900 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July, 
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we shall be compelled to shut out their goods, 
and keep our wheat. 
(C) In this paragraph our readers have a con¬ 
firmation of what we have been urging upon 
them for months past, viz.: that the prospective 
foreign demand should stimulate them to culti¬ 
vate every possible acre this year—raising other 
crops to take the place of wheat for home con¬ 
sumption, so that we may have an abundance 
rtf that crop to send abroad. 
(7) At the time the editor of M. L. Express 
wrote, there was a prospect that the attitude of 
England toward this country, would sad¬ 
ly interfere with the shipping of wheat, and 
our Insurance Companies for the time being 
raised their rates. But the recent intelligence 
from England shows a better spirit on the part 
of the Government, and a determination to unite 
with other nations in driving privateers (or pi¬ 
rates) from the Ocean. Insurance rates have set¬ 
tled back nearly to the old figures; and we have 
no cause to fear on this score. There is no fear 
that our government will find it necessary to lay 
an embargo upon the export of breadstuff’s, ex¬ 
cept where to be sent to enemies. We have 
enough and to spare, and we repeat, that Eng¬ 
lish and other European buyers of wheat, need 
have no hesitation in depending upon this coun¬ 
try for all they may require. 
---»- - aO»--- •--- 
Transplanting in tlie Cornfield— 
A good way to Increase Crops this Season. 
This is an important matter the present year. 
The Western farmer, having more acres planted 
than he can possibly get help to properly till, 
will probably throw this item aside as “ book 
farming nonsense.” Let him do so, but to the 
great mass of farmers, West as well as East, the 
subject is of more importance than will appear 
at first thought. Let us illustrate by an exam¬ 
ple, taking a field—not at the West where land is 
cheaper than labor, nor in some portions of the 
East, where thirty dollars or more per acre are 
profitably expended in manure and culture— 
but one midway between these two extremes. 
Here is a field of ten acres, which at an ex¬ 
pense of $100 for preparation, planting, and til¬ 
lage will average 40 bushels of corn per acre— 
400 bushels in all—worth in the shock, say 35 cents 
per bushel. It is planted in hills 3 j feet apart, 
and has, say 3550 hills to the acre, each hill 
affording room for four good stalks. Taking into 
account the loss from poor seed, rotting in the 
ground in a wet season like this, the destruction 
by birds and insects, and other casualties, it is 
safe to calculate that by the time the corn is 
four inches high, not more than three fourths of 
the hills are supplied with an average of four 
stalks, while in other hills there is an excess of 
stalks equal to the deficiency. If under these 
circumstances the yield can be set down at 40 
bushels, it is evident that without any addition 
to the labor of hoeing, and but little addition to 
the cutting, the yield would be increased one 
third, if the deficient hills were filled up, giving 
an increase of 13J bushels, worth in the field 
about $5, at the low price of 35 cts. per bushel 
which we have taken as the basis of calculation. 
(The average price in the Eastern and Middle 
States is nearer 70 cts. per bushel). 
How for the remedy. With a common trowel 
(or better, a curved transplanting trowel) a man 
can readily transfer stalks from the hills having 
a surplus, to those deficient, at the rate of 45 hills 
in an hour. By first going over the ground and 
making a hole with his trowel in the places 
Where a stalk'is lacking, and then lifting each 
surplus stalk with a ball of earth, the corn 
will hardly feel the change, and ninety nine in 
every hundred plants will grow well, as we have 
proved by actual trial. A movement of the foot 
•will suffice to fill up the hole left in a hill and 
to press down the transferred plant in its new 
position. At this estimate, two days’ work will 
suffice to fill up the nine hundred hills. Calling 
the time worth a dollar a day, and the increased 
yield worth $5 per acre, there is a saving of $3 
per acre, or $30 on the field of 10 acres. 
This may seem a small matter to a “ large 
farmer,” but is of too much importance to be 
overlooked. If it will pay on a small plot, it will 
pay just as well on a large one. We have esti¬ 
mated the entire crop worth $14 per acre, and 
an increase of $3 per acre net profit is equiva¬ 
lent to over twenty one per cent. If the yield is 
greater, as it ought to be, or the corn worth more, 
the cost of transplanting being still the same, 
the net profit is proportionally greater. 
The above is only an example in which a 
specific number of defective hills is taken as the 
basis of calculation. It is evident that the esti¬ 
mate will hold good whether the number of de¬ 
fective hills be one half or more, or only one 
tenth or one twentieth of the whole; or wheth¬ 
er the plot to be operated upon contain one acre 
or fifty. Each hill filled up by transplanting 
pays a good profit on the cost of the work. The 
plan recommended, we have tried often enough 
to speak with confidence, and advise its gen¬ 
eral adoption. It does not pay to leave a 
single vacant hill in a field—with perhaps the 
exception of those rare instances where so little 
seed has been used at first, that there are no sur¬ 
plus stalks for removal. We invariably prac¬ 
tice, and have always recommended, the putting 
in of plenty of seed, and thinning out the surplus. 
Increasing Other Crops. 
What is said above of corn, applies with equal, 
and even stronger force, to many other crops. 
It is especially the case with beans and pump¬ 
kins, in the field, and with nearly all garden pro¬ 
ducts. As an example, we planted some 400 
hills of Lima beans the middle of May, and the 
seed not appearing to be very good, ten beans 
were planted in a circle around each pole. They 
nearly all came up, and so about the first of June 
we transplanted a portion of the surplus plants 
carrying them with little balls of earth in baskets, 
to a distant plot. It was done almost as rapidly 
as the new hills could have been planted with 
seed, and, as the result, the transplanted hills are 
as vigorous and as forward as those which were 
undisturbed. With a little care, and the use of 
water in the holes, transplanting can be done af¬ 
ter plants have attained considerable size. 
Pumpkins, squashes, cucumbers, turnips, beets, 
in short, all kinds of vegetables and flowers, are 
readily moved at almost any season, if care be 
taken to preserve a mass of unbroken earth 
around the roots. We are so much troubled 
with insects the present year, that we purpose 
next year to start all our squashes, melons and 
cucumber vines, etc., in small earthen pots, and 
keep them in an enclosed space, or together, 
where they can be guarded until too large to 
be attacked by insects, and then transfer them 
to the ground. The pots of small size costing a 
dollar, more or less, per hundred, may be used 
several years, and the expense will be abund¬ 
antly repaid by the safety of the plants, and the 
earlier starting of the seeds, which may be se- 
pured by their use in a warm protected situa¬ 
tion. But for the present year we shall this 
month practice what we advise others to do, 
viz.: fill up all flip vacant spots by transplanting. 
Draining—Why—Where- How. 
( Continued, from pages 30, 70, 105, 137, 169). 
Before leaving stone drains, we must again 
impress upon the reader the importance of care 
in covering them. If the soil be thrown in loose¬ 
ly, it will surely wash down, and quite likely 
clog the drain at some point where the flow of 
water chances to be too slow to carry off the 
earth flowing in. In laying some 2000 feet of 
drains last season, which had an open passage 
at the bottom, and a layer of 12 to 18 inches of 
small stones above, we tried to watch the cover¬ 
ing of every foot, taking care to have the sur¬ 
face of tire stones leveled off with the smaller 
stones and pebbles, and a covering of salt hay, 
straw, or carpenter’s shavings evenly laid over 
the whole, before throwing in the soil. Though 
the first layer of earth was tramped down, we 
are satisfied that it was not packed hard enough. 
The season being remarkably dry, there was 
not the aid of frequent moisture to make the 
settling firm. The first rain that fell, came down 
in torrents, and sinking rapidly into the still 
loosened soil, it washed in a large amount of the 
earth, so as to give the water flowing from the 
outlet a muddy appearance. The result was, 
that the cesspool (opening down into the sand 
strata) was so filled with this fine deposit of 
mud, as to be ineffective after a few weeks. It 
was cleaned out, and all went on well until 
toward the close of Winter, when another accu¬ 
mulation of clay and fine soil, stopped the cess¬ 
pool again. Had the first layer of soil over the 
stones in the drains been thoroughly packed by 
beating it down at every point, only clear pure 
water would have filtered into the drains. Where 
there is a free open outlet from the main drain, 
the inwaslied soil will usually be carried out, 
and less care is needed; but even then, if the 
drain have not a sufficient fall to give a rapid 
flow to the water, there is danger of obstruc¬ 
tion at some point by the accumulation of the 
inwashed soil. We can not, therefore, repeat 
too strongly the advice to attend well to secur¬ 
ing a good covering of straw, leaves, refuse hay, 
or inverted sods over the stones, and the firm 
even packing down of the first layer of earth 
thrown in. A little extra care here will perhaps 
save the efficiency of an expensive drain. What 
is worth doing at all is worth doing well. 
TILE DRAINS. 
This is an important department of our sub¬ 
ject, and worthy of a somewhat lengthy and de¬ 
tailed discussion; for, as we have already hinted, 
tiles will soon become the chief, and, except in 
rare instances, the only material used for con¬ 
structing drains. When good tiles can be ob¬ 
tained for 12 to 20 cents per rod, the less digging 
and less trouble in laying required, will make 
them cheaper than stones, even if the latter 
were delivered upon the ground free of cost; 
Fig. 14. —DRAIN-TILE BRICK. 
while the greater effectiveness, and more cer 
tain durability of a tile drain, render it vastly 
superior to the best one that can be made of or¬ 
dinary field stones. 
Drain Tiles are tubes or pipes made of brick 
clay and burned hard like bricks. A common 
brick with a hollow through it, or a groove in 
one of its sides like fig. 14, is a drain tile. This 
form is a very good one, by the way, though 
