HARVESTING. 23 



crooked, but this cannot happen when it hangs perpen- 

 dicularly downwards. 



Another object in lopping is to accelerate the ripening 

 of the brush. After bending down, the growth in length 

 ceases, but the top still retains sufficient communication 

 with the stalk to allow it to harden and mature. It is 

 generally practised in northern localities, where the sea- 

 son is not long enough for the crop to escape frost with- 

 out this treatment. One recent writer upon the cultiva- 

 tion of Broom-corn, advises bending down as soon as the 

 head is fairly developed, and going through the field sev- 

 eral times to do this, as the plants successively come into 

 the proper condition. Lopping is not practised by the 

 large growers in the Western States ; indeed where the 

 corn is 12 and 15 feet high, it would be a difficult and 

 expensive task. 



CROOKED BRUSH sometimes causes loss to the grower, 

 and will occur in some seasons when the crop is harvested 

 quite green. When cut as soon as the " blossom " falls, 

 although the seed is but little developed, and the weight 

 from the increase of the kernel is but slight, yet the 

 weight of the envelopes to the seeds, or hulls, already 

 considerable at first, increases as they grow and become 

 firmer. In dry seasons the brush remains straight, the 

 straw as it develops becoming sufficiently hard and firm to 

 sustain its weight. On the other hand, in hot and moist 

 weather the development of the head is very rapid, and 

 the straw does not become firm with sufficient rapidity 

 to enable it to keep erect, with its constantly increasing 

 weight, for in this weather the seed-hulls also grow more 

 rapidly, and the consequence is, the straw bends over 

 and forms crooked brush. Even in dry seasons, thinly 

 planted corn has a greater proportion of crooked brush 

 than that planted closely, and one can only learn by 

 experience what distance between the stalks will, on his 



