Chap. If. RVTA BAGA CULTURE. 117 



some complaints, the nation wonJd ncv/ be really 

 injured by the communication of what, if it were in 

 a healthy state, v>^culd do it good, and add to its 

 strength and to all its merms of exertion. 



121. To return from this digression, I am afraid 

 ofv.'o bad sea307is. The drought, which is the great 

 enemy to be dreaded in this country, I am quite 

 prepared for. Giv^e me ground that i can plough 

 ten or twelv e inches deep, and give me Indian Cora 

 spaces to plough in, and no sun can burn me up, 

 I have mentioned Mr. Curwen's experiments be- 

 fore ; or, rather Tull's. For, he it is, who made 

 all the discoveries of this kind. Let an}'^ man, just 

 to tr}, leave half a rod of ground undng from the 

 month of May to that of October ; and another half 

 rod let him dig and break fine ever}'^ ten or tifteen 

 days. Then, whenever there has been fifteen or 

 twenty days of good scorching snn, let him go and 

 dig a bole in each. If he does not tmd the hard 

 s:Toi!nd dry as dust, and the other mcist ; then let 

 him say, that I know nothing about these matters. 

 So erroneous is the common notion, that ploughing 

 in dry Tceather lets in the drought ! 



122. Of course, proceeding upon this fact, which 

 I state as the result of numerous experiments, I 

 should, if visited with long droughts, give one or two 

 additional ploughings between the crops when 

 growing. That is all ; and, with this, in Long 

 Island, I defy all droughts. 



123. But, why need I insist upon this effect of 

 ploughing in dry weather ? Why need I insist on it 

 in an Indian Corn country ? Who has not seen 

 fields of Indian Corn looking, to-day, yellow and 

 sickW, and, in four days hence (the weather being 

 dry all the while,) looking green and flourishing ; 

 and this wonderful effect produced merely by the 

 plough? Why, then, should not the same effect 

 alwa3^s proceed from the same cause '? The deeper 

 von plough the greater the effect, hov/cver : for 



