386 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
Each of these methods has the sanction of good agriculturists 
in all ages, and has had the benefit of numberless discussions 
and experiments ; still the question is not fully settled in the 
minds of a majority of the farmers of to-day. Surely, if there 
is a best method, the farmer ought to know what it is. We 
have no patience with this blundering, hap-hazard way of doing 
business—this doing things because most people do them, when 
every new improvement proves that the whole world had been 
going wrong in all time before. 
PLANTING IN HILLS. 
This was undoubtedly the primitive method—the one which 
would naturally be adopted in an age when thorough plowing, 
and harrowing, and cultivation were unknown. The early his¬ 
toric records contain allusions to it, and even down to within 
comparatively modern times, for those crops ever planted in 
hills at this day, it was almost the only method in use. It 
is certainly meet, therefore, that we pay it proper respect. 
The new ways are not always the best ways ; every reader of 
history is probably aware of that. We mean to say, things 
must neither be laughed at because they are old, nor be adopt¬ 
ed because they are supposed to be new. 
For some crops, planting in hills is still, and probably ever 
will be, the best method. Plants whose roots go out some dis¬ 
tance in search of food, and cannot be adequately supplied 
within small compass, whose foliage is large and mutt occupy 
considerable space, and whose necessity is imperative for fre¬ 
quent and thorough cultivation, belong to this class. 
Indian corn is an example ; and we are not surprised to find 
the farmers of the corn-growing States coming back to the old- 
fashioned “ check planting ” in hills, 3x3 and 4 x 4, not to 
AamYplanting, of necessity, for there is no reason why we 
should not have machinery for this as well as for everything 
else. 
Other plants belong to this same category, but we will not 
stop to enumerate them. There are many crops, however—the 
