No. 112.] 591 • 



not been good foncorn, in many places 3 the crop was not more than 

 half a one ; on the ChemuDg river, so much extolled, the crop was 

 very inferior. My crop of potatoes was good, both as to quality and 

 quantity ; one acre and a half produced about400 bushels of sound 

 potatoes. My hay crop might be reckoned an average oDe ; but in 

 many places it was not more than one-half of a crop ; in 1851 1 had 

 an immense crop — four acres produced fourteen Ioad3..of hay. Mj 

 wheat crop was very light, not more than one-third of a crop -, it 

 grew on good hill land, and was well fallowed ; the land wag 

 broke up in the last week in May, and was sowed the last week 

 in September. 



My method of cultivation, on the hill farm, is to break up the 

 land in May, and well fallow it, and sow it with wheat the first 

 week in September ; and as soon as the crop is taken off, the land 

 is plowed, and sowed with rye, the latter part of August, and the 

 following spring seeded down, and pastured two years , then fal- 

 low again, and so on. This method is principally to improve the 

 land, as the rye does not exhaust the land in the same proportion 

 as many other crops, although the system of two white crops is, 

 and ought to be, condemned by all good farmers. 



The new land in this part of the country generally produces 

 light crops, seldom enough to pay the expense of clearing ; but 

 the crop invariably improves as the kmd grows older and is more 

 cultivated, but it never produces crops that are very profitable? 

 as the soil is not well adapted for the growth of wheat. It is 

 very different in many other places, in almost every part of the 

 lake country; the fust crops are the best, as the land deteriorates 

 in cultivating. I was at a person's house in Scipio, a number of 

 yearb ago, and he informed me that his land did not produce as 

 heavy crops as it did soon after it was cleared ; it also became 

 heavy and dilhrult to plow and cultivate. I inquired of him how 

 it had been cultivated'? He told me he had taken a number of 

 successive crops from it, principally wheat. I soon di.^covered 

 how and where the difficulty originated. Had his land been cul- 

 tivated under a system suitable to the land, it would have had a 

 very diflorent aspect. It is a well known fact, tliat it is .mucii 

 easier to keep a good piece of land in a good state of cultivation 



