334 On Grass Lays^ Manures, £sPr. 



merous >v'eeds, where grasses would abound, if a suffi- 

 ciency of seed ivas sown, and introduces tussocks, the 

 curse of bad husbandry, which compel high, wasteful 

 mowing, difficult ploughing, and furnishes a poor, 

 starved lay for cultivated crops. 



Here I wish to be understood, that nothing will su- 

 persede the necessity of farm yard manure ; for al- 

 though it is very probable that a judicious farmer, with 

 a very circumscribed capital, might profitably extend 

 his cultivation, to many acres of ground, with but lit- 

 tle aid from farm yard manure, by ploughing under 

 the tops and roots of the grasses, yet I do know, that 

 in general, a farmer whose capital, with the workers in 

 his family, might enable him with industry and good 

 management, to extend advantageously his cultivation 

 to a farm of twenty acres of ground, is very seldom 

 satisfied with a hundred, although he continues poor 

 on the latter, and might become independent, and com^ 

 paratively rich on the former ; and it is this, and not 

 maize, which has impoverished so much of the Ame- 

 rican soil, and stripped off the timber, which nature 

 had liberally provided for many ages yet to come. 

 Those who possess a fee simple in property, may do 

 as they consider best ; but those who let lands to others 

 would act wisely, to circumscribe the plough and the 

 axe, within the limits of their tenants' capital, for until 

 this is done, the soil will be ruined, and the timber 

 wantonly destroyed. The fall of the leaves and branch- 

 es will continue to enrich the wood land, and if fences 

 are kept up round the cleared grounds, nature will in 

 this country, soon cover them with white clover, and 

 other grasses, and the decay of their roots and tops 



