140 
On Green or Fodder Crops. 
does not know that the American prairies when cultivated are 
rendered golden by the enormous quantities of maize they ripen 
as a corn-crop. 
The Americans appear to have another way of keeping down 
the growth of weeds than the one adopted by Mr. Sturdy, of 
placing the rows near together. Professor Heath, of Columbia 
College, President of the American Institute Farmers' Club, in 
writing on Ensilage recently, gave an interesting account of 
the green-crops which could best be grown in the United States 
to meet the object in view, and said : — 
" Maize is doubtless the most profitable acd the largest yielding crop. It 
should be planted in double drills, 4 inches apart, and the double drills 
28 inches apart, so as to permit cultivation with plough or cultivator. It is 
desirable to have the drills run norih and south, so that the sun and air may- 
supply the crop with the largest amount of nutriment, aud the sweet varieties 
are best. Corn should be cut at early flowering. It is an excellent practice 
after cultivating between the double drills, to strew coarse manures between 
these drills. By this means grass and weeds are kept down, and the ammonia 
from the rains is appropriated by the crops." 
A correspondent of the ' Times ' last summer gave his opinion 
that English farmers might not only grow green maize for feed 
and forage more generally than they do at present, but that they 
might utilise a portion of what they grow serviceably by con- 
verting it to hay. As his letter explained several important 
points in American practice, I quote the following portion of it 
here. He says : — 
" Although Indian corn or maize will not ripen in this country, it will grow 
sufficiently vigorously during the months of June, July and August to afford 
heavy crops of first-rate forage, known in the States as ' cow-corn.' In the 
Northern and Eastern States of America horses and cattle eagerly eat the 
leaves and tops from the stalks of Indian corn, upon which the grain has been 
allowed to ripen ; the stalks themselves are too hard and dry for the stock. 
In the Southern States the .stalks are not cut, but the leaves arc stripped off' 
when the ears are pulled, tied in small bundles, and, under the name of 
' fodder,' are practically the only forage used for every description of stock. 
Horses, mules, and oxen eat it much more readily than the Northern baled 
' Timothy hay,' which is sometimes shipped South. Indian corn, however, 
when cut green, is far better for stock than the leaves from maize raised for 
grain, and is, moreover, all eatable. ' Cow-corn ' is usually sown tolerably 
thick, in drills 2 feet apart. It grows nearly as high as that sown for grain, 
but the stalks are only aboit as thick as a man's little finger, full of juice, and 
<as sweet as sugar-cane. Cut young, and cured in small stacks, or ' shocks,' 
it dries green, and makes first-rate forage for stock of every description, jnirti- 
cularly lor milch cows. Horses and mules, too, cat it with avidity. From 
my own experience here I know it can be grown easily in this country, and if 
sown in June would be ready for cutting in eight or ten weeks, leaving amjilc 
time for any succeeding winter crop. Good land should yield 10 to 12 tons 
per acre of dried fodder. All the cultivation necessary is to go twice between 
the iows with a small onc-horso cultivator, after which time the stalks arc 
hij;h enough to overshadow and keep down the weeds. The crop is cut by 
hand with an L-shaped sickle called a ' corn-cutter.' " 
