On cultivating Indian Corn, 197 



still proceeding. The difficulty of getting gypsum, has 

 however, compelled me to bestow only three pecks to 

 the acre, on the moiety cultivated, and none on that at 

 rest. Though the project is thus crippled, the crops 

 annually increase. I am uncertain, however, as to the 

 causes of this, because an improvement of crop is re- 

 gular in those parts of the farm, in which Indian corn, 

 every fourth year followed by wheat, is the course. 

 Hence I refer it, in some degree, to a practice common 

 to all. It is this — For a few years past, I have raised 

 corn, and most other crops, on ridges, live and an half 

 feet wide, divided by very deep and wide furrows, 

 and both the land and crops have improved faster, since 

 this practice commenced, than before. When the field 

 comes into culture after rest, these ridges are reversed 

 by deep ploughing, with four horses. The alternation 

 deepens the soil. The chief part of the rubbish of dead 

 grass or weeds, falls of itself, or is thrown by the plough 

 into these deep, wide furrows. There it is buried so 

 deep, as not to produce the common injury to the crop 

 from breeding insects, or rendering the earth too loose, 

 frequently caused even by clover lays. The air, gene- 

 rated by its gradual putrefaction, keeps the ridge mel- 

 low and warm, and the roots of the crop, whatever it 

 is, find their way to this stratum of manure, which, 

 during its slow decomposition, preserves a moisture, 

 constituting a considerable resource against drought. 

 Much labour is saved in fallowing, because the deep 

 furrow enables the plough to cut off a wide land on 

 each side of it, by which it is filled, without needing 

 itself a touch of the ploughshare, leaving a string of 

 the old ridge, so narrow, that a large plough, with two 



