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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.

ing in about thirty hours, the corn being might go on through the day, gathering in the ear, and without the husk, takes by the bushel, and overlookers standing all the moisture out of the cob; and at the receiving bins to see that all the then the ears, in any quantity, may be work was properly done, and the cart, flung in a heap in a granary, and there as in the case of the hops, come and kept till you wish to have them shelled. carry home to the kiln the result of the Now, I am to speak of taking in the day's work. In case of wet weather, ears and of the husking of them; but, you must hall, as in the case of hopit will be the best way for us to go re-picking only that, in the case of the gularly to work, and to follow the pro-corn, the wet will be a matter of less cess all the way through. Suppose we consequence, seeing that it would only 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 There only remains to speak of the of the intervals of the plants in the other shelling of the corn. In Chapter VIII. of row: then leave a clear interval of five the treatise, paragraph 136, I spoke of feet, plant another two rows in the same the various tedious methods of getting manner, and thus go on throughout the the corn off the cob; but at the same field; you have thus just as many plants time I said that I had written to Ameas if the rows were all three feet apart, rica for a thrasher, which would do the and all the plants will have more air and business with great celerity, and much more sun, and bear a greater crop and better than by hand. To write to my ripen sooner, and bear better corn, than friend at New York, was something if the rows were only three feet apart like Burdett's famous, profound, and throughout the field. This gives you, philosophical observation, namely, that too, fine room for inter-cultivation by" to have was to have;" for here, to 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.

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.

The propositions I mean to maintain are corn; my own crop, I am not able to as follows:-1. That our crops of the state the amount of with accuracy. Cobbett-corn will be more than double Owing to my squeezed-up place, I have in amount than American crops, acre been compelled to gather by slow defor acre. 2. That, that the Cobbett-grees, and to apply by slow degrees. I corn 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 The quantity of crop of the Cobbett- beautiful Sussex hogs. But as to my corn, compared with the American, the crop of corn, on my hundred and twentyformer growed in England and the latter seven rods of ground, Mr. Sapsford has in America, is settled at once; because had four quarters and a half of shelled the fact is notorious, that twenty bushels corn; so that here are five quarters of of shelled corn to the acre is the average shelled corn, including more than a sack, crop in the United States of America or coomb, that went to Van Diemen's If the reader will look into my YEAR'S Land in the ear. Here would be crop RESIDENCE, he will there see the fact enough in all conscience; but I calcuincidentally stated, and he will see that late that I have more than nine quarters the statement was made upon the au- besides this. "To have is to have," as thority of a well-known farmer of Penn- profound Burdett most convincingly resylvania, and as relative to the old and marks, and I have it not all; for the pigs well-cultivated farms. He states the and fowls have had some. However, average of corn to be twenty bushels, exclusively of a pretty large parcel eaten and the average of wheat to be sixteen by the rats, some upon the ground, and bushels and it will be borne in mind some which they carried under a strawthat the Year's Residence was published rick, to the amount of four or five at New York, concurrently with the bushels of corn in the ear, I am conpublication of it in England. So that vinced that I have growed, upon the this fact relative to the American crops, hundred and twenty-three rods, fifteen is unquestionable; and with regard to quarters of shelled corn. Mr. Diddams the amount of the crop of corn in Eng-speaks of several crops of a bushel of land, leaving my crops out of the shelled corn to the rod; and that is at question, there is the testimony and ex- the rate of twenty quarters to the acre perience of Messrs. Clouting and Kent, of shelled corn. Mr. Diddams is a man that they are growing at the rate of ten of sound judgment, and of perfect vequarters 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

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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

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bulk of corn as in wheat; though corn is only five months upon the ground, while the wheat occupies the ground the whole year, and in some parts of the country is actually standing upon the ground more than a whole year. I have frequently seen one piece of land with the wheat three inches high, while wheat was standing uncut in the adjoining piece.

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But let me not wrong the Yankees. The American corn, of which this is the account, was bought at Mark-lane; and as it was the finest that Mr. SAPSFORD could find there, it would not be doing But, besides the bulk of crop, there is Jonathan wrong if I were to let this the weight of the crop; and in this re- pass as his best corn; but, in order to spect the corn exceeds the wheat, bushel show him my determination to meet for bushel. Next, the corn exceeds the him fairly, I will give him an instance wheat weight for weight in produce of of his very best. In 1829, a merchant flour, which will appear, and indeed be of the city ordered from New York, for incontestably proved, by the following Mr. SAPSFORD, fifty quarters of the finest statements, which I have from Mr. American corn that could be got. In SAPSFORD, and which relate to the order that it might come without any American corn as compared with the possible injury, it was put into oak Cobbett-corn, as well as to the Cobbett-casks that cost eleven shillings each in corn as compared with the wheat. America I saw it after its arrival, and These statements come from a man who it was the finest sample of corn that I has been in the flour-trade and the had ever seen in my life. There was not baking-trade all his life-time; a man of a single defective grain to be seen great minuteness in his calculations and amongst it; yet, you will see that it observations; a man who understands fell, in point of flour, thirty pounds the whole of the matter, from the tran-short (in a sack of four bushels of the sactions at Mark-lane to those of the Cobbett-corn), though it was ground by baker's shop, and his statements are as the same miller (Mr. Death), and dressed follows. Until this year, there was no in the same manner. The statement is Cobbett-corn that had been, except by myself, turned into flour; and I, as well as Mr. SAPSFORD, had no idea that the corn growed here would be quite equal, bushel for bushel, to the American corn, in produce of flour. The statements will show how completely and aggreeably we were disappointed in this respect; to these statements I now request the reader's particular attention.

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The sack weighed.

Flour.
Offal.
Waste.

POUNDS.

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232

185

37

10

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The difference in the gross weight of the sack is only 12 lbs.; but here, you see, are thirty-seven pounds of offal, instead of twenty-one, and ten pounds of waste instead of eight. Besides which, Mr. SAPSFORD says that the American corn will not make so much bread, pound for pound, as the Cobbett-corn; that the former is, in fact, a courser thing than the latter; and that it is like what is called steely wheat, compared with fine plump rich wheat.

We now come to a comparison of a more important nature still; namely, a comparison between the produce of a

sack of Cobbett-corn and the produce of obliging correspondents upon the suba sack of English wheat. Mr. SAPSFORD, ject of the corn, tells me, that a neighwishing to be very accurate as to this bour of his questions the accuracy of matter, applied to Mr. Symonds of the comparative statement lately pubReading, for an account of the produce lished in the Register, and that he inof some grindings of wheat, Mr. Sy- tends to furnish me with his observamonds being a very celebrated dealer in tions upon the subject. He will now flour. He got from him, a week or two have ample means of doing this, and ago, the following statements of two I shall be very happy to receive his grindings; one of the very best white communication. Mr. Kipping tells me wheat and one of red wheat. The that even his turkeys, fowls, and pigs, wheat was not ground until the month call, by their conduct, with regard to the of July last, so that it was old and dry; corn, THE LIAR by his proper name. and, as will be seen, the sack weighed When the pigs were thus sensibly actprecisely as much as my sack of Cob-ing, perhaps Mr. Kipping might have bett-corn. The statements are as follows:

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RED WHEAT.-Weight of the sack

Flour (including as above)
Offal (as above).
Waste

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been reminded of his kind offer to give me a boar of that breed. When he can do it, and a white one if convenient, I shall be very much obliged to him. Every-thing is now settled, except the value of the corn flour compared with 36 that of wheat, pound for pound; and I know well that the corn flour is, in any 244 family of considerable size and of mode

202

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176

44

228

rate living, a great deal the more .... 228 valuable of the two. Of itself, it will not conveniently make bread; because it is not adhesive to the degree that 8 wheat flour is; but mixed, one third with wheat or one-third with rye flour, and it makes better bread than wheat flour or rye flour will make of itself. So that you see the Cobbett-corn exceeds Mr. Sapsford makes and sells the bread, even this finest white English wheat, one-fourth corn flour and the rest 13lbs. upon the sack in produce of flour; wheaten. He sells it at the same price and the red wheat exceeds it by 39lbs. as the wheaten bread, I believe; and, upon the sack in produce of flour; and, the only thing he has to complain of is, observe this, that the offal of the corn is that he cannot get corn flour enough. worth 3s. 6d. the bushel. Mr. Death, I buy the bread, in preference to the who is a farmer as well as a miller, takes wheaten bread; and every one finds, it at that from Mr. SAPSFORD, and I after eating the Cobbett-bread for some should be very glad to have it; for time, that the return to the wheaten having seen a sample of it, which, by- bread is unpleasant. In puddings it is the-by, I carried with me to Winchester better than the wheaten flour; it is as when I went to meet Jephthah Marsh good without eggs as the wheaten flour and the Barings, to show to the far- is with, and then it admits of all the mers, I would give more for it than variety of uses mentioned in my trea for any barley-meal that I ever saw, tise, and to which I beg to refer the bushel for bushel. I forgot to state that Mr. Symonds's grindings of wheat I have made this addition to my book were in great parcels, and that, there- much longer than I intended; but I could fore, they had the advantage over the not well make it shorter. It remains single sack of Cobbett-corn, particularly for me still to say something to those in the article of waste. Mr. Kipping, gentlemen who intend to plant corn, rewhom I have mentioned amongst my lative to the procuring of the seed. The

reader.

best way is to get it in the ear from those which the planter has seen grow it. Then you cannot be deceived. Not to purchase of a seedsman on any account; for, without any impeachment of his integrity, there is his ignorance of the matter. There are fifty sorts of corn, and more too; and it is impossible that he should know one from the other. Yet if you get a wrong sort of corn you have no crop; and this has been the case in hundreds of instances. I have saved a great part of my this year's crop, to sell for seed; and I have it hung up in the rooms at Bolt-court, being a sight worth riding a thousand miles to see, and which may be seen by any gentleman for nothing. I have had it tied up in bunches of ears four in a bunch; and I sell it according to the following table-

COBBETT-CORN.

out persons enough of whom it may be bought. It ought to be kept in the ear, until you are ready for planting. This is not absolutely necessary, but it is best: the corn comes up quicker and stronger, and so it would be with wheat and all other grain.

I now quit the subject with no intention of ever writing upon it again, with a view to urge people to cultivate the corn: I look upon the thing as done; I anticipate the general cultivation of it, and the abolition of corn bills for ever and ever. I look upon England as the best country in the world even for this corn. Arthur Young, in his Travels in France, says, that the growth of corn is the characteristic of good living and well-being in that country. He says that the cultivation of it is a sure mark that the people are well off, as far as nature is concerned and he deeply la

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If planted in rows 3 feet apart, and the plants ments that it will not ripen in England,

8 inches in the row,

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but still he recommends it to be planted for the purposes of fodder. Poor Arthur 0 31 Young turned Methodist before he died; and most likely repented of having suggested the means of sustaining the body,

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6 Bunches will plant more than 40 rods, or a quarter of an acre.. 0 5 6 deeming that detrimental to the suste

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12 Bunches will plant more than 80 rods, or half an acre 25 Bunches will plant more than 160 rods, or an acre ........ 100 Mr. Diddams tells me that he has six hundred and sixty-five sound ears, besides fifty soft ones, upon his rod and a little more of ground; so that here are one hundred and forty-one bunches, which, at my price, would bring Mr. Diddams seven pounds one shilling! A pretty money-making concern, the greedy loanmongers will exclaim: and what must mine be, then, who have thousands of bunches! Faith, I must take care, or the Barings will begin to think me their rivals. The truth is, however, that I do not care a straw whether I sell it or do not, except that the sale of it would be a proof that a good many persons are going to plant it. After all, even at my most extravagant price, it is cheaper seed-corn than wheat, acre for acre; after this next year, it will be to be gotten in every part of the kingdom; and I have now, indeed, pointed

nance of the soul; a principle upon which the pious teachers of that sect always proceed; and they, finding their followers difficult to be restrained from indulging their fleshly appetites, and failing in assistance from any other source, to make short and sure of it, they get into their houses and eat up the victuals themselves. My last words upon this corn subject I address to the labourers, and they are these:-God has sent you this corn for you to eat, as the reward of your labour in raising it: give it to the devil, rather than to a canting thief, who would make you believe that it is God's pleasure that you should be half starved, while that lazy thief is as fat and as sleek as a buck in July. WM. COBBETT.

Kensington, 25th November, 1831.

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