A Treatise on Cobbett's Corn Author:William Cobbett Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3CHAPTER III. textit{On the soil and the preparation of it, proper for the Corn, and on the season for planting it in England. 34. Corn, like grain and most other things of any value,... more » grows best, and is most productive, in good land; but, with some very few exceptions, with regard to the very wet and stiff clays, and with regard to shade particularly, I know of hardly any land in England, on which there might not be produced a tolerably good crop of Indian Corn, which would certainly succeed, in numerous cases, on land much too poor to yield a good crop of wheat, or even a good crop of barley, or oats, or rye. I have seen it grown in America, in fields which would have borne neither of these, and this in thousands and thousands of instances. It is regarded as what we call textit{a. fallow- crop, as well as a productive crop. I have seen fields which have lain for several years without producing any thing but a little miserable grass, liberally mixed with red sorrel and other weeds, which will live when all other plants will perish. Such a field as this is ploughed up, shal lowly, as soon as the frost is out of the ground in the spring, which, speaking of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Long Island, is some time in the month of March, earlier in some years than in others. In this state the ground lies until the beginning of May, when it is harrowed, or rather scratched over, several times, but not in a manner sufficient to bring up the sward that has been buried by the plough. This harrowing is generally performed in Long Island by a boy, who rides a horse that drags the harrow after him; sometimes it is done by a yoke of oxen; but it is repeated very often, and until the ground on the surface are broken very fine. 35. The next operation is the marking. The corn is there planted in hills, or clumps....« less