176 INDIAN CORN. 



effectually checked. If they are buried, they rot im- 

 mediately ; if they are hoed up, they sometimes grow 

 again. 



A small, flat hill will not injure the corn, but we 

 think no earth should be drawn up to the plants at a 

 second hoeing. 



Certainty of the Corn Crop. It is said by some 

 that this crop does not fail more than one year in ten. 

 We think it does not more than one in twenty. For 

 the last fifty years we have not failed of raising a tol^ 

 erable crop of this grain, where the land was in suita- 

 ble order, excepting only in the years 1816 and 1836. 

 We can assert this of no other grain that we raise. 



Rye is subject to blast and to the winter frosts^ 

 wheat is subject to the same ; oats often yield a very 

 slender crop on a large straw ; barley is by no means 

 a certain crop in New England ; and we know of no 

 grain to be coinpared with Indian corn, as to' the cer- 

 tainty of a middUng crop. We should think there 

 was much less risk in warranting this grain than in 

 warranting a crop of potatoes. It is not half so liable 

 to suffer in dry weather as they are. 



These are great advantages in favor of the Indian 

 corn, or maize, of which our ancestors were totally ig- 

 norant before the settlement of this country ; and, 

 although William Cobbett undertook to prove that it 

 was a known grain in the days of the apostles, from 

 the circumstance of their rubbing the ears of corn in 

 their hands on the Sabbath, as they passed through 

 the fields, we think he may be said to '• lie under a 

 mistake," and that green maize, uncooked, is not so 

 palatable food as green wheat would be. 



Profits of the Corn Crop. Now, although the 

 corn crop is thus valuable, and one with which we 

 cannot dispense, still it will not follow that it is profita- 

 ble to raise large quantities of it in New England. It 

 is a costly business to rear and prepare for market an 

 acre of corn. We have made as accurate calculations 



