crop is when the stalks are cut off above the ear (called
topping) after it has become glazed. Still a little less will be the
product when it is cut up at the ground, while the leaves are yet quite
green. The two latter methods are adapted for the purpose of saving
fodder in good condition for cattle. Intelligent farmers regard the
fodder of much more value than the decrease in the weight of the grain.
Corn thus cut up, and fed without husking, is the best possible way for
winter-fattening cattle on a large scale, and where corn is abundant. To
save the whole, swine should follow the cattle, changing yards once a
week.

Seed-corn should be gathered from the first ripe large ears before
frost, and while the general crop is yet green. Select ears above the
average size, that are well filled out to the end, and your corn will
improve from year to year. Take your seed indiscriminately from the crib
at planting-time, and your corn will deteriorate. The largest and best
ears ripen neither first nor last; hence, select the largest ears before
all is ripe, and reject the small earliest ears. Soaking seed
twenty-four hours, and then rolling in plaster before planting, is
recommended; it is conveniently practised only where you plant by hand.
Soaking without rolling in plaster is good, if you plant in a wet time;
but if in a dry time, it is absolutely injurious. Once in a while there
occurs quite a general failure of seed-corn to come up. Farmers say that
their corn looks as fair as ever, but does not vegetate well. When this
is general, there is a remedy that every farmer can successfully apply.
The difficulty is not (as we have often heard asserted) from the intense
cold of the winter: it is sometimes the result of cold, wet weather
after planting. But we do not believe that such would be the effect,
with good seed, on properly-prepared land. The difficulty is, the fall
was very wet, and the seed was allowed to stand out and get thoroughly
soaked; when it was gathered it was damp, and the intense cold of winter
destroyed its vitality, without injuring its appearance. There is no
degree of cold, in a latitude where corn will grow, that will injure the
seed, if it be gathered dry and kept so. Our rules for saving seed,
given above, will always remedy this evil. This is, perhaps, the most
profitable of all green crops for soiling cattle. Sown on clean, mellow
land, it will produce an enormous weight of good green fodder, suitable