THE CORN CROP. 
379 
doubtedly a good curative system ; but like a great 
many other new systems, it claims too much—so 
much, in fact, that the whole is pronounced a 
humbug. I have myself experienced relief from 
a medicinal application of cold water upon the 
spine, for neuralgia; but it is far from infallible. 
Your recommendations of ablution as a preventive, 
ought to be rigidly practised, and although I doubt 
its effect to drive away “ nine-tenths of the diseases” 
of the human family, it might affect one-tenth, and 
would be so much clear gain. 
Life in Prairie Land. —As you say the fair 
authoress is an acquaintance of yours, and as you 
are a bachelor, I am somewhat afraid to trust to 
your recommendation without an endorser. If you 
had told us whether the lady had been an actual 
dweller [she was] in the land she describes, we 
could have formed a better judgment of her ability 
to describe the wild scenery of that wild country. 
French Cookery. —There is decidedly too much 
of it already in this country for the health of the 
people. It is a poor book to recommend to “ plain 
farmers.” Better publish the manner of cooking, 
and style of living in New England, when your 
worthy father was a youth there 
The Trees of America. —I really hope this is just 
what it should be, for upon no subject was a good 
standard work more needed. Your remark that 
“ the engravings are executed with considerable 
skill,” is such faint praise, that I am induced to 
think they are not what they should be. [They 
are very neatly and accurately done.] It is one of 
the great beauties of Michaux’s work upon the 
same subject, that the engravings are superb. If by 
some means the public mind of America cannot be 
induced to preserve and cultivate forest trees, the- 
day is not far distant when we shall be as destitute 
of timber as many parts of Europe, where the want 
of it is distressing. I suppose I must not say it 
should be the duty of the United States government 
to plant and use groves of timber upon the vast 
tracts of western prairie land, lest some politician 
should tell me that “ that was not the legitimate 
business of government,” but “ should be left to in¬ 
dividuals,” and therefore never accomplished. 
Review of the Market. —There are two or three 
facts in this of so much importance that I cannot 
close my review without calling the serious atten¬ 
tion of American cultivators to their importance. 
Wheat in this market, the last of August, is worth 
to If cents per pound ; manufactured into flour, 
only about 2 cents per pound. Rye is one cent per 
pound, and corn a little less. Sugar averages 
about 6 cents per pound, while mustard is from 16 
to 31 cents per pound. Now is it possible that any 
farmer can grow and pay freight upon, to send to 
market, 16 or 20 lbs. of wheat at the same price as 
one of mustard, or that he can manufacture and 
send to market 12 lbs. of wheat flour, for which he 
gets no more money than for one of mustard ? Or 
Gan the planter send 4 lbs. of sugar to pay for 1 lb of 
mustard ? A crop of mustard can be grown and sent 
to market as cheap as a crop of timothy seed, and 
yet that is quoted at an average of about 3 cents per 
pound. Again-, 6 lbs. of hops will bring as much 
as 60 lbs. of wheat; and 1 lb. of hops can be ex¬ 
changed for 2 b or 3 lbs. of sugar. As hops will 
grow wherever corn will, is it worth while for 
Northern farmers to undertake to compete with 
corn sugar against the southern cane ? If you can¬ 
not afford to exchange flour, you can mustard and 
hops. It is singular, too, if beans and peas, parti¬ 
cularly the latter, cannot be grown as cheap as 
wheat; yet they are quoted 50 per cent, higher. 
Again, sumac is quoted at about four-fifths the 
price of tobacco, and yet it does not require so rich 
a soil, nor one-tenth the labor of tobacco. It is also 
worth more by the pound than wheat. There are 
certainly great inconsistencies in these prices, 
which must wholly arise from the neglect of those 
who are the most interested, as to what is the most 
profitable crop for them to cultivate. Reviewer. 
THE CORN CROP. 
Ind Atf corn will soon be among our largest 
exports; anything, therefore, which may tend to 
cheapen its production, and facilitate getting it 
either to a home or foreign market, will be adding 
so much to the wealth of the country. At present 
prices, all acknowledge it to be a very profitable 
crop to the Western farmer, when proper attention 
is bestowed upon the culture; we can show it to be 
equally so in New York, and even sterile New 
England. 
No larmer should think of planting corn on land 
that is not in a condition to yield him at least thirty 
bushels to the acre, and fifty bushels would be still 
more profitable. If his land cannot produce 
this, he had better cultivate it in some other crop 
till it can. If it yields forty to fifty bushels 
per acre, under an ordinary rotation, the stalks in 
the Northern States will pay all expenses of culti¬ 
vation, leaving the corn a clear profit, after deduct¬ 
ing the interest of the money on the land In this 
case we assume that the stalks are cut i p close to 
the ground, with the corn on—then properly 
cured—and that they are prepared by the cutting 
machine before feeding them out to the stock. 
Many sound, practical farmers, contend that, cured 
and prepared in this way, a good quality of com 
stalks is as valuable for cattle fodder as hay. 
On an average, we do not think, so, but will put 
them down at half the present value of hay here 
—say five dollars per ton. Admitting that they 
average four tons per acre, well dried, their value 
would be twenty dollars, which is certainly more 
than the average cost of cultivating an acre of corn. 
Corn is now worth seventy-five cents per bushel 
in this market. Thirty bushels would be $22 50 ; 
fifty bushels, $37 50 per acre. Allowing $5 for 
rent of land, and a large profit would be left, unless 
one had been very extravagant in the purchase of 
manure ; and even in this case, not more than one- 
third, or one-half, should be charged to the corn 
crop, as much of its fertility would be still remain¬ 
ing in the ground for the succeeding crops. 
The above is merely our calculation, and we 
admit that it is a favorable one for the corn, as 
nothing is allowed for injuries by the frost, worms, 
storms, &c. Still, we think thirty bushels per 
acre is easily attainable on an average of years, 
throughout the country. If any of our readers 
can make it out less or more, we shall be glad to 
be favored with their calculations, and put them 
on record in our pages 
