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land (different kinds) I have more than once tried, but not with 

 encouragement to proceed; for, among other discouragements, they are 

 perforated by a bug, which eats out the kernel. From the cultivation 

 of the common black-eye peas, I have more hope, and am trying them 

 this year, both as a crop, and for ploughing in as a manure; but the 

 severe drought, under which we labor at present, may render the experi- 

 ment inconclusive, It has, in a manner, destroyed my oats, and 

 threatens to destroy my Indian corn, 



The practice of ploughing in buckwheat twice in the season as a 

 fertilizer is not new to me. It is what I have practised, or, I ought 

 rather to have said, attempted to practise, the last two or three 

 years; but, like most things else in my absence, it has been so badly 

 executed, that is, the turning in of the plants has been so ill timed, 

 as to give no result. I am not discouraged, however, by these fail- 

 ures; for, if pulverizing the soil, by fallowing and turning in vege- 

 table substances for manure, is a proper preparation for the crop 

 that is to follow, there can be no question, that a double portion of 

 the latter, without an increase of th&;"j>loughing, must be highly bene- 

 ficial. I am in the act of making ^tflp^ther experiment of this sort, 

 and shall myself attend to the operation, which, however, may again 

 prove abortive, from the cause I have mentioned, namely, the drought. 



The lightness of our oats is attributed, more than it ought to be, 

 to the unfitness of the climate of the middle States. That this may 

 be the case in part, and nearer the seaboard in a greater degree, I 

 will not controvert; but it is a well-known fact, that no country pro- 

 duces better oats than those that grow on the Allegany Mountains, im- 

 mediately westward of us. I have heard it affirmed, that they weigh 

 upwards of fifty pounds the Winchester bushel. This may be occasioned 

 by the fertility of the soil, and the attraction of moisture by the 

 mountains; but another reason, and a powerful one too, may be assigned 

 for the inferiority of ours, namely, that we are not choice in our 

 seeds, and do not change them as we ought. 



The seeds you were so obliging as to give me shared the same fate 

 that Colonel Wadsworth's did, and as I believe seeds from England 

 generally will do, if they are put into the hold of the vessel. For 

 this reason, I always made it a point whilst I was in the habit of im- 

 porting seeds, to request my merchants and the masters of vessels, 

 by which they were sent, to keep them from the heat thereof. 



You make a distinction, and no doubt a just one, between what in 

 England is called barley, and big, or be re . If there be none of the 

 true barley in this country, it is not for us, without experience, to 

 pronounce upon the growth of it; and therefore, as noticed in a former 

 part of this letter, it might be interesting to ascertain, whether our 



