No. 144.] 139 



land is necessary here. I have no faith in the stories about the 

 average yield of Indian corn in Pennsylvania. Why, sir, the 

 average crop per acre of the whole United States was not twenty- 

 five bushels, when, by proper cultivation, it would reach seventy- 

 five bushels an acre ! This perpetual boasting of our great crops 

 has an injurious effect, for the sfrangeis who travel among us see 

 plainly the very slovenly way in which we Uianage crops. We 

 very often see corn fields that do not measure fifty bubhels an 

 acre, cob and all, and yet some of us call it fifty bushels of shelled 

 corn. Sir, half the corn crops of the Southern States do not 

 average ten bushels of shelled corn an acre ! 



Professor Mapes was satisfied that the average crop of Indian 

 corn in the United States was not over twenty bushels per acre. 



Rev. Joseph Carter, of Brooklyn — I have seen much of the 

 corn planting in our far west. It differs most widely fiom ours. 

 If we should cultivate here as they do we could hardly get seven 

 bushels of corn per acre. They plough about one inch deep, 

 turning over the thin slice of sod about two feet wide. One man 

 drops the seed just under the sod. The air and heat of the sun 

 completely destroys the sod. They make their rows of corn four 

 feet apart. They use no after culture. They have a great growth 

 of Corn. I have known some farmers at the West who cultivate 

 eighteen hundred acres. They use the cultivator. 



Hon. Horace Greeley — I don't believe that the average of In- 

 dian corn per acre, on this side of the country, is quite 25 bu^hels 

 an acre, and I have seen much of it. In great numbers of corn 

 fields I have seen the weeds more abundant than the corn. 



Mr. Solon Robinson — I have seen many fields of corn mihs in 

 extent, full of weeds; the cockle- bur, the Spanish needle, rising 

 far above the corn; such enormous masses (»f weeds that I raiher 

 think Mr. Greely, as well as I, could scarcely see the corn at all. 

 Some (if our Southern States yield ten busiiels of it per acre. 

 The average of the United States is not twenty five bu^heiS. 



Professor Mapes— Not twenty. 



Mr. Rtibinson — All Pennsylvania, in. her best seasons for corn 

 does not average thirty bu>hels an acre. If their eyes could be 



