74 ON WHEAT AND RYE. 



eleven quarts of good herds grass seed, and the whole immedi- 

 ately rolled down without again han'owing, with a roller of a- 

 bout six hundred weight, and left to the work of nature. 



It came up well, and attained a growth of six or seven inches 

 before the cold weather set in, and nothing more was done to k 

 till the 22d of July last, when it was reaped and put in the 

 barn ; and a few days after my foreman commenced threshing 

 it in the usual way, by flail ; but finding it, as he said, thresh 

 hard, took the remainder to a threshing mill, where the straw 

 was kept as the toll fee ; and ten and a half bushels of clean 

 good grain, with more than half a bushel of refuse, was brought 

 back by him; which, together with what was threshed on my 

 own barn floor, amounted by his own measurement to twelve 

 bushels, clean good grain, plump and beautifully white. 



The whole garden encloses about fifty rods of land ; part of 

 which was covered with cellar stones ; a strip on the whole 

 northeast side of the lot (about 200 feet long,) and about six or 

 more feet wide, on account of a wall on that side, was not 

 ploughed at all : so that the land covered with the wheat did 

 not exceed, if it amounted to, a quarter of an acre. 



This lot or garden being in Newburyport, about four miles from 

 my residence, made it inconvenient, with the other occupations 

 of my men, to attend to a spring top dressing ; and it was neglect- 

 ed. 



So small a piece of ground not coming within the limits of 

 your rules for premium, believing it may be worthy the notice 

 of the Trustees, also to make this peculiarly white and full ker- 

 nelled hardy wheat better known among farmers in this quarter 

 of the country; also to show what better cultivation, and better 

 prepared and limed soil, with a spring dressing of leached 

 ashes would do, is the object of this communication. 

 I am gentlemen, very respectfully, 



Your obedient servant. 



Hector Coffin. 



Newbury, Rock Farm, Dec. lOth, 1833. 



