184 CORRESPONDENCE. 



We well know the difficulty of keeping all parts of 

 the farm in good heart, so as to yield as we might 

 wish while we continue to plant so many acres. Our 

 plan is to plant but half as many as we used to do — 

 getting nearly as much produce — and to save a large 

 portion of our manure for seeding down our fields in 

 the last part of summer. 



If we plough in a rowen crop one month after hay- 

 ing, we can seed it down immediately to grass, and 

 have a good swath for the scythe the next season, by 

 applying less than half the manure that we put on for 

 corn or for potatoes. If our friend L. should not use 

 any manure for planting, therefore, he would be able 

 to renovate all his forty acres once in five years instead 

 of once in ten, and he would probably cut double, and 

 more than double the quantity of English hay which 

 he now cuts. Indeed, a field that has been mown ten 

 years, will not commonly yield one fourth as much as 

 after two years' mowing. 



But what shall we do for grain ? Raise one acre of 

 corn instead of three ; sixty bushels instead of ninety, 

 and make up the balance in buckwheat, which needs 

 no manure. Thus, by saving half his manure for 

 seeding down, in the last of summer he will go over 

 his fields and give each a turn of manure much oftener 

 than by planting. Besides, he has many acres rather 

 too low, too wet, and too cold for planting. Why 

 should such land ever be planted? Our process is pe- 

 culiarly applicable to such lands. 



Then we would remind Mr. L. that, on going through 

 with our process a second time, less manure will be 

 required on seeding down ; for he will turn up the old 

 sod that he turned down but three or four years before, 

 and that will aid him in the process ; and we can as- 

 sure him that the oftener he turns in a crop of rowen, 

 without taking a crop of grain, the better he is making 

 his lands ; and he will soon be able to put the whole in 

 such order as to give him a swath worth cutting on 



