32 G GARDENING FOR THE SOUTH. 



wide, and five inches high. Make one of the sides so that 

 it can be easily removed. Fill these boxes with loam 

 mixed with some manure. Then prepare some strips of 

 board two and one-third inches wide, five inches long, and 

 as thin as the blade of a hoe. Put these down endwise 

 into the loam, so as to divide the loam into squares two 

 and one-half inches square and five inches deep. (As these 

 squares are each to contain a hill of corn, it will be seen 

 that the thin strips are to prevent the roots of one hill 

 from interfering with those of another.) Place these 

 boxes in a sunny place, well protected from the west 

 wind, and about a month before the usual planting time, 

 plant four kernels of corn in each one of these squares. 

 By planting time, the corn will be five or six inches high. 

 Having prepared the ground and opened the hills, take 

 the hills of corn from the boxes in the hand, put them into 

 the prepared hill, press the earth around them, and the 

 corn is at once planted and hoed the first time. It would 

 be well to use some phosphate of lime or hen manure, so 

 as to cause the corn to start immediately. In a short 

 time the corn will be as large as usual when hoed the 

 second time." (New England Farmer.) 



Another and probably simpler method is in the use of 

 what is known among gardeners as " dirt bands." Those 

 are thin veneers cut so as to fold up into 4 or 6-inch 

 squares. 



The ground for corn should be deeply plowed or spaded, 

 then laid off in hills three feet apart each way, for Sugar 

 and Early corn, leaving three or four plants in a hill, 

 while two plants in hills five feet apart is near enough for 

 large Southern corn. If the ground is not rich, place a 

 shovelful of decayed manure to each hill. Fresh dung- 

 can be immediately applied to corn, if spaded before plow- 

 ing, and well turned in. Plant four or five grains to a 

 hill, and cover two inches deep. When they are up, thin 



