Richard Withers, labourer, Sutton Scotney. Thomas Webb, bricklayer, Barton Stacey. Now, then, we have it incontestably the soils and in every degree of climate in proved, that this corn will flourish in all this kingdom. I have samples from Bungay, in Suffolk, to Berkeley, in Gloucestershire; and from Pevensey Level to Paisley. I have it from all soils; marsh, loam, gravel, clay, sand, and chalk. The ears are longest and biggest upon the fat land; but there appears to be no better, closer, or sounder corn than that grown in the hard parishes, which is a flinty soil at top, and chalk at bottom. WILLIAM COBBETT. SECOND PART. George Ball, labourer, Barton Stacey. William Bye, labourer, Sutton Scotney. Francis Ray, labourer, Bullington. William Goodhall, labourer, Barton Stacey, William Lock, labourer, Barton Stacey. Daniel Harmswood, Sutton Scotney. Widow Ireland, Sutton Scotney. John Twinney Cooper, Sutton Scotney. Richard Cleverly, labourer, Barton Stacey. William Shrimpton writes me a letter himself, and tells me that he sent me two very fine ears by the guard of one of the coaches, but that the guard told him he had lost them on the road! A very good hint never to trust to guards again; for, though they may be very good guards of other things, they do not seem to have much ability in guarding the ears of corn. EXPERIENCE has dictated to me to Shrimpton, who lives very near to the spot make this addition to my treatise on the where THE LIAR used once to swagger cultivation of the Cobbett-corn. This about as lord of the manor, relates, at addition will relate solely, as was stated the close of his letter, a very pretty fact in the advertiseinent, to the matter conconcerning THE LIAR; which fact he tained in Chapters VII, and VIII. Chapwill relate to the Liar's face, if he dare ter VII. gives instructions for the topto show that face in Hampshire again. ping of the corn, and with regard to the I hope that I have not omitted to notice mode of stacking the tops. The time any communication that I have received for topping is about the first week in upon this subject. I very much wished September. The tops and blades are to insert the whole of the details expressed full of juice: we never have sun at that on the tickets of the various parcels; but I time of the year, to dry them sufficiently found it impossible to do this within the for stacking, to be used as dry fodder. space that I have at my command. II have found it impossible to do it; have done this in the cases of Battle, and and, what is more, I have found a more of the hard parishes, for several reasons: advantageous use, to which to apply the in the case of Battle, because the excellent tops and blades. I never had a fair oppeople of that town and neighbourhood portunity of making this experiment in acted so just and manly a part in the case a minute and exact manner, until this of THOMAS GOODMAN, and, by acting summer of 1831. I had a hundred and that part, blowed to atoms that foul con- twenty-three rods of ground in corn. I spiracy against my liberty and life, in had two cows and a horse to keep. I which the bloody old Times was a con- began topping the corn (in the manner spicuous actor; in the case of the hard described in Chapter VII) on the thirtyparishes, because from them those two first of August. The horse had the excellent young men the MASONS were corn-tops and blades instead of hay for taken and sent from their widowed mother one month from that time; and the two for life: and, in both cases, because the cows lived wholly upon the tops and cultivators of the corn have been almost blades for exactly two months. At the exclusively labouring men. I am equally end of that time, I got eight Somersetobliged by the kindness of those gentlemen shire ewes, and there were corn-tops Now, then, look at the value of these tops and blades. If the cows and horse had had hay instead of these tops and blades, the cows would have required four trusses a week each, and the horse two, at fifty-six pounds to the truss; so that, reckoning forty trusses to the ton, there would have been required two tons and two hundred weight of hay, besides what would have been wanted for the ewes, which would have made the whole not less than two tons and a half. Meadows, on an average, do not yield above a ton and a half to the acre. A third part of the times, this is more than half spoiled by the wet; so that an acre of tops and blades, which never can be spoiled by the wet, are worth more than the whole produce of the best meadow land in the kingdom, take one year with another. The very best hay is not equal in quality to tops and blades ; and such hay can no where be bought under three pounds a ton of 2240lbs. weight: then they are worth seven pounds ten even at that rate. They are brought into the yard as tares, lucerne, or any other green food is. I will, by-and-by, speak of the distances whereat to plant the corn, in order to render the carting of the tops not an inconvenient work. enough then left to feed them, in place unaccompanied with dry food for one of giving them hay, for fourteen days. meal in the day. We therefore were By this time the blades were become about to get some hay on the Monwithered. The ewes had other things day; but, somehow or another, people to eat; but this remnant of the corn- always, I think, put off purchases as tops served them instead of hay for a long as they can, when the article is to fortnight. My horse increased in flesh, be got only with ready money: however, and my cows in milk, when they were be the motive what it might, we missed fed upon these tops, the cows having the hay-day, and could get no hay till before been kept upon fine-loaved cab- the Saturday. Having a great repugbages. nance to the buying of hay by the single truss, and yet valuing highly the health of my cows, I told my man to go and cut off a bundle of stalks with his knife, and to toss them into the cow-crib. The work of topping and blading is never performed with such complete neatness as not to leave some few blades to wither along with the stalk; and I told my man that the cows would pick off those dead blades, and might get along in that way till Saturday. The bundle of stalks was tossed into the crib at their full length, for they had been cut by a knife from the ground. I went into the yard in about an hour after, and saw the crib perfectly empty, and asked, what the stalks had been flung out for? In short, I found that the cows had eaten them up every morsel! This was on Thursday, the 3rd of November. Then I began to repent of what I had done; for I had gone on in this way: as fast as I gathered the corn, I had dug up the stalks and brought them to bed the yard with; so that I did not make this discovery. until I had thrown down, as yard-bedding, more than three-fourths of my stalks. The stalks become by the month of November, pretty dry. In America they become dry enough to house, or to put up in great stacks; they will not become dry enough for that in this country, unless you let them stand out till the middle, or latter end of the winter, and then they become mere sticks; but they will be better than hay all through the month of November and the half of December; and if you catch a dry day, and tie them up in small sheaves, a small circular stack of them with a hole left in the middle, with some straw thrown over the top, and a hole run down through the straw into the ground, I am persuaded this would We now come to the stalks, as fodder. In paragraph 117 of the book, there is a plate representing the stalk with the ears left on. After the ears are taken off, there remains merely the stalk; and even the stalk is eaten by cattle in America. I had no idea that they could be applied to this use here. After my tops and blades were gone, my cows were living upon the leaves and crowns of mangel wurzel; and these things never should be given to cattle or to sheep keep them fresh and good till spring. The correctness or incorrectness of this opinion I shall ascertain next March; for I have made a little stack of this sort for the purpose. We cannot, mode of keeping the ears. in this country, keep the ears in any quantity without a KILN. Do not be frightened, farmer; you cannot keep hops without a kiln; and yet you often Here, then, is at least another thirty follow that gambling trade. The shillings an acre added to the value of Americans dry their hops in the sun. the fodder. But we have not all We cannot; and yet we grow hops, yet; for there are the husks. They will and better hops than they. But, oh! make paper, the finest part of them, and the expense of a kiln! Very heavy, to also excellent mattresses and beds. I be sure; yet it may be borne. I found should have made the fine parts of mine it necessary to have one upon my little into mattresses, or sold them to up- farm this year: I stuck it up in one holsterers, this year; but in my little corner of a cart-shed. It cost me squeezed-up farm-yard I had no room 6l. 15s., to be sure; but, unless friend for either sorting them or saving Swing, or the devil of carelessness, were them, and in they went to the cow-crib to assail it, it would last half-a-dozen also, and eaten they were like all life-times like mine. My fuel has cost the rest of the plant. Ten shillings me fourteen shillings to dry more than worth of hay would make but a very two hundred and twenty bushels of poor figure if it had to face an acre of ears; and have not seed-growers kilns ? husks in the more than alderman-like and could they raise, on an average of presence of the mouth of a cow. Nor years, kidney-beans, and many other have we done yet with this affair of the seeds, without a kiln ? And do not the fodder; for having corn to thrash out farmers very frequently go upon their for Mr. Sapsford, and having no hole or knees to my Lords of the Treasury, to corner wherein to deposit the cobs, the get the permission of their highnesses common-council-like stomachs of the to incur all the expenses of carrying cows here presented themselves as a last their wheat several miles to a malt resort. Two bushels at a time were kiln, there to have it dried, and then to flung into the crib, and they disappeared bring it home again? Is there any with all convenient dispatch. I have farmer that would not, many times in said that an acre of corn fodder is worth his life-time, give his ears to have a eight pounds in any part of England; kiln to dry his beans upon, instead of s and if these facts, which I could verify letting them tumble out in the field, if necessary upon the oath of one or two and there lie growing on the top of the persons, be true, every farmer will say ground? And does not Mr. Tull tell that this fodder is worth more than ten us of a sensible farmer in Oxfordshire, pounds an acre; so that even if the corn who built a kiln upon his farm, bought were not to ripen, this would be better cold wheat at the market, carried it than any other crop that you can grow home and dried it, then sold it again, upon the ground; for, observe, if the and thus made a considerable fortune in corn ears were soft, they would make a very few years? And in this climate the fodder twice as good as it would be of everlasting drip, ought there to be if the ears were to be ripened and taken any considerable farm without a kiln? away. besides which, in the hop-growing counSo much for the alteration that ex-ties of Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Worcesperience has suggested with regard to matter contained in Chapter VII.; and now for the alterations to be made in the matter contained in Chapter VIII.; namely, the harvesting of the ears, the husking of them, the mode of keeping them, and the separating of the grain from the cobb. I must first speak of the ter, have they not the kilns already, in two cases out of three? The difference in the price between forty bushels of dry wheat and forty bushels of cold wheat, would more than defray the annual expenses of the kiln. The heat ought never to be above eighty degrees upon the cloth or the tiles; twice turn ing in about thirty hours, the corn being in the ear, and without the husk, takes all the moisture out of the cob; and then the ears, in any quantity, may be flung in a heap in a granary, and there kept till you wish to have them shelled. Now, I am to speak of taking in the ears and of the husking of them; but, it will be the best way for us to go regularly to work, and to follow the process all the way through. Suppose we have a field of ten acres. To carry on our operations upon such a piece, we must have space to go between the rows with a cart. Plant the corn always in rows from north to south, as nearly as possible. Put two rows together, a foot apart, and the plants at eight inches apart in the row, the plants of one row standing opposite the middle of the intervals of the plants in the other row: then leave a clear interval of five feet, plant another two rows in the same manner, and thus go on throughout the field; you have thus just as many plants as if the rows were all three feet apart, and all the plants will have more air and more sun, and bear a greater crop and ripen sooner, and bear better corn, than if the rows were only three feet apart throughout the field. This gives you, too, fine room for inter-cultivation by the plough. When the time for topping and blading comes, have a light cart with wheels four feet apart from outside to outside, with movable side ladders, and head and tail ladders : it goes along the interval, and you fill it from the rows and the sides, and it brings in its load, as quickly as it will lucerne, tares, or any-thing else. might go on through the day, gathering by the bushel, and overlookers standing at the receiving-bins to see that all the work was properly done, and the cart, as in the case of the hops, come and carry home to the kiln the result of the day's work. In case of wet weather, you must halt, as in the case of hop-. picking: only that, in the case of the corn, the wet will be a matter of less consequence, seeing that it would only have to lie a little longer upon the kiln without receiving any damage, as the hops do. This work comes, too, after the hop-picking, and after all the summer and autumnal work for women and children is over, which, to all the other advantages of this crop, is one of no small value to be added. There only remains to speak of the shelling of the corn. In Chapter VIII. of the treatise, paragraph 136, I spoke of the various tedious methods of getting the corn off the cob; but at the same time I said that I had written to America for a thrasher, which would do the business with great celerity, and much better than by hand. To write to my friend at New York, was something like Burdett's famous, profound, and philosophical observation, namely, that "to have was to have;" for here, to write was to have. I got it, gave it to my neighbour, Mr. JUDSON, at Kensington; he has made others by it, which he sells at a very reasonable price; and he has given me one, which I call a thrasher, and not a machine, for reasons best known to myself and my friends in the hard parishes. This thrasher, working in company with a man and a boy, will knock you off ten sacks in a day, and give them time to sift it and measure it. In Chapter VIII. I have recommended the pulling off of the ears as they do in America, husk and all, and husking You have the corn in the them on a barn's floor or some such ear lying in the granary, and there you place. I now recommend the stripping thrash it as you want it, either to use or of the husk downward, leaving it upon to sell; and thus I conclude my inthe plant, screwing off the ear, tossing it structions with regard to the raising of into the cart, and bringing home the ears this corn and the bringing of it to marto the kiln at once. This work might ket, there only remaining now for me be done just in the same manner as hop-to prove, that, bushel for bushel, it is, in picking is. The gatherers, each fur- every family, worth more than wheat; nished with a bushel-basket and a peck-and this I shall do in a manner, not to basket, the big one for the hard ears, leave the fact in dispute amongst any and the little one for the soft ears, but the most perverse of human beings. corn; my own crop, I am not able to state the amount of with accuracy. Owing to my squeezed-up place, I have been compelled to gather by slow degrees, and to apply by slow degrees. I The propositions I mean to maintain are as follows:-1. That our crops of the Cobbett-corn will be more than double in amount than American crops, acre for acre. 2. That, that the Cobbettcorn is greatly superior to that of Ame-began by sending three barrels of bags rica, both in weight and in quality; of corn in the ear to VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. 3. That, in weight of grain, the Cob- What part of this world will there be bett-corn is, at the very least, three for which I shall not have done sometimes as great as that of wheat, acre for thing before I come to the close of my acre; 4. That a bushel of Cobbett-corn labours? The fleeing from Sidmouth's produces more flour than a bushel of dungeons (which dungeons he shall find wheat; 5. And lastly, that the flour is, that I have not forgotten) carried the in the generality of families, of more culture of the Swedish turnip and value than the flour of wheat, pound for mangel wurzel to the United States of pound. America, and also carried a breed of the beautiful Sussex hogs. But as to my crop of corn, on my hundred and twentyseven rods of ground, Mr. Sapsford has had four quarters and a half of shelled corn; so that here are five quarters of shelled corn, including more than a sack, or coomb, that went to Van Diemen's Land in the ear. Here would be crop enough in all conscience; but I calculate that I have more than nine quarters besides this. "To have is to have," as profound Burdett most convincingly remarks, and I have it not all; for the pigs and fowls have had some. However, exclusively of a pretty large parcel eaten by the rats, some upon the ground, and some which they carried under a strawrick, to the amount of four or five. bushels of corn in the ear, I am convinced that I have growed, upon the hundred and twenty-three rods, fifteen quarters of shelled corn. Mr. Diddams speaks of several crops of a bushel of shelled corn to the rod; and that is at the rate of twenty quarters to the acre of shelled corn. Mr. Diddams is a man of sound judgment, and of perfect ve The quantity of crop of the Cobbettcorn, compared with the American, the former growed in England and the latter in America, is settled at once; because the fact is notorious, that twenty bushels of shelled corn to the acre is the average crop in the United States of America If the reader will look into my YEAR's RESIDENCE, he will there see the fact incidentally stated, and he will see that the statement was made upon the authority of a well-known farmer of Pennsylvania, and as relative to the old and well-cultivated farms. He states the average of corn to be twenty bushels, and the average of wheat to be sixteen bushels and it will be borne in mind that the Year's Residence was published at New York, concurrently with the publication of it in England. So that this fact relative to the American crops, is unquestionable; and with regard to the amount of the crop of corn in England, leaving my crops out of the question, there is the testimony and experience of Messrs. Clouting and Kent, that they are growing at the rate of ten quarters to the acre; there is the testi-racity; but Mr. Diddams speaks of the mony of Mr. Isles, that he has growed at the rate of eight and a half quarters; of Mr. Blunt, that he has growed still more; and of Mr. Plumley, that he has growed twenty bushels of shelled corn upon thirty rods of ground, which is a hundred and six bushels to the acre, which is thirteen quarters and two bushels. Now, these are all farmers; they speak with great caution, and are by no means disposed to exaggerate in favour of the produce of small quantities of land. Upon the whole, however, every man must be convinced, that, upon the average of fair corn land, in good heart, and well cultivated, the average crop of Cobbett-corn in England will be ten quarters to the acre. Arthur Young, after an actual survey of the whole of the kingdom, states the average wheatcrop at three quarters to the acre; so that here are three times as much in |