They are cut off above the ears, collected by a cart
going along the intervals or roads, and stacked for winter use. Mr.
Cobbett's harvest of tops was not so successful as it might have been:
this arose from his absence at the favourable opportunity for stacking.
The ears of corn are stripped off when the grain is hard, and carried in
carts to the barns, and placed in corn cribs adapted for the purpose.
The grains are taken off the pithy cylinder on which they grow, by being
rubbed or scraped on a piece of iron: in America a bayonet (a weapon
called by the Yankees _Uncle George's toasting fork_) is invariably used
for the purpose: the cylinder, now bared of its grain, is called the
_cobb_. The delicate leaves by which the ear is enveloped is, as has
been mentioned, called the husk; it may be used for the stuffing of
beds: Mr. Cobbett has converted some of it even into paper.
In Mr. Cobbett's sanguine temperament the uses to which the grain
is applicable are wonderfully numerous and important. Under the heads
of pig-feeding, sheep-feeding, and cow-feeding, poultry-feeding,
and horse-feeding, he gives an account of his own experiments and
observations.
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