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The average yield, on improTed land, is fifty bushels ; though 

 crops of one himdred and twelve, and one hundred and sixty 

 bushels per acre are reported to have been raised in the county, 

 in 1849. The yield increases from year to year. A general and 

 rapid improvement of the State is in progress, and in nothing is 

 this seen more clearly than in the corn crop. Mossy " old sedge " 

 fields, which have been laid out for years, are broken up, and will 

 yield, if it be a good season, from five to ten bushels per acre ; 

 fence them, lime them with twenty to thirty bushels, and seed the 

 oat crop with clover, and in two years the clover sod will return 

 eighteen to twenty bushels of corn. Another dressing of lime, or 

 its equivalent in marl, of which there is an abundance in the lower 

 half of Xewcastle County, will show thirty bushels of corn ; and of 

 wheat, if the farm manure be used on it, nine to twelve bushels 

 will not be too much to expect. 



In Arkansas, Indian corn is regarded as the " king of grains." 

 It constitutes the chief food of every animal, from man down 

 to the marauding rat, while its dried blade furnishes seven- 

 tenths of the long food for working animals. The lorffe tcJiite 

 is the variety most esteemed, and most generally cultivated, 

 for the reasons that it yields more grain and fodder, makes, when 

 ground into meal, whiter and sweeter bread, and is less liable to 

 injury from the weevils. The blade is usually esteemed the best 

 long food for horses, exceeding in price the best JN'orthern hay ; 

 the average price may be stated at about seventy cents per cwt. 

 The shuck is fed to cows and young mules, they eat it, but 

 with less relish than they do the blades, which are sweeter and 

 more nutritious. The former are much used for mattresses, being 

 preferred to moss, as they are cleaner, and easier manufactured. 

 When mixed with coarse cotton, and properly prepared, they will 

 make a mattress but little inferior to curled hair ; price about 

 fifty cents per cwt. The average price of this grain may be set 

 down at forty cents per bushel; and the yield on upland in some 

 parts of the State may be stated at thirty bushels per acre. 



Five varieties of maize are gro^Ti in Peru. One is kno^Ti by 

 the name of cliancaijano, which has a large semi-transparent yel- 

 low grain; another is called moroclio^ and has small yellow grain 

 of a horny appearance ; amarello, or the yellow, has a large yellow 

 opaque grain, and is more farinaceous than the two former varieties ; 

 hlanco, white — this variety is large, and contains more farina than 

 the former ; and canclia, or sweet maize. The last is only culti- 

 vated in the colder climates of the mountains ; it gTows about two 

 feet high, the cob is short, and the grains large and white ; when 

 green, it is very bitter, but when ripe and roasted, it is particularly 

 sweet, and so tender that it may be reduced to flour between the 

 fingers. In this roasted state it constitutes the principal food of 

 the mountaineers of several provinces. 



The natives remove the husk from the maize by putting it into 

 water with a quantity of wood ashes, exposing it to a boiling heat, 



