1893 
283 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
“ Do you believe in getting the land in perfect order 
before planting ?” 
“ Yea, sir; I plow deep, going every year a little 
deeper. This year—now, March 21—we are plowing 
the upland nine inches deep, turning up about one inch 
of subsoil; but after this date, because there will be 
no more heavy freezing, we do not intend to turn up 
this inch of subsoil. It does not pulverize and mix 
with the soil well without the aid of frost.” 
Close Hills; Selecting Seed Corn. 
“ How do you prefer to plant—in hills or drills ?” 
“ I have been planting in hills—but not checked— 
about 28 inches apart in the rows, the latter three feet 
four inches apart; we put in two to four grains per 
hill—rather two than four. I prefer to have two 
stalks to the hill all over the field, for the yield then 
would be heavier.” 
“ Would you rather have one stalk with two ears 
than two with a single ear each ? ” 
“ With one stalk, we never get more than two ears; 
but with two good stalks we often get four ears; hence 
I prefer two good stalks.” 
“ How and when do you select your seed ? ” 
“ Before the corn is cut and shocked, I pick the ears 
that ripen first on the best stalks. I don’t think I get 
the choicest corn in this way, but I do get the corn 
with the greatest vitality. I select ears in which the 
ends have pushed out beyond the husks. Such ears are 
generally well filled. I never select an ear in which 
the husk extends beyond the end of the cob.” 
“ How soon do you like to plant ?” 
“That depends on whether I want to plant in the 
bottom or upland: in the bottom, the last of April, or 
May 1; on the upland about May 10. I could plant on 
the upland as late as May 25, and get a good crop. 1 
have planted late on the bottom ; but, as a rule, the 
early planting is the best for both upland and bottom. ’ 
The Culture That Tells. 
“ How do you cultivate?” 
“First, when the plants are four or five inches high, 
I use the drag harrow, with a light frame, in three 
sections, 20 teeth to the section, cutting 10% feet and 
dragging seven rows at a round. This I believe the 
best cultivation corn can have; after this I have no 
trouble in keeping the crop clean. Without it, when 
we have cultivated with plows, we have had to clean 
the corn with hoes. The way I plant I cannot cross¬ 
work the corn, and this dragging kills out all weeds 
in the rows between the hills. With a thorough cul¬ 
tivation of the land just before planting, the corn can 
get four or five inches high before the weeds start. 
My harrow teeth are of seven-eighth-inch square steel; 
if they were half-inch round steel and more numer¬ 
ous, I would give the corn two draggings instead of 
one, as is now my practice.” 
“ How many times do you go over the crop with the 
cultivator ? ” 
“ That depends on the season—from three to four 
times.” 
“ What size is the corn when you lay it by ?” 
“ Generally up to a horse’s back.” 
“ How often do you plow; or how long between 
plowings?” 
“ From 10 to 12 days. If I delay longer than that, 
and the weather is a trifle dry, care is needed. In 
harvest time it'would be better to pay a good plow¬ 
man $5 per day than to let the corn go too long with¬ 
out plowing. Here I think a great many men make a 
mistake.” 
“ Do you practice shallow or deep cultivation?” 
“ I cultivate deep; I guess I am a little out of the 
usual line in this respect. Last year I ‘ tended’ all my 
‘ point’ rows with a double shovel, with a good horse 
before it and a good man to hold it, and these rows 
were always better than the part cultivated with a 
cwo-horse cultivator. Still I have not made a long 
and thorough test of the matter.” 
“By this mode of tillage and rotation with clover 
and wheat, how much have you increased the yield 
in a quarter of a century ? ” 
“ From one-third to one-half, and the quality of 
corn and the fodder are better.” 
Getting the Corn to the Crib. 
“ flow large do you make your corn shocks ? ” 
“ That depends on whether I am cutting by hand 
or with a harvester. In the latter case I have to 
make them smaller, both on upland and bottom land. 
In the bottom last fall the shock rows were 14 hills 
wide; there were 12 short steps between the shocks, 
so that the men could handle the corn between them; 
stopping the harvester opposite a shock each time; 
if the corn was light, the shocks could be farther 
apart.” 
“ Do you consider the harvester a success?” 
“ Oh, yes.” 
“Do you aim to get your corn in the crib before 
winter ?” 
“ I always try to do so. Last fall the weather was 
very dry at harvesting time. In two barrels I hauled 
water to the field and dampened the shocks in the 
evening just before sundown; using about two buckets 
of water to the shock, dampening what three men 
would husk next day, 
and during all the dry 
weather we never stop¬ 
ped husking. I prefer 
to do this than to wait 
for wet weather to 
gather the corn ; the ad¬ 
vantages are evident.” 
Fig. 107. 
Fig. 108. 
Mr. Lucas intends to deepen the plowed soil on the 
upland to one foot. He has some difficulty in getting the 
corn to ear perfectly on some of his best bottom land; 
the fodder is immense, but the ears are not proportion¬ 
ately large. The wheat on this soil lodges badly. He 
sometimes grows two crops 
of corn before sowing wheat 
and back to clover, to pre¬ 
vent this rank growth of the 
wheat. Last fall, when cut¬ 
ting the corn on the bot- 
Fig. 109. 
tom land with the harvester, the ears would often 
strike the shoulders of the man riding the horse draw¬ 
ing the harvester. The fodder crop off the bottom 
is usually fed on the upland and the manure is applied 
to the latter. By the above system of growing corn 
Mr. Lucas has met with great success and is an ex¬ 
ample to his neighbors. johx m. jamison. 
Ross County, O. 
A NEW CORN. 
Prof. L. H. Hailey in Bulletin 49 of the Cornell 
Experiment Station, gives an account of a new maize 
which is pictured at Fig. 106. It is a wild corn found 
growing in southern Mexico. It was wholly unknown 
to cultivation and is believed by the natives to be the 
original source of cultivated varieties of maize. It is 
called by the natives Mats de coyote because the little 
kernels resemble dogs’ teeth. The ears are about two 
inches long, bearing a few rows of small, pointed, 
white kernels. A few of the ears were sent to Prof. 
Watson of Harvard, and from him Prof. Bailey 
obtained seed. In 1890 it was grown at the Botanic 
Gardens, at Cambridge, Mass.—started under glass—- 
but though it grew till nearly the end of October it 
did not mature seed. The tallest plants were over 10 
feet high with a diameter of nearly two inches. The 
most striking characteristic was the abundance of 
lusty suckers which “grew as rapidly as the main 
stalk, so that the plants, which had fortunately been 
placed some feet apart, had the appearance of two 
‘ hills,’ one of the two having nine and the other 
twelve stalks ascending from a common base.” The 
central stalk also branched higher up on its trunk, 
and these side branches, as also those from the base 
of the plants, had a tassel upon the end and bore 
several ears along their length ! 
In 1891 Prof. Bailey grew the corn, Fig. 106, showing 
a typical plant. Prof. Bailey proposes to cross this 
corn with sweet varieties and others, and also to con¬ 
tinue growing the original so as to study its habit and 
possible value. He says : 
Kcr myself, 1 am strongly of tte opinion that It Is not a distinct 
species. I am rather Inclined to think, with the native Mexicans, that 
It Is the original form of Zea Mays, or at least very near it. . It explains 
many points In the evolution of Indian corn. Some varieties of sweet 
corn occasionally produce rudimentary multiple ears, and this Canlna 
seems to tend to lose them under cultivation. The tendency of culti¬ 
vation In all plams Is to develop some fruits or some organs, rather 
than all fiults or all organs. The suckertng hublt has been discour¬ 
aged In the selection of corns. The tendency to sucker, the tendency 
to produce tassels on the ends of ears, the profuse drooping tassels of 
many little Improved varieties, the predominance of Hint corns north¬ 
ward and of dent or pointed cornB southward, the occurrence of many 
curious and aboriginal corns In the Aztec region—all these become 
intelligible If Zea canlna Is the original of Indian corn. 
DRESSING HOTHOUSE LAMBS. 
The growing of early lambs for market is becoming 
an extensive industry : not the lambs that are ushered 
into the world during the bleak March and early April 
days, but those which arrive from late fall until mid¬ 
winter, are carefully reared in warm stables, and reach 
the markets all the way from Christmas until the out¬ 
door lambs from the South make their appearance in 
midspring. These always command fancy prices, if 
properly fattened and dressed, but the latter is so often 
improperly and imperfectly done that much loss re¬ 
sults to shippers. Perhaps no product comes to mar¬ 
ket that shows such a marked profit from proper han¬ 
dling as these. To illustrate : during the past few 
weeks, good lambs have been selling for $7 to $9, very 
fine, large ones sometimes for $10 each. I have seen 
some as good as the average that were very poorly 
dressed, that sold for as low as $3 each, and I heard of 
one that was sent in skinned that sold for $1.50. Evi¬ 
dently the shippers of these have cause to think that 
early lambs don’t pay. 
Through the kindness of Messrs. Archdeacon & Co., 
of 85 Barclay Street, who make a specialty of these, 
several illustrations are shown, reproduced from pho¬ 
tographs of lambs on sale in their store. Fig. 107 
shows a properly dressed lamb just as it is sent to 
market, except that the wrappings are partially re¬ 
moved to show the manner of dressing. To begin 
with, the lambs must be fat and young. Sometimes 
shippers send in late summer lambs, runts evidently, 
thinking that they will fill the bill. They will not; 
the lambs must be young and grown quickly. At 
Christmas time, those weighing 25 pounds, and per¬ 
haps less, will do, but later in the season 30 pounds 
or more is the required weight. 
To kill the lamb, cut the throat, making as small an 
incision as possible, and hang up to let it bleed out 
thoroughly ; this is important, as the good appear¬ 
ance of the meat depends upon the thoroughness with 
which the blood is removed. Cut open the lamb to a 
point about opposite the fore legs. Remove the 
entrails, leaving in the haslet. Leave on the head, 
feet acd skin. Skin the hind legs and draw the caul 
over them, and also draw it well down over the kid¬ 
neys securing it with skewers. Slit the caul just 
enough to let the kidneys through. Put in the back 
sets shown in Fig. 109. Much of the appearance of 
the carcass depends upon these. They should be of 
just the right length, about 14 inches for an ordinary 
sized carcass. Fasten one end in the flesh, and the 
other in the breast close to the first rib, crossing the 
sticks in the back as shown in Fig. 109, just behind 
the kidneys. The object of these is to spread the 
carcass out as flat as possible. Remove carefully all 
traces of blood, so that the carcass may present as 
