174 PLYMOUTH SOCIETY. 



disease, we discover that some kinds of potatoes decay more 

 than others, and that there is more of the disease in low and 

 moist, than on high and dry land. Perhaps observation and 

 experience will prove the most reliable sources of knowledge 

 we shall ever attain in the case. Within the memory of some 

 of us, there was almost universal despair in relation to the rye 

 crop ; blight seemed to pervade every field where it was sowed. 

 Now, in the careful selection of soils, in attention to the prep- 

 aration of them and the time of seeding, farmers sow rye with 

 good hope of success. We hope that observation and experience 

 may prove effective in annually diminishing the losses now sus- 

 tained in the potato crop. 



For Committee on Produce, 



MORRILL ALLEN. 



Nathan Whitman's Statement. 



The acre of wheat from which I harvested 20 bushels and 

 23 quarts was land planted to corn in 1846. May 7th, 1847, 

 ploughed the same, and spread on 20 loads of compost manure, 

 and ploughed in the same with a horse plough. Then I sowed 

 one and a half bushels of Black Sea wheat, which I bought in 

 Boston, without soaking. I harrowed it in well, then sowed on 

 | bushel herdsgrass seed, with eight pounds of clover ; after 

 which I rolled it with a roller, the diameter two feet, which I 

 think much better than those built 3 or 3| feet diameter. This 

 wheat was sowed the 12th of May. The first of July, there 

 was a gust of wind that blowed it down, and about T \ of it 

 never righted, and did not fill ; and, in harvesting, I mowed in- 

 stead of reaping, which prevented threshing it clean. Some 

 good judges think £ of the wheat still remains in the straw. 

 That part which was not blown down, was filled exceedingly 

 well, and I think this kind of wheat may be raised as well as 

 any other grain. 



East Bridgewater, October, 1847. 



