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merits in agriculture will probably be discovered as to make 

 all land yield a larger quantity of produce than it now does. 

 That the greater part of the land of this country, by a better 

 system of cultivation, and with more manual and horse 

 labour, might be brought to produce more than it has 

 hitherto done, is most certain. But I cannot conceive how 

 that land, which is now cultivated in the best manner 

 known, can be made to produce much more, unless it 

 should hereafter be found possible, as some imagine it will, 

 to make the land yield a larger quantity of produce by 

 chemical means. Much very weak corn land is brought to 

 produce tolerably good crops by thick sowing, and by the 

 application of large quantities of manure, but if this is 

 done on good friable land, the result will be, unless it 

 should be a dry summer, a great bulk of straw, yielding a 

 short quantity of inferior quality of grain. Nature will 

 bear forcing, but not beyond a certain limit. Crops of corn, 

 to be brought to perfection, not only want nourishment 

 from the earth, but from the air also. By the drill-system, 

 weeds can be eradicated from corn crops; thus, all the 

 nourishment which the earth affords, goes to the corn, and 

 the necessary free circulation of air is let in to the crops. 

 .Believing that where the present best known system of 

 agriculture is pursued, the land is forced to nearly the 

 utmost extent that it will bear, 1 do not fully assent to the 

 idea that farming is yet in its infancy. I am at a loss to 

 conceive how my small farm, of 150 acres, is to be brought 

 to produce more than ii has for some years (when there has 

 not been a dry summer), without some chemical aid at 

 present unknown. I ought, however, to mention, that I never 

 sold any hay or straw from it that on an average of twenty 

 years, I have annually bought and consumed, in stall- 

 feeding, a hundred pounds' worth of hay and oil-cake. In 

 my present small scale of farming, I find a donkey and cart 

 most useful. 



It is not improbable that at some future time, a 

 greater quantity of grain may be raised in this country, by 

 the introduction of some new and more prolific varieties 

 than we now have, which, by continued close examination 

 into growing crops, might possibly be obtained. It is a 

 good fair ear of wheat which contains more than fifty 



