CULTIVATION OF PLANTS. 



and labour is nothing, compared to the increase of the crop. 

 Two inches is a sufficient covering, if the earth is so compressed 

 as to retain its moisture. 



The after culture. As to the after culture of the corn crop, 

 it is almost impossible to prescribe any thing like a rule of uni- 

 versal application. The great object is to extirpate weeds, and 

 to keep the surface mellow and open, that the heat, air, and 

 moisture may exert the better their kind influences upon the 

 vegetable matter in the soil, and converting it into nutriment 

 for the crop. The cultivator may be advantageously passed 

 between the rows of corn three or four times, though ordina- 

 rily but two dressings are given to the crop. This practice is 

 to be governed altogether by the state of the soil and season.* 



The plants are thinned at the first dressing, which is usually 

 performed with the hand-hoe the surface pulverized, and the 

 plants reduced to from three to four in a hill. It is well to 

 gather, at this operation, a little fresh earth into and around the 

 hill. A somewhat similar process is observed by many in the 

 second dressing. The earthing must not exceed one inch and 

 a half, that the hill be broad and flat, and that the earth for this 

 purpose be not taken from one place, but gathered from the 

 surface between the rows, where it has been loosened by the 

 cultivator. 



Harvesting. The crop should be cut up at the ground as soon as the grain 

 is glazed, or as soon as it will do to top, and, without being laid on the ground, 

 set immediately in stocks. There are four substantial reasons for adopting 

 this mode of harvesting. It secures the crop from the destructive effects of 

 frost; it quadruples the value of the fodder; it clears the ground early fora fall 

 crop, and it saves labour in harvesting; and, we may add a fifth, it makes a 

 better crop of grain, under any contingency, than when it is topped in the old 

 way. We are confident of this last fact. The grain continues to profit by the 

 elaborated sap in the cut stalks, while it does not profit by the unelaborated 

 sap, below the ear, in the topped corn. 



Husking and cribbing. The ears should be gathered from the stalks, and 

 the latter stacked, as soon as they have become sufficiently dry and cured, a.< 

 unnecessary exposure to the weather is prejudicial to both the grain and the 

 forage. From two to three weeks generally suffices to effect thesQ objects. 

 The corn may be picked off and carried to the barn, and it should be husked 

 within twenty-four or thirty-six hours thereafter, and before the least heat is 

 perceptible in the pile, and the stalks bound and placed in small stacks, so as 

 to expose all the butts, which have become saturated with moisture by standing 

 on the ground, to the drying influence of the sun and winds and the stacks 

 topped, or covered with straw, so as to shed rain. After a fortnight or so, they 

 may be carried, in a dry state, to the barn. When picking the corn from the 

 stalks, the best seed ears should be selected, and immediately braided, and hung 

 in an airy loft. The corn should be exposed, after being husked, upon the 

 barn floor, to the drying influence of the winds, and it may require to be turned 

 over and stirred, till the cob is thoroughly dried. If this is wet, when cribbed, 

 fermentation may ensue, or a frost may follow, sufficient to congeal the mois- 

 lure in the cob, either of which will impair the quality of the grain, and de- 

 stroy its germinating principle. 



In sorting the corn we make three parcels, viz. sound grain for the crib, pig 



* E. P. ROBERTS. J. BULL. 

 10* 



