The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
LAND / AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE
I have long owed you a letter, for which my conscience would not have
let me rest in quiet but on the consideration that the payment would
not be worth your acceptance. The debt is not merely for a letter the
common traffic of every day, but for valuable ideas, which instructed
me, which I have adopted, and am acting on them. I am sensible of the
truth of your observations that the atmosphere is the great storehouse
of matter for recruiting our lands, that though efficacious, it is
slow in its operation, and we must therefore give them time instead of
the loads of quicker manure given in other countries, that for this
purpose we must avail ourselves of the great quantities of land we
possess in proportion to our labor, and that while putting them to
nurse with the atmosphere, we must protect them from the bite and
tread of animals, which are nearly a counter-poise for the benefits of
the atmosphere. As good things, as well as evil, go in a train, this
relieves us from the labor and expense of cross fences, now very
sensibly felt on account of the scarcity and distance of timber. I am
accordingly now engaged in applying my cross fences to the repair of
the outer ones and substituting rows of peach trees to preserve the
boundaries of the fields, And though I observe your strictures on
rotations of crop~, yet it appears that in this I differ from you only
in words. You keep half your lands in culture, the other half at
nurse; so I propose to do. Your scheme indeed requires only four years
and mine six; but the proportion C f labor and rest is the same. My
years of rest, however, are employed, two e f them in producing
clover, yours in volunteer herbage, But I still understand it to be
your opinion that clover is best where lands will produce them. In
deed I think that the important improvement for which the world is
indebted to. Young is the substitution of clover crops instead of
unproductive fallows; and the demonstration that lands are more
enriched by clover than by volunteer herbage or fallows; and the
clover crops are highly valuable. That our red lands which are still
in tolerable heart will produce fine clover I know from the experience
of the last year; and indeed that of my neighbors had established the
fact. And from observations on accidental plants in the fields which
have been considerably harassed with corn, I believe that even these
will produce clover fit for soiling of animals green. I think,
therefore, I can count on the success of that improver. My third year
of rest will be devoted to cowpenning, and to a trial of the buckwheat
dressing. A further progress m surveying my open arable lands has
shewn me that I can have seven fields in each of my farms where I
expected only six; consequently that I can add more to the portion of
rest and ameliorating crops. I have doubted on a question on which I
am sure you can advise me well, whether I had better give this newly
acquired year as an addition to the continuance of my clover, or throw
it with some improving crop between tw6 of my crops of grain, as for
instance between my corn and rye. I strongly incline to the latter,
because I am not satisfied that one cleansing crop in seven years will
be sufficient; and indeed I think it important to separate my
exhausting crops by alternations of amelioraters. With this view I
think to try an experiment of what Judge Parker informs me he
practises. That is, to turn in my wheat stubble the instant the grain
is off, and sow turnips to be fed out by the sheep. But whether this
will answer in our fields which are harassed, I do not know. We have
been in the habit of sowing only our freshest lands in turnips, hence
a presumption that wearied lands will not bring them. But Young's
making turnips to be fed on by sheep the basis of his improvement of
poor lands, affords evidence that though they may not bring great
crops, they will bring them in a sufficient degree to improve the
lands. I will try that experiment, however, this year, as well as the
one of buckwheat. I have also attended to another improver mentioned
by you, the winter vetch, and have taken measures to get the seed of
it from England, as also of the Siberian vetch which Millar greatly
commends, and being a biennial might perhaps take the place of clover
in lands which do not suit that. The winter vetch I suspect may be
advantageously thrown in between crops, as it gives a choice to use it
as green feed in the spring if fodder be run short, or to turn it in
as a green-dressing. My rotation, with these amendments, is as
follows: --
1. Wheat, followed the same year by turnips, to be fed on by the
sheep.
2. Corn and potatoes mixed, and in autumn the vetch to be used as
fodder in the spring if wanted, or to be turned in as a dressing.
3. Peas or potatoes, or both according to the quality of the field.
4. Rye and clover sown on it in the spring. Wheat may be substituted
here for rye, when it shall be found that the second, third, fifth,
and sixth fields will subsist the farm.
5. Clover.
6. Clover, and in autumn turn it in and sow the vetch.
7. Turn in the vetch in the spring, then sow buckwheat and turn that
in, having hurdled off the poorest spots for cowpenning. In autumn sow
wheat to begin the circle again.
I am for throwing the whole force of my husbandry on the wheat-field,
because it is the only one which is to go to market to produce money.
Perhaps the clover may bring in something in the form of stock. The
other fields are merely for the consumption of the farm. Melilot,
mentioned by you, I never heard of. The horse bean I tried this last
year. It turned out nothing. The President has tried it without
success. An old English farmer of the name of Spuryear, settled in
Delaware, has tried it there with good success; but he told me it
would not do without being well shaded, and I think he planted it
among his corn for that reason. But he acknowledged our pea was as
good an ameliorater and a more valuable pulse, as being food for man
as well as horse. The succory is what Young calls Chicoria Intudbus.
He sent some seed to the President, who gave me some, and I gave it
to my neighbors to keep up till I should come home. One of them has
cultivated it with great success, is very fond of it, and gave tu&
some seed which I sowed last spring. Though the summer was favorable
it came on slowly at first, but by autumn became large and strong. It
did not seed that year, but will the next, and you shall be furnished
with seed. I suspect it requires rich ground, and then produces a
heavy crop for green feed for horses and cattle. I had poor success
with my potatoes last year, not having made more than 6o or 70 bushels
to the acre. But my neighbors having made good crops, I am not
disheartened. The first step towards the recovery of our lands is to
find substitutes for corn and bacon. I count on potatoes, clover, and
sheep. The two former to feed every animal on the farm except my
negroes, and the latter to feed them, diversified with rations of
salted fish and molasses, both of them wholesome, agreeable, and cheap
articles of food.
For pasture I rely on the forests by day, and soiling the evening.
Why could we not have a moveable airy cow house, to be set up in the
middle of the field which is to be dunged, and soil our cattle in that
through the summer as well as winter, keeping them constantly up and
well littered? This with me, would be in the clover field of the first
year, because during the second year it would be rotting, and would be
spread on it in fallow the beginning of the third, but such an effort
would be far above the present tyro state of my farming. The grosser
barbarisms in culture which I haye to encounter are more than enough
for all my attentions at present. The dung-yard must be my last effort
but one. The last would be irrigation. It might be thought at first
view, that the interposition of these ameliorations or dressings
between my crops will be too laborious, but observe that the turnips
and two dressings of vetch do not cost a single ploughing. The turning
the wheat-stubble for the turnips is the fallow for the corn of the
succeeding year. The first sowing of vetches is on the corn (as is now
practised for wheat), and the turning it in is the flush-ploughing for
the crop of potatoes and peas. The second sowing of the vetch is on
the wheat fallow, and the turning it in is the ploughing necessary for
sowing the buckwheat. These three ameliorations, then, will cost but a
harrowing each. On the subject of the drilled husbandry, I think
experience has established its preference for some plants, as the
turnip, pea, bean, cabbage, corn, etc., and that of the broadcast for
other plants as all the bread grains and grasses, except perhaps
lucerne and Saint foin in soils and climates very productive of weeds.
In dry soils and climates the broadcast is better for lucerne and
Saint foin, as all the south of France can testify.
I have imagined and executed a mould-board which may be
mathematically demonstrated to be perfect, as far as perfection
depends on mathematical principles, and one great circumstance in its
favor is that it may be made by the most bungling carpenter, and
cannot possibly vary a hair's breadth in its form, by but gross
negligence. You have seen the musical instrument called a sticcado.
Suppose all its sticks of equal length, hold the fore-end horizontally
on the floor to receive the turf which presents itself horizontally,
and with the right hand twist the hind-end to the perpendicular, or
rather as much beyond the perpendicular as will be necessary to cast
over the turf completely. This gives an idea (though not absolutely
exact) of my mould-board. It is on the principle of two wedges
combined at right angles, the first in the direct line of the furrow
to raise the turf gradually, the other across the furrow to turn it
over gradually. For both these purposes the wedge is the instrument of
the least resistance. I will make a model of the mould-board and lodge
it with Colonel Harvie in Richmond for you. This brings me to my
thanks for the drill plough lodged with him for me, which I now expect
every hour to receive, and the price of which I have deposited in his
hands to be called for when you please. A good instrument of this kind
is almost the greatest desideratum in husbandry. I am anxious to
conjecture beforehand what may be expected from the sowing turnips in
jaded ground, how much from the acre, and how large they will be? Will
your experience enable you to give me a probable conjecture? Also what
is the produce of potatoes and what of peas in the same kind of
ground?
to John Taylor, 29 December 1794
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