ESSEX SOCIETY. 35 



other covered in. Rye, oats and buckwheat have been the 

 grains mostly used. One part of the field is now improved as a 

 nursery, and lately the other has been filled out with peach and 

 plum trees, designed for an orchard. These are in a flourishing 

 condition. On the orchard part, corn was planted this year, with 

 no other manure than a very small quantity put into the hill. 

 From the appearance of the stalks and the setting of the ears, a 

 good judge of such things thought there would be a yield of 

 from forty to fifty bushels to the acre, and though, from the dry- 

 ness of the season, the ears did not fill out entirely, there was 

 still what should be regarded as an encouraging harvest. Less 

 than half the manure has been used, in producing the change, 

 than would have been necessary had no other compensating 

 process been adopted. 



From various statements, and from our own observation, we 

 are of the opinion that the laws of the natural world will be 

 best met, and, in consequence, the most encouraging results fol- 

 low, by confining the green-crop operation to land comparatively 

 of a sandy and loose soil, and leave the clayey and stifi^ soils to 

 the enriching and softening influence of the product of the sta- 

 bles and yards where the flocks are folded. Many reasons pre- 

 sent themselves to confirm us in this belief We shall mention 

 only two, and leave those without enlarging upon them. The 

 first is, that vegetables will ferment much more readily and 

 powerfully, in sandy and loose soils, than in those of a stifi" 

 character, and therefore produce greater chemical changes, and, 

 in consequence, prepare a greater portion of nourishment for the 

 crop that may come after. The second is, they will thus bring 

 into more active operation the electrical fluid, a most powerful 

 agent in carrying forward vegetable growth. And, it may be 

 added, both of these objects will be more fully accomplished if 

 a very light covering is drawn over the embedded crop, than if 

 it be buried deep in the earth. The field referred to above has been 

 cultivated almost exclusively with a plough drawn by one horse. 



There seems to be a difference in the opinions of those who 

 have written, and perhaps of those who have made personal 

 trial, of this method of cultivation, whether it is best to cover 

 the crop when green, or suffer it to remain till ripe, and, after it 



