Farmers may be surprised to know that their crops will depend a good
deal on the color of the plows! yet so it is. Bright plows are found
to produce much better crops than any other. It may be electricity, or
magic for aught we know; we merely state the fact, leaving others to
account for it. But very much depends upon the manner of doing it, for
merely scrubbing it by hand with emery or sand is not the thing—_it
must be scoured by the soil_. It is found that the subsoil scours it
better for wheat, than the top soil—for a plow kept bright by very
deep plowing affords better wheat than a plow brightened by the
surface of the soil. It is the same with corn. In respect to this last
crop, if you will keep your plow bright as a mirror until the corn is
in the milk, you will find that it will have a wonderful effect. We
appeal to every good farmer if he ever knew a rusty plow to be
accompanied with good crops? Iron rust on a plow-share is poisonous to
corn.
A young farmer of about twenty years of age said to us the other day:
“If anybody wants me, he must come to my corn-field; I live there—I am
at it all the time—I have harrowed my corn once, plowed five times,
and gone over it with the hoe once.” “Yes,” said his old father, who
seemed, justly, quite proud of his son—“keep your plows agoing if you
want to fetch corn. I never let the ground settle on the top; if it is
beaten down by rain, or begins to look a kind of rusty on the surface,
I pitch into it, and keep it as mealy as flour. The fact is our
farmers raise more corn than they can tend, they can’t go over the
corn more than once or twice, and that’ll never do, and I guess I’ll
show old Billy R—— that it’s so.”
Some ambitious farmers are pleased to “lay by” the corn very early;
but it is not wise; for the grass is always more forward to grow about
this season than any other; and the ground will become very foul where
corn is too early laid by, and, what is more to the purpose, a great
deal of the nourishment of a crop is derived from the air and dew
_conveyed to the roots_. This can be done only when the surface is
kept thoroughly open.