Original Letters of Dr. Franklin. 359 
But if the farmers in your neighbourhood are as unwilling 
to leave the beaten road of their ancestors as they are near 
me, it will be difficult to persuade them to attempt any im- 
provement, where the cash is to be laid out on a probability 
of a return, they are very averse to the running any risque at 
all, or even expending freely, where a gentleman of a more 
public spirit has given them ocular demonstration of the 
success. About eighteen months ago, 1 made a purchase 
of about three hundred acres of land, near Burlington, and 
resolved to improve it in the best and speediest manner, 
that I might be enabled to indulge myself in that kind of life 
which was most agreeable. My fortune (thank God) is 
such, that F can enjoy ail the necessaries and many of the 
indulgencies of life, but 1 think that in duty to my children, 
T ought so to manage, that the profits of my farm may balance 
the loss- my income will suffer by my retreat to it. In 
order to this I began with a meadow, on which there had 
never been much timber, but it was always overflowed, the 
soil of it is very fine, and black about three feet, then it 
comes to a black clay ; of this deep meadow I have about 
eighty acres, forty of which had been ditched and mowed ; 
the grass which comes in first, after ditching, ts spear grass 
“and white clover, but the weeds are to be mowed four or 
five years before they will be subdued, as the vegetation is 
very luxuriant. ‘This meadow had been ditched and: plant- 
ed with Indian corn, of which it produced above sixty bush- 
els per acre. 1 first scoured up my ditches and drains, and 
took offall the weeds, and then plowed it and sowed it with 
oats in the last of May ; In July I mowed them down, to- 
gether with the weeds, which grew plentifully among them, 
and they made good fodder. Limmediately plowed it again, 
and kept harrowing till there was an appearance of rain, and 
on the twenty-third of August, | sowed near thirty acres 
with red clover and herd grass, allowing six quarts of herd 
grass and four pounds of red clover to an acre in most parts 
of it, in other parts four quarts herd grass and three pounds 
red clover ; the red clover came up in four days and the 
herd grass in six days, and I now find that where I ailowed 
‘the most seed, it protects itself the better against the frost. I 
also sowed an acre with twelve pounds of red clover; it does 
well. Isowed an acre more with two bushels of rye-grass 
seed, and five pounds of red clover; the rye-grass seed fail- 
