ree LOO Mae 
On Virgima Husbandry. 
Read August, 1809. 
Dear Sir, 
Agreeably to your request I embrace my first lei- 
sure of acknowledging your favour of the 22d. of Fe- 
bruary, and replying thereto as the various subjects oc- 
cur. First, you mention plaister of Paris, of which I do 
not make general use, particularly on my low lands, 
where I have not found it to succeed. I sometimes use 
it on my highlands, where it answers tolerably well par- 
ticularly with clover, though I do not cultivate this crop 
upon a large scale, yet I have some at each of my farms 
for the purpose of feeding it, when half cured, to my 
horses, and other work team, through the summer. 
My general rotation of crops is corn and wheat, the 
latter succeeding the former, on the same field, the size 
of which varies of course according to the size of the 
farm, for some of the fields or shifts as they are termed 
here are four hundred acres, whilst others are no more 
than one hundred upon the different farms, the number 
of shifts which is generally three, depends in some mea- 
sure on circumstances and cultivation, as also depends 
the kind of plough ; of late I have been in the habit of 
making mixed crops, corn, wheat, tobacco, cotton, oats, 
rye, pease, beans, &c. I seed from three pecks toa 
bushel of wheat to an acre, and reap from ten to fifteen 
bushels, and my corn ground produces from three to 
six barrels per acre, though this again is variable. ac- 
cording to soil and seasons. I have never yet made any 
