NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



JULY 6, 1843. 



' Oh yes I diO. I reineinher it |ierfcclly well. 

 It is all liwlil.' 



' Biit nlir>n (liil yuu gft It, friciiii B;irtoti ? I orn 

 sure that I liav'nt lliu tiiipsl distant recullpctnin df 

 It.' 



'My lio^'s i:(it it,' ihn shoemalicr said, in rallier 

 a low and hesitating tone. 



' Vour hogs !' 



'Yes. D(i n't you remember when my hugs 

 broke into your field, and destroyed your corn ?' 



' Oh dear ! Is that it ? Oh, no, no, friend Uar- 

 ton ! I cannot allow thiit item in the bill.' 



' Yes, but you must, It is perfectly just — and 

 I .shall never rest until it is paid.' 



'I can't indeed. You couldn't help your hogs 

 getting into my Held ; and then yuu know, fiend 

 Barton — (lowerir.g his tone) — my geese weie very 

 troublesome !' 



The shoemaker blushed and looked confused ; 

 but farmer Gray slapped him familiarly on the 

 shoulder, and said, in a lively, cheerful way — 



'Don't think any thing more about it, friend 

 Barton! And hereafter, let us endeavor to rfo as 

 we wouldbe done by, and then every thing will go 

 on as smooth as clock-work.' 



' But you will allow that item in the bill ?' the 

 shoemaker nrijed, perseverin^'ly. 



'Oh no, I could n't do that. I should think it 

 wrong to make yon pay for my own or some of my 

 men's negligence in leaving the bars down.' 



'But then — (hesitatingly) — those ge.>se ! ! 

 killed three. Let it i;o for them.' 



'If you did kill them, we ate them — so thit is 

 even. No — no — let the past I'e forgotten, and if 

 it makes better neighbors and friends of us, we 

 never need regret wiiat has happened.' 



Farmer Oray remained firm, and the bill was 

 settled, omitting the item of 'corn' From that 

 lime forth, he never had a better neighbor than the 

 shoemaker. 



The cows, and hogs, and geese of both, would 

 occasionally trespass — but tlio trespassers were al- 

 ways kindly removed. The lesson was not lost on 

 either of tliem — for even Farmer Gray used to 

 feel, sometimes, a little annoyed when his neigh- 

 bor's cattle broke into his tield. lint in teaching 

 the shoemaker a lesson, he had taken a little of it 

 to himself. 



HESSIAN FLY. 



A farmer in the Zanesviile Gazette says — " I 

 am led from recent observations, to believe that 

 the Hessian fly never attacks the stoals or sprouts 

 that put out from the oritrinal wheat stalk ; but 

 only thn original stalk itself. Can any of my 

 brother farmers, or any agricultural editor with 

 whom yon exchange, give any additional insight 

 into this matter?" 



If the fact here asserted is true, may it not be 

 that the original stalk is so much more forward in 

 the early part of the "enson than the sprouts — that 

 for this reason the Hy selects it .' — 1'2d. N. F. F. 



Ubiquity. — Josiah Qiiincy is President of t''0 

 Massachusetts Senate, and Josiah Quincy is Pre- 

 iitlent of the Senati' of New Hampshire, and Josiah 

 Q,uiiicy is ['resident of Harvard University. 



Somebody saysThat " Esq." at the end of a man's 

 name, in many instances, is like the "quirk" in a 

 pig's tail — more lor an ornament than use. 



THE GREAT KENTUCKY CORN CROP. 

 We copied an article from the Albany Cultiva- 

 tor a few weeks since, stating that a Mr Young, of 

 Kentucky, had raised 19.5 bushels of corn per acre. 

 Mr Y. has since coinninnicated his method of cul- 

 tivation to the Louisville Journal, from which we 

 extract the loilowing: — 



"My universal rule is, to plow my corn land the 

 fall preceding the spring when I plant; and as 

 early in the spring as possible, I cross-plow as deep 

 as circumstances will permit: and as soon as this 

 is done, 1 commence checking off — ihe first way 

 with my large plows and the second with my small 

 ones ; the checks three feet by three, admitting of 

 working the land both ways. And then, I plant 

 my corn from the ".^Oth to the 2.5th of March — a 

 rule to which I adhere with scrupulous exactness ; 

 planting from eight to twelve grains in each hill, 

 covering tire same from fuur lo six inches deep, 

 greatly preferring the latter depth ; and in this 

 particular I take more pride and more pains than 

 any oiher farmer in Kentucky, holding it as my 

 rilling principle, that the product of the corn crop 

 depends very much upon its being properly cover- 

 ed, and much on its being properly plowed the first 

 time. So soon as my corn is up of sufficient height, 

 1 start the large harmw directly over the rows, al- 

 lowing a horse to walk each side, harrowing the 

 way the corn was planted ; and on land prepared 

 as above and harrowed as directed, the hoeing part 

 will bo so completely performed hy this process, 

 that it will satisfy the most skeptical. Then, al- 

 lowing the corn thus harrowed to remain a few 

 days, I start my small plows with the bar next the 

 corn; and so nicely will this be done, that when a 

 row is thus plowed, so completely will the inter- 

 mediate spaces, hills, &c., be lapped in by the 

 loose earth occasioned by this system of close plow- 

 ing, as In render any other work useless for a time. 

 I thin to lour stalks upon a hill, never having to 

 transplant, iho second plowing being performed 

 with the inoold-board towards the rows of corn; 

 and so rapid has been the growth of the corn be- 

 tween the first and second plowings, that this is 

 performed with ease ; and when in this stage, I 

 consider my crop safe; my general rule being, 

 never to plow my corn more than four times, and 

 harrow once. My practice is, to put a field in 

 corn two successive years, then grass it, and let it 

 lie eight years — a rule from which I never deviate. 

 Now, I do not preiend that the labor bestowed upon 

 a sod field to put it in a state of thorough cultiva- 

 tion, does not meet with a fair equivalent from one 

 crop — but I presume no farmer will doubt when I 

 say, the second year's crop from sod land is better 

 than the first, with not more than one half the la- 

 bor. The best system of fnrming is, to produce 

 the greatest amount of profit from the smallest 

 amount of labor. 



" I lay it down as an axiom incontrovertible in 

 the cultivation of corn, that whenever a large crop 

 has been raised, it was the result of close and early 

 planting; and I defy proof to the contrary. I 

 plant my corn three feet by three, four stalks in a 

 hill, and allow but one ear to a stalk, and one hun- 

 dred ears to a bushel, and then ascertain how many 

 hills there are in a shock, sixteen hills square, 

 which is the usual custom to put it up. My pre- 

 sent crop, planted on the 20th of March, bids fair 

 to outstrip any preceding one. 



WALTER C. YOUNG. 



J(ssamine Co., Ky. 



OJ^We publish the foregoing to show the pe- 

 culiarities of Mr Young's management of his corn 

 crop. He professes to have raised 195 bushels of 

 corn per acre. If this was shelled corn, the crop 

 was greater than any other of which we have had 

 an account. We have not copied the article be- 

 cause of any belief that 195 bushels of shelled 

 corn, the whole crop fairly measured when dry, 

 have been obtained from one acre of ground, but, 

 as we have said, because the mode of culture is 

 somewhat different from what we are accustomed 

 to. The depth at which the corn was planted 

 and the harrowing directly upon the corn itself 

 after it came np, are novelties ; and if the result 

 was ns favorable as the account indicates, these 

 points are worthy of remembrance and attention. 



The distance at which this corn was planted, 3 

 feet each way, would give per acre 4840 hills, and 

 each hill must give something more than 1 quart 

 and 1-2 a pint of corn to make 195 bushels. If 

 four ears would give this on an average throughout 

 the field, they must have been large — larger than 

 it seems possible to obtain where corn slands so 

 ihick. But we presume, with the Farmers' Cabi- 

 net, that the crop was measured in the ear, not 

 shelled. Omitting to state how the products were h, 

 measured, is a common neglect with the western 1,1 

 producers of " mannnoth corn crops." — Ed. N. E. F. f 



THUNDER AND LIGHTNING. 



The various phenomena which are to be classed 

 under the head of electricity, and of which the 

 thunder is one, are very imperfectly understood. 

 Some facts, and the principles explaining them, 

 have been thoroughly investigated ; but others 

 baffle all human efforts. 



There is n certain something, called by philoso- 

 phers electric jluid, which is diffused naturally over 

 all bodies. It is in the chair in which I sit, — in 

 the table — the paper — my hand — in a word, in 

 every thing. In its natural state, it is equally and 

 generally diffused and produces no sensible effects. 

 But there are certain causes which colled, it. When 

 it is thus accumulated in one place or upon one 

 body, it produces very striking results; one of the 

 most remarkable of which is, it tends to dart away 

 into the surrounding objects, vtilh a bright .ipnrk 

 nnd a noise. 'I his can be easily imitated on a 

 small scale with the electrical machine ; and it is 

 this agent, operating precisely in this way, but 

 with tremendous energy and splendor, which so 

 often terrifies us in the skies. 



Among the processes by which the electric fluid 

 is accumulated, and thus prepared to produce these 

 sensible effects, one of the principal is, the conden- 

 sation of viipnr. Whenever the vapor of the at- 

 mosphere is condensed, electricity is collected, and 

 tends to dart off into surrounding objects. When- 

 ever a cloud is formed in the sky it probably be- 

 comes more or less charged with electricity. 



Now it is one remarkable property of this elec- 

 tric fluid, that some substances easily convey it 

 away, and others do not. The former are called 

 conductors, the latter non-conductors. The metals 

 and xiinler are the conductors: almost all other 

 substances, non- conductors. 



Whenever the electric fluid is collected in any 

 place, if there is a conductor, or a chain of conduc- 

 tors, to convey it away, it passes off silently andl 

 without any sensible effect. If there are no con- 

 ductors, it accumulates until it becomes excessive 

 in quantity, and then it darts off ihrougli the air op 



