AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, “53 
confident will need no further exhortation from 
any quarter, to use more capital in farming.— 
W. C., in Norwich Examiner. 
-»-«-<>- 
|For the American Agriculturist. 
HIDE FLESHING IAS A MANURE. 
Animal manure is not appreciated according 
to its merits. Those who have tested it pro¬ 
nounce it superior to stable manure. Last 
year I buried at the foot of some grape vines, a 
quantity of fleshings of hides—.which I obtained 
at a tannery—causing them to grow amazingly; 
far more' than I had anticipated. They did not 
yield any fruit in consequence of their being 
lately set out. I also mixed some of the flesh¬ 
ings in the mold of the strawberry beds, and 
the fruit they bore was exceedingly large and 
plenty, so much so that it caused many remarks, 
particularly in regard to their size. This last 
spring I dug a number of holes, of some six or 
eight inches in depth, put in a shovel full of this 
animal manure, covered it with earth, and 
planted cucumbers and watermelons on top, 
which came up in nearly half the time that the 
others did not so planted, and looked more dark 
and rank. From what little experience I have 
had with animal manure, and also from what 
I have learned in regard to it, I would advise all 
farmers who can obtain a dead dog, calf, cow or 
horse, to bury a portion of their carcases at the 
foot of their fruit vines, or trees. In so doing 
they will ascertain what its true merits are. 
Doubtless many of them have observed how 
flourishing and thrifty the grass and weeds will 
grow where the body of a horse or cow has, or 
is, decomposing. Test it for yourselves. E. 
-- 
For the American Agriculturist. 
GATHERING INDIAN COEN. 
Messrs. Editors :—In your 27th No. of the 
new series, a correspondent from Virginia 
wishes to know among his numerous inquiries, 
how we Northerners harvest Indian corn so as 
to make the most of the stalks for fodder. I 
am aware of the difficulty that one will have to 
encounter to answer the question propounded, 
satisfactorily. There are many circumstances 
that would render a particular mode of harvest¬ 
ing Indian corn necessary in the northeastern 
States, that would not apply with equal force 
in Virginia. For instance, it is necessary in 
short seasons to so prepare the stalks that an 
early autumn frost will not injure either them 
or the corn, and it is also necessary that every 
farmer who keeps stock should provide suffi¬ 
cient fodder for his cattle to eat during the long 
cold winters. To do this, often occupies the 
farmers much of the best of the summer months. 
Neither of these circumstances have much bear¬ 
ing on a Virginia farmer. These two consider¬ 
ations have caused our northeastern farmers 
much anxiety; so much so, that many of the 
more observing have noted facts connected with 
the modes of harvesting corn, but they have 
not come to the same conclusion, although each 
feels sure that his adopted mode is better than 
any other. 
Between the years of 1830 and 1847, I had 
opportunities of witnessing the result of num¬ 
berless experiments in several of the Eastern 
States. Many were so conducted as to leave 
but little room for doubt as to their utility. My 
own experience, assisted with the above named 
facts, forbids the idea of a first-rate crop of corn, 
and a first-rate quality of fodder at the same 
time, although each may be fair or tolerably 
good. The reason is, that one is produced at the 
expense of the other. But if I wanted to make 
the most I could of both corn and fodder, and 
cultivated corn much north of New-York city, I 
would pursue a course nearly as follows: 
First I would so manure and till the ground 
hat nothing but the season should prevent my 
getting upwards of sixty bushels of shelled corn 
o the acre. Next I would let it stand, stalks 
and all, until most of the ears were hard, and a 
few of the early ones quite ripe. The most ex¬ 
peditious way of shocking is, to let two men 
work in company, each with an instrument 
called a corn cutter. (Grain sickles are very 
much in use among the eastern farmers.) They 
each take two rows, and begin by cutting the 
first two hills of the inner rows. They clasp 
all the stalks in one hand while they cut them 
with the other. The clip should be struck in a 
drawing manner, not over four inches from the 
ground, at the same time bending the stalks 
slightly toward the body, as this assists the op¬ 
eration of the cutter. Then he should pass to 
the next hill, and so manage as to let his first 
cut hill lean against the stalks of the second, 
and at the same time pass the arm in a back- 
handed manner, so as to draw the uncut with 
the cut stalks under the arm, and at the same 
time strike as before, which gives him two hills, 
and his partner having two hills of stalks, each 
should raise his cut stalks and move them into 
the space ahead of where the second hills stood. 
Let the lower ends spread so as to brace each 
other, as they are let lean together at the top. 
They should then step back, and in like manner 
cut the first two hills of their outside rows, and 
set the stalks against the first set up, and then 
each cuts two hills more from each row and 
brings back to the shock, and sets them up so 
as to strengthen the shock. One now selects a 
band from some one of the barren stalks, while 
the other gathers the tops together as near the 
top as is possible to hold the stalks up, and then 
the band is fastened. Care should be taken to 
so place the lower ends of the stalks that a free 
circulation of air might pass through the stalks, 
and thus dry them. This gives sixteen hills to 
a shock, and the shock stands in the center 
space of the sixteen hills. It should so stand 
until the fall rains commence, when, in dry 
weather, enough should be taken under cover to 
keep the hands at work husking the corn 
through the wet days. The fodder should be 
so kept as not to get entirely dry, nor allowed 
to mold, as either is an injury. Many pile it 
up mixing their wheat straw with it and thus 
improve both. 
1 have seen corn harvested in a great many 
different ways in the Eastern States, and the 
fodder cured in different ways, too, but when 
both are an object, the above is the most expe¬ 
ditious as well as economical. The entire stalks 
are very good fodder when thus cured ; and as 
they are not a quarter so large nor half so hard 
either, they dry much quicker, and therefore 
in all respects, easier to manage than the stalks 
of such corn as I have seen growing in Virginia. 
There are many methods in practice among the 
northern farmers; too many to detail. 
Morristown , N. J. J. H. D. 
As I now look over a portion of the Mohawk 
flats and on the sides of the contiguous hills, I 
can see that vegetation is making rapid progress. 
The luxuriant grass and towering pines that 
grow there, are indebted to the earth for their 
sustenance. Deprive them of mold, how soon 
they die; but enrich the earth, and how astonish¬ 
ingly fast they grow. As the earth supports 
nearly all plants, how exceedingly judicious we 
should be in the management of our land. 
There is nothing that presents a subject of such 
vast importance to the human race as this ; it 
can be classed with those that are the most dif¬ 
ficult that can be discussed. As plants are per¬ 
petually confined to the same portion of earth, 
by being destitute of the faculty of locomotion, 
they are compelled to seek for that proper ali¬ 
ment indispensable to. their growth, in that 
ground in which they chance to be located. 
Consequently how requisite it is for the ground 
to be loose, so that the roots can freely extend, 
for the purpose of supporting the plant by ex¬ 
tracting the nourishing juices of the soil. This 
condition of tho land is indispensable to profita¬ 
ble farming. Deep plowing is advantageous 
to that land where the top soil is too compact or 
clayey—immediately subjacent their is a layei 
of sand or other light soil; for, by allowing tho 
plow to run deep, the soils are in a measure 
mixed together, thus rendering one loose and 
the other more compact. It is also useful to 
the soil which possesses a uniform character to 
a considerable depth, to turn up a portion of it 
which has been made fertile by the nutritious 
substances, that have been carried down by 
rain and melted snow. 
Farmers are generally laboring under one 
great hallucination by being destitute of the 
knowledge of the nature of their land. To ob¬ 
tain this knowledge we must resort to experi¬ 
ments or chemical analyses. I prefer the 
former; still I value the latter, for it tends to 
suggest proper experiments. Arable lands are 
generally composed of lime, alumina, silica, 
magnesia, oxyde of iron, and saline substances. 
According to the various proportion of these 
ingredients arises the diversity of soils. When 
these ingredients are rightly proportioned, the 
relative degree of fertility depends on the quan¬ 
tity of vegetable and animal substances that 
are mixed with them. As a general thing, 
there is an insufficiency of these two manures 
in our land. Consequently the effect of barn¬ 
yard manure is exceedingly propitious, never¬ 
theless many of our farmers are so consum¬ 
mately negligent, or inadvertent, as to allow it 
to be thrown from their stables in places ex¬ 
posed to the drenching rains of spring, and it 
receives frequently all the summer showers pre¬ 
vious to its being applied to the land, thus los¬ 
ing nearly one-half of its intrinsic value, much 
to the detriment of the husbandman. It is un¬ 
iversally admitted that continued cropping im¬ 
poverishes the soil, particularly when it is not 
abundantly manured, for each crop diminishes 
the quantity of vegetable and animal matter, 
and, if long continued, completely exhausts it. 
A Farmer. 
THE WHITE DAISY. 
Of all the pests that afflict the farmer, none I 
deal with better deserves the appellation, intol¬ 
erable, than the White Daisy. The seed is long, 
slender, brown, and the rapidity with which it 
spreads demands of the farmer the most untir¬ 
ing diligence in its extermination. The moving 
of hay in winter, has seeded the road-sides of 
this town, and they now present, for miles, a 
bordering of daisies. From a few seeds sown 
when laying land down to grass, we have whole 
acres now thickly in blossom. 
The rapidity with which the daisy increases, 
may be seen from the following. I to-day 
pulled in my meadow a stool probably three 
years old, from which had grown 26 stalks, 
bearing fifty-one blossoms. I counted 300 seeds 
in one blossom. Another stool has sixty stalks, 
and at above rate over one huudred blossoms. 
Putting the number of seeds per blossom at 200, 
we have for the last stool 20,000 seeds; and for 
the first 10,200. From a little plot of ground, 
about four feet by five, 1 pulled 650 stalks, giv¬ 
ing at above rates, 1,000 blossoms—200,000 
seeds. 
Need more convincing proofs be added, to 
prove to the most negligent farmer the necessity 
of being wide awake in the work of eradicating 
these pests?—and yet we see farmers resting in 
quiet ease, year after year, while they are gain¬ 
ing a foothold, and increasing in a ratio of unex- 
pled rapidity. 
Remarks by the Editor .—We find the above 
communication in the Rural New-Yorker, pub¬ 
lished at Rochester, and commend it to farmers 
in Pennsylvania. Throughout this whole region 
the Daisy appears to be on the increase, and un¬ 
less a general eff >rt is made to eradicate it, it 
must goon spreading,and injuring the land and 
the crops. The best mode to exterminate this 
vile plant, is thorough cultivation before the 
ripening of the seed. When this is inconveni- 
For the American Agriculturist. 
DEEP PLOWING AND MANURE. 
