Observations on Agriculture, ^fc. 99 



either encreasing their own motion, or that of their 

 justly valued stout and fat horses. To effect this pur- 

 pose, little more is necessary, than to avoid the plant- 

 ing of Indian corn without manure, and also laying 

 aside the preposterous practice of breaking up oat, 

 buckwheat, and rye stubbles, and fallowing of them 

 for wheat ; and instead of applying their manure to the 

 latter crop, apply it to summer fallow crops, which will 

 admit effectual horse-hoeing, shimming, or hoe-har- 

 rowing, agreeably to the mode mentioned to you in my 

 letter of the IGth instant, on the agriculture of Great 

 Britain. 



If I have been properly informed, the road leading 

 through Lancaster, Harrisburg, &c. to this place, 

 would have presented a country for which nature and 

 art has done much more than for that through which I 

 passed ; my route laid through Reading and Sunbury, 

 where I crossed the Susquehannah to Northumber- 

 land, and followed the course of the west branch of 

 that river, to the big island, where I crossed it again, 

 about 25 miles below Bellefonte. If I am not mista- 

 ken, nature has not been peculiarly lavish on the soil of 

 that long range of country, except in the bottoms, which 

 are by no means extensive, and are really trifling w^hen 

 compared with the rising grounds, without taking 

 into consideration the immense chains of mountains, 

 which present themselves in constant succession, after 

 leaving Hamburg, at the foot of the blue mountain ; 

 for from that town to the Bear Gap, a distance of about 

 40 miles, there is scarcely any cultivation to be seen, 

 or a spot on which it could be effected, except the 

 sides or tops of the mountains, or some trivial and 



