The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-01 00:00:00

SUCCESSFUL CULTIVATION 0.0
FORTY-DAY MAIZE IN lIAMPSLIIRE.
Three weeks ago we called attention to the pro-
mising progress of the experimental crop of Mr.
Keene's hybrid in this county ; and concurrently with
our observations we were pleased to observe in all
the London daily journals the fact stated that the
patches permitted to be sown in a metropolitan park
by the Commissioners of the Woods and Forests, under
great disadvantages, had grown to perfection. The
same success, we understand, has attended the crops
on the estate of Lord Lyndhurst, in Buckingham-
shire, and on some sandy ground near the banks ef
the Thames, in Middlesex. The seed hereabouts was
put into the ground a fortnight later; yet, even with
this drawback, success is certain; thecobs have put out
with astonishing vigour—their size is enormous—anl
they are approaching to maturity in a manner to meet
the most sanguine wishes of the cultivators. The
produce in one field we have examined at Bitterne, itt
a north easterly direction from South,An4pton, will be
prodigiously large. Men, we perceive, are 110•,,f
emplo) ed in cutting cif the fliwer-tops, and tyii,g•
them up in bundles to dry as winter fodder for
cattle, leaving the cobs and stout bottom stalks to
complete their ripening process. Eventually, and at no
distant day, the lusty cobs of grain, some of them nine
or ten inches long, and as thick as a stout man's wrist
in circumference—will be gathered, leaving the
large stumps to he dried for winter fuel. All this is
well ; a new and generous article cf food will be
opened to the cultivators throughout this wide and
warm district of the kingdom ; the poor will base
an additional aid at command ; the disinterested
and philanthropic desires of Mr. Keene will be met;
and the statements of cavillers, at no time free front
suspicion, will be falsified to their utter shame and
confusion. To the past statements of those who were
determined to prejudge the merits of the experiment
we have paid little or no attention ; Providence has
put them beyond the pale of argument, and that is
satisfactory to us, who were only desirous of a clear
field and no favour in (to us) a disinterested battle
on the part of the poor and needy against their inve-
terate and not overscrupulous opponents. Mr. Keene
was not unknown to us when he left his charming
retreat in the south of France to try his agri-
cultural experiments on this side of the Channel—
we had known him from boyhood ; and his character
was a guarantee that he was no selfish speculator or
visionist. We took him at his word; and we had an
abiding faith that he was not attempting to palm a
falsehood upon the British public. When he told us,
in his straightforward pamphlet, that he had a new
sort of maize, which, in unsuccessful potato seasons,
would come in to fill up the wide gap, and in a great
degree disarm famine, we believed him. At any rate,
as far as our influence was of value, we were deter-
mined that he should have a fair trial in the county of
Hants. There has been some up-hill work : the
strong jungle of prejudice has had to be trodden with
a heel of iron ; and to good purpose. We are not
now to be told by the ignorant or unreficting that the
forty-day maize is "Cobbett's corn," or "agricultural
maize," or " Indian corn," or anything else but
" Keene's forty-day maize." There is no .likelihood.
in the sorts—comparison is at a discount. A blind.
man with a single hand could tell the difference.
Parties who are dubious are invited to come and see;
there is nothing like shirking in the matter; all is
fair and above-board. At a nursery man's door, the
other day, we saw a bundle of very tall and very
green stuff, with incipient cobs, labelled " Agricul.
tural maize, 92 tons to the acre." That is not forty-
day maize—" N o more alike than Ito Hercules;
Hyperion to a satyr." As we have already said, Mr.
Keene's hybrid stands apart from anything else we
have ever seen, is different in many respects, and
above all, is what it was at first represented to be,
having truth in all particulars for its voucher. It
differs from Cobbett's corn as widely as did the
talented and strong-minded author of the Political
Register from the majority of the liberally illiberal
politicians of the present day. The fact is, Indian
corn has never succeeded in this country, because the
wrong sorts have been sown—those sorts which re-
quire six months of the hottest climate of the world
to ripen them. In conclusion, we will let Mr. Keene
repeat here from his pamphlet :
" For some years I have inhabited a temperate
mountainous district of the Pyrenees, where the cli-
mate is very much like that of the southern counties
of England. I have there, in my agricultural prac-
tice, brought to perfection three new sorts of maize,
which I call forty-day maize, because the flower stalks
begin to shoot out in forty days from the time of
sowing and in 140 days from the time of sowing in
this temperate climate it is ripe. It ripens, in fact, as
soon, and even sooner, than the common dwarf kid-
ney or French bean sown with it; and none of you
doubt that the kidney bean will bear its ripe seed in
England, since you all grow it; and though you eat
it green, you raise it every year from the seed you.
grow.
" Maize bread may be eaten in a variety of ways
—hot, with tea or coffee for breakfast, warmed or
toasted, with butter or meat, sugared or salted, or
under baked meat as a substitute for Yorkshire
pudding ; or,under a slice of bacon, or fried with
bacon, or as porridge in milk. In short, it may he
eaten in a much greater variety of modes of cooking
than bread.
" Children get quickly fond of it, and prefer it to
bread. It keeps the blood fresh, and dces not, like
wheaten bread, produce costiveness, so injurious to
tender frames. No children are so healthy as those
nourished on it, and w e know mountain villages of
ruddy faced hardy youngsters whose principal diet
is maize bread.
"if the author's memory serves him aright, it
was Mr. Chadwick, in his examination before the
Poor-law Committee of the House of Commons, who
said He had often considered that it was desirable
that the inmates of the workhouses should have some
one kind of food permitted to them without stint or
limit.' This is equally called for by every humane
person, but wheaten bread is too costly, and potatoes
are not of the kind of food desirable for such a pur-
pose. The writer ventures to suggest maize bread as
exactly suited for an unlimited, economical, and nou-
rishing diet, not only for charitable establishments,
but in every establishment where order and economy
are practised. It would, however, be a mistake to
suppose that it is recommended for family use to re-
place bread. It is meant, that like vegetables, it
should be in the house with it. Let there be always
a loaf to cut without stint or limit for all who choose
it. In short, encourage the taste for it, and have it
always at hand, that a slice may be put under a
roasting joint, or fried and sugared to make up a dish
for the children at dinner ; or a slice toasted with
cheese, or an egg poached upon it for supper—or
under a boiled fresh or salt herring. The result in
the month's accounts will be very evident, and every
one in the family better and happier for it. Another
advantage is, that the maize-loaf may be kept hot all
day in the oven of the kitchen range, merely leaving
the door open to moderate the heat. A sustained
gentle beat does not injure but improves it, and the
whole batch is often left in the oven to cool with it,
taking out only a loaf at a time as wanted.
' "No other preparation of maize is so suitable—no
preparation of maize so wholesome and satisfying as
the baked bread of pure maize flour ;—all others are
comparatively unsatisfying, and frequently unwhole-
some, if the flour is not of the soundest kind—in
which case its manipulation, fermentation, conversion
into dough, and passage through the oven, corrects
its main defects."
By the way, we have pleasure in announcing that
Mr. Keene has, on special invitation, consented to
come down from London to deliver the opening
lecture of the season at the Botley and South Hants
Farmers' Club.—Hampshire Advertiser.
0

THREEPENNY OMNIBUSES AND THE EMPTY HOUSES
IN KENSINGTON.—For a considerable time
annoyance has been experienced by the inhabitants of
Kensington from the want of cheap omnibuses to convey
o
past much_
them to and from town, the Hammersmith Conveyance
Company, and the Richmond. Conveyance
ii,, es t Company,ern road,
have for years monopolised the egoeniat
Kensington at
still keeping up the fare to and
swyhstielem
been for long period
a
the metropolis there had.
sixpence to the Bank. On all the other roads round
almost every five mi-
nutesd from Charing-cross; and, from inquiries
to an
theof parish,
threepenny omnibuses running
ft
a itnheed new
that
conveyances,
of Chelsea had in consequence
made into theitwworaks
inagsCeor
but one house empty
in thirty-three, and Paddington one in thirty-seven, the
parish of Kensington had one empty in every ten houses.
The matter had, therefore, become a very important
question to the owners of house property and the trades-
men within the district; and calculations were then made
by competent persons as to the propriety of forming a
company for the purpose of starting threepenny omni-
buses to run from the railway bridge at the western
extremity of Remington to llungerford-market, when it
was found that a reasonable profit might be expected to
accrue therefrom. Two public meetings were in conse-
quence held, one at the Gloucester Arms Tavern, Ken-
sington New•town, and the second meeting in the large
assembly room of the King's Arms Tavern, in the High-
street, at which a committee, consisting of house owners
and some of the leading inhabitants, was appointed to
carry out the desirable object in view.
NORTH SUNDERLAND..—APPEARANCE OF HER..
RINGR.—On Monday, the 24th instant, a great quantity
of herrings was seen at the Longstone Lighthouse,
Fern Island, by Mr. Darling, light-keeper. So nume-
rous were they that Mr. Darling caught several from the
rock with a keep-net, and might have caught several
trans if he had had salt and barrels. One of our boats
is going off to-night (Tuesday) with nets to try them
at the flood. No merchant has yet made any offer to
our fishermen for their white fish this season.—Berwick
Warder.
LORD DENMAN.—A few days since this Noble and
Learned Lord was taking an airing in Eyam Dale, in a
small hand carriage, which through an accident cap-
sized, and his Lordship sustained some slight injury by
a contusion of the head, which bled profusely. It is
consolatory, however, to state that his Lordship is im-
proTing in general bola:l.—Derbyshire Courier.