190 [Assembly 



Nothing of note has been done in the culture of silk ; a few speci- 

 mens have been exhibited at our fairs. When the Morus multicaulus 

 fever raged, it was thought that many would engage in growing and 

 cultivating silk ; but, with that, it fell to the giound. I have here given 

 a summary of what we are doing. The picture is not all to our credit, 

 when we look to the march of science connected with the tilling of the 

 soil, yet we look for a better day a-head, when science and hand la- 

 bour shall be mingled together in every county. 



Having given this general view of things, I proceed to state parti- 

 culars, as they have come under my immediate observation, on my 

 own farm, and those of my neighbors. 



I purchased my present farm in 1831, and found it in the worst con- 

 dition possible. I commenced ploughing, and found that a single team 

 would not do even the lightest ploughing ; it was hard work for a 

 double team to plough corn stubbe six inches deep. It had never 

 been ploughed over four inches. I subjected my whole farm to a 

 system of deep ploughing, and so thoroughly have I got the soil un- 

 der control, that a single team will break up fallow that has been two 

 or three years in grass. At the time I purchased, it was said of one 

 field, that *' it would not rase white beans." At the time it had wheat 

 on it, which yielded about eight bushels per acre. In 1833, I planted 

 it to corn, and gathered twenty bushels of shelled corn per acre ; this 

 was cut up, and sowed with wheat, the 13th October ; product, eight 

 bushels per acre. I seeded it with clover and timothy in the spring, 

 then pastured one year; in 1830. manured with well-rotted manure, 

 at the rate of sixty loads per acre ; then ploughed, and planted with 

 corn and potatoes. The product was forty bushels of shelled corn, and 

 three hundred bushes of potatoes per acre. 



In 1837, planted corn on potatoe ground, and potatoes on corn 

 ground, with about the same success as before. In 1838, sowed one 

 acre to spring wheat, (one and a half bushels per acre ;) product, 

 thirty bushels, at 12 shillings per bushel ; one acre with barley, (two 

 bushels per acre ;) product, forty-sevevn and a half bushels, at 4 shil- 

 lings per acre ; one acre with flax, (three-quarters of a bushel per 

 acre,) harrowed before sowing, and harrowed in; product, eleven 

 bushels, at $1 per bushed The above three acres were ploughed 

 once, and sowed with winter wheat, about the 23d of September, of 

 the same year, at the rate of one and a quarter bushels per acre ; 



