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I wish you may succeed in getting good seed of the winter vetch, 

 I have often imported it, but the seed never vegetated, or in so small 

 a proportion, as to be destroyed by v/eeds. I believe it would be an 

 acquisition, if it was once introduced properly in our farms. The 

 Albany p^a, which is the same as the field pea of Europe, I have tried, 

 and fouitd"«i^ will grow well; but is subject to the same bug which per- 

 forates the garden pea, and eats out the kernel. So it will happen, 

 I fear, with the pea you propose to import, I had great expectation 

 from a green dressing with buckwheat, as a preparatory fallow for a 

 crop of wheat, but it has not answered my expectation yet. I ascribe 

 this, however, more to mismanagement in the times of seeding and 

 ploughing in, than any defect of the system. The first ought to be so 

 ordered, in point of time, as to meet a convenient season for ploughing 

 it in, while the plant is in its most succulent state. But this has 

 never been done on my farms, and consequently has drawn as much from, 

 as it has given to the earth. It has always appeared to me that there were 

 two modes in which buckwheat might be used advantageously as a manure. 

 One, to sow early, and, as soon as a sufficiency of seed is ripened, 

 to stock the ground a second time, to turn the whole in, and when the 

 succeeding growth is getting in full bloom, to turn that in also, be- 

 fore the seed begins to ripen; and, when the fermentation and putre- 

 faction ceases, to sow the ground in that state, and plough in the 

 wheat. The other mode is, to sow the buckwheat so late, as that it 

 shall be generally about a foot high at the usual seeding of v/heat; 

 then turn it in, and sow thereon immediately, as on a clover lay, 

 harrowing in the seed lightly to avoid disturbing the buried buckwheat. 

 I have never tried the latter method, but see no reason against its 

 succeeding. The other, as I observed above, I have prosecuted, but 

 the buckwheat has alv/ays stood too long, and consequently had got too 

 dry and sticky to answer the end of a succulent plant. 



But of all the improving and ameliorating crops, none in my opinion 

 is equal to potatoes, on stiff and hard bound land, as mine is. I am 

 satisfied, from a variety of inSj;^ances, that on such land a crop of 



In no instance have I fail- 

 Llowed potatoes; and I con- 

 ceive they give the soil a darker hue. I shall thank you for the 

 result of your proposed experiment relative to the winter vetch and 

 pea when they are made. 



saxisiiea, irom a variexy oi anaiances, xn; 

 potatoes is equal to an ordinarWgressing. ] 

 ed of good wheat, oats, or clover, that Tol. 



I am sorry to hear of the depredations committed by the weevil in 

 your parts; it is a great calamity at all times, and this year, when 

 the demand for wheat is so great, and the price so high, must be a 

 mortifying one to the farmers. The rains have been very general, and 

 more abundant since the 1st of August, than ever happened in a summer 

 within the memory of man. Scarcely a mill-dam, or bridge, between 

 this and Philadelphia, was able to resist them, and some were carried 

 off a second and third time. 



