ON INDIAN CORN. 77 



drills ; and where the land is in rich condition very close plant- 

 ing may be allowed and is necessary to obtaining a large crop. 

 Straight lines and planting by rule is matter of good appearance, 

 convenience, saving of labor, and important for the free circula- 

 tion and admission of sun and air. Abundant seeding, so as to 

 secure not only a complement and a choice of plants, is to be 

 followed, and four good plants in a hill throughout the field is to 

 be desired. 



The crop cannot be kept too clear from weeds. A light har- 

 row, or a cultivater with two or three skimming shares attached 

 to it besides the teeth, which will cut off the weeds and loosen 

 the ground without breaking the sod, is the best instrument for 

 going among the crop. Ploughing among it, after it has attained 

 much size, is likely to injure the spreading roots of the plant. 

 Hilling and half hilling are only a waste of labor and an injury 

 to the crop. The surface should be kept level. 



Topping the stalks is a serious injury to the crop and ought 

 to be forever discarded. The best mode of harvesting is by 

 cutting after the corn is glazed ; tying in small bundles near the 

 top, and putting it in small shocks upon the ploughed land and 

 not upon the grass ground. This last is a point of great impor- 

 tance. An intelligent farmer, who has been in the habit for ten 

 years of harvesting his corn in this way, cautioned me by no 

 means to shock it upon the grass ground, as the grass would ex- 

 clude the access of the air to the bottom of the shocks, and the 

 stalks and the corn would become damp and mouldy. This 

 obvious, but before unthought-of circumstance, explained my for- 

 mer ill success in some cases, to which I have alluded ; as in 

 those cases, as I wished to plough the corn ground, I remember- 

 ed shocking the corn on the grass ground by the side of the field, 

 where the rovven was very luxuriant. 



I have only to add that the smaller kinds of corn are better 

 for our cultivation than the larger. This kind bears close plant- 

 ing. The yield is thus made equal in the number of bushels ; 

 and a bushel of the small size is heavier than one of the large 

 kind. The fodder is more easily cured and more readily con- 

 sumed by the cattle. 



