HOW TO BE BETTER FARMERS. 65 



shelled corn to the acre, as the mhiimiim return, (I mean of 

 course in good seasons,) is your true policy, as regards this 

 crop. 



I would grow it thus: leaving the guanos and the super-phos- 

 phates, &c., alone, till it is somewhat better settled than now, 

 whether you can afford to pay the prices asked for them, I would 

 look about to see if my own farm does not afford fertilizers that 

 are already paid for — paid when the farm was bought. I would 

 see what accumulations there are in the form of half-decayed 

 Tegetable matter. If I could do no better, I would pounce 

 upon the swamp mud. For an acre of corn, I would bring out, 

 as early as August, if convenient, twenty loads, and dump it in a 

 shape to be fully penetrated by sun and rain, and easily turned 

 over with the plough. Occasionally, I would run the plough a 

 few times through it. As late as the frost would permit, I 

 would throw it, by means of scraper and shovel, into a high 

 pile, and mix intimately with it a bushel of stone lime or two 

 bushels of shell lime to each load. This would keep it warm 

 through the winter. The snows would melt upon it and keep 

 it moist. In the spring, I would mix with it as many loads of 

 strong ammoniacal manure from the barn, and a bushel of ashes, 

 a peck of salt, and a peck of plaster, to each load of the com- 

 post. About the 20th of May, or earlier if the season were for- 

 ward, I would harrow in twenty -five loads of this, in a warmly 

 fermenting state, and would put the remainder, ten loads, if the 

 whole should have shrunk five, into the hills, and plant imme- 

 diately, while it is yet warm. This I know implies considerable 

 labor, and labor is money with us, and I am glad it is so ; but 

 it will give sixty bushels of corn to the acre in a poor season, 

 eighty bushels in a good season, and one hundred in a very 

 good ; and, what is more, it will give great after crops without 

 further manuring. 



It is now manifest that the potato disease has not yet found a 

 specific remedy. Should you, however, despair of the profitable 

 cultivation of this plant ? I think not. If you will select for it 

 good, sound upland, not over rich, and not filled with ammonia- 

 cal manures, either from the stalls or from the Chincha islands, 

 and if you will apply to the hill, in small quantities, a compost 

 of potash, lime, salt and plaster, wood ashes to supply the potash 

 being the principal ingredient, I believe you will succeed in 



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