The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1875-04-09
Corn as an American Staple.
From the Rural southerner.


In good seasons we raise something
over one thousand million bushels Of
corn in the United States and allowing
as high an average as twenty bushels
per acre, more than fifty million acres
are planted to this crop. In the south
and west very little painsis taken to pre-
vent the washing of corn ground, when
the crop is growing or for several years
after, If allowed to rest. This is a
great error In farming. At the last
working of corn, fne-tooth harrow
should be used to make the soil fine,
clean and level to prevent water run
ming between the rows. Instead of
permitting the ground to lie naked, or
grow up in weeds, it should be seeded
at once with clover and grass seed in
the standing corn. The new crop wilt
not grow to do any harm before the
corn is ripe; while the fall growth will
shelter the otherwise nakedness of the
recently-tilled land prevent surface
washing, and recuperate the depleted
soil. All know, or at least ought to
know, that clover is renovating plant,
and that nearly all corn-ground needs
some amendment.
By running fifty million acres, more
or less, in corn every year, with much
washing and little Or no restitution, we
most certainly fill our country with
sorry-looking old fields. The intelli-
gence and good sense of every farmer
should condemn the practice, and try
to change it for the better. A great
deal of southern land is planted in
corn which is too poor to produce more
than from seven to ten bushels to the
acre. What is to be done with such
ground, to double it's fruitfulness +?
We answer let it rest in clover and
Herds grass, with one or two hundred
pounds of gypsum to the acre. Plant
much less surface in corn and cotton,
and manure that.
We have so many fields in the south
that require additional fertility that,
instead of doing our best to make corn
and cotton atonce, weshould do our best
to raise the raw materials out of which
these great staples are formed. To per-
form all the work ON field that ought
to give harvest CT thirty or forty
bushels of corn per acre, and gather a
little crop of less than ten bushels, may
be honest farming, but it is not wise
farming. Some OF the essential ele.
meuts used by nature in farming corn
are lacking in the soil, in an available
form. If these cannot be supplied by
the cultivator, he should try to find
something better to do than tllling poor
soil in corn. Of all the labor perform
ed in the United States, this is the
poorest paid to individuals and the
public. Practically, it makes poor
land poorer still while poor people are
apt to become about as poor as they
can be. 1t is unpleasant to write about
poverty, or even think about it. But
when a durable malady is fastened upon
a friend and his family, although the
task may be unpleasant, it is better to
go to their relief than to shun them.
The owners of poor land in the south
are not half so poor, nor SO sick of
farming as they imagine. They simply
use their farms in the wrong way.
When corn ground is thin and unprom-
Using, they plant a double quantity to
get the bushels they want; looking to
corn alone for an income. This mis-
take throws away full half of their
labor, and helps kill the old plantation.
Stock it full with calves that will be-
come good cows in two or three years
when one hundred calves that cost three
dollars ahead, will become worth thirty
dollars ahead, or three thousand dol
lars. Don't be afraid that well-raised
young COWS will not sell. They will pay
fifty per cent. interest, and keep them on
your improving farm. Such land and
stock will give an easy fortune.
CIDER CAKE.-Take two cups of su-
gar, enc cup of butter, half pint of
fresh cider, nutmeg, one teaspoonful of
salaratus or volatile salts. and sufficient