Sunbury American and Shamokin journal. [volume] (Sunbury, Northumberland Co., Pa.) 1840-1848, 1843-05-20
From The Boston Jrdpciler.
Curious Method of Planting Corn.

shire co, informs us that he plants his corn, in
the following manner, and has realized ITO
bushels ofshelled corn TO the acre.
He spreads what manure he intends for the
field on the surface of the green yward then
he ploughs the land into ridges about 3 feet
apart in the fal-cach ridge or row being made
oftwo back furrows turned upon narrow strip
of fsward which is not disturbed. In the spring
he rolls and harrows these ridges, and on the
top of each ridge, II or Ia inches apart, he
plants his hills of corn, 3 or kernels in the
hill, and cultivates it through the season with
the Loe, cultivator and plough as much as he
deems necessary. In this method, he remark
ed that he was not troubled with weeds or
drought.
In the Fall, as soon as his corn is ripe, he
gathers the ears, then pulls up the corn stalks
and lays them down lengthways between the
furrows, and then splits his ridges with the
plough and covers these stalks up complete
( ly. Thus is made his ridges fer his second crop
ofcorn, 10 be planted the succeeding spring
/ The 10 bushels was the second CROP planted
over the buried stalks. The above is sufficient
to give the reader an idea of this system. He
contends after the first crop he wants no ma
nure for his corn, except the stalks applied as
we have described.
1t is quite probable, the sods and manure be-
ing under the corn the first year, that while
these are undergoing decomposition, being the
whole period of the growth of the corn, the
crop will suffer less from drought than it would
were there no vegetable matter beneath il to
attract and detain moisture until this decompo-
sition is completed.
As to the fact that corn-stalks are the best
manure for corn, the idea is strictly phlosophi.
cal, and is fully sustained by chemical analy.
sis. The doctrine seems to be well settled,
that each crop requires its own peculiar food.
and unless the soil contains this, the crop will
not flourish. Hence the necessity of rotation
Of crops or the well established fact with par
ticular men. that potatoes will not thrive for
many years in succession on the same piece.
because the crop has almost exhausted the soil
! Of the peculiar food of the potatoe, while some
other cror, requiring different kind of food
from what the potatoe requires, will succeed
well on the same land where the po,a'oe crop
has tailed-thus as the OK and the sheep, when
/ put TO the same stack of hay, the one will cat
what the other leaves so it is with plants.
/ Now, if you shoot partridge and cut open
his crop and find in ita corns and buds YOU at
once infer that acorns and buds are the natural
fool of the bird. So when by chemical analy.
, sis you ascertain precisely what kind cf food
, the corn crop requires. Now, as corn stalks
contain the very elements ofrhe food required
by the corn crop, and return TO the soil, the
substances Of which they exhausted TIE soil,
the chemistry of agriculture teaches US that
corn stalks, while undergoing decomposition,
furnish The growing crop with those very gas.
es required for the elaboration of the solid stock
and ears.
! But this is not the only conclusion of SCI
cnce, but universal law Of the vegetable
world, by which an all wise and bountiful God
has provided that each precise species of plants
shall be reproduced and perpetuatcd. Thus
the forest land, for centuries subject to nigh
/ ty growth, from year to year, not only increases
in fertility, and an annual top dressing, fitted to
the very purpose for which il is wanted, and
composed by the unerring hand of Deity, but
also, from year to year, has something to spare
| for the good of man and beast
! Thus, in the vegetable as in the animal
world, there is wise provision, that each
shall be sustained and rcproduced; and as these
natural laws are more and more developed by
science, We may expect the purpose Of Infinite
| Wisdom, as TO the vegetable world, will be
less and less frustrated by the hand of unskilul
culture.
| TREEs-It is a custom in Turkey SAWS DE-