70 ON INDIAN COKN. 



cessive manuring like Indian corn. But how are farmers to ob- 

 tain this manure ? We answer, by pressing the amount of your 

 cuhivation {o the extent of your power; by the most careful 

 gathering and husbandry of all the ofFal of every crop ; by avail- 

 ing yourselves of every resource within your reach ; the gathering 

 of decayed leaves for litter ; the washings of the roads, and the 

 droppings of cattle on the highway, and in their places of rest 

 and watering, near gates and under shades ; by the collection of 

 bog mud and the transportation of all sorts of refuse to the com- 

 post heap — ashes likewise in many cases have proved a most 

 valuable manure for this crop ; and one of the best farmers in 

 the county, a strictly practical man, informed me that from his 

 experience he had found leeched ashes a better manure for this 

 crop than unleeched ashes, a fact if well founded of great im- 

 portance. Plaster of Paris likewise deserves much more trial 

 for this plant than it has yet received ; and though the general im- 

 pression is, that it is unavailing in the neighborhood of the sea, 

 yet the interior of the county is so remote from marine exhala- 

 tions that its efficacy may not be affected by them. 



On a visit to an extensive farming establishment in the in- 

 terior of New York, and certainly one of the best conducted 

 farms which I have ever visited, the owner, who goes as largely 

 into the cultivation of Indian corn as perhaps any man in the 

 Eastern or Middle States, his produce often amounting to five 

 thousand bushels a year, informed me that his crops for the last 

 ten years had averaged more than one hundred bushels to the 

 acre. His method of cultivation is peculiar ; and the best test 

 of its propriety and expediency is its success, he having within a 

 few years more than trebled the amount of all his crops. He 

 ploughs to the depth of about three or four inches, taking care 

 to invert the sod completely ; he then rolls it so as to exclude 

 the air from the inverted sod ; he then spreads about eight loads 

 of manure to the acre, harrowing or ploughing it in to the depth 

 of about an inch ; and using the greatest care never to turn over 

 or to break the inverted sod. His corn, which is a small eight 

 rowed kind, is then planted in hills at the exact distance of 2 

 feet 8 inches each way, being careful always to use seed enough 



