No. 149.] 459 



considerable quantity in the southern part of Europe, and may 

 be increased, should the increased demand for it warrant its more 

 extensive cultivation ; so that our condition in regard to this pro- 

 duct, with an ability to produce it vastly beyond our own wants, 

 may be no better tlian it is with our present abundance of wheat 

 and other bread-stuffs, unable to reach a profitable market abroad. 

 We are clearly admonished by the experience of the past, and 

 facts glaringly before our eyes daily, that our best and truest 

 policy is to build up and sustain a home market for the surplus 

 productions of our agricultural labor. 



The rich alluvial soils which abound in Wallachia and Molda- 

 via, near the Danube and its tributaries, produce annually a 

 greater amount of India corn than is generally known. In four 

 years, from 1837 to 1840 inclusive, 5,537,896 bushels of it were 

 shipped from ports at the mouth of the Danube on the Black 

 Sea, at an average cost of 24 cents per bushel, free on board, and 

 the trade was considered to be in its infancy. 



Prof. Mapes. — I will offer a few remarks on the cultivation of 

 corn. The methods having been somewhat modified so as to do 

 away with the expensive and laborious use of the hoe, the corn 

 is planted in rows, at nineteen inches apart, parcels of three 

 grains each, with a distance of four feet between the rows. 

 '^Vhen the corn is three inches high, a small furrow is thrown 

 from the corn, on each side of the row, leaving the corn ridge six 

 inches wide, the centre of which is occupied by the corn plant. 

 When special manure is used, it should be placed in this furrow, 

 and then a small sub-soil plough, with its flat side towards the 

 corn, is run to as great a depth as practicable in the bottom of the 

 furrow, thus mixing the special manure with the soil of the fur- 

 row and distributing (without elevating the subsoil.) The wing 

 side of the plough being toward the four foot space, elevates the 

 ground two or three inches, restoring it behind the head of the 

 plough in a loosened condition. The line of disintegration being 

 angular and not perpendicular to the line of travel. Loosen the 

 soil for a foot or more towards the centre of the open space. A 

 cultivator set three feet six inches wide, with two small plough- 

 shares in place of it, rear teeth should now be run through the 

 four foot space, thus lowering the soil for the whole width, 



