there as a reservoir of moisture, and an exhilarating principle throughout the season, to the growth of the corn.”
Upon Mr. Sutton’s report of his crop, Judge Buel adds the following:
“The management which led to the extraordinary product of corn, should be deeply impressed upon the mind of every corn-grower. 1, The ground was WELL dunged with LONG manure; 2, it was planted on a grass lay, one deep plowing; 3, it was well pulverized with the harrow; 4, the plow was not used in the after-culture, nor the corn hilled, but the cultivator only used; 5, the sod was not disturbed, nor the manure turned to the surface; and 6, the corn was cut at the ground when it was fit to top. These are the points which we have repeatedly urged in treating of the culture of this crop; and their correctness is put beyond question by this notable result. The value of lime and marl are well illustrated in the second experiment.”
Mr. Charles H. Tomlinson, of Schenectady, N. Y., in giving an account of his experience says:
“The two last years’ corn has been raised in the following manner, on the Mohawk Flats near this city. If in grass, the land is plowed and well harrowed, lengthwise of the furrow, without disturbing the sward. The ground is then prepared for planting, by being marked out two and a half feet one way and three feet the other. The last season, the field was rolled after being planted, with evident benefit, as it made it level. When the corn is three inches high, the cultivator is passed through both ways; and twice afterward it is used in the same manner; no hills are made, but the ground is kept level. Neither hand-hoe nor plow are used, after the corn is planted. Fields manured with coarse manure have been tilled in the same manner. Corn tilled in this way is as clean of weeds as when tilled in the usual way: it is no more liable to be blown down, and the produce equally good. It saves a great deal of hard labor which is an expensive item in the usual culture of corn.
Last October, ten rods were measured out in two different places, in a corn-field, on grass land—the one yielding ten, the other nine, bushels of ears. In one corn-field, after the last dressing in July, timothy and clover-seed were sown, and in the fall the grass appeared to have taken as well as it has done in adjoining fields where it had been sown with oats.”
Upon which Judge Buel again remarks: “All, or nearly all, the accounts we have published of great products of Indian corn, agree in two particulars, viz. in not using the plow in the culture, and in not earthing, or but very slightly, the hills. These results go to demonstrate, that the entire roots are essential to the vigor of the crops, and to enable them to perform their functions as nature designed, must be near the surface. If the roots are severed with the plow, in dressing the crop, the plants are deprived of a portion of their nourishment; and if they are buried deep by hilling, the plant is partially exhausted in throwing out a new set near the surface, where alone they can perform all their offices. There is another material advantage in this mode of cultivating the corn crop—it saves a vast deal of manual labor.”
The preceding considerations justify us in recommending, that in the management of the Indian corn crop, the following rules be observed, or at least partially, so far as to test their correctness.
1. That the corn harrow and cultivator be substituted for the plow in the culture of the crop.
2. That the plants be not hilled, or but slightly so—this not to prevent the soil being often stirred and kept clean, and,