70 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and nitrogen and less starch, and the indented and white more 

 starch. The inorganic salts, and especially phosphates, are 

 confined to the chit and germ. If a farmer wishes then to give 

 young animals large bones, let him feed them on sweet corn, 

 but at the same time manure with bones or other phosphatic 

 manure. The stiffness of joints and lameness of feet in horses 

 fed too freely with such kinds of corn, may arise from an 

 unnatural growth of bone from the corn. A farmer cannot so 

 easily fatten stock with common Tuscarora, but it makes the 

 best bread and the best and most corn starch. The hard 

 northern gluten bearing varieties are better for working animals 

 and make more flesh than the southern starch bearing varieties, 

 though independent of their oil they make most fat. 



The white and yellow gourd seed corn is adapted to the 

 southern States, prhere they grow large stalks without corres- 

 ponding increase of grain. The middle States have the gourd 

 seed or flint varieties, pure or mixed, and the crop consists of 

 the big white and yellow, the little white and yellow, and the 

 white Virginia gourd seed ; it occupies the ground in the 

 southern or middle States from five to seven months. 



The northern and eastern States cultivate almost exclusively 

 the heavy, flinty grained kinds, which grow and mature with 

 great rapidity, and thus accommodate themselves to short 

 northern summers. Like all early maturing corn they are 

 dwarfish, though very productive, and occupy the ground only 

 three or four months — some varieties only six weeks. 



The cobs of the big white and yellow are thick and long, 

 grains much wider than deep, thin where they meet ; the ends 

 of grain are prominent and round, and the ear looks like a fluted 

 column ; so that these hard, flinty corns are less productive in 

 proportion to their cob than the gourd seed. The little white 

 and yellow are more solid and hard than the larger, the yellow 

 color is deeper, they have cobs considerably smaller and are 

 still less productive, but ripen earlier. The grain of all four is 

 firm, without indenture in the ends. The ears of the Virginia 

 gourd seed are not very long, nor the cob so thick as the big 

 white and yellow ; but the shape of the grain makes the ear very 

 thick ; it has thirty to thirty-six rows of very long, narrow 

 grains of a soft, open texture, almost flat at the outside ends, 

 compactly united from the cob to the surface of the ear, with- 



