INDIAN CORN. 121 



largest growth, both of foliage and fruit, and a light 

 and dry one the earliest maturity, and the richest or 

 most concentrated product. Professor Ives states, 

 that plants from the seed of the morus multicaulis 

 have the foliage of the parent in a rich humid soil, 

 while they resemble those of the morus alba on a 

 thin, light soil; and it is believed that a pound of 

 the leaves of the latter are intrinsically more valua- 

 ble to the silkworm than a pound of the former. It 

 is not great size that indicates superiority either 

 in animals or vegetables. A very large apple is 

 seldom a very good one. The cider from a hilly, 

 dry, calcareous soil, is always superior to that from 

 a low and rich one. A very large beet contains 

 much less sugar than the same weight of small 

 beets. Indian corn, grown upon a light, dry soil, 

 comes to earlier maturity, but is inferior in its 

 growth and in the size of its ears to that which is 

 grown upon a highly manured loam. Indeed, the 

 difference is so great on our own grounds this sea- 

 son, that the growth and product in two locations 

 would hardly be taken for the same variety. 



We have another suggestion to make in regard to 

 the influence of steeps. A communication from 

 Senator Johnson, inserted in the first volume of the 

 transactions of the .old agricultural society, shows 

 that the crop from seed-wheat, steeped in a solution 

 of saltpetre, ripened two weeks earlier, and gave 

 25 per cent, more product than the crop from seed 

 not thus steeped. We began to plant our main crop 

 of corn on the 12th of May, and finished on the 16th. 

 All the seed was steeped 12 hours in a solution of 

 nitre, in quantities sufficient for one day's planting. 

 A few quarts of seed which remained were set in 

 the cellar, where it remained, partially covered with 

 pickle, till the 19th, when it was planted in a vacant 

 patch of thin soil, in which we also planted, the same 

 day, six other varieties, all reputed to be remarkably 

 early, and the seed of all which had been soaked in 



I. K 



