ON INDIAN CORN. 69 



after a just allowance for the too common extravagance of al- 

 most all conjectural estimates, we are convinced that thirty 

 bushels to the acre is a fair average of this crop among us. 



Now, small as this return is, we believe, where the fodder is 

 well husbanded and applied, that it is better than any crop we 

 are accustomed to raise and upon which we bestow no more 

 proportional expense of manure and labor. Land yielding about 

 30 bushels of corn to the acre, will, under the same manuring and 

 cultivation, not be likely to yield more than 140 bushels of pota- 

 toes to the acre, nor more than one ton of English hay. These 

 we admit are small returns ; but we have been too often deceiv- 

 ed by over estimates and too familiar with the actual weighing 

 and measuring of crops to indulge in any of those excessive cal- 

 culations by which men often impose on themselves. Now, 

 without proceeding to any more minuteness of detail, as we be- 

 lieve the fodder from an acre of Indian corn, yielding 30 bushels 

 to the acre, where well husbanded and applied, to be fully equal 

 to two thirds of a ton of English hay ; and as we know, that no 

 crop returns so much manure to the ground, where the offal is 

 taken due care of; and farther, as we are satisfied that Indian 

 corn is no greater exhauster of the land than potatoes, whose re- 

 turn of vegetable ofFal to the ground can scarcely be considered 

 as of any value, we are satisfied, that even at a yield of thirty 

 bushels to the acre, Indian corn is one of the best crops that a 

 farmer can raise, in proportion to the expense of cultivation. 



But thirty bushels to an acre is a very small yield and one 

 with which no enterprising farmer should be satisfied. Eighty, 

 ninety, one hundred, one hundred and sixteen, one hundred and 

 thirty-five bushels to the acre have been raised within this 

 county. Now what has been done, can be done again. There 

 is a great deal of land in the county adapted to the growth of 

 Indian corn. If the expense of such cultivation is considerable, 

 yet the increase of the crop is more than six times an equivalent 

 for any increase of expense over that of the ordinary cultivation. 

 The ploughing is the same ; the harrowing and hoeing are not 

 very different. The great increase of expense is in the manur- 

 ing. Scarcely any crop, which can be cultivated will bear ex- 



