Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1874-03-13
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Manuring Corn in the Hill.

Manuring Corn in the Hill.
AS the soil of any section of country
becomes exhausted by long continued
and improvident culture, and fertiliz-
ers, in consequence, become scarce and
dear, farmers and gardeners come to
study how to economize manure, and
make the smallest amount do the most
good. This end is supposed to be best
achieved by applying the manure in a
condition to be rapidly decomposed,
and in a position to be Immediately
absorbed and appropriated by growing
crops. Farmers are not so anxious to
invest their money in manures that
will make returns two Or three years
hence, as in those that will mainly be
expended upon the first crop.
Acting upon these principles, We
find that in the longest cultivated por-
tons of our Countrywide New Eng
land and other Atlantic seaboard States
the use of concentrated commercial
fertilizers, and their application direct
ly Gin the hill or drill where the man
ner of cultivation will permit), to the
roots of the plant, is the most common
method. Even in sowed crops, such
as winter wheat, instead of blowing
under the manure where but por-
ton will be reached by the first crop,
it is merely narrowed in, and left in
proximity to the roots. In those coun-
ties where population is fast crowding
upon the means of substance, and it is
necessary to practice the most rigid e.
economy in culture, manures are dis
solved, and applied in a liquid form to
growing crops at such times as it is
believed will result in the greatest
good.
There are portions of New Jersey
and Long Island where the soil was O.
riginally very light, and has been long
under cultivation, in which farmers
find it impossible to raise a paying crop
without manure, and as it is impracti-
cable to obtain sufficient barn-yard
manure to cover the entire surface,
they practice .manuring corn, potatoes,
and such other crops as are raised in
hills or drills in the hill or drill, using
from eight to ten loads of barn-yard
manure to the acre, where thirty or
forty would be required, if spread
broadcast.
These frugal farmers are fast learn
ing how to economic manures. Many
of them clean out their barn-yards in
the spring, and compost the manure
with soil from the roadside, from fence
corners, from knobs, or wherever else
it may be obtained, using about three
parts of soil to one of manure. This
compost heap is turned two or three
times in the year, and the mold and
manure pretty thoroughly intermixed
so that all gases, escaping from the
manure, are absorbed by the mold, no.
thing being wasted.
When the ground is fitted and mark
ed for corn, the seed is dropped, and
a couple of men, with load of COM
post passing through the center of five
or seven rows, cover each with 4 small
shovelful of compost. We have known
a fair crop of cron grown in this way
upon land so poor that few rows,
from which the compost was omitted
for the sake of comparison, failed to
produce anything but the poorest nub-
bins.
Various other fertilizers are used
upon corn and other crops. We have
known poudrette, manufactured by a
near New York, to be used
at cost Of some three or four dollars |
per acre, with decidedly beneficial re-
suits. Farmers manufacturer pou-
drette, by obtaining the contents Of pri-
vies in the small towns, composing it |
with four or five times its bulk of soil
or swamp muck, for several months,
and using about one pint to the hill OF
corn. This gives better results than
that purchased, because more honestly
made. Bone-dust and super-phosphate
of lime, and in some sections, near the
coast, fish are used, all adding materi
ally to the yields of crops. Hen ma
nure, mixed with plaster, makes an eX-
cellent fertilizer for corn in the hill.
We are not aware that manuring
corn in the hill has been practiced to any
great extent in Western New York, and
vet we have no doubt that it would pay.
Even ON land that is strong enough to
produce good crop of corn, or that has
been dressed broadcast with barn-yard
manure, we believe that the applica
ton of some concentrated fertilizers to
the hill would give the corn such a
rapid start, enabling it to unfold its
broad leaves to the summer sun, dews
and rains, and drink in the rich gases
from the atmosphere to such an ex
tent as to..add considerable to the yield.
Th;s is not mere hypothesis with us,
for we have tried it far enough to sat
isfy us Of its economy. With genuine
bone-dust or super-phosphate at fifty
or sixty dollars ton, we are satisfied
that small handful to hill of corn
will far more than compensate for all
cost. 1t should not come in immedi
ate contact with the seed, but soil
should be spread over the corn, the
bone-dust dropped upon that, and COW
cred with little more soil.
We have written this article for the
purpose of calling the attention OF
farmers to the subject, and to invite
those who have had experience i'll ma
nuring corn in the hill to communl-
cate to the Rural Home the results