152 Indian Corn Growing in Natal. 
the finest ears being selected for seed, and careful cultiva- 
tion of. the land, and attention to crops, the corn has in- 
creased in size and productiveness, and even a larger yield 
than that is often obtained. This last result was some 
many years ago produced bya cultivator named Baden; 
hence the choice corn known ever since as Badencorn. In 
Italy and Spain the return is about from thirty to forty 
bushels of corn to the acre, but the farmers of those coun- 
tries are not the most enlightened and industrious men in 
the world. 
The method of planting Indian corn in the American 
States is by drawing shallow drills, three or four feet apart, 
and by dropping the seeds by hand at six inches apart, and 
by lightly harrowing the ground afterwards. In Canada 
and Australia, the seed is sown in the broad-cast method, 
after the ground has been ploughed to a fair depth; and 
the seed-harrows are subsequently run lightly over the 
field. By sowing mealies in.rows after the plough some 
quantity of the seeds may besaved, and the means 
afforded for, horse-hoeing the crop; yet we consider the 
broad-cast manner of sowing nearly as good, and if the 
crop is thicker than is wished, any surplus can be easily 
pulled out and carried off for stock food. Where land has 
been thoroughly well ploughed, say for oats one season ; 
been manured and deeply ploughed the next spring, and 
sown with mealies broad-cast, and the after culture of the 
crop properly attended to by deep hoeing, a return may 
almost invariably be calculated upon, in this colony, of 
from fifty to sixty bushels per acre of saleable produce in 
average seasons. We have ourselves grown upon a small 
patch of ground, containing just about eleven acres—the 
land having been previously well manured, and the crop 
kept clean—sixty marketable bushels per acre (or twenty 
muids), besides others that served for poultry use, with an 
almost countless store of pumpkins, that paid a great deal 
more than the harvesting expenses of the mealie crop. 
The mealie harvest is very differently conducted to the 
wheat harvest. When the corn is ripe, the ears are picked 
off the stem by hand, thrown into heaps upon the ground, 
and afterwards is carted from the field; the stalks being 
left to stand some time longer, until opportunity serves for 
their being cut down with an English hedging-knife, and 
gathered up for carriage home. In America, the mealies 
are topped just betore the ear is getting ripe, and these 
tops, together with the stalks, after harvest are stacked up 
