584 7'baxsactions of the American Institute. 



tively insignificant, was still such an advance on previous harvests as 

 to bring up suggestion of the good old times, 



Mr. H. L. "Westerbury, Sextonville, Wisconsin, asked if the Club 

 would recommend a young farmer of limited means to purchase ten 

 bushels of Norways, at $7.50 per bushel, to make a crop in 1870. 

 Are they worthy? Will they pay at that price for seeds? 



Mr. Henry T. Williams. — I^ot unless he can sell them near home, 

 among his neighbors. A bushel or so for one's OMai use may do well 

 enough. The price next year will probably be greatly reduced, ])er- 

 liaps they will be as cheap then as the common pats. 



Mr. Greeley's Crops. 

 The question was mooted the other day as to the depth of Mr. 

 Greeley's plow^ing in his field at Chappaqua, and Mr. jlST. C. Meeker 

 was sent by the Club to see and make report. He says : I found that 

 a field of some twenty -five acres of land had been reclaimed by drain- 

 ing a swamp, and the results are worthy of notice, as there are mil- 

 lions of acres of similar swamp land in the Eastern States which for 

 want of drainage are worthless. A part of this field was devoted to 

 grass, and another was planted in corn. Mr. Greeley was not there, 

 and I talked with his foreman, a German, wdio is said to be a careful, 

 candid man, unlikely to misrepresent. This corn ground having 

 become dry enough to plow, and having a soil rich, black, and mel- 

 low, much like the best prairie, was plowed twelve inches deep, when 

 some roots of trees were turned out, and in planting the corn one ton 

 of poudrette and two tons of superphosphates were applied in the 

 liiil. That the ground was rich enough to produce a fine crop of 

 corn without manure I have no doubt. A farmer generally would 

 Lave considered none necessary, but it was proposed to do the best 

 that could be done, with the knowledge that even under such circum- 

 stances adverse influences are likely to operate. On looking at the 

 corn in the cribs and elsewhere, I found it so good that a large por- 

 tion was fit for seed, the ears were long and well filled, and the ker- 

 nels plump and fully ripe. The yield was estimated at fifty bushels 

 shelled corn to the acre, but this was on a basis of eight acres, when 

 according to my judgment, there did not appear to have been more 

 than seven acres, and this would give about sixty bushels to the acre. 

 It is certain that so much corn has not been grown on the place for 

 years, for the cril) is full, and a portion having been put on an ui)per 

 floor in the barn, tlic weight hag broken a stron«: i>-irt. Witli a con- 



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