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&c. per acre ; and I was told by an Irish- 

 man, my neighbour, that if I sowed more I 

 should reap neither straw nor corn, for 

 he had tried it repeatedly. It therefore 

 required no experiment on that head ; nor 

 was I inclined to make one, knowing that 

 poor land requires little seed : but as I am, 

 fond of experiments, and I must be doing 

 something new, I got five bushels of bar- 

 ley, and sowed it with one bushel per acre 

 on five acres of the field which had borne 

 the year before as fine Indian corn as I ever 

 saw in the country — though I expected not 

 to be paid for my trouble -, but I had never 

 experienced one bushel of barley per acre, 

 nor had I the least thought how land could 

 be regukirly covered to bear so small a pro- 

 duce. The land appeared in as fine order as 

 could be, for barley ; and I chose, in dif- 

 ferent parts of the field, the very best of it. 

 It proved, too, a very fine time for sowing 

 the oats and barley, with rains proper for its 

 coming out of the ground ; nor did I ever 

 see barley look better when it came up ; and 



