Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/147

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and quality are not half so good and abundant as from a thin standing crop. One bushel and a half of wheat for seed is plenty. Three have been tried; but far from being any advantage, this additional quantity rather injures the crop. Although manure is not so necessary, nor so capable of being used to the same advantage as in England, it is here too much despised. To sell all the hay and straw, when a good price can be obtained, and to buy plaster, is held to be better than manuring, because the plaster is cheap, and there is no labour in using it, and by binding and stiffening loose, light, and hot soils, it protects them against the washing rains." Mr. W. thinks ten bushels of wheat per acre too little for the farmer. Even if {134} it sells at one dollar per bushel, it pays little more than the cost. "Labour," says he, "is quite as costly as in England, whether done by slaves, or by hired whites, and it is also much more troublesome. Although much of it is not needed, yet more than is done ought to be done. It would pay well, and be money well spent. We give three quarters of a dollar per day, all the year about, except in harvest, when it is 1-1/2 dollar, or 6s. 9d. sterling and board. A year in some farming States, such as Pennsylvania, is only of eight months duration, four months being lost to the labourer, who is turned away as an useless animal to starve on a bare common, if he has not laid up for this evil day. Mr. Worsley's land is worth 100 dollars per acre, but has only dead fences and no quicks, or green hedges; all woven fences. The greatest produce of wheat and corn averages, under the best management, from 16 to 20 bushels of wheat—20 to 30 of Indian corn—Rye, 16 to 20—and barley less than wheat. The system of cropping is, Indian corn or Red Clover, before wheat. The clovers, both white and red, are very abundant, run-