185 
General Notes. 
CULTIVATION OF MATZE. 
A serres of experiments on the cultivation of maize would prove of great 
yalue to farmers if carried out systematically on our Experimental Farms and 
at the Agricultural College. 
In Ohio, United States, at the Experiment Station, this subject has 
engaged the attention of scientific agriculturists for the past nine years, and 
more particularly with regard to the question of deep or shallow cultivation. 
A bulletin issued from the Illinois Experiment Station, as well as bulletins 
from other State farms, gives the return from lands cultivated at different 
depths, and, in the generality of cases, shallow cultivation appears to have 
resulted in better yields per acre than the crops from land subjected to deep 
cultivation. At the Illinois Station some plats were cultivated 1 inch deep, 
others 2 inches, others 8, and so on up to 6 inches deep. Others were 
not cultivated at all, but had all grass and weeds pulled out by hand, and others 
still were mulched 6 inches deep with straw and received no cultivation or 
weeding. The Lowisiana Planter gives some of the results as tollows :— 
The mulched plats yielded an average of 94 bushels per acre ; those uncul- 
tivated, but hand-weeded, 87 bushels; those cultivated 8 inches deep and 
those 6 inches deep gave the same yield, 86 bushels per acre; those cultivated 
Linch deep yielded 85 bushels; those 4: inches deep, 83 bushels; and those 
Prgbahed with ashovel-plough, 81 bushels. In previous years shallow cultivation 
as always given best results. 
In Ohio, since 1891, the results have been uniformly in favour of the 
shallower cultivation; the average yield from cultivating 14 inches deep with 
the spring-tooth cultivator being 6 bushels per acre greater than from cultivat- 
ing 4 inches with the double shovel. Counting each season’s experiments at 
each station as a single test, forty-five tests were reported up to the close of 
1895. Of these, twenty-seven showed larger yields from shallow culture, seven 
were unconclusive, and eleven showed larger yields from deep culture. Of 
these latter, however, cultivating only 3 inches was in some cases called deep 
culture. There thus seems little doubt that the average yield of corn may be 
increased by the use of shallow-working cultivators. 
TO DESTROY JOHNSON GRASS. 
As plants breathe through their leaves, it follows that if the lungs of the 
plant are destroyed the plant itself must cease to exist. Consider Johnson 
grass and nut-grass as typical field pests. When the blades appear above 
ground, if left undisturbed they flourish vigorously on suitable soil, and will 
take the place eventually of whatever crop is put into the ground. But if on 
the appearance of the grass it is immediately attacked and cut with the hoe an 
inch or so below the surface, the root or nut at once begins to expend its 
energy in sending up fresh shoots. If these are in their turn eut down, the 
root will at last become too exhausted to produce fresh shoots, and will die. 
Now toapply the process ona large scale in a field infested with Johnson 
grass, the Lowisiana Planter says:—*If you wish to kill fifty acres of Johnson 
grass, the ground should be ploughed in the fall with a rotary disc as deep 
as it will run, which will expose an abundance of roots. ‘Turn on it your hogs 
during the winter, with the object of destroying the superficial roots: arly in 
the spring, harrow thoroughly. About the 15th August (in Queensland— 
March in Louisiana) begin the operation of cutting the young sprouts about 
14 or 2 inches below the surface. This cutting must be completed in seven or 
eight days, and the operation must be repeated until the middie of September, 
at which time you can plant your fifty acres in anything you desire, with the 
