26 



iurnished by the Trustees with the best information they caa 

 obtain on the subject ; unless a publication (which they con- 

 template) should supersede the necessity of individual appli- 

 cations. 



In proposing premiuihs for products obtained with the least 

 expense of labour and manure, the Trustees have in view an 

 improved culture of our farms, by the exertion of superior 

 skill and industry, and better tillage to supply the place of more 

 ample manuring*. To effect this better tillage, the plants cul- 

 tivated must be set at distances which shall admit the free use 

 of the plough. 



The fattening of oxen at the least expense will of course in- 

 clude the shortest time: for it is well known that all domestic 

 animals lay on fat in proportion to the quantity and quality of 

 the food they are disposed, or can be induced, to eat, when fed 

 to the full. Hence so to feed them is the truest economy, when 

 fatting them is the object. 



A premium is ofifered for mixed crops of corn, potatoes and 

 beans, on the supposition that the crop of corn may not thereby 

 be greatly diminished in quantity, or not in proportion to the 

 value of the potatoes and beans, or of one of them. The corn 

 plants standing far apart will not injuriously shade the potatoes 

 and beans ; while the vines of these will cover the intervals of 

 the corn from the scorching rays of the sun. And a covering 

 crop is deemed less hurtful than any other— some have even 

 been thought to be beneficial. Dr. Eliot, of Connecticut, in his 

 fifth Essay on Field Husbandry, published so long ago as the 

 year 1754, thus writes — '^ Peas are found to make land mellow, 

 to enrich and so well to prepare it for wheat, that I have 

 many times known farmers to invite others who had peas to 

 sow their land, without paying any rent, merely for the advan- 

 tage it would be to their crop of wheat." The Doctor assigns 

 the foUowing reason. '^ Peas make a shade ; where the land is 

 shaded, the air will be condensed ; and, consequently, make 

 room for the rushing in of more air, so that in this shade there 

 will be a greater lodgement of nitrous salts, [or whatever in the 

 air, which is a compound substance, tends to f-srtilize the earth] 

 and consequently the land will be made rich." "The air'" 



