96 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



agoing if you want to fetch corn. I never let the ground 

 settle on the top ; if it is beaten down by rain, or begins to 

 look a kind of rusty on the surface, I pitch into it, and keep 

 it as mealy as flour. The fact is our formers raise more corn 

 than they can tend, they can't go over the corn more than 

 once or twice, and that'll never do, and I guess I'll show 



old Billy R that it's so." 



Some ambitious farmers are pleased to "lay by" the corn 

 very early ; but it is not wise ; for the grass is always more 

 forward to grow about this season than any other ; and the 

 ground will become very foul where corn is too early laid 

 by, and, what is more to the purpose, a great deal of the 

 nourishment of a crop is derived from the air and dew coti- 

 veytd to the roots. This can be done only when the surface 

 is kept thoroughly open. 



PLOW TILL IT IS DRY, AND PLOW TILL IT IS WET. 



Speaking of corn, a very intelligent gentleman remarked : 



" Well, by a five minutes' talk, I made Mr. produce 



the best crop he ever had on a certain field." He was look- 

 ing over the fence where his corn was, at a flat field, upon 

 furrows full of water ; as I came by he said : " Well, I shall 

 never get a crop off" this piece of land ; it's going just as it 

 always does when I plant here." I told him of an old man 

 in Indiana, who was a good farmer, to whom I once said 

 when at his house one morning : 



" Deafenbaugh, how is it that you always have good corn 

 when no one else gets a half crop ?" 



" Why,'" said he, '■'■when it is wet I plow it till it is dry, 

 and when it is dry I plow it till it is wet?'' 



The man to Avhom I told this anecdote, says our inform- 

 ant, tried the practice, and gained a fine crop. 



