238 THE CULTIVATOR. August, 
VIRGINIA FARMING, 
L. Tucker, Esq. —Being a constant reader of the 
Cultivator, and not finding many communications from 
this part of the valley of Virginia, I thought it would 
not be intruding too much on your time to read an ac¬ 
count of our farm, which is called the <s Plains.” This 
farm was taken up by a Mr. James Wood, and patented 
on the 12th day of January, 1746, exactly one hundred 
years ago this day. It was sold some four or five times, 
until my father bought it in the year 1829. My older 
brother moved on it in the year 1833, and was on 
it until 1835. He then bought a farm adjoining the 
town of New-Market, and I moved to this place, where 
I have been since. When my father bought this 
farm it was in very bad order; there was not a good 
pannel of fence on it, and not a single gate; the roof of 
the barn had been blown off by a storm and the barn¬ 
yard was only fenced in by an old rail fence, and not an 
acre of clover was on the place. The land was worked 
on the skinning system.” The barn-yard was so full of 
old manure that it was almost impossible to get to the 
barn, and some of the fields were so poor that one of 
them produced only four bushels of rye per acre, in the 
year 1837. The land lies well for cultivation; it is not 
very hilly, but there are about 100 acres of it a black marl 
bottom, and about 150 acres of upland, which is a sandy 
clay; there are also about 165 acres of wood land at¬ 
tached to it. We have run a lane through the centre 
of the farm so that we can let the cattle run from the 
Darn-yards to any of the fields. We have hung 32 gates J 
to the yards, lane, and fields, so that we can get about 
without ever tearing down any fence. The gates are 
made on the plan that you published in your January 
number, page 18. There is a spring on the adjoining 
farm which runs through our bottom land and empties 
into the Little Shenandoah river that passes along the 
edge of our farm. We have a merchant mill on the 
bank of the river which is run by the spring branch; 
we have also a saw mill which is run by the river. The 
spring branch runs through the edge of the cattle yards, 
so that the cattle can get water at all times. The lane 
also has communication with the spring branch, so that 
the cattle can come from any of the back fields to the 
branch for water. We have graded a greater part of 
the lane, and have turnpiked nearly all the low places, 
so that we can get along at all seasons of the year. We 
have adjoining the barn three yards, with sheds, for the 
cattle, one yard with a shed for the sheep, and a horse 
stable with a large yard, in which is a shed for wa¬ 
gons, cariole, cart, and farm implements, also two 
small buildings for saddles and tools. The saw-mill is 
only about 100 feet from the cattle yards, so that we 
can easily haul all the sawdust to the horse stable and 
cattle yards, which we find a very good article for ab¬ 
sorbing the liquids of the manure. We also find that 
tan bark is a very good article for the same purpose; 
we therefore have adopted the plan of bringing a load 
along when we take corn, flour, &c., to New-Market, 
which is only three miles from this place. We have 
improved the land very much with clover, plaster, ashes, 
and manure, and a proper rotation of crops. We find 
that the following rotation is very suitable for this farm. 
First Year. 
Second Year. 
Third Year. 
Fourth Year. 
Fifth Year. 
Sixth Year. 
Corn with Ma¬ 
nure. 
Oats. 
Wheat. 
Clover with plas¬ 
ter and ashes. 
Ditto. 
To be pastured. 
Seventh Year. 
Eighth Year. 
Ninth Year- 
Tenth Year. 
Eleventh Year. 
Twelfth Year. 
Fallow. 
Wheat. 
Rye or bearded 
wheat, with 
short manure. 
Clover with plas¬ 
ter and ashes. 
Ditto. 
To be pastured. 
By the above system you will find that we have six 
fields in clover, three in wheat, one in oats, one in corn, 
and one in fallow. The best parts of the four clover 
fields are mowed, and the other is left to rot on the 
ground; the two other clover fields are pastured but 
lightly, as we send all our young cattle and sheep to our 
mountain farm, on the head of the river. We find that 
plaster and ashes have a very good effect on the upland, 
but on the marl bottom it does not have any effect. 
The upland is very good for clover, and the bottom is 
very suitable for timothy. The upland had a conside- 
ble quantify of loose rocks, but we hauled nearly all of 
them into the lane, and into several sink holes and 
dragged earth over them with the road scraper. There 
were also a great many rocks in the fence corners 
that were hauled there some years ago; we also hauled 
hauled them into the sink holes. 
We have a pond at the mill which we have cleaned 
out several times, and hauled the mud, composed prin¬ 
cipally of marl, on the wheat fields, and harrowed it in 
with the W'heat. It has proved a very good article on 
the upland, answering better than stable manure in the 
adjoining- field. The last year we hauled out 131 four 
horse loads of the mud, 154 loads of barn yard manure 
in the spring, and 84 loads in the fall. 
The year 1845 was very dry in this part of the valley, 
so that all summer crops were very short, but the wheat 
yielded tolerably well. The following was the quantity 
of hay, &c., raised on the Plains farm in the year 
1845. 
20 wagon loads of hay; 672 bushels of oats; 31 bush, 
of rye: 113 bush, potatoes; 650 corn; 800 wheat. 
We have 119 sheep, 35 head of cattle, and six horses. 
We have a corn fodder machine which is run by a tw'O 
horse power; It is the middle size of “ Eastman's Pa¬ 
tent.” It was made too weak, so thatw'e had to take it 
through a thorough repair, but now it does tolerably 
well. We have large mangers in the cattle sheds, 
where we feed the cut corn fodder in the evening, and 
straw in the morning. The sheep get straAv in racks in 
the morning, and hay in the evening, but when the snow 
is off the ground they are permitted to run to the 
field that is to be put into corn in the spring; we then 
give no hay, but only straw. We also give a bucket 
full of oats to the 119 head, every evening and morning, 
in small mangers. The sheep-racks are made on the 
plan that the “ Economs ” have them in Germany. 
We have tried the “feeding boxes,” but do not like 
them as well as the racks. When the manure is hauled 
out of the sheep-yard in the spring, we plow it up, and 
plant cucumbers, melons, beans, &c., which do very 
well, as the ground gets very rich by the sheep ma¬ 
nure. 
By attending to the sheep on the above plan we have 
very good luck with the lambs. Last spring we raised 
29 lambs out of 32. Our sheep are grade Saxons, which 
seem to suit our climate very well. We put the rams 
to the ewes the latter part of October, so that the lambs 
will come the latter part of March, which i3 the best 
time for this part of the country; the lambs will then 
be able to travel to our mountain farm, after the ewes 
are sheared, which is the first week in May. Our young 
cattle are also then taken to the mountains, so that we 
