is a beautiful and delicious dish.  On most plantations the negroes have it for supper, with molasses or buttermilk.  A hard flinty grain is necessary to head the weevil, with which not only the cribs but the heads of corn in the field are infested.  These are the Calandra oryzae, the true rice weevil, distinguished from his European cousin by the two reddish spots on each elytra or wing-cover, and known in America as the “black weevil;” also a little brown insect, not a true weevil, but a Sylvanus.  This sylvanus, and another of the same genus, most probably the S. surinamensis, attack the corn in the field before it becomes hard, causing serious damage—­but nothing to equal that occasioned by the black weevil.

I know of no generally successful method of staying or even checking the injury caused by the insects, though much might be written in the way of suggestion.

In Michigan, the dent variety in dry seasons produces the best crops on sandy loam, as its roots run deeper than the common eight-rowed yellow or white.  In moist seasons the latter varieties usually do well.  They are grown most generally in the Northern part of the State, while in the Southern section the Ohio dent is principally raised.  The shuck and blade are much used as fodder for cattle, in the early part of winter.

Indian corn is very liable to change of character from soil and climate, growing smaller the farther North it is raised.  The mixing of the eight-rowed yellow with the Ohio dent has, so far as my experience goes, been beneficial in increasing the yield.  Sandy loam, or clay, is considered the soil best adapted to corn.  It is usually planted in May, and harvested in September.  The blade is not taken off there as at the South; some farmers cut up their corn when ripe, put it into shocks, and husk it late in the fall; others cut the stalks, bind them in sheaves, and stack them for winter in the fields, or put them away in barns or sheds; while others husk the corn on the hill without cutting the stalks, and late in the fall turn their cattle into the field to eat the fodder.  Of these different modes the preference is usually given to cutting the stalks and putting them under cover after being well cured, and busting the corn on the hill.  The corn is thought to ripen better in this way, and to keep better in the cribs.  The Ohio dent, having a smaller ear containing less moisture than other varieties, ripens quicker and keeps better.  This crop ranges from 25 to 65 bushels per acre, and the difference in the yield is to be attributed to the manner of cultivation.  My experience shows that a crop of 45 bushels per acre costs 13 cents a bushel, including interest on land.  Corn is principally raised in Michigan for home consumption, and the stalks and shucks, if well cured, are worths dollars per acre, compared with hay at 5 dollars per ton.

As much as 134 bushels per acre have been obtained, in some instances, in Massachusetts; till the last 20 years 35 bushels was considered an average crop, but by a due rotation of crops, and ploughing in long manure, at least 75 bushels to the acre are now raised.  The kinds preferred there, are an eight-rowed variety, procured originally from Canada; the Cass corn, another eight-rowed variety, and the Dutton corn, each of which averages about 60 lbs. to the bushel.