Toil. XXXIXr No. 1. { 
Whole No. 1614. j 
NEW 
YORK, 
JAN. 1, 1881 , 
{ Price Five Cents, 
\ $2.00 Per Year, 
[Entered according to Act of Congress. In the year 1880, by the Rural New-Yorker, in the office of the Librarian of Com ress at Washington.] 
Corn Report from the Rural Farm. 
CHESTER COUNTY MAMMOTH. 
The Uuri'.l’B on tuna, to of tlio yield for the best aero 
too small! 
BLOUNT’S WHITE PROLIFIC. 
The Kural's estimated yield too hitch. 
Probably the best well - authenticated 
Yields of Indian Corn on Record without 
Farm Manuie, and at so Small a Cost 
The Faults and Merits of the two Varieties; 
A Fine Yield of Yellow Flint without any 
Manure, planted not until June 1<>. 
THE WHOLE STORY TOLl). 
The “ Wild Corn of America.’' 
Engravings from Nature. 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL FARM, 
JANUARY l8t, 1881. 
The field upon which the Chester Co. Mam¬ 
moth was produced, we have always consid¬ 
ered, as has been before stated, one of the 
poorest of this farm. It had been lying idle 
for about fourteen years. We say “idle ” be¬ 
cause during that period at least the middle 
and latter part of it it has beeu used as a 
thoroughfare to and from all parts of the 
farm, for cattle, teams and men, running 
lengthwise, as It docs of the dwelling, farm, 
buildings, garden, t&e. The soil had become very 
hard, and where it was not quite bare gave a 
stunted growth of grass, daisies and weeds 
generally. It was in fact an eyesore, and it 
was plowed up and prepared for corn less for 
the crop than to cover it up from ourselves 
aud onr visitors, many of whom were im¬ 
pressed unfavorably with the entire farm, 
from seeing this first, as necessarily they 
must. 
Tub land is very gravelly, hiah, and natur¬ 
ally well-drained, except in the eastern part 
toward which it slopes, there forming a little 
valley, which could only be drained at an ex¬ 
pense greater than the improvement would 
be worth. 
The field contains over five acres, upon four 
of which the Chester Corn was grown. It 
was plowed In early May, except about an 
acre of the west part, which being nearly a 
solid bed of white weeds—daisies (Leucantho- 
mum vulgare) was previously plowed in Au¬ 
gust of 1879, while the daisies were in fullest 
bloom- It was harrowed ouee with La Dow’s 
Pulverizing Clod Crusher, and again with a 
straight iron tooth harrow, 350 lbs., of con¬ 
centrated fertilizer (Vfapes’6 corn manure), 
having been mixed wuh double Us bulk of 
earth and sown broadcast tefore Ihe last har¬ 
rowing. No farm manure was used. The 
field was marked out with a shallow plow, 
the marks running from three and a half to 
four feet, or an average cf perhaps three and 
three quarters feet apart. The plantiug was 
begnu and finished May 15th. We used the 
Hoosier Corn Drill, which dropped a grain 
about every 10 inches, covering it an inch 
deep. With this implement it lanes less than 
twice as long to plant a field as it does to har¬ 
row it. A shaft may bo connected with any 
one of three rows of c »gs upon the wheel, the 
outer row of which adjusts the machine so 
that it will drop a kernel, not accurately, of 
course, every 13 inches—the middle one every 
16 inches and the Inner one 20 inches. Wc 
used the middle row of cogs, though another 
season we should try the outer row. Indeed 
it may be questioned whether it would uot 
insure a more even staud and provide against 
the many disadvantages of a second planting 
if the machino were to drop a grain every six 
inches or less. Then at the first hoeing every 
other plant could readily be cut out when 
every grain germinated, leaving the plants 
12 inches (more or less) apart; while all could 
remain whore alternate or occasional failures 
occurred. 
The seed germinated poorly for some rea¬ 
son which we did not understand, laps of 
from five to fifteen feet occurring iu many 
parts of the field, so that a second planting 
was necessary. This on account of a severe 
drought, which by that time was well under 
way, proved quite ineffectual to fill up the 
gaps eaused by the first failures. The stand, 
therefore, was one which gave no sign of an 
abundant harvest. As we did not consider 
this an experiment field or crop at all, we 
have no reliable data as to when or how often 
It was cultivated. According to the writer’s 
memory, refreshed by consulting with onr 
farm hands, it was cultivated twice and hoed 
thrice. The cultivator used is a late in¬ 
vention, which, being unworthy of ranch 
piaise, is sufficiently shown by the accompa¬ 
nying cut, fig. 4. It, however, stirred the 
ground pretty thoroughly for two or three 
iucbeB in depth, leaving it somewhat raised or 
oval in the middle, and correspondingly lower 
towards the rows of corn. This was leveled 
by hoeing. 
The weather was dry during late May and 
June. During early July a good deal of fod¬ 
der corn became so shriveled on many farms 
that it did not recover. The leaves of the 
Chester curled considerably, and wc supposed 
that the crop would be seriously injured. It 
appears, however, that the season, taken from 
beginning to end, could scarcely have been 
more favorable for the cam-fields of Long 
Island. During August high winds broke off 
or lodged a few stalks here and there. Iu 
early September also, a heavy storm of rain 
aud wind harmed the corn mcasurahiy. But 
such storms always' occur, and they were no 
more destructive last than in the average sea¬ 
son. 
When this corn was in silk the field was 
beautiful to look upon. It was then apparent 
that the yield would be immense, and many of 
our visitors and the neighboring farmers 
freely expressed themselves that they had 
never seen anything like It. 
The Chester Corn plant grows nearly as 
tall as the Blount, and the stalks are much 
larger. Generally, each stalk bears one ear. 
Possibly as many as one Btalk in fifteen bears 
two ears. Occasionally three ears are found, 
and in the entire field there were three or four 
stalks with four ears each. But these ears 
do not, as in many kinds of Dent corn, proceed 
from different joints. As shown in the en¬ 
graving (fig. 3), they are clustered together 
at a single joint. Evidently It is not there¬ 
fore desirable to attempt by selection to fix or 
cultivate this habit. The ears crowd each 
other, and inatead of one large perfect ear, we 
have several imperfect ears. We have se¬ 
lected seed from the multiple ears, it is true, 
for experiment ou a small scale, but the 
bulk of our seed has been selected from the 
heaviest and finest. Our engraving of the ear 
of Chester Corn (fig. 2) is from life, and it is 
by no means the largest that could have been 
selected. There were scores as good. It 
fairly represents an average of the best ears. 
This variety may be described as varying 
from 14 to 34 rows—the average beiug about 
18. Its form is sufficiently shown in the en¬ 
graving which may be accepted as typical. 
Etch row will average 50 kernels so that the 
average eur will contain about 900 kernels. 
The kernels are deep—the color of Yellow 
Flint below and of a light huff on the top which 
is much dented. 
The Faults of this variety are that it grows 
too tall—the stalks are too thiek and the ears 
are homo too high, It would also he desirable 
if its scasou of ripening could be made a little 
earlier, as no doubt it can. 
The shorter of the Chester ears is one of 30 
rows. These are occasionaly met with—al- 
ways losing more in length of ear and size of 
kernel that they add by the greater number of 
rows. We found two ears with 34 rows, but 
they were less perfect than the one shown— 
fig. 1, which is a true portrait. 
The Yield of (’heater Co. Mammoth Corn. 
It will have been observed that a portion of 
the west part of this field was plowed in August 
1879, for the purpose of subduing daisies. It 
was upon this portion that the yield was heav¬ 
iest and it was there that Mr. 3rnggmhoff (J. 
M. Thorburn & Co.) by having Btooks husked 
here and there, baaed his estimate of 300 bush¬ 
els of perfect ears per acre for the entire field. 
This estimate, though within the truth for the 
heel acre, was too high for the entire field as 
will be seen. The committee consisting of 
Robert J. Dodge (Pres’t. Farmers' Club. Am. 
Institute), W. M. Hablrshaw, F. 0, S. (Chem¬ 
ist, N. T. Ag. Soc.), L. 0. Beuedict (Ag. Ed. 
N. Y. World), confined their inquiry to the 
mvl'Ue portion of the field which, by careful 
measurement of one acre of land and five 
stooka husked in different parts yielded ac¬ 
cording to their certificate 236 bushels of ears 
per acre. We have since ascertained that a 
third acre yielded about 200 bushels of ears 
and the fourth acre—that which is not well 
drained—about 1.20 bushels of ears—making in 
all 856 bushels nf eais upon the four acres. 
Shelled Nov. 10 we found an average bushel of 
ears to make just 17 quarts of grain. It may 
therefore be said that the best acre yielded 
159.37 bushels of shelle- corn. The next best 
acre yielded 125 37 bushels. The next 106 24— 
the poorest 63.75 bushels and the entire field 
118 69 bushels of shelled corn per acre. The 
yield (856 bushel*) was carefully measured by 
our farm manager as it was placed in the cribs. 
The expense of producing this yield of corn, it 
must be seen, is exceptionally small. The 
items of labor and manure are as follows : 
Tuxes amt intercut on land value - 
Plowing. Two hoivus and man—say two days.- 
Harrowing' twice. “ • “ two “ - 
Planting. culfituc twice. One horse “ three “ - 
Hoed three tunes. One man “ ia “ 
Mauuro, 3a0 pounds par acre $800. _ 
Hutting, husking, etc, _ 
The Blount Corn, 
For the information of our many new read¬ 
ers, we may briefly 6tate that Blount’s corn 
(purchased from Prof. A. E. Blount the orig¬ 
inator, now of Col. State Coll.) was one kind 
offered in our Free Plant and Seed Distribu¬ 
tion of 187S. From this seed we plauted in 
1879 a measured quarter of an acre and though 
the plot was badly selected—though a late 
frost killed a portion, eighteen bnshels of 
shelled grain (73 per acre) were hai vested 
therefrom. Our seed for last season’s planting 
wus saved from such stalks only as bore four 
ears or more. That part of the field given to 
it measured (we take Mr. Dodge's measure¬ 
ment) 310 feet by 122 4 feet, or 87 or within a 
fraction of seven-eiglnhs of an acre. 
It had been in grass (mostly Couch, Quitch 
or Quack of late years) for seven years. It 
was plowed iu late Fall and in early May, the 
uew cultivator (see illustration) was used to 
cut off the '* Quack" which was already grow¬ 
ing finely. Then it was harrowed with the 
“Clod Crusher’’ (LaDow’s), ygain with the 
iron-tooth and the drills marked four feet 
three inches apart: 300 pounds of the same 
concentrated corn fretilizer were sowu broad¬ 
cast before the last harrowiug ; 100 pounds of 
the same when the corn was about six inches 
high, and 100 pounds of concentrated potato 
fertilizer when it was about IS inches high. 
In other respeets the treatment of this field 
was the same as the Chester. That is to say 
it was cultivated twice with the same cultiva¬ 
tor and hoed three times, always hoeiug flat so 
that there was not the slightest appearunce of 
a hill about the base of the stalk. It was our 
wish to have given it at least two other hoe- 
iugs and we endeavored so to do. But just 
when labor is most needed upon this farm, it 
cannot be had and onr most cherished experi¬ 
ments have often come to nanght because we 
were prevented from giving l hat careful atten¬ 
tion to every detail without which an .xperi- 
meut is of no value whatever, except it may 
be to those free-and easy people who deem it 
time aud labor thrown away to obtain exact 
i 
