126 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



CURIOUS METHOD OF PLANTING CORN. 



Mr. John W. Sweet, of Tyringbam, Berkshire 

 county, informs us that he plants his corn in the 

 following manner, and has realized 110 bushels 

 shelled corn to the acre. 



He spreads what manure he intends for the 

 field on the surface of the greensward ; then he 

 ploughs the land into ridges about three feet 

 apart in the fall — each ridge or row being made 

 of two back furrows turned upon a narrow strip 

 of sward which is not disturbed. In the spring 

 he rolls and harrows these ridges, and on the 

 top of each ridge, twelve or fourteen inches 

 apart, he plants his hills of corn, three or four 

 kernels in the hill, and cultivates the corn through 

 the season with the hoe, cultivator and plough, 

 as much as he deems necessary. In this me- 

 thod, he remarked that he was not troubled 

 with weeds or the drought. 



In the fall, as soon as his corn is ripe, he ga- 

 thers the ears, then pulls up all the corn-stalks 

 and lays them down lengthways between the 

 furrows, and then splits the ridges with his 

 plough, and covers these staJks up completely. 

 Thus is made his ridge for his second crop of 

 corn, to be planted the succeeding spring. The 

 110 bushels was the second crop planted over 

 the buried stalks. 



The above is sufficient to give the reader an 

 idea of this system. He contends after the first 

 crop he wants no more manure for his corn ex- 

 cept the stalks applied as we have described. 



It is quite probable^ the three sods and manure 

 being under the corn the first 3 T ear, that while 

 these are undergoing decomposition, being the 

 whole period of the growth of the corn, the 

 crop will suffer less from drought than it would 

 were there no vegetable matter beneath it to at- 

 tract and detain moisture till its decomposition 

 is completed. 



As to the fact that corn-stalks are the best 

 manure for corn, the idea is strictly philosophi- 

 cal, and is fully sustained by chemical analysis. 

 The doctrine seems to be well settled, that each 

 crop requires its own peculiar food, and unless 

 the soil contains this, the crop will not flourish. 

 Hence the necessity of rotation of crops, or the 

 well established fact, with practical men, that 

 potatoes will not thrive for many years in suc- 

 cession on the same piece, because the crop has 

 already exhausted the soil of the peculiar food 

 of the potato, while some other crop requiring a 

 different kind of food from what the potato re- 

 quires, w T ill succeed well on the same land 

 where the potato crop has failed. Thus as the 

 ox and the sheep, when put to the same stack 

 of hay, the one will eat what the other leaves ; 

 so it is with plants. 



Now, if you shoot a partridge, and cut open 

 its crop, and find in it acorns and buds, you at 

 once infer that acorns and buds are the natural 



food of the bird. So when by chemical analysis 

 you ascertain the precise elements of which 

 corn stalks are made, you have ascertained pre- 

 cisely what kind of food the corn crop requires. 

 Now as corn-stalks contain the very elements 

 of the food required by the corn crop, and return 

 to the soil all the substances of which they ex- 

 haust the soil, the chemistry of agriculture 

 teaches us that corn-stalks, while undergoing 

 decomposition, furnish the growing crop with 

 those very gases required for the elaboration of 

 the solid stock and ears. 



But this is not only the conclusion of science, 

 but a universal law of the vegetable world, by 

 which an all-wise and bountiful God has pro- 

 vided that each precise species of plants shall 

 be re-produced and perpetuated. Thus the forest 

 land, for centuries subject to a mighty growth, 

 from year to year, not only increases in fenility, 

 by an annual top-dressing, fitted to the very pur- 

 pose for which it is wanted, and composted by 

 the unerring hand of Deity, but also, from year 

 to year, has something to spare for the good of 

 man and beast. 



Thus in the vegetable as in the animal world, 

 there is a wise provision, that each shall be sus- 

 tained and re-produced ; and as these natural 

 laws are more and more developed by science, 

 we may expect the purposes of Infinite Wisdom, 

 as to the vegetable world, will be less and less 

 frustrated by the hand of unskilful culture. 



Boston Traveller. 



For the Southern Planter. 



COMMENTS ON THE MARCH NUMBER OF 

 THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



Indian Corn and Old Field Pines. — J. H. Fu- 

 qua, of Amherst, writes with a strong farmer's 

 hand, and it is hoped he will let us hear from 

 him again. 



Tobacco. — Mr. Venable's communication in 

 this number on tobacco is very good, but I have 

 a few objections. In the first place, I object to 

 the underlaying of a plant-bed with tobacco 

 stalks. If the stalks were beaten fine and cast 

 over the bed after sowing, the effect would be 

 far superior. Or if, instead of the stalks, lug 

 tobacco were made into snuff, and thus applied, 

 still the better. I should never think of sowing 

 tobacco seed in the month of December, parti- 

 cularly on a warm bed, immediately after burn- 

 ing ; for there is certainly danger of their vege- 

 tating and being destroyed by frosts. In situa- 

 tions where a plant-bed is liable to be cloyed by 

 drift leaves, the covering should not be put on 

 till the latter part of March or first of April, 

 when the bed can he trodden the second time, if 

 required. The best manure for a plant-bed, is 

 poudrette, or the dung of fowls. The latter 

 part of this communication I particularly com- 

 mend to the perusal of planters. 



