or whether from the small quantity of plas- ! Capable of producing, gas, 

 ter and ashes put into each hill, I am unable to , Quantity of gas required annually 

 say ; 1 only state the facts, and leave others to j to light the city of London, 

 draw their own conclusions. But 1 certainly do 

 not think the land would have produced more than 

 five barrels per acre, without the cotton, cultiva- 

 ted in the usual way in the common corn. 1 now 

 believe I should have made 10 barrels per acre, if I 



100,000,000. 

 Cubic feet. 

 2,827,500,000, 



400,000,000 

 33,000, 



To make which are required, 



Chaldrons of coal. 



Illuminating power of gas, double that of coal, 

 therefore the whole cotton crop of 1824 was capa- 

 ble of supplying 14 such cities as London with 



had had a corn hill in place of the cotton — that is, i illuminating gas. 



six by three feet. | In other words, the gas made from (he seed of 



I have this year tried upon a larger scale, (he j the whole crop of 1824 would have been equal to 



method of cultivating the corn crop, which one of j that made from 462,000 chaldrons of coal. Sup- 



your correspondents calls the " no hoe system," 1 pose, however, that only one half of the seed 



