28 
EXPERIMENT IN PLANTING CORN. 
As the home supply of manufactured^articles increases, 
the importation of them necessarily decreases, and 
when vve reach the ultima Thule, the extreme end 
of a full supply, what then ? For the support of the 
Unite 1 States government? We must look to the fu¬ 
ture as well as back, at the past from our present po¬ 
sition. For verily the farmers are deeply interested 
in these matters, and certainly their consideration is 
not out of place in an agricultural paper. 
For the present, the fever for speculation and the 
rage for riding hobbies excited by comparatively high 
prices for our produce, have both subsided, nor will 
they again become epidemic, till higher prices come 
round again. That may not happen shortly. In the 
mean time, we must make the most of our diminished 
resources by economy and good management. To 
produce the most at the least cost to the land and the 
pocket, is the highest interest of every cultivator of 
the land, and this cannot be done without knowledge. 
This is the t me then to foster all the means of ac¬ 
quiring it. Farmers clubs; agricultural and horticul¬ 
tural societies; agricultural papers; and above all, to 
institute agricultural schools. Science, through the 
aid of institutions, is brought to every art except that 
of agriculture ; and this the most important of all, is 
left to empirical tentative practice. 
Who are the best farmers in every country? The 
most ignorant ? Certainly not. There cannot be half 
a dozen best ways of doing the same thing under sim¬ 
ilar circumstances, requiring different amounts of 
time, labour, and expense. Yet we see them practised 
by men who would all adopt one way if it was prov¬ 
ed to be superior to the others. Agricultural schools 
would demonstrate by repeated and accurate experi¬ 
ments, problems in practice which the cultivators of 
the soil would as certainly use, as the house carpen¬ 
ter now uses the 47th proposition of Euclid in squaring 
his work. Is it not strange that among all the muni¬ 
ficent donations made by wealthy, patriotic, and pub¬ 
lic-spirited men for such a variety of purposes, not 
one has conferred an enduring benefit on his country, 
and immortalized his own name, by endowing an ag¬ 
ricultural institution ? Whoever shall raise up such 
an institution in his lifetime (not leave it to his execu¬ 
tor), will be entitled to, and will receive the admira¬ 
tion and gratitude of countless generations. 
John Lewis. 
Llangollen , Ky., Nov. 10th, 1844. 
EXPERIMENTS IN PLANTING CORN. 
During a short visit with which I was honored by 
your father (Mr. S. Allen), in August last, I showed 
him a field of corn with which he was so much 
pleased, that he requested I would give an account of 
its product, which 1 promised to do, through the 
American Agriculturist. The field lies north-east of 
my orchard, and adjoining thereto—a locality with 
which you are familiar. 
When I purchased the plantation on which I now 
reside, in 1812, the field had been in cultivation in 
one continued succession of corn crops, for some 20 
or 25 years. So soon as I could prepare the ground 
for the purpose, I put it in Timothy meadow. As it 
lay adjoining my sheep house, I permitted a small 
flock of my sheep, during the time they were fed, 
each winter to run on it. I also applied to it the ma¬ 
nure derived from my sheep fold. In this way, in 
the course of 12 or 15 years, which I suffered it to 
remain in meadow, it was restored to its native fer¬ 
tility, being naturally as rich as the best Kentucky 
land. I now raised several crops of tobacco on the 
ground, when it was again put in meadow, and treated 
as above. For the last three or four years, preceding 
the present, it has been in hemp. 
Early in April of this year, it was all plowed and 
once harrowed, and laid off, with great exactness, 3j 
feet each way. It was planted on the 13th of April, 
the ground being very light, and finely pulverized 
The corn came up well, and, in due time, was thinned 
out to three stalks in a hill. It was carefully culti¬ 
vated by plowing alternately, each way, with the 
common Kentucky shovel plow, and going over once 
with broad hoes. The season, up to the 2d of July, 
was tolerably favorable, though there was too much 
rain for a first rate crop. The corn was now gene¬ 
rally getting into silk. At this period when corn re¬ 
quires much rain, or at least frequent showers, to 
cause the corn to ear well, a drought came on, and no 
rain fell for two weeks. During this period the at¬ 
mosphere was very dry, and windy. The conse¬ 
quence was, that there was scarcely an instance of 
two ears being produced on the same stalk, and even 
the single ears were much reduced in size. Although, 
after a drought of two weeks, we had again a suc¬ 
cession of light showers; yet they came too late to 
be of any material benefit to corn crops, as forward 
as mine. Under these disadvantages the yield fell 
greatly below what it would have been had not the 
severe drought of July intervened. Upon carefully 
measuring an acre, of about an average quality of the 
field, the product was 77 bushels. I am convinced 
that if a due proportion of rain had fallen, during the 
first half of July, the yield would have been fifty per 
cent, greater. The corn was of the white species, 
a medium between the flint and the larger kinds, 
which are more productive, but not so good for bread. 
Permit me now to give you the result of another 
experiment, made during the present year, to ascertain 
the advantages of planting corn more closely than 
usual, as recommended by some of our farmers, who 
have succeeded in raising very large crops under fa¬ 
vorable circumstances. My experimental crop was 
planted on the 12th of April, one day before that 
described above, upon land which had been cleared 
in 1810, and preserved in its native state of fertility, 
by a due proportion of grass crops. Its fertility was 
about equal to that described above, and was in a field 
lying on the same ridge, north-west of the rivulet you 
speak of running through my farm, in your Novem¬ 
ber Number, page 322, of your last volume. This 
field had been in clover for the two years preceding, 
and was plowed up last fall, with the view of putting 
it in hemp, and was consequently in fine condition 
for hemp or corn. 
On one side of the field, I laid off in an oblong 
square, four acres, each acre lying equally well, and 
of equal fertility. This ground was again plowed 
early in the spring, and levelled with the harrow. It 
was now laid off the long way with great accuracy 
31 feet from center to center, and then checked off 
the other way in rows ; the first acre, 4 feet apart; 
the second acre, 3£ feet apart; the third acre, 3 feet 
apart; and the fourth acre, 2h feet apart. The whole 
was planted the same day; and in due time the three 
first acres were thinned out to three stalks in the hill. 
