PRACTICAL PAPERS—CULTIVATION OP CORN. 
345 
CULTIVATION OF CORK 
BY J. C. STARKWEATHER, OCONOMOWOC. 
The farming community, as a class, are very slow to make 
any change in their methods of cultivating the soil. In all the 
details of farming, from planting the seed to harvesting the 
crop, they cling tenaciously to the habits and customs of their 
fathers and grandfathers, as being the good old way—the one 
in which they should travel all their lives long. A large por¬ 
tion of them have their favorite crops, which they must raise, 
and no other; any new and improved varieties of these kinds 
they usually regard as humbugs and innovations. 
This state of things ought not so to be. In an age of pro¬ 
gress, farmers should not alone stand still. Their own inter¬ 
ests, and the public welfare, demand that they too should 
improve upon old methods. To do this, they should not only 
encouiage those who are endeavouring to introduce better 
systems of cultivation, and to improve the quality and increase 
the amount of the products of our labor, but they should by 
direct efforts and individual experiments seek to attain the 
same end. The man who in any way lessens the amount of 
labor necessary to raise a given crop, or who by a better sys¬ 
tem of tillage, by the selection of better seed, or by originating 
new varieties improves the quality, or increases the product¬ 
iveness of our crops is a public benefactor; he adds to the 
wealth and prosperity of the whole community. The benefit 
may seem small and of little value in the individual item, the 
acre or bushel, but when applied to the whole country, to mil¬ 
lions of farmers, acres and bushels, the aggregate value is seen 
to be of great importance. 
Take the corn crop of our country, of which I wish to 
speak—as it is the most important of all our cereal productions, 
both in the number of acres cultivated, number of bushels 
