Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 343]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

335 Another series of experiments was with planting corn. We planted corn one grain to the hill, 13 inches apart, and were very careful in getting the distance, and the rows four feet apart. Then some right alongside of it, two grains in the hill, 26 inches apart, and the rows four feet apart. And then some four grains in the hill, 52 inches apart, each time multiplying by two, multiplying the number of grains in a hill by two, so that the same number of grains is on the same area; the only difference is in the distance apart. Another experiment with corn was, with the hills three feet and a half apart each way, and three grains to the hill, tested alongside of corn with the hills four feet apart each way, and three grains in a hill. These are a few of the experiments. We have a number of others, and I must say, in closing the account of the experiments, that I feel very much more encouraged about the actual results that may flow from experimentation, than most of the speakers who spoke here, especially yesterday, and some to-day. The difficulties I do not believe I am disposed to underrate. I know they are immense. There are difficulties that can scarcely be surmounted by human wisdom and human contrivance, but for all that, it seems to me there is just about as promising a field for investigation from which to derive instruction in this line of actual experimentation in farm operations as there is in any direction. I believe that it is just exactly as easy for us to find out important facts in agriculture as it is to take the chemistry of to-day, and find out important facts in organic chemistry. Mr. Miles—In this experiment with a different number of kernels of corn in a hill, how many plats of each had you ? Mr. McAffee—One plat of each only. Mr. Flagg—How large ? Mr. McAffee—I could not give you the area of each. Mr. Flagg—About, could you ? Mr. McAffee—I should judge it was, at the least calculation, ten square rods—one-sixteenth of an acre, I should think it was. Mr. Miles—How many times has this experiment been tried ? Mr. McAffee—This is the first ; I can say that I find no records that are satisfactory of former experiments, so I cannot tell what has happened before this year. I had nothing to do with it. Mr. Miles—Of the different kinds of grain that you have been testing, this is the first time ? Mr. McAffee—No; they were tested last year, and I found them in the bins, with the record of the weights per bushel, and the yield.