PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 123 



corn seed a good preventive. As to crows eating corn, I know 

 that they alight upon corn-stalks in the fall, and eat all the ears 

 within reach. 



William Lawton advocated late planting of corn, say in the 

 first week of June. 



The Chairman thought the Button corn, planted June 1, would 

 generally ripen, in the latitude of Albany. It would require one 

 hundred days to come to maturity. 



Mr. Quinn, foreman of Prof. Mapes's farm. — Care should be 

 taken in selecting seed. I would only use the best grains in the 

 center of the ear. The land should be deeply prepared, and 

 marked each way 3-^ feet by 34 feet, and put seven or eight 

 grains to a hill, and leave five stalks to stand. We cover one 

 inch deep, and cultivate with Knox's horse-hoe, and never hill 

 up. We use the subsoil plow in preparing land and in cultiva- 

 ting. The white Flint corn is the most productive sort that we 

 grow. I have never known crows to eat corn. They certainly 

 pull it up, for I have seen it lying upon the ground uneaten, 

 where they pulled it out. We prefer to plant in May to a later 

 day. Our greatest pests are the blackbirds, which destroy a 

 good deal of corn that pushes its point out of the husks. 



CRANBERRIES MAKING A PLANTATION. 



Solon Robinson — Since our last meeting I have been engaged 

 in making a cranberry plantation. Perhaps, if I tell what I have 

 done, and how I did it, in detail, it may be useful to somebody 

 else. If it should be the incentive to others to make a planta- 

 tion of these beautiful little berries, so as to produce, only for 

 family use, an abundance of this Irealth-promoting, acid fruit, I 

 shall be able to say that I have, by my example, done some good 

 to some one of my fellow-laborers. 



When I domiciled myself, a year ago, upon my little farm in 

 Westchester county, I found truth in a remark of one of my 

 neighbors to a friend, who made inquiries as to what sort of a 

 place Robinson had got. He replied : " Well, naturally a pretty 

 good piece of land, though it has been hard used, except one 

 ugly spot of about a quarter of an acre, which is good for noth- 

 ing, in fact, worse than nothing." " Why, what is the matter 

 with that?" "Oh, it is a bit of swamp, too near the house to 

 be pleasant, and too wet to cultivate." 



And so I found it. Over shoe in water, covered with 



[Am. Ikst.J I 



