C 100 ] 



Oft Virginia Husbandry. 



Read August, 1809. 



Dear Sir, 



Agreeably to your request I embrace my first lei- 

 sure of acknowledging your favour of the 22d. of Fe- 

 bruary, and replying thereto as the various subjects oc- 

 cur. First, you mention plaister of Paris, of which I do 

 not make general use, particularly on my low lands, 

 where I have not found it to succeed. I sometimes use 

 it on my highlands, where it answers tolerably well par- 

 ticularly with clover, though I do not cultivate this crop 

 upon a large scale, yet I have some at each of my farms 

 for the purpose of feeding it, when half cured, to my 

 horses, and other work team, through the summer. 



My general rotation of crops is corn and wheat, the 

 latter succeeding the former, on the same field, the size 

 of which varies of course according to the size of the 

 farm, for some of the fields or shifts as they are termed 

 here are four hundred acres, whilst others are no more 

 than oiie hundred upon the different farms, the number 

 of shifts which is generally three, depends in some mea- 

 sure on circumstances and cultivation, as also depends 

 the kind of plough ; of late 1 have been in the habit of 

 making mixed crops, com, wheat, tobacco, cotton, oats, 

 rye, pease, beans, v%:c. 1 seed from three pecks to a 

 bushel of wheat to an acre, and reap from ten to fifteen 

 bushels, and my corn grovmd produces from three to 

 six barrels per ac^^e, though this again is variable, ac- 

 cording to soil and seasons. I have never yet made any 



