Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 415 



three, dropping seed in furrow after breaking team? Should the 

 seed be drilled in or put in hills, and how many seed to the hill I 

 When should the corn be tabled, cut, how cured, etc., when scraped? 

 Mr. F. D. Curtis — I am very glad the people of Nebraska are waking 

 to a sense of the value of this crop. But they must not expect to 

 make much of a crop on a prairie sod. While it resembles maize, it 

 is more delicate and hard to start off. I would say that the nutriment 

 given by a raw, wild sod was quite too crude. Broom corn wants a 

 warm, fine, mellow soil. The Missouri variety is the seed they want in 

 Nebraska. It is larger than either the dwarf or the Ohio. Plant 

 nine to twelve kernels in a hill, hills four by four apart if the land is 

 strong and the variety large. Cultivate with a light fine-toothed 

 harrow, and keep clean till the crop shades the surface. Plant a little 

 later than corn, say about June 1st. There are two modes of harvest- 

 ing, one in which the seed is disregarded, and the other where the 

 seed is a matter of importance. Probably the seed should be neglected 

 in Nebraska, but this depends on the price of corn. If that is 

 worth fifty cents- to feed, broom corn seed is worth thirty cents. The 

 stalks ai'e stripped of the green seeds in the field, and then laid on 

 scaffolds to dry. If the seed remains long enough to mature, the 

 broom with the seed is tabled or bent over, and after partial curing on 

 the stalk, cut and cured on scaffolds. In curing, care must be used 

 to prevent heating and molding. A large crop is 500 pounds to the 

 acre, or a ton from four acres. Illinois is at present the leading broom- 

 corn State. There are no parts of the country more prosperous than 

 those towns along the Connecticut and the Mohawk where the farm- 

 ers grow broom corn in summer, and make brooms in winter. It 

 gives steady occupation, enables farmers to hire by the year, and, by 

 presenting substantial rewards of good farming, renders it popular 

 and noble. I hope Nebraska will make several thousand tons in 1872, 

 but she will not do it by planting on a raw prairie sod. 



Tobacco Culture. 

 S. W. Clarke, Seneca, Crawford county, Wis. — My neigbor and I 

 are calculating to plant a crop of tobacco, and we would feel very 

 much obliged to the learned Club if they would tell us how to plant 

 it and to take care of it, and how the crop is managed after it is 

 harvested. What kind of seeds should we plant in this latitude, and 

 where the seed may be got. And, if it would not be too much 

 trouble, tell us where we could get the pure Long Evergreen broom 

 corn seed. We have the Red or Foxtail. 



