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ing from the practice were so great, as they are represented, surely 

 practical farmers would adopt it. The saving of seed, would alone 

 be a sufficient inducement, and in a national point of view would 

 be worthy the attention, and encouragement of the legislature. 

 Experience; that best guide in all agricultural pursuits, has shewn 

 that there are substantial objections to the practice, and they may 

 be comprised under the following heads : 



ist. The difficulty in getting compleat drilling and hoeing ma- 

 chines, and laborers skilful enough to conduct the process. 



2d. The danger of having too thin a crop, whereby it is rendered 

 more subject to rust, blight, mildew, and the effect of wind, than 

 thick broad cast crops. 



3d. Rankness in the straw, subjecting it to drop before the grain 

 is perfected. 



4th. Lateness, and irregularity in ripening. 



Let us now state the advantages : 



1st. Saving of seed. 



2d. Strength and vigor communicated to the land by well-timed 

 hoeings. 



3d. Destruction of weeds. 



How far these advantages counterbalance the disadvantages, I 

 shall not take upon me to determine. I can only say, that my 

 trials (and they have been repeatedly made on a large scale) have 

 been uniformly unfortunate. In dry seasons, the drilled corn, par- 

 ticularly barley, has been not only late, but uneven ripe, and this is 

 an unsurmountable obstacle to the sale of it, for the purposes of 

 malting ; and in wet seasons the growth of straw has been so en- 

 couraged by the hoeing, that it has dropped before harvest, and 

 the grain has been but of little value. Last year I divided a ten 

 acre piece, and drilled part with white Poland oats in equidistant 

 rows of one foot, after the rate of one bushel and a half, and some 

 part after the rate of two bushels and a half per acre. 



This was done the beginning of April ; three weeks after I sowed 

 broadcast, the remainder of the field, with the same sort of seed, 

 after the rate of six bushels per acre. Though sown last, the 

 broadcast was ripe a fortnight before the drilled. The grain was of 

 better quality, regularly ripe, and the produce ten bushels p^r acre 



more* 

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