306 TliAXSACTJOXS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



lakes. "We have, in a general survey, three climates in the United 

 States as regards corn. North of a line drawn west through New 

 York city, the hazard in growing maize is from the sliortness of the 

 season. Corn wants not only ninety days ahsolutely free of 'frost, 

 hut at least sixty days of intense heat ; and in New England and the 

 vicinity of the lakes, there is generally only a month of torrid wea- 

 ther. But by selecting varieties which grow fast but not high and 

 ear heavily, large crops are produced in the cool States ; but it is 

 only done by high and constant manuring. It often happens that a 

 bushel of corn in ISTew England has cost half a cart load of the best 

 stable manure, beside the usual labor of the plow^ and hoe. 



The belt betw^een forty degrees and thirty-six degrees, or the region 

 bounded on the north by a line drawn west from New York, and 

 south by a line drawn east and west through Nashville, and 

 extending westward to the Missouri river, is the chosen home of this 

 magnificent cereal. Here is no difficulty from early or late frosts. 

 The large growing varieties can be cultivated, and the agriculture of 

 this tier of great States rests on Indian corn as its corner stone. 

 That the south is not as well adapted to growth of large crops is 

 proved by the census. Lousiana, the richest southern State, giving 

 but seventeen bushels as her average, and South Carolina but six 

 bushels. 



This week, from the 10th to the 17th of M.ay, is the planting time 

 for two-thirds of the whole crop of the United States. In the 

 extreme south they are now at the first hoeing, and in the north- 

 ernmost States some of the best crops are raised by waiting till near 

 the first of June, when the ground is thoroughly warm. Corn sprouts 

 most rapidly at the temperature of ninety-three degrees. At fifty- 

 three degrees it hardly grows at all, and below that it rots. When 

 the average heat is below seventy degrees — tliat is, when a fire is 

 necessary to entire comfort in some part of the day, corn will wear a 

 yellow hue, and show a tardy growth. In the Atlantic States, the 

 finest corn crops are found on the level loams and gently rolling 

 lands of middle Jersey and east Pennsylvania. Take a compass, 

 plant one foot on the City of Brotherly Love, let the other swing 

 round, sweeping as fiir east as Newark and as far west as Ilarrisburg, 

 and you have encircled the best corn lands on this slope. To find 

 better one must descend the Ohio Yalley. For a few days past 

 we have been moving about among some of those happy husband- 

 men who have either one of our two greatest cities for a market, 



