150 Eulogium on William West. 
scantily made. Successive crops of grain exhausted 
the ground: the slovenly practice of sowing wheat or 
rye among the standing Indian corn was universal, and 
the cultivation of artificial grasses especially of that great 
fertilizer red clover, which has done so much for Penn- 
sylvania, was unknown. The cattle were therefore per- 
mitted to wander over the fields to pick up the slender 
provision afforded by nature, or to browse upon young 
twigs in the woods, to the certain destruction of the 
growing timber: grazing at that time was solely con- 
fined to the rich natural meadows on the peninsula, 
between the rivers Delaware and Schuylkill, and many 
farmers depended entirely upon them for the supply 
of their winter beef, and even for part of the hay 
for their live stock. In short, he found that the whole 
management of a farm was pursued not upon fixed 
principles, but inarandom manner ; the object appear- 
ing to be, to obtain as much from the land as possible, 
without regard to the preservation or improvement of 
the powers of the soil. With those facts before him, the 
prospect was extremely discouraging. He did not 
pretend to any knowledge in farming; but what he saw 
and learnt were sufficient to convince him that practices 
which neither enriched the farmer nor the land, could 
not be the most eligible, and he therefore determined 
not to adopt them, and as lie could derive no informa. 
tion from his neighbours, he read what books he could 
procure on farming, and for the rest he depended upon 
his own judgment. At the day alluded to, the science 
of agriculture was ata low ebb in every part of the’ 
European and American world: the useful spirit for 
diffusing information by means of books, was not ex- 
