Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1820-03-21
.AGRICUAYUNAll.
FROM TUE AMERICAN wArcunAN.

To DR.. David Stewart, President of the Agri-
cultural Society of Newcastle county.
SIR-As our stock of practical agri-
cultural information must depend upon
individual contributions, hope, as the
Widows mite was well received, the
trlfle | now offer may be acceptable also.
When | became q member of the
honorable society over which you pre-
side, 1t was i'll the hope and expectation
of being benefited by the instruction
should receive from the observations and
experience of the industrious and enter
prising agriculnrists composing that So
cicty, being collected, as it were, into
enc common fund, upon which, as a
needy and inexperienced member, l
could draw at discretion as occasion
might require: paying an interest to the
society by giving them faithful account
of such observations and discoveries as
! may have made upon the information
so obtained, or otherwise.
The only thing I have to offer in that
way at present, is on fall .ploughlng, as
winter fallow for corn crop and per-
haps there is no periodical operation i'll
preparing the ground for a crop more
deserving attention: it has been recon-
mended frequently as an almost certain
preventive against the ravages OF the cut
worm, in corn; and philosophical theo-
rists tell US that land turned up to the
winter frosts and snow, will collect nitre
from the atmosphere which they say IS
the vital principle of vegetation.
commenced farming where | now
live, in the spring of 1917, on kindly
soil, though most miserably broken down
by hard usage and neglect. My ground
was flushed up in April, and corn plant
cd, in squares of four feet SIX inches, in
>hc first week in May. The cut worm
was so destructive in that year, that VIC
replantcd the third time-the season was
unfayorable, and had avery light crop
DESTROYS to avoid a like disapp ointment,
and TO give the ground the advantage OF
collecting nitro, ploughed the field in
tended for the next years crop in Nov
ember. The injury done by the cut
worm to corn generally was small in l8 ! s,
compared withthe preceding year; tomine
It was trlfling-the season proved favora-
bic, and considering the reduced state
of the land under cultivation, had
much better crop of corn than could
have expected, without manure--the ears
were large and fine, and SO early made,
that | commenced cutting it off the
ground the 18th September, thus saving
all the fodder without injury to the grain,
either in quality or quantity. Still bear
ing in mind the cut worm and the nitre,
and believing from my unexpected good
crop this year, that much benefit had re-
suited from the fall ploughing, l deter
mined to adhere to the practice, and &C
cordingly gave my intended corn ground
for the present year, pretty deep plough
ing in the latter end of last November,
as nearly at right angles with the slope
or declivity of the ground, as the form
Of the field would permit-thus it laid
open and exposed TO the winter frosts,
which completely pulverized the sward
---the rain and melted SHOWS were readi-
ly and entirely absorbed by the soil and
clay below the reach of the plough, and
I observed the surface become mouldable
much earlier in April, than those lee
fields which my neighbors were breaking
up or flushing for their corn. Between
the 10th and goth April, had my corn
failows well narrowed, and by the 50th,
had them cross ploughed, then narrowed
again, and on the LIST of May, when we
began running out the rows, the whole
field was in state of preparation as
mellow and fine as a salad bed. We
run the first burrows about the same
depth the ground had been ploughed,
exactly four feet six inches, not quite so
deep as the first, leaving a little loose
mould in the bottom of the first furrow
to plant upon, which we did the 4th and
5th May-four grains in each hill, with
out deviation. The corn came up we'll
no cut worm appeared to its injury, and
on the Cd June, we gave it two strokes on
each row with the falow harrow, and
light dressing with the corn rakes
The ground was extremely mellow
and fine, and quite clear of clods. The
next week reduced the stalks to three
in each hill, and plastercd it. About the
middle OF June, the neighbors all around
had been some time at work in their corn
fields, some with ploughs, and others
with luke harrows, raising such dust,
that at distance any one would have
thought they were sowing plaster broad
cast on their corn fields. l thought l
would be doing something too, though
nv corn looked well, and | could not