J8 farmers' and mechanics' journal. 



corn was made : a great many fields were of so little wortli, that 

 scarcely any grain wis i^atiiered fi'om them, although the two tirst 

 mentioned crops were considered excellent by ail who saw them. 



Farmers attributed this failure in tlieir corn crops, to a continua- 

 tion of wet. cool weather, through the spring and fore part of the 

 suminer, joined with a severe drought in the latter part of the sea- 

 so 1. But as the two luxuriant fields mentioned above were sub- 

 jected to the same events, I can see no cause for this marked 

 failure in the crops generally, except procrastinating planting until 

 the earlh was thoiight to be sutficiently warmed ; which did not 

 happen until it was too late to grow even the smaller c rns with 

 tolerable advantage, unless the latter part of the season had been 

 very favorable. 



No rain fell on my field from the 30t!i of July to the 1st of Sep- 

 tember ; during wiiich time moisture is particularly required iti 

 this climate, to fill the ears ; yet I had never grown better ears be- 

 fore. 



if the farmers had planted as early as 1 did, and cultivated their 

 fields well, no question the same would have occurred in their corn 

 crops; for the economy of this invaluable plant is well calculated 

 to withstand the severest drought. 



Vly field of eorn, planted last spring, (1815,) with the same kind 

 of seed, on the 2'ith and 25th of April, was doomed to withstand 

 much severer frost than that just mentioned. 



On the 15Lh and IGth of iMay the ground was frozen so hard that 

 I peeled otf the soil in cakes, to nearly, if not quite, three-quarters 

 of an inch thick, and observed loose particles of congealed mois- 

 ture still deeper than this. 



Many of the plants wsre cut otf by the ground, and yet 1 have 

 never grown so large a crop of maize. It was still more remarka- 

 ble, that some of the plants which were growing from seed, that 

 by inattention was scarcely covered with soil, were not destroyed. 

 It would appear that the earth screened the roots from the too 

 powerful eflects of the sun, and that a gradual thaw preserved 

 them from injury." 



Lorain was a pracikal farmer, lived, according to his own story, 

 in a log-house, in the back-woods of Pennsylvania ; and, strange as 

 it may seem, was a " book farmer f' or, in other words, wrote a 

 book — a practical book, and one which ought to be read by every 

 farmer in New-England. Not that all his remarks will apply to 

 every case, or farm ; but there is much sound wisdom in it, which 

 would be valuable to every one, — naany maxims which ought to be 

 remembered. Here is one": " The farmer's pride should rest in 

 the display of luxuriant crops, obtained with the least possible ex- 

 pense, especially if he be very rich, as his example might go ver^v 

 far towards turning the tide of vanity into the proper channel." 



