100 Produce of Wheat and Rye. 



=^ ' ■ ' — 



ceeding years, it was sown after oats : a manifest advan- 

 tage is shewn in favour of an open or clear fallow. If 

 it should be asked, why pursue a mode so injurious, as 

 preceding wheat by oats, my answer is, that my ground 

 being infested with garlic, and a diiiry my chief object, 

 oats is made a fallo^v crop, as the greatest enemy to 

 garlic, that I have yet discovered. 



[In forming an average result per acre, the calculation 

 should commence with the year 1794, because previously to 

 that year, it appears that the bad system of sowing wheat 

 among the maize was pursued. Neither ought the result, 

 whatever it may be, to furnish a rule to judge of the crops 

 in Pennsylvania, because Mr. Roberts acknowledges the 

 necessity he unfortunately labours under, of continuing a 

 practice, which his own experience, and that of every other 

 farmer, who has made a comparative experiment, proves to be 

 bad farming, viz. soAving wheat after an exhausting crop of 

 oats. Could other statements, equally accurate as those of 

 Mr. Roberts, be obtained, of crops raised upon land in our 

 fertile counties, Avhich are under a regular improving course 

 of wheat on a clover lay, a great difference would appear. 



Instances might be produced, in the same neighbourhood, 

 of crops repeatedly producing 60 to 80 shocks, and this year, 

 (1807) 100 shocks or dozen sheaves per acre. The practice is, 

 ploughing often, timing the stirrings, so as to destroy weeds, 

 and deeper ploughing, avoiding an intermixture of corn and 

 small grain crops, and never sowing, except when the earth 

 is in a state to receive the seed advantageously, both to its 

 cover, and vegetation. A small quantit}^ of land thus ma- 

 naged, will produce more grain, with less manure, than large 

 iields ill farmed. 



