REPORT FROM COL. R. H. DULANEY. 109 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



REPORT FROM 



COL. &,. HI. 



OF LOUDOUN COUNTY, MARYLAND. 

 (FROM SOUTHERN PLANTER AND FARMER.) 



I PREPARED fifteen acres of sod-land, by top-dressing it with all the 

 manure from the cellar of my cattle-barn, where I had fed eighty-two 

 cattle and twelve horses four hundred and fifty barrels of corn, 

 besides their long food, during the winter. After the land was 

 ploughed, and thoroughly harrowed and rolled, I drilled in three 

 bushels of corn and four hundred pounds of bone to the acre. By 

 stopping alternate tubes of the drill, the rows were eighteen inches 

 apart, and there were from eight to twelve to the foot in the row. I 

 had intended to plough this crop three times ; but after one ploughing 

 with single-shovel plough there came several hours of rain, after which 

 the corn grew so rapidly that it soon met across the row, and could 

 not be ploughed again. I dug a pit seventy-eight feet long, twenty 

 feet wide, and twelve feet deep, and lined it with a two-foot stone 

 wall, which was continued for three feet above the ground, and 

 cemented the sides and bottom. 



I should have cut the corn, which was the heaviest I ever saw, as 

 soon as the ears began to form ; but had to wait until I finished the 

 pit. 



When I commenced, some of the corn was too old for roasting- 

 ears, and the blades near the ground had lost their green color. The 

 field was four hundred yards from the pit. It required three and 

 sometimes four first-rate hands to cut the corn ; two ox-carts and 

 one four-horse wagon, with an extra hand to assist the drivers to 

 load, to haul the corn, which was being cut up into five-eighth-inch 

 pieces, by two eighteen-inch cutting-boxes. It required one man at 

 each box to feed, and two men to keep each supplied with the 

 fodder. 



