HOUSATONIC SOCIETY. 367 



a heavy clay subsoil, the most productive in town, and places 

 once covered with stagnant water during the summer season, 

 now as fertile as a garden. 



The hay crop this season is a light one, not more than one- 

 third of a crop in some places, being much injured by the 

 drought. Fears were entertained for a while that there would 

 not be the necessary amount of fodder to carry the stock 

 through the winter. But those fears have been dispersed, and 

 we are again assured that " He who tempers the wind to the 

 shorn lamb," orders all things well. Forty pieces of corn were 

 entered for premium. Seven were competitors for the pre- 

 mium on four acres, and the remainder for one acre. The 

 crop is a fair one. The committee believe that as many pre- 

 miums should be offered on four acres, or on a field of a given 

 number of acres of corn, as on one acre. Of the cultivated 

 crops this is the leading and decidedly the most important and 

 profitable to the farmer in this county. It enters largely into 

 the farmer's account of food, as the most economical and desir- 

 able extra grain for working oxen and horses, as food for beef 

 cattle, hogs, sheep, dairy stock and poultry. Considering the 

 comparative certainty of obtaining a crop under all the vicissi- 

 tudes of season, it would be within bounds to say that fifty 

 per cent, of the entire profits of our agricultural operations flow 

 directly or indirectly from the production of Indian corn alone. 

 Various opinions prevail as to the distance that the hills of 

 corn should be planted from each other. The committee have 

 examined fields containing from 27 to 64 hills to the square 

 rod. The field of Marshal Butler, of Lenox, was planted 40 

 hills to the rod, twelve rowed Dutton corn, and yielded, by the 

 committee's measurement, 136^ bushels of shelled corn to the 

 acre. The field belonging to Charles Hinkley, of Lee, con- 

 tained just 36 hills to the square rod, rows crossing each other 

 at right angles. Tillotson corn, and the dryest of any exam- 

 ined. The hills contained five stalks on an average. It was 

 evident that Mr. Hinkley had taken much pains (as every 

 farmer should do) in ploughing, marking, and planting his 

 corn, and is rewarded with a good crop of sound corn, yielding, 

 according to the committee's measure, 109^- bushels of shelled 

 corn to the acre. The field of four acres of corn in Great Bar- 

 rington, belonging to Orrin Curtis, of Sheffield, was a most 



