274 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
bushels of wheat to the acre, and fields of smaller size to thirty and 
forty bushels, farmers are endeavoring to return to this system, but 
the progress is slow. From Richmond we have reports of increasing 
attention. The five-field system is practiced, sowing wheat on clover 
fallow, following with corn, then oats and clover, cutting the clover 
two years for hay. Northumberland: A few farmers have adopted the 
three-field system with excellent results. First year, wheat with one 
hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds of guano and seeded to clover in 
the spring; second year, clover partially grazed and limed or marled; 
third year, corn. Very good crops of wheat are grown on a clover lay 
without guano. Lancaster: Increased attention is given to alternation 
of crops. Many large farms that were formerly cultivated on the two 
and three-field system are now subdivided into five or six fields, with a 
rotation of grass crops, by which a large farm may be cultivated with 
half the manual labor formerly employed, when grain crops were exclu- 
sively raised. 
Piedmont districi, (Northside.)—Gradually emerging from the tide-water 
counties proper, we come first to Stafford, in which we learn the follow- 
ing rotation is practiced by many farmers: Corn, wheat, and clover in 
succession, the last plowed in after the third crop, and then wheat and 
clover again. In Prince William but little attention is given to alterna- 
tion, owing to the impoverished condition of the farmers. Alexandria: 
Farmers are using green crops; course of rotation, corn, wheat, rye or 
oats, and grass (clover or timothy) with very satisfactory results. Fair- 
fax: Theattention given toalternation of crops is probably not increasing, 
the rotation before and since 1860 being usually corn, oats, and wheat; 
then clover and timothy for two or three years, and in particular cases 
five or six years. Under this system, with the judicious application of 
fertilizers and farm-yard manures, lands in the western part of the 
county have risen in value from $20 to $40 per acre, and their produc- 
tive capacity increased from fifteen or twenty bushels to forty bushels 
of corn per acre ; oats from ten bushels to twenty-five or thirty bushels; 
hay, three-fold. Wheat has been an uncertain crop for several years. 
Caroline: To a limited extent increased attention is given to alternation 
of crops; as, first a crop of corn or tobacco, then wheat or oats, then 
clover, with rest for a year. The yield of the succeeding’ crops is 
increased at least 10 per cent. Louisa: Less and less attention during 
the past five years has been given to green crops. As far as any system 
of alternation is practiced, it is corn, wheat, and clover, the clover fal- 
lowed the following year for tobacco, then wheat, clover, and corn. Lots 
treated in this way, with alternate use of one hundred and fifty pounds 
of guano per acre and coarse stable manure, are very productive. 
We now enter the tier of counties lying alorfg or near the base of the 
Blue Ridge. Loudoun: Considerable attention is paid to rotation, 
which is usually to turn down a sod for corn, the yield (taking the 
county over) being about thirty bushels to the acre; wheat after corn, 
with a return of about eight bushels per acre; then wheat again, with 
clover the following year, to stand two or three years, and mowed of 
pastured at pleasure. A clover fallow will produce about sixteen bush- 
els of wheat per acre. In the southern part of the county grazing is 
the principal industry, which is pursued in much the same manner as 
we proceed to describe in the adjoining county of Fauquier: This is 
preéminently a grazing county, particularly the upper or northern part, 
and therefore admitting of an- endless variety of rotation, with the inter- 
vention of green crops, all subsidiary to the main pursuit. The land, 
when left uncultivated, clothes itself readily (without seed) in blue- 
