The Agricultural Papers of George Washington 119 



for seed, to supply my own wants, and the market, so far as 

 it can be spared. This field, after the rye has been eaten off 

 by the sheep, is to be kept from the stock of all kinds, and 

 nothing suffered to run thereon, until it comes, in course, to 

 be cultivated, in the regular routine of crops. 



No. 2. Will be in corn, and, although but an indifferent 

 field, washed in some places, gullied in others, and rich in 

 none, is, all things considered, best to be appropriated con 

 stantly for this crop. First, and specially, because it is 

 most contiguous to the barn, and the corn therein more easily 

 secured and attended to. Secondly, because it is as handy 

 to the mud from the pocoson and the bed of the creek as any 

 other, to mix in a compost, and more convenient to the manure 

 from the farm-yard and stables. Thirdly, because it is en 

 tirely out of the reach of squirrels. And, fourthly, because 

 it is hoped and expected, from the manner of treating it, that 

 it will be so much amended as to become more and more pro 

 ductive every year, and the impoverished places, if not re 

 stored to some degree of fertility, prevented from getting 

 worse, and becoming such eye-sores as they now are. 



The corn will be planted in rows, six feet by four, or seven 

 by three and a half ; the wide part open to the south. It must 

 be as highly manured in the hill as the means on the farm 

 (respect being had to other species of crops) will admit. 

 The rows of the succeeding year will be in the middle of the 

 last, and alternately shifted; by which means, and the work 

 ings the field will yearly receive, the whole will be enriched, 

 and, it is hoped, restored. 



No. 3. As No. 2 is to be appropriated as a standing field 

 for corn, and of course cannot be sown with wheat in the 

 autumn of 1800, this field, that is, No. 3, ought, if it be prac 

 ticable, to be fallowed, and sown with that article; otherwise 

 the farm will produce no wheat the following year, and the 



