AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 41*7 



timothy grown for sale in this city, it is an object to sow them, because it 

 grows coarse and sells better ; the livery stable men like it because it re- 

 mains a long time in the rack uneaten. 



Mr, Meigs. — There is a great variety of soils and circumstances to 

 influence crops. It does not follow in anything that is grown that it is 

 better for being of an overgrown size. 



PLANTING — THE PROPER DEPTH, &C. 



This question was now called up and discussed by a number of the far- 

 mers present. 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter. — I am in favor of shallow planting. Corn planted 

 at three-quarters of an inch deep came up in six days, and corn at two 

 inches, nine days, and five inches seventeen days — the same seed and same 

 preparation, in the same field. I lost half of a crop once from deep plant- 

 ing. Trees I would plant in deeply dug holes, filled in, and put the roots 

 near the surface. 



Mr. Meigs. — We have for many years been told by Mr. Comstock, that 

 he had invented a new and excellent mode of planting, superior to any ever 

 known ; he calls it terra-adture (agriculture in fact). He asked our 

 Legislature one hundred thousand dollars for his secret. 



I practiced, almost fifty years ago, the secret. It was very shallow 

 planting. I had remarked the admirable growth of corn in the loose 

 droppings of cows in pastures. The first leaves spread out broad and strong, 

 resembling fetlicou.se, instead of the very common appearance like a 

 yellow goose-quill, from corn planted two or three inches deep. I imitated 

 'this fine example. The soil being, as I always made it, light, two feet deep, 

 and added from my compost heap of everything, reduced to the condition 

 (by fermentation) of Maccaboy snuff. I put a small handful in each hill j 

 covered that about one or two inches with the soil, and then planted the 

 corn half an inch deep, and pressed down with the back of my hoe ; and no 

 better corn has ever been raised than mine. I took care of every stalk of 

 it, for eacli wants all it can get. I let no weed as big as a needle grow 

 among it, and sometimes, as a finish, after suckering it and taking off 

 the lower leaves that showed imperfections, I used to sweep between the 

 rows with a new broom, so that my lady friends could promenade my corn- 

 field, hid entirely from view by stalks often sixteen feet high. 



For high manuring I had 120 gallon casks, set up with cock at the 

 bottom ; straw and some small brush inside as strainer ; and in these casks 

 I put every material I could gather into this pipe ; hen, horse, cow dung, 

 urine, soot, ashes, rotten wood, vegetable fragments, bones, refuse meats, 

 soap suds, lime, and filled in with rain water. After some three weeks I 

 drew off a pint of it into a bucket of rain water, to sprinkle plants, I used 

 it, especially, on my celery, which I wanted to grow as tall as that of my 

 old master, George III, at Kew. In hilling up I was obliged to use cheap 

 boards to enable me to make the earth hill up high enough. I succeeded 

 in raising solid celery about four feet high, but George had grown it six 

 [Am. Inst.] 27 



