A treatise on Cobbett's corn : containing instructions for propagating and cultivating the plant, and for harvesting and preserving the crop; and also an account of the several uses to which the produce is applied, with minute directions relative to each mode of application

Front matter

A TREATISE

^COBBETT'S CORN,

Containing Instructions for Propagating and Cultivating the Plant, and for Harvesting and Preserving the Crop ;

CHAPTER I. General Introductory Observations . . 1

CHAPTER n.

Description and History of Cobbett's Corn, and an account of the several sorts of it . . 11

- CHAPTER HI.

On the Soil and the preparation of it, proper for the Corn, and on the Season for Planting it in England 34

CHAPTER IV.

On the Season for Planting Corn ... 46

CHAPTER V.

On the Mode of Planting Corn . i . 54

CHAPTER VI.

On the Siunmer Cultivation of Corn . . 82

IV CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VII.

On the Topping of the Corn, and on the Mode of Stacking the Tops . . . . » 117

CHAPTER VIII.

On the Harvesting of the Ears ; on the Husking of them ; on the Mode of Keeping them ; on the Separating of the Grain from the Cobb ; and on the Uses of the Husks and of the Cobbs . 127

CHAPTER IX.

On the various Uses to which the Grain is applicable, containing minute Instructions with regard to the Modes of Application . . 146

CHAPTER X.

On the Amount and Value of the Corn- crop, compared with that of other Crops . . 163

CHAPTER XL

Conclusion; addressed to the Readers of the Register 171

CHAPTER I.

General Introductory Observations.

I. The motive for writing and publisliing a work like this, if it had wanted suggestion from any mind but my own, would have been found in the motto, which I have chosen upon this occasion; and which is taken from him, whose work has done more to promote good agriculture, than all the other works, of all countries, put together. Certainly it is worthy of observation, and, indeed, of censure, that so very few men of learning (I mean of that sort of learning which is exhibited in, or to be acquired from, books) have employed any portion of their time and talent in treating of the means of making an addition to the quantity of human food. Nay, some of them have actually prided themselves upon their ignorance of everything relating to agriculture, that first and greatest employment of man. The late Lord Erskine annually attended the sheep-shearing festivals of Mr. Coke, as long as that gentleman thought proper to treat the nobility and gentry to such festivals, and the "learned Lord," annually, upon those occasions, made it his boast, that he

B

INTRODUCTORY [Chap.

was so perfectly ignorant with regard to matters connected with the cultivation of the land, that he once, upon seeing a field of lavender, thought it was a field of wheat. To descend a step lower. Sir Walter Scott, well worthy of the first baronetcy bestowed by the present King ; this Baronet, of book-making and book-selling notoriety, as the affairs of Constable and Co. can bear witness ; this worthy Baronet, in a letter to Lord SoMF.RViLLE, published by his Lordship in a book about oxen and sheep, took occasion, very unnecessarily, and even ostentatiously, to observe, that, as to the business of agriculture, he hardly knew more than the pen with which he was writing. To descend lower still ("where will you stop, then ?" the reader will exclaim), Mr. Adolphus of the George-the-Third-historyfame, or rather obscurity, in pleading against me for one Farlar, before the Secondary of London, took occasion, while he displayed his white handkerchief and his genteely-pale hand, to tell the Jury, that, as to brewing, or the sort of materials made use of in that process ; or, as to any rural affair, of whatever description, he himself had no knowledge ; and that, in fact, if taken into the fields or the gardens, he knew not any one plant from any other 5 which declaration, if made before people in the country, before a set of farmers' men and maids, would convince them

I.] OBSERVATIONS.

that the orator was fit for little besides being knocked on the head.

2. When learned gentlemen, and learned lords, and girl-bewitching novel-writers, make this kind of ignorance their boast, is it any wonder that it should become the fashion, with persons in the middle rank of life, to make it their boast, that they do not know what you mean, when you talk of such things as spades and ploughs, and rakes and harrows? It is curious, too, that these same persons are ashamed to be thought ignorant of the histories of all the nations on earth ; and, as to "politics" they all understand politics; they would be ashamed not to be thought clearly to understand that which the King and the Parliament ought to do. The constitution ! Oh 1 they all understand that, though made up of a series of maxims, decisions, and positive acts, grov/n together in the course of twelve hundred years. And, religion, now ! what man of them would not be ashamed, not to be thought competent to decide, not only between Calvin and the Pope; but to determine, to a hair's breadth, the right and the wrong of all the intervening classes, amounting

,to about fifty in number, each differing in its creed from all the- other forty-nine ?

3. Mr. 'Full, in the elegant passage which I have taken for my motto, observes on the waste of learning, in measuring and weighing the stars;

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INTRODUCI-ORY [Chap.

which brings to my recollection, that, when I was in the army, inNfiw Brunswick, I was acquainted with a Serjeant, who was a young man, and who, as well as myself, was a great reader ; but he was smitten with astronomy, and wanted me to pay attention to some of the discoveries he had made. " I tell you what," said I, " I do not " care what they are doing up there ; their orders, *' whether general, garrison, or regimental, can " never affect me : study you, if you please, what " they are about, I will confine my studies to " things which pass upon the earth." In our schools, nay, in our universities, every thing is taught, but that which is the most useful and honourable of all ; namely, the means of raising food, drink, and clothing, and materials for buildings ; without which, and with tlie want of any one of which, mankind must cease to exist ; and without the whole of which in tolerable perfection and abundance, no nation can be either great or happy. We have lectures upon every thing but agriculture : Doctor Birkbeck treats us to a theory of the winds ; another takes infinite pains to explain how the air is pumped out of the body of a rat ; there are a great number of lecturers to teach us how the veins and the intestines are formed, and how they ought to be emptied ; but not a soul to tell us the best way of filling them. Commissioners of Scotch herrings

I.] OBSERVATIONS.

we have had, and a Count of the White-Eagle (RuMFORj)), together with a whole troop of soupkettle philosophers, to teach us how to stew old bones into jelly, and by how little the human body can be sustained ; but not a single man to give us a lecture on the means of providing that plenty, that abundance of good living, without which man had better be dead than alive, and for which our country was, for so many ages, so famous.

4. The great study, of late years, appears to have been, to discover the means of reducing the most numerous and most useful class of the people to exist upon the smallest possible quantity of food ; and, failing here, Parson IMal- THUS has suggested the means, improved upon by the infamous Peter THrMBLE, and the equally infamous CARLrLE, of checliing the course of nature in the producing* of children. The Parson and his worthy coadjutors never seem to have thought, for a single moment, of a more just distribution of the food already raised, and still less of any means of adding to the quantity. The schemes of these worthies not being attended with success, schemes for f/etting rid of the people, by sending them out of the country, have, at last, been resorted to, and have actually been brought before Parliament, by Mr. WiL- MOT HoRTON, the patron of the project.

INTRODUCTORY [Chap.

5. My efforts have, all my life long, since I became a man, been directly the reverse of those of these projectors. I have used various endeavours to cause an addition to be made to the food, the drink, the raiment, of the industrious classes. I know, and I have always known, that complete success cannot attend these endeavours, so long as the present, or any thing like the present, burthen of taxes remains j but, a change in this respect must come ; and, in the meanwhile, it is my duty to persevere in my efforts to add to the permanent resources, the permanent strength, and the permanent happiness of my country. In this way to introduce, and that too, with such success, the general planting of the Locust, and other American trees, was doing a great deal : timber will be grown here, instead of being imported from abroad : English ships will be better as well as lighter than they were before: our buildings and our fencing will be more lasting: our implements of husbandry will become lighter and more durable : and, from the same cause will arise a greater quantity of employment than would have existed, had I never made a publication upon this subject.

6. The introduction of the Locust Tree was a matter of such vast importance, affecting all classes in society, that 1 never dreamed of any thing to exceed it in point of value to the country ; but, it

I.} OBSERVATIONS.

certainly will be exceeded by the introduction of the plant of which I am about to treat. It is desirable that the crops of a country, whether for human or for cattle food, should be of as manysorts as can be usefully employed, and, if oi grain, coming to maturity at different parts of all the finer seasons of the year. No one can so well appreciate the advantage of this variety of crops, as he who has been in countries where they are cultivated.

7. AH our grain, upon an average of years, comes to perfection in the course of one single month; so that, if that month happen to be untoward, the loJioIe of our crops receive great injury; and som.etimes the injury is so great, as it has happened to be this very year, as to produce an apprehension, if not real danger, of something approaching towards famine. If the evil do not extend thus far, it produces, at the least, very great distress ; and, as it may happen in this very year also, and so it must always be, in a greater or less degree, this evil produces great embarrassment to the government ; and cases may frequently arise, when the government, embarrassed from this cause, may be induced, and even compelled, to endure insults and injuries from foreign nations, to which, otherwise, it would not have submitted.

8. This simultaneous ripening of our crops of grain, causes a very partial and injurious distri-

INTRODUCTORY [Chap.

bution of the labours of the year. The harvest month, as it is proverbially called, is a month of bustle and of hurry indescribable : all is at stake ; not a moment is to be lost; any demand for wages must be submitted to : to this succeeds a dead calm, in which there is nothing to do ; wages acquired so suddenly are but too frequently as suddenly dissipated ; and, after a long and indolent autumn, winter comes, and meets the labourer with not a farthing of his harvest earnings in his pocket. Now, the Indian corn furnishes employment until the end, and after the end of October, and well rewards the man who gives the employment. This is one of the most important considerations belonging to the subject. I shall, by and bye, have to show, when I come to the eighth chapter, where I shall speak of the various uses to which the grain and other parts of the produce are applicable : I shall then show, what a blessing this plant will be to the English labourer, and how it will and rhust drive the accursed soul-degrading potatoe out of that land, into which it never ought to have come : but, viewing the cultivation of this plant, merely as the means of diminishing the bustle of the one month, by spreading it over three ; viewing it in tliis light only, the introduction of this plant must, by every sensible man, be deemed of the greatest importance.

I.] OBSERVATIONS.

9. Much of the ease and happiness of the people of the United States of America is ascribable to the absence of grinding taxation ; but that absence alone, without the cultivation of Indian Corn, would not, in the space of only about a hundred and fifty years, have created a powerful nation, consisting of twelve millions of souls ; a population surpassing that of England and Wales. This plant is the great blessing of the country. In my " Year's residence in America," I describe it as the greatest blessing that God ever gave to man. It ripens at a time of the year, when the harvest of the other grain is completely gone by ; and it is a thing of such vast importance, that the question from farmer to farmer, living at some distance from each other, is not, " how is your wheat, your barley, your rye, or your oats ? " but, " how is your CORN this year ? " For, by that, he judges of the state of his neighbour's prosperity or adversity as to his crops.

10. I have very frequently observed, that I believed England to be the richest agricultural country in the world, bating the want of Indian Corn; and that, if it had that, it would exceed every other country beyond all comparison. Perceiving the Indian Corn to require tlie heat of America, and seeing it frequently hardly coming to ma ■ turity, even in the United States, in their most northern parts, I regarded our sun as wholly iu-

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IMBODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

sufficient for the purpose of ripening this vahmble crop ; until the accident, of which I shall speak more particularly in the next chapter, induced me to make that trial, which, upon a scale sufficiently large to obviate every doubt, has now convinced me of the contrary. But, this is not of the scmie sort as that of any of the corn that I ever saw in America, or that I had ever seen before I saw this sort. 1 have called it dwarf corn ', but, that word does not sufficiently designate it. There are, in America, two or three sorts of corn called dwarfs but, they all differ greatly from this : of those sorts I shall have to say more in the next chapter. Arthur Young, in his " Travels in France, Spain, and Italy," describes the great and numerous advantages attending the cultivating of maize or Indian Corn ; and, though he takes it for granted, that the corn will not ripen in England, he recommends the planting of it merely for the sake of its great produce of excellent fodder. If Mr. Young had lived until now, he would have seen, that we can have both grain and fodder.

J^laltX

^ • CHAPTER II.

Desa'iption mid History of Cohbetfs Corn, and an Accotint of the Several Sorts of it.

1 1 . On the opposite page is a pretty accurate representation of a plant of Indian Corn, of the sort of which I am about to treat, and to which, in order to distinguish it from other sorts, I give the name of " Cobbeti^'s Corn." The height of the plant, from the ground to the tip-top, is, with good land and good culture, al)out four feet. The drawing exhibits a plant in its most beautiful state, with all its blades at their full size and length, with the bloom on the tassel, and M'ith the silk hanging down from the ears, which are covered by their husks; a the tassel ; b, the top; <?, c, c, c, four of the BLADES ; d, d, d, three ears ; e, e, e, the silks; f,f, the stalk; ff, the root. This is a representation of the plant as it stands in the month of August ; late in that month, or early in September. The tassel is the foiver of the plan f, and it hears farina resembling that of the wheatear ; but the grains, instead of being deposited in chests in the flower, are deposited in the ears, which come out of the stalk lower down, and the silk receives the farina as it falls, by which

DESCRIPTION, HISTORY, [Chap.

the grain is impregnated. These ears are enveloped by thin leaves, which, all together, are called the husk. W\\ei\ the grains begin to be formed, there comes from each grain a little delicate thing, precisely resembling a single string of raw silk, only the former is of a pale and shining green. These strings all come out in time, at the point of the husk, and hang down, as at e, c, e. The farina drops from the tassel upon these silks. The part between the ears and the tassel, as at b, is called the top, which is, as will more fully be spoken of by-and-bye, cut oif before the corn is ripe. The blades, as at c, c, c, c, are cut off at the same time ; but this also will be spoken of hereafter. The stalk, f,f, is the stout part of the plant out of which the ears come. So that this plant consists of stalk, ears, blades, and top, and, at one stage of its progress, of dlks. 1 will just state here, that the plant does not always bear three ears, but, sometimes more, and sometimes only one, according to the ground and culture. I have had, this year, seven ears, coming out of one stalk ; but, I look upon three as a fair average, in good land, with good culture, and with proper distances. There are most commonly two or three suckers to each plant ; but these will be spoken of hereafter.

12. As to the naiJie, we English people take it from the Americans ; who, soon after the first

II.] AND SORTS OF CORN.

settlers arrived in America from England, found the corn in use among the natives of the country, who must have received it from the hand of a gracious Providence. Those natives, whom the French called savages (or wild people), we have always called Indians ; and hence the word Indian was put before the word corn. But, in all countries except England and America, it goes by the name of maize, or mats, or by some name other than that of Indian corn. In America, the word Indian is generally dropped, and the thing is called corn, which word is never applied to wheat, barley, oats, or rye, all which receive the general appellation oi grain.

13. The cultivation of Indian corn is, doubtless, as old as the world itself j and I think there can be no doubt, that, in general, those texts of IScripture in which the word " corn." is used, always allude to this corn, and not to wheat or any other grain. It is well known, that, in Egypt and in all the countries, where the transactions recorded in both testaments took place, this corn is cultivated as the principal crop j and the French frequently call it bU de Twrquie, or Turkish corn, it having, in all likelihood, been introduced into France many centuries ago, from Turkey in Asia during the holy wars.

14. Until I went to New Brunswick (an English colony), some part of which is five hundred miles to the north of Boston, and actually made

DESCRIPTION, HISTORY, [Chap.

many meals upon ears of corn in their green state, I used to be greatly puzzled by that text of Scripture (St. Matthew, chap, xii., ver. ],) which told me that, " at that time Jesus went " on the Sabbath day through the corn : and his " disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck ** the ears of corn and to eat."

15. 1 thought it, in the first place, rather strange, that they should have gone througfi the corn ; for we do not say through wheat or through barley, as we do through a ivood, through an orchard, or through a coppice; but I thought it still more strange that they should have eaten ears of wheat, of barley, or of rye. When I came to walk or ride through the corn fields of America, I understood how Jesus and his disciples might have gone through the corn in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem ; and when 1 came to eat the cars of corn, and to find them so delightful, all the mystery was explained ; and when I observed how careful the American farmers were to preserve the produce of their corn fields, I was not at all surprised that the

• Pharisees, who were, I presume, the Quakers of Palestine, should have been so angry, and have picked such a German quarrel with our Saviour and his disciples on that memorable occasion.

16. Though I was very young at that time, I had been a gre^t reader of the Bible; upon which the parsons will remark, that it is a pity that I

II.] AND SORTS OF CORN.

omitted to learn from it that tithes were instituted by God himself. I beg pardon of their reverences, for I did observe it ; but I observed, at the same time, that those who were to receive the tithes were forbidden to have any inheritance in the land, and were commanded to share the tithes with the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger; a forbidding on the one hand, and a command on the other, which their reverences seem to have wholly overlooked. But, not further to digress, I had read in the 2d book of Kings, and in the second verse of the fourth chapter that, " There came a man from Baal- " shalisha, and brought for the man of God *' twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn " in the husks thereof, and said, give unto the '' people that they may eat." Now, I could understand the utility of giving them barley bread ; but what was I to think of giving them ivheat ears, or rye, or barley ears to eat ? And then, as to bringing the corn in the husks 3 how were the ears to be brought otherwise than in the husks ? The husk of wheat or of barley makes apart of the ear ; so that the text, taken altogether,! should have called nonsense, if I had found it in any other book; downright nonsense, or, rather, a ridiculous falsehood. Finding it where I did, I regarded it as extremely mystical ; but when I came to go to " husking frolics" in New Brunswick,

DESCRIPTION, HISTORY, [Chap.

which I did, for the first time, at the house of a farmer, of the name of Smith, who had come from Rhode Island, who was a loyal man, had left the rehels in the United States, and who had, in my esteem, the additional recommendation of having brought a very pretty and gay daughter along with him ; when I came to go to this husking frolic, I found that the husk consisted of the delicate leaves which envelop the ears of corn ; and since that time I have seen scores of waggon loads of ears in their green state, with the husks on, for sale in the markets of Philadelphia and New York. Now, then, I understand why the man brought from Baalshalisha full ears of corn in the husks, and why it was that he tendered them to the people that they might eat.

17. I had met with another stumbling block, in the 24th verse of the 24th chapter of Job, where it is said, that the wicked, though they flourish and hold up their heads for a while, are *' cut off as the tops of the ears of the corn." This puzzled me exceedingly. I wondered how it could possibly be the custom in any country to clip off the tops of the ears of the corn when it was standing ; and it must have been the custom, or else this simile could not have been made use of. What a strange people it must have been, I said to myself, to be in the habit of cutting off

II.] AND SORTS OF CORN.

the tops of the ears of wheat, barley, or rye ! But when I came to see the tojyping of the corn in America, and heard the upper part of the plant called the corn-top, I saw that it must always have been the universal jorac/ice to " cut off the tops of the corn" in all the countries where it had been cultivated, and to leave standing the stalk and the ears; and, as to the text, which says, " cut off like the tops of the ears of the corn," I ascribed the error to the circumstance, that the translators had, like myself, been born and bred in a country where corn was not grown ; and that they had not had the good fortune to be travellers. They knew that the tops of wheat, barley, and rye, were the cars ; and, they could not believe, that an inspired writer would have compared the ivicked to the ears of wheat. They, therefore, thought it better to compare them to the " tops of the ears," though their readers were still left to be surprised and puzzled on the subject.

18. I found a fourth text of Scripture to puzzle me even more than all these. In Leviticus, chap, ii., ver. 14, 1 had read an injunction to offer, as a '' meat offering of first fruits unto the Lord, *' green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn " beaten out of full ears." These last words which I have put in italics must be an interpolation ; for, how could they beat the grain out of green ears ? And how could the ears be full if they were

DESCRIPTION, HISTORY, [Chap.

green ? Besides, what a curious meat offering to parch green grains of wheat by the fire ! And why not say whether they were to be of wheat, barley, rye, or oats ? Why call it corn^ when all the other instructions were so minute ? Oh, no ; this meat offering was to consist of ears of green corn; that is to say, corn in the milky state, roasted before the fire ; and no wonder that it was chosen as an offering, for the most delicious thing it is that ever delighted the palate of human being. I shall by-and-bye show, that the general way of cooking these green ears, as the Americans call them, is to boil them, and to eat them as bread along with meat, or sometimes with butter; but at present, here is quite enough to show that this was the corn of which the Scripture speaks ; and that it was always in great, in universal, use in the countries which were the scenes of the events and transactions recorded in the Bible. The context would add additional conviction, if any were wanted ; for the fifteenth verse says, " thou " shalt put oil vjjon it, and lay frankincense " thereon." Now we, when we have roasted our ears of corn before the fire, put butter and salt thereon, and then we eat them, and make them a meat offering to ourselves.

19. These might suffice; but, while I could add a dozen texts, I cannot refrain from adding three more. In Deuteronomy, chap, xxiii. verses

II.] AND SORTS OF CORN.

24 and 25, there is an injunction regarding the conduct of people who may be in want of food, which is expressed in the following words : " When thou comest into thy neighbour's vine- *' yard, then thou mayest eat grapes thy fill, at thy " own pleasure j but thou shalt not put any in thy " vessel. When thou comest into the standing " corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck " the earsioith thine hand', but thou shalt not move " the sickle into thy neighbour's corn." This was a business of eating, and the word siclcle has been used in the translation, from the ignorance of the translators of the local circumstances. We know very well it must have been the practice to eat grapes, as we know it is the practice in Indian Corn countries for people to pluck off the ears and bite the milky corn from the cobb ; but who would have thought it necessary to lay down a law, for persiitting people to eat r/reen ears of wheat or barley ?

20. In Leviticus, chap, xxiii. and verse 14, the Israelites are told : " Ye shall eat neither " bread nor parched corn, nor green ears, until " the self same day, until you have brought an " offering unto your God." The parched corn talked of here, means that which is cd\\&^homany, in Virginia and the Carolinas, and a very fine dish it is ; and, as to the greeii ears, it must be pretty clear, I think, that it would have been