750 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 12 



labor, which is virtually a loss of money afsor 

 Before 1 quit the subject of drill culmre, it, may 

 perhaps be useful to some of my brellireu briefly 

 to state my own process, as I have Ibuuil it a very 

 f^reat. saving of labor. In making ilie drills Ibr 

 the seed, 1 use a marking rake, in which lour pegs, 

 an inch square, with sharpened ends, are fixed at 

 the distance li-om each oiher, 1 prefer for the par- 

 ticular kind of seed to be sown. The same rake 

 may serve for two diflerent distances, by having a 

 row of pegs in opposite sides of the timber wliich 

 holds them. It lias two handles whose ends are 

 connected by a cross piece, and by this the sower 

 pulls it backwards, nmrking in the first instance, 

 lour small furrows ai once, in which he is guided 

 by a stretched cord that he suffers just to touch the 

 outside peg all the way as he walks. After this, 

 each time of passing the outsi(li=. tlirrows serves in- 

 stead of the rope to keep the furrows straight, but 

 then he marks only three at once. The rake 

 should be heavy enough to make the furrows 

 about an inch deep. In these ihe seed are drop- 

 ped from a very simple hand drill, which may be 

 made lor three or lour dollars, although it will 

 last for a man's lifetime, and is so contrived as lo 

 sow seed of any size or shape that will pass rea- 

 dily through a hole; and to perform at the same 

 time, the three difi'erent operations uf opening the 

 furrow, dropping the seed and covering them. 

 With this drill and marking rake, one nmri can 

 easily finish the whole work of sowing an acre 

 in a very lliw hours, and with far greater regularity 

 than can be done in any of the common methods. 

 In an experiment made with the Rohan |)otalo, 

 the 63rd part of an acre produced seven bushels 

 and three pecks, which was at the rate of 488 

 bushels per acre. The quantity certainly would 

 have been greater, as the seed would have plant- 

 ed more ground ; but fearing a loss by cutting 

 Khem into pieces having only one eye, many were 

 jilanted having two or three eyes to each. Even 

 ■this product, however, fir exceeds any yet made 

 ■in our part of country, Irom any other variety of 

 this valuable root, and must give Rohan potatoes 

 a decided preference — at least Ibr a quantity, over 

 all the kiniis at present knoAvn to us. But we may 

 possibly obtain a siill more productive variety, since 

 it is now well known, that by iilantiiiLT the apples, 

 entirely new and unknown kinds will continually 

 t)e produced. I oiisht to mention that my Ro- 

 hans were planted 15 inches apart each way, in a 

 level surface, well manured broad cast, and then 

 dug. Twelve of the larirest together weighed 

 twelve pounds, and one of these a pound and a half, 

 covered with straw 5 or 6 inches deep; in which 

 state they remained untouched until they were dug. 

 This mode of planting saves all the labor of culti- 

 vation, and improves by the straw instead of im- 

 poverisfiini; the land. 



Here ends my detail of experiments with which 

 I have detained you so much longer than I wished 

 or expected, that I almost fear to proceed, as I 

 lieretolbre have done, at our anniversaries, to oflier 

 you a \'e\v concluding remarks by way of caution 

 against prevalent erroneous opinions and prac- 

 tices, and of encouragement to perseverance in all 

 Ihe means best calculated to promote our cause. 

 But since my age admonishes me that it is very 

 possible I may now be addressing you Ibr the last 

 time, this consideration I trust will excuse my 

 proceeding ibr a lew minutes longer. 



Among the circumstances which should increase 

 our zeal and animate our hopes in abiding by old 

 Virginia forever, is an abatement in many parta 

 of Ihe slate, of the mania, (as I always considered 

 it,) lor abandoning our native homes, and all that 

 can endear them to us, in search of new, un- 

 known, untried lands, where, in a vast multitude 

 of cases, the design first avowed by most emi- 

 grants, of making money Ibr the sake of their fa- 

 milies is very soon converted into the settled, ever 

 anxious, heart-corroding passion Ibr making it 

 solely for its own sake, to the neglect of almost 

 all the conveniences, comlbrts, and enjoyments of 

 civilized life. What has produced this abatement 

 of the migrating mania, which to me seems evi- 

 dent, I cannot tell, unless it be, that the newly 

 awakened spirit lor agricultural improvement has 

 already so far and happily operated upon most of 

 us, as thorouirlily to have convinced us, that even 

 our most exhausted lands are, in general, capable 

 of soon being rendered very productive ; and pro- 

 bably at less expense than we should necessarily 

 incur to move to a new country ; to erect the in- 

 dispensable buildings to clear lands for cultivation ; 

 and then have to wait some years belbre we could 

 make any other income, than " hog and hominy." 

 In proof of the great capacity of almost all our 

 lands Ibr speedy improvement, I will here state 

 what has resulted fi-om a small trial of my own 

 soil, although it never was of the first quality. 

 The fields have been cultivated ever since I could 

 first remember, which is more ihan half a centu- 

 ry, in three-shifts, one of which has been annually 

 pastured during the whole time, except for a short 

 period that I Ibllowed the inclosing system of 

 my good old friend Col. John Taylor, of Caro- 

 line, whom I have always considered as the Hither 

 of Virginia agriculture, and whose memory will 

 be honored and cherished as long as a single friend 

 to our cause is left in the state, who either knew 

 him personally or by character. But lo proceed 

 with my statement ; the field in corn this year had 

 a few acres cow-penned last year, and not plough- 

 ed up until the past spring,a practice, by the way, 

 which is the result of many trials made by myself 

 and others, that have most thoroughly convinced 

 me of Its superiority lo ploughing up each pen as 

 soon as it is romoved. The corn on these acres 

 was planted in April, the hills five feet by three 

 apart, with one and sometimes two stalks left 

 standing in each. One of these acres which ap- 

 peared somewhat better than the rest, produced, by 

 accurate measurement, eleven barrels of sound 

 corn. Anolheracre, (both of twin-corn,) in a differ- 

 ent part of the field that had been an old clover lot, 

 but cultivated, with only one or two sprinklings of 

 manure, for several years past in corn, wheat or 

 oats, was also accurately measured, and produced 

 fifteen barrels, within a fraction of a bushel, and 

 this quantity be it remembered, is worih double or 

 triple as much here, as the same would be in most 

 of the new states. Only a short period has elapsed 

 since you could visit scarcely a fiimily of your ac- 

 quaintance without finding them in distres?, at re- 

 cently pariinir with some intimate friend, or near 

 and dear connexion, hurrying away to far distant 

 lands. Now. comparatively speaking, it has be- 

 come a rare sight ; nay, I know several instances 

 of individuals and whole fiimilies having returned 

 from this voluntary banishment, to their former 

 neighborhoods, determined never to quit (hem 



