HOW TO GROW GOOD COUN. 205 



1st. On the uses of special manures for corn crops. 

 2nd. On the quality and quantity of corn to be 

 used for seed. 



3rd. On the period for harvesting corn. 



1st. On the Uses of Manures. — It is pretty gene- 

 rally agreed that special manuring for corn, when 

 grown in the ordinary shifting crop system, is posi- 

 tively injurious, and more truly so, if farmyard dung 

 be employed. Still, on our own farm we were over- 

 persuaded to give a dressing of rotted dung to some 

 wheat. As the previous crop, turnips, had all but 

 failed, we yielded on being told that it was a common 

 Dorset custom, but, fortunately, only to the extent 

 of a few acres down the middle of the field, on which 

 part, at harvest, the main of the crop had fallen to 

 the ground, with the affection known as knee-bent. 

 There was plenty of straw, not at all good ; but the 

 yield of plump grains can hardly be half of those of 

 the other parts of the field. 



As a general rule, we have never observed special 

 manuring to be useful except as top-dressings in 

 early spring, at which time soot, or, better still, a 

 mixture of soot and guano, may be sown on most 

 wheat crops to advantage, and more especially where 

 the young plant has been injured by the slug or the 

 wire-worm, as in these cases the lower joint and the 

 winter root are destroyed. If, then, the young plant 

 be at this time stimulated with the mixture as ad- 

 vised, and the crop be afterwards rolled, we supply 

 nutriment just in the form that it can be readily 

 assimilated, the injured plants send out new roots 

 from the second joint, and begin a fresh life, whilst 



