Cultivated like other corn, only that this is more generally planted in
drills. Three feet apart, and six inches in the drill, it yields more
weight of better corn to the acre than to have it nearer. The great
fault in raising this crop is getting it too thick. The finest-looking
brush is of corn cut while yet so green that the seed is useless. But
the brush is stronger, and will make better brooms for wear, when the
corn is allowed to stand until the seed is hard, though not till the
brush is dry. The land should be rich. This is a hard, exhausting crop
for the soil. To harvest, bend down, two feet from the ground, two rows,
allowing them so to fall across each other as to expose all the heads.
Cut off the heads, with six or eight inches of the stalk, and place them
on top of the bent rows to dry. In a week, in dry weather, they will be
well cured, and should be then spread thin, under cover, in plenty of
air. There is no worse article to heat and mould. In large crops, they
usually take off the seed before curing; it is much lighter to handle,
and less bulky. It may be done then, or in winter, as you prefer. The
seed is removed on a cylinder eighteen inches long, and two and a half
feet in diameter, having two hundred wrought nails with their points
projecting. It is turned by a crank, like a fanning mill. The corn is
held in a convenient handful, like flax on a hatchel. Where large
quantities are to be cleaned of the seed, power is used to turn the
machine. Ground or boiled, the seed makes good feed for most animals.
Dry, it has too hard a shell. Fowls, with access to plenty of gravel, do
well on it. Broom-corn is not a very profitable crop, except to those
who manufacture their own corn into brooms. There is much labor about
it, and considerable hazard of injuring the crop, by the inexperienced;
hence, young farmers had, generally, better let it alone. There are two
varieties--they may be forms of growth, from peculiar habits of
culture--one, short, with a large, stiff brush running up through the
middle, with short branches to the top, called pine-top: it is of no
value;--the other is a long, fine brush, the middle being no coarser
than the outside. It should be planted with a seed-drill, to make the
rows straight and narrow for the convenience of cultivation. Harrowing
with a span of horses, with a =V= drag, one front tooth out,
as soon as the corn is up, is beneficial to the crop.