76 ON INDIAN COKN. 



top the stalks and cure them, and then cut the butts and 

 carry them into the barn and husk the corn from the butts. 



I have already extended this paper to an inordinate length. 

 I shall therefore hasten to relieve my reader by a brief recapitu- 

 lation of some of the positions here taken, and a mere suggestion 

 of some other important results in relation to this crop, in which 

 experience and observation have fully confirmed me. 



The extended cultivation of Indian corn ought to be urged 

 upon every farmer as one of the best crops to which his atten- 

 tion can be directed. At thirty bushels to the acre it is better 

 than almost any crop, which can be raised with the same ex- 

 pense of manure and labor. Thirty bushels however is not half 

 a crop ; and since in repeated instances more than one hundred 

 bushels to the acre have been obtained, and in one case, as is 

 established by uncpestionable evidence one hundred and seventy, 

 the enterprising and intelligent farmers of Essex county ought 

 not to be satisfied until they have at least doubled, not to say 

 trebled their ordinary crops. 



It is not a remarkable exhauster of the land. This is proved 

 by the fact of its having been planted year after year for ten and 

 twelve years in succession, on the same land, without any great 

 diminution of the product. We do not however recommend this 

 husbandry. It requires rich manuring ; and no crop will better 

 pay for it. Almost any manure is good and should be kept as 

 near the surface as it can be done and yet be intermixed with 

 the soil. Ashes, leeched or unleeched, and in places remote 

 from the sea, plaster of Paris, are powerful stimulants to this 

 crop, and to be applied immediately after planting or before the 

 first hoeing. Green sward is the most suitable soil ; deep plough- 

 ing is not beneficial ; and the sod should be completely inverted 

 and cultivated through the season without being broken or re- 

 verted, so that the plant may have the advantage of the decom- 

 position of all the vegetable matter contained in it. It is bet- 

 ter for the land in reference to succeeding crops that the manure 

 should be spread evenly than deposited in the hill ; and better 

 for the plant itself in case of drought; besides being a great sav- 

 ing of labor. Planting in hills is of easier cultivation than in 



