which I afterwards did by Mr. Exos few have had some ground, and made a loaf DIDDAMS, shoemaker of Sutton Scotney, or two; they like it better than any other who was so kind as to be my agent in the substitute for wheaten flour, and they think it would be a most excellent thing in times of business. Returning home my ideas ex- scarcity. Some of the specimens which I send panded. In getting the parcel ready for have been grown under great disadvantages, Mr. DIDDAMS, it came into my head to being stuck under the shade of a tree, or send a number of ears to be distributed squeezed in between potatoes or beans. Anoby him to labourers in all the parishes rally in the labourers' gardens; they keep a ther year we shall see it planted pretty generound about. From that came the notion great quantity to distribute to their neighof sending corn to other persons for dis- bours; next year it will share the ground with tribution; and hence the general spread the potatoes, and will, I have not the least of the corn over so many counties. But vegetable. The answer I got from nearly doubt, eventually supplant them, except as a next, after the hard parishes, came into every one that I questioned as to its principal my mind, the little town of Battle, in good was, hog-fatting.' Sussex, and the good and true and vir- farmers intend trying it next year. Even tuous people of its neighbourhood. Mr. Your greatest enemies think there is some good in it. JAMES GUTSELL, at Battle, who is a tailor, with a great deal more sense than one-half of the law-makers that I have ever known, was my agent in the distribution; and he has now sent me samples of corn, ticketed with the following names, which I record to his and their honour. He sends me two ears from each grower. But I must first insert his letter. "To Mr. Wm. Cobbett. A few of the small "Your most obedient servant, I shall now insert the names of the growers, observing that some of the tickets given him time to send or go into all the John Archer, shoemaker, Seddlescomb. "Battle, Nov. 23, 1831. "Dear Sir, The ears of Cobbett-Corn which accompany this are the produce of the seed sent by you for distribution. They are not the very best that were grown, but may be taken as an average specimen of the crop in the neighbourhood. In collecting the cars I made it a point to collect also the opinions of the growers, as to its uses and advantages over other grain. There is but one opinion of the advantages which a cultivator of it would obtain in point of production, though there is a difference respecting the probable amount of an average crop. Some think that 100 Mr. Henry Reace, Seddlescomb. busbels to the acre would be a fair crop ; others, Samuel Britt, labourer, Battle. particularly Messrs. Graw and Gibson, appear Mr. John Weller, farmer, Westry. confident of a bushel to the rod, that is, with John Waters, gardener, Robert's-bridge. skilful management. The labourers are very Edward Cox, labourer, Battle. proud of it; they hang it up in their windows James Crowhurst, labourer, Battle. as an ornament. I have often thought of the Robert Parkes, farmer, Battle. "fraud" when I have seen it. I heard yes-Spencer Tollhurst, labourer, Brede. terday, that Mr. Plumley, of Pevensey, has this Mr. Biner, Seddlescomb. year grown 40 bushels on a quarter of an acre; John White, labourer, Battle. the land there is richer than it is here. I have Mr. Pearson, Battle. received some written opinious of some William White, labourer, Battle. growers, one of which (Mr. Gibson's, school- John Crouch, milwright, Battle. master) send you; and I must add, that Ransom, labourer, Battle. he is not the only one who thinks it would James Pepper, wheelwright, Seddlescomb. make good malt; the same thing had been Colshurst, labourer, Seddlescomb. stated to me before by men who are better ca- Samuel Siunock, shoemaker, Seddle-comb. pable of judging of the matter than I can pre-Growed in Battle Park, under the direction of tend to be. You ask what use the labourers make of what they get.' They give a little of it to their hogs by way of experiment; and Lady Webster. Mr. Gutsell, if he had had time, would they tell me the hogs are crazy for it. A have sent into the parishes more distant 6 from Battle, to Burwash, Crowhurst, | collect of the men I gave it to last April. Most and all round about. However, through of them put the ticket to their own corn themselves; as you will see. All the corn has ripened excellently, and most of it was gathered by the 11th of October. I planted about one rod of ground, and I have got nine gallons of shelled corn. Mr. Shrimpton of Down Hurstbourne, planted three rods of liam Hunter, of Longparish, planted about one rod; he is sure that he has quite a bushel or more of shelled corn to the rod of ground. parish, planted seven or eight rods of ground. And a man of the name of Froom, of LongHe sent word to me, he had about one bushel to the rod. He had his corn shelled and ground, and then gave it to his pigs; and so sent you an ear or two of corn from them. did Hunter, which is the reason I have not You will see two ears marked Francis Ray, of Bullington, and Jacob Ray, of Sutton; both of whom planted about a rod of ground, and marked THOMAS BYE, of Stoke Charity, who You will see some corn had a good crop. planted about one rod of ground, I think the best crop I ever saw. Mrs. MASON's corn is particularly good. I gave corn to about 70 or 80 persons; they generally planted a row or two in their gardens, except LovELL and SMITH, at Northington, who planted a considerable piece of ground each. When I saw them, some weeks ago, they told me their crops were exand Micheldever, but I have not had time to go cellent. There was some planted at Stratton there; I hear it ripened well, and indeed in no I now come back to the hard parishes, one instance have I heard it fail. You will see in the north of Hampshire, to which, as two ears marked Samuel Phillips, an old I related before, I sent a parcel of corn notice; he is a good old man, having bred Chopstick, which I would wish particularly to to be distributed by Mr. ENOS DIDDAMS, up a large family by hard labour, and now shoemaker, of Sutton Scotney, which is a his work is not quite done. He was the first hamlet, belonging to the parish of Wuns-man I applied to for the corn. I told him my ton. Mr. DIDDAMS has not had time to instructions from you to give him 6d. for two ears. He said, No, I planted 24 corns, and collect samples from more than five or six have these bunches of fine ears. I have put parishes out of perhaps twenty, in which some short ones by for seed and Mr. Cobbett, the corn has been growed. I shall in- God bless him, he is welcome to the whole of sert the list of names, occupations, and them if he wishes it.' I will give you more particulars about the corn when I write again. parishes, as I did in the case of Battle. Please to write to me as soon as convenient. But I must first insert Mr. DIDDAMS's letter. I saw Mr. Diddams's crop in the month of August, I am sure that he had not a rod and a quarter at the utmost; and he has, you see, nine gallons of shelled corn, which is at about the rate of twenty quarters to the acre; and I am certain that this is to be done upon a whole field of good land with skilful cultivation. I insert the letter to Mr. Diddams's honour, and the list to the honour of those who cultivated the corn. his kindness, through his real goodness and public spirit, here is more good done than would be done in a whole lifetime of the great, gaping, stupid LIAR, if his life were to begin again, and if his in-ground. He has three bushels of corn. Wiltentions were as benevolent in the new life as they have been malignant in this. I shall keep this box of Battle corn, and the box from the hard parishes, to plant next year as seed. Generally speaking, it is not equal, in point of size of ear, to some of the corn that I have mentioned before; but it is all perfectly sound and good. I shall have bags made to hold these samples of corn from the different counties; and what a convenient thing one of these bags, when a third part full, would be to lay about the head of the great and stupid LIAR! He would take it quietly, I will warrant him. Let him now go and show himself in any of these counties, let him go to that" estate," of which he told the poor Prestonians, the other day, that he had just received the rents!" Is "Charley" PEARSON F's receiver I wonder? "Sutton Scotney, Nov. 23, 1831. "Sir, I shall send off a box to-morrow morning with all the cars of your corn I could I "I am, Sir, your obedient servant, "ENOS DIDDAMS. "Wm. Cobbett, Esq. London." Enos Diddams, shoemaker, Sutton Scotney. Thomas Bye, labourer, Stoke Charity. Richard Withers, labourer, Sutton Scotney. Thomas Webb, bricklayer, Barton Stacey. who have sent me ticketed corn from other parts; but I trust that they will see the reasonableness of the motives from which the distinction has arisen. 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. EXPERIENCE has dictated to me to 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. 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 advertisement, 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 10 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-top♦ 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 to eat; but this remnant of the corntops served them instead of hay for a fortnight. My horse increased in flesh, and my cows in milk, when they were fed upon these tops, the cows having before been kept upon fine-loaved cabbages. Now, then, look at the value of these tops and blades. If the cows and horse had bad 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. 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 day; but, somehow or another, people always, I think, put off purchases as long as they can, when the article is to be got only with ready money: however, be the motive what it might, we missed the hay-day, and could get no hay till the Saturday. Having a great repugnance 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 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 6. 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 ali 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 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 thrée? 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 |