360 Original Letters of Dr. Frankiin.. 
ed, and the red clover heaves out much for want-of being 
thicker; however, in March next I intend to throw in six 
pounds more of red clover, as the ground js open and loose. 
As these grasses are represented not durable, I have sown 
two bushels of the sweeping of hay lofts, (where the best hay 
was used)well riddled, pure, supposing that the spear grassand 
white clover seed would be more equally scattered when the 
other shall fail. What surprised me was to find that the herd 
grass, whose roots are small, and spread near the surface, 
should be less affected by the frost than the red clover, 
whose roots J measured in the last of October, and found 
that many of their tap roots penetrated five inches, and from 
its sides threw out near thirty horizontal roots, some of which 
were six inches long and branched. From the figure of this, 
root I flattered myself that it would endure the heaving of 
the frost, but now see that wherever it is thin sown, it is gen- 
erally hove so far out, as that buta few of the horizontal and 
a small part of the tap root remains covered, an fear 
will not recover. ‘Take the whole together, it is well mat- 
ied, and looks like a green corn field. I have about ten 
acres more of this ground ready for seed in the spring, but 
expect to combat with the weeds a year or two. That 
sown in August I believe will rise so soon in the spring as 
to suppress them in a great measure. My next-undertak- 
ing was around pond of twelve acres; ditching round it 
with a large drain through the middle, and other smaller 
drains laid it perfectly dry ; this, having first taken up all 
the rubbish, I plowed up, and harrowed it many times over 
till it was smooth; its soil is blackish, but in about a foot or 
ten inches you come to a sand of the same colour with the 
upland. From the birch that grows upon it, I took it to be 
of a cold nature, and therefore I procured a grass which 
would best suit that kind of ground, intermixt with many 
others, that I might thereby see which suited it best. On 
the eighth Sept. I laid it down with rye, which being har- 
rowed in, I threw in the following grass seed ; a bushel of 
Salem grass or feather grass, half a bushel of timothy or herd 
grass, half a bushel of rye-grass, a peck of burden grass oF 
blue cent, and two pints of red clover pavea, all the seed in 
chaff except the clover, and bushed them in, I coul 
wish they had been clean, as they would have come 
up sooner, and been better grown before the frost ; and I 
