18 



land, and at present no manure to apply to it. What is to be 

 done ? Perhaps it will bear rye, the crop which seems to de- 

 mand less of the soil than any other ; and will put up with the 

 meanest fare. At present it gives you comparatively nothing. 

 Sow it then with rye and clover ; plaster it ; gather your rye ; 

 perhaps you will not get back even your seed. Now use the 

 straw carefully for litter, and convert it either by means of 

 your swine or cattle into manure ; plough in your clover, if 

 there is any of it, after it has gone to seed : apply the manure 

 be it more or less, which you obtained from the straw gathered 

 from this acre, and be careful not to cheat the land of any 

 thing that belongs to it. Sow it again with rye and clover 

 and repeat the same process. The second crop may be ex- 

 pected to be better than the first ; and, though the returns may 

 for some time be small, they will be continually increasing, and 

 will soon be a full return for the labor and expense applied. 

 Your land will be in a course of improvement, and your means 

 of enriching your soil will be increasing in a correspondent 

 proportion. If in addition to this you can, as I before remark- 

 ed, depasture such clover with sheep ; and enrich such land 

 by the addition of some soil in the neighborhood suited to its 

 improvement, the balance of such husbandry will be in the 

 end greatly to your advantage. This is one process, which 

 may be adopted without any great outlay to the improvement 

 of worn out lands, where manure is not to be obtained ; but 

 there are other modes, and other crops by which it may be 

 effected, which the time does not allow me to particularize. 



There is another ground on which farmers, whose whole 

 profession and business is husbandry, and who are looking to 

 its fair returns as an honest compensation for their labor, 

 should be urged to extend their cultivation. If any portion of 

 your land is absolutely worthless ; and you are satisfied that 

 by no process, which you can apply to it, you can ever obtain 

 an equivalent for the labor employed in its cultivation, then 

 indeed for cultivation let it be abandoned, or appropriated to 



