f straw for fodder:
it is the flower of the plant, and bears the farina like the wheat-ear,
but the grains are deposited in the ears which come out of the stalk lower
down. These ears are enveloped in their leaves which are called the husk.
The number of ears varies in different plants, three is the common number.
Seven are a curiosity. One stalk in Mr. Cobbett's field bore seven ears,
and Mr. Cobbett, jun. sent it as a present to the king's gardener at Kew,
comparing it to that "one stalk mentioned in Pharaoh's dream of the seven
years of plenty." For it must not be forgotten that Mr. Cobbett maintains
that Indian corn is the true corn of scripture, and defends this opinion
by many plausible arguments. We have no room to discuss them, and shall
only observe in contravention, that Indian corn is not now known in
Palestine or Syria, and that it is dangerous to raise a verbal discussion
founded upon a translation. His argument is, however, well worth the
attention of all our biblical readers. In America the Indian corn alone
monopolizes the name of corn: all other corn is called grain: so important
is the cultivation of it there, that it puzzles the Yankees exceedingly to
know how the old country can get on without corn; and so identified is the
great roll of grain, with the name of an ear of corn, that when Mr.
Cobbett once read an account to an American farmer, of a young English
lord lying dangerously ill from having swallowed an ear of corn; the man
started up and exclaimed, a whole ear of corn! no wonder that poor John
Bull is in such a miserable state, when his lords have got swallows like
that.

The Indian corn being a large plant requires both air and space: it is
consequently raised in hills far apart, after the manner of our hop plants;
and reckons upon a deep ploughing between the hills after it is partly
grown up for a supply of health and vigour. This great distance between
the hills, sometimes placed four feet apart one way, and five feet apart
another way, and the height of the plant with its lofty top and its
lateral ears form a far different picture than that presented by an
English corn field. Cobbett's or the dwarf corn is, however, only four
feet high: he planted his in rows three feet apart, which distance he is
inclined to think is too small. "Three feet do not give room for good,
true, and tolerably deep ploughing: and that is the main thing in the
cultivation of corn, which indeed will not thrive we