56 The Agricultural Papers of George Washington 



Pumpkins, potatoes, turnips, and buckwheat for a crop, 

 in the order they are mentioned, will next claim the assist 

 ance of the ploughs. The first should be planted in May, 

 in hills eight feet apart, and well manured. The second in 

 June, in drills four feet apart, and a foot asunder in the 

 rows, with a large handful of manure on each potato, which 

 should be uncut and of the largest sort. The third, that 

 is, turnips, to be sown partly in June, and partly in July. 

 And the fourth, buckwheat, as near as may be to the 10th 

 of July. 



This field of sundries may be thus apportioned; carrots, 

 five acres ; potatoes, five ; pumpkins, one ; turnips, one ; pease, 

 fifteen; flax, three; tobacco, five; buckwheat, thirty-five; 

 being seventy acres in all. 



That it may be ascertained, by repeated experiments, 

 whether carrots or potatoes are the most productive and 

 valuable root, I would have the ten acres allotted for them 

 in one square, and the rows for each alternate through the 

 whole square, and each to have the same quantity of manure 

 allowed to it. 



The work, which has been mentioned for the ploughs, to 

 gether with the ploughing in of the buckwheat before harvest, 

 the wheat after harvest, with the workings of the several 

 species of crops during their growth, is all the employment 

 that can be recollected at present for this part of the force 

 of the plantation, until the autumn ploughing for the next 

 year s crop commences. But, as these, till the system is 

 brought more into practice, and the preceding crop as a 

 better preparation of the ground for the succeeding one than 

 is the case at present, will require much exertion and an 

 addition of ploughs, one may be added to the number at 

 Dogue Run, which will make five there; and another at 

 Muddy Hole, which will make four there. 



