And Improvement of Soils. 191 



experiments tested by frequent repetition, have laid a 

 foundation for experiments less expensive, and equally 

 fertilizing, for the production of grass, and grain. — 

 Ploughing and sowings for the purpose of producing pas- 

 ture^ and accumulation of vegetable soil have been adopt- 

 ed: for this purpose wheat, rye, Indian corn, (maize,) 

 buckwheat and oats have been sown upon fields plough- 

 ed, which were incapable of producing any crop ; none 

 of those grains, have produced pasture and vegetable 

 soil equally valuable, to that from the oats : where the 

 others have failed, its roots have pierced^ disarmed and 

 vanquished the inhospitable soil and rendered it fertile ; 

 the winter ploughing is continued, and the oats are 

 thrown in, as early as the season will allow, sometimes 

 even in February, either upon what has been ploughed 

 in autumn, or in the fields which were in corn the pre- 

 ceding year, or in pasture oats, the preceding fall. In 

 general they afford early pasture, and when they are 

 reploughed in July and August, and sown again with 

 oats, they furnish excellent pasture from early in Sep- 

 tember, until late in December, during that season when 

 all other pasture is generally dried up. The first sowing 

 of oats only gives about two months pasture, but the 

 roots and remaining herbage affords a manure for the 

 second sowing, and this always yields four months valu- 

 able pasture, — which no other course known to me will 

 afford. In September, October, November and Decem- 

 ber, — considerable attention is required, to preserve the 

 young clover, which the field will be able to raise in 

 the second year of the oat pasture : if sown ^vith the 

 oats in the spring, the cattle should never be put in 

 while the ground is too moist, as they would destroy and 



