358 , [Senate 



manage so much cleared land every year,) but would follow grain 

 with cow-peas, at the rate of three or four pecks per acre sown broad- 

 cast and plowed in, in the month of May. The effects of cow-peas 

 can be shown here — can be shown wherever the pea has been sown 

 thick enough, and any attention paid to relative product of the land. 

 Would my brethren only consent to use a half bushel of cow-peas on 

 all corn land, and a half to three-quarters of a bushel of rye only, on 

 every cultivated acre, and change land yearly, I do most confidently 

 believe that in ten years, ordinary land would become good, and good 

 land wo uld produce with the choice. Yours, 



M. W. PHILIPS, 



INDIANA— ITS AGRICULTURE„ 



BY T. A. HOWARD, OF ROCKTILLE, INDIANA. 



Washington City^ 2d May^ 1844. 



Sir — The Hon. Mr. Wright, of Indiana, has placed in my hands 

 a printed letter, addressed, to him by yourself, as Secretary of the 

 New- York State Agricultural Society, requesting that I would an- 

 swer it. If my information on agriculture was equal to my zeal for 

 its progress as a science, I would be able to afford you something 

 valuable ; but as it is, I can only in general terms apprize you of the 

 state of culture in our State, (Indiana.) 



We have a state agricultural society, and several county organiza- 

 tions. Our Legislature has provided by a general law for these asso- 

 ciations, and I doubt not that in a few years they will be made the 

 instrument of good. 



My residence is in the Wabash valley, in Rockville, Park county, 

 Indiana, and my remarks will mainly apply to that region. Our soil 

 is very good generally, consisting, on the river Wabash, of a very 

 deep alluvial soil, not inferior, I presume, to any soil on the con- 

 tinent, for fertility ; the prairies have a clay bottom, covered with 

 a rich loam, which is also very productive ; besides we have two 

 classes of upland, each covered by a dense timber. One consists 

 of our walnuts, sugar tree and ash land, having a very rich ve- 

 getable mold, that yields wheat, corn, rye, oats, potatoes, the grasses, 

 &c., in great abundance ; the other is our back land, flat, spouty, and 

 not so productive as the first named. It is, however, very fine land, 

 as I have myself proved. I had some ^ of it, which had been run a 

 few years in corn, some in clover. I allowed it to remain in clover 

 two or three years, when it was plowed up to put in corn, and I have 

 not seen finer corn growing on any land, than it produced. I had it 



