li^ &quot;The .Agricultural Papers of George Washington 



other 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 produces better oats than those that 

 grow on the Allegany Mountains, immediately 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 importing 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 here. 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 climate and soil 

 would produce it to advantage. No doubt, as your observa 

 tions while you were in the United States appear to have been 

 extensive and accurate, it did not escape you, that both 

 winter and spring barley are cultivated among us. The lat 

 ter is considered as an uncertain crop south of New York, and 



