News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-04-20

while for small corn distance of three
feet is sufficient. The plants are Trimmed
to from three feet to eighteen inches in
the drills, according as the variety may
suggest. The seed should not be COW
cred too deep; two inches are quite
sufficient, and more than enough in
mellow ground. The use OF the roller
after the seed has been drilled in is
very generally practiced by progressive
| farmers.
The best way to fertilize land for the
corn crop is to SOW broadcast good
manure and pillow it in if it be coarse, or
harrow it in if well pulverized and
decomposed; where commercial fertiI-
izers are employed SOW those broadcast
and harrow in. While it is generally
conceded to be a mistake to depend
alone on concentrated fertilizers placed
in hill or drill, these are often employed
in connection with the manures sown
broadcast, as they insure an early start -
a good point gained when planting has
been delayed. When concentrated
fertilizers are used in hill or drill care
should be observed that the seed does not
come in direct contact with these; let
a covering of earth intervene.
Cultivation ought to begin early and
be repeated often enough to keep the
weeds down and the ground mellow
until the corn is in tassel, when it must
cease. In the cultivation of this crop
the cultivator has largely taken the
place of the hoe. Under present modes
of culture suckering lis usually dis
pensed with, except from small portions
of the field where seed-corn Is to be
gathered. Root pruning, for time
advocated, has failed to gain favor,
therefore, the seed once terminated,
shallow culture is in order. The i'm
portance of planting carefully selected
seed, also seed adapted to the latitude
and soil in which it is to grow, is too
well understood to need urging here;
but the caution to test all seed previous
to planting, over which the shadow of a
suspicion rests. may not prove amiss.
POTATOES. - Mr.. Edmund Hersey,
bingham, Mass, member of the State
Board of Agriculture, gave in a recent
address some new views even on the
worn subject of raising potatoes, and
pressed others, equally sound, and bet
ter known, but too much neglected. He,
like another writer, finds that small to-
bers produce more than large ones, and
that of the latter, the seed end starts
first, and usually yields best. He is
careful to keep the seed potato from
sprouting, and in the dark, although as
to this last, many practice very success
fully quite the reverse, asserting that
greened and hardened whole potatoes
are the best for planting. The Jackson
White has been his favorite variety for
ten years; $50 bushels is fair crop and
800 best. Eight cords of manure to the
acre is used and put on the surface in
preference, with all the ashes he can
get. The hills are three feet apart both
ways, with two sets in each, and only
two or three stems. He finds level Gull
ture best, and kills weeds quite as COM
pletely and easily as those who hill, as
he plants in deep burrows and covers
thinly at first, the horseshoe doing the
rest of the covering and demolishing all
weeds by the same stroke. But as to
manure and culture, every man must
learn his own land; what would be
good for one farm may not work well
on another.