INDIANA FARMER
Vol. VII.]
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., FEB., 1859.
[No. XI,
LETTERS    ON    AGRICULTURE
AND PRACTICAL FARMING.
BY D. O. RABB.
Mr. Editor:—According to promise, I
commence a series of letters on Agriculture and Practical Farming.
My motto as a farmer is the promise of
God to man: "While the earth remain-
eth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and
heat, and summer and winter, and day
and night, shall not cease." From this
I infer, that no matter how disadvantageous circumstances may seem—how late,
or how wet a season may be, with extra
work, and proper care, a fair average crop
may be raised every year. For thc last
thirty years my crops have proved this to
be a correct inference.
I am well aware that nine-tenths of the
western farmers will not believe that one
hundred bushels of corn can be raisdd to
the acre; one-half will not believe that
eighty bushels can be raised, nor one-
fourth that sixty bushels of corn grow on
one acre of ground.
In these sketches, I intend not only
giving my manner of farming, but the
reasons for various modes of culture.
Different kinds of soil require different
kinds of tillage. This fact is often lost
eight of by those who in their farming
follow book instruction; hence their
frequent faikro. These remarks are the
result of many years experience, and, of
course, to make them useful to any, a
description of my farm is needed, that
they may be applied to similar soils.
The farm upon which I live comprises
one hundred and forty-five acres of Ohio
river bottom land, seven of this being
waste land—i. c., road and river bank—
and eighteen acres of woodland; leaving
one hundred and twenty of tillable soil.
Eighty-five acres of this is called second
vol. vn.—23
bottom, and above the reach of high
water; the other thirty-five is low bottom
land, subject to overflows when tho river
is very high. This is well adapted ta
the raising of corn; thc present year
twenty acres of this is in corn.
Fourteen years ago, when I purchased
this ground, it appeared as though wor*
out, and yielded a crop averaging les»
than fifty bushels to the acre. It had
been broken up five or six inches* in
depth, and tilled in corn, for thirty
years, or what I call murdered. Th»
first year I broke up the ground to th»
depth of nine inches. This throwing up
so much of the sub-soil, which had never
had thc influences of sun and rain, was
not yet nutritious soil, and with good
culture my crop fell below sixty bushel*
to the acre.
As early in the spring as the ground
is sufficiently dry, (usually by the fifteenth of March,) I commence breaking
up the ground to tho depth of eleven
inches, taking not more than ten inches
cut or land. If the ground is cloddy,
when broken up, it should be harrowed
thc same day. By this mode thc soil can
be plowed deeper, and be more thoroughly pulverized, than by taking a cut of
fourteen inches. About the twenty-fifth
of April, thc process of listing and planting the ground, which has already been
broken up, is commenced in thc following manner : Two furrows arc run with
a two-horse plow, leaving a balk eight
inches wide, where the row of corn is to
be planted. After tho plow has mad*
four or five furrows in this way, leaving
three feet and three inches from centre
to centre of the balk, a second team ii
started to split out the balk, taking six
inches off of it thc first furrow, and coming back throwing out thc remainder,
plowing   as   deeply  as possible,   thus