Clover Lots.

No. 1, -Counting from the Spring Branch is to be planted in potatoes. No. 2,- That part thereof which is now in turnips is to be sown with oats and clover; the other part, being now in clover, is to remain so until it comes into potatoes, by rotation.

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No. 3, — Is also in clover at present, and is to remain so, as just mentioned, for No. 2.

No. 4, Is partly in clover and partly in timothy, and so to be, until its turn for potatoes.

The rotation for these lots invariably is to be, 1. Potatoes, highly manured; 2. Oats, and clover sown therewith; 3. Clover; 4. Clover. Then to begin again with potatoes, and proceed as before. The present clover lots must be plastered.

All green sward, rough ground, or that which is heavily covered with weeds, bottle brush grass, and such things as being turned in will ferment, putrefy, and meliorate the soil, should in autumn be ploughed in, and at such times in winter as can be done while the ground is dry, and in condition for it.

Pasture Grounds.

The large lot adjoining the Negro houses and orchard, is to have oats sown on the potatoe and pumpkin ground; with which, and on the rye also in that lot, and on the melon part, orchard-grass seeds are to be sown; and thereafter to be kept as a standing calf pasture, and for ewes (which may require extra care) at yeaning, or after they have yeaned.

The other large lot, northeast of the Barn lane, is to be appropriated always as a pasture for the milch cows; and probably working oxen during the summer season.

The woodland, and the old field commonly called Johnston's, are designed for common pasture, and to be so applied always. To which, if it should be found inadequate to the stock of the farm, field No. 8, and the woodland therein, may be added.

Meadows.

Those already established and in train must continue, and the next to be added to them is the arms of the creek, which runs up to the spring-house, and forks, both prongs of which must be grubbed up, and wrought upon at every convenient moment when the weather will permit, down to the line of the ditch, which encloses the lots for clover, &c.

And as the fields come into cultivation, or as labor can be spared from other work, and circumstances will permit, the heads of all the inlets in them must be reclaimed, and laid to grass, whether they be large or small, forasmuch as nothing will run on, or can trespass upon, or injure the grass; no fencing being required.

Mud for Compost.

The season is now too far advanced, and too cold to be engaged in a work, that will expose the hands to wet; but it is of such essential importance, that it should be set about seriously and with spirit next year, for the summer's sun and the winter's frost to prepare it for the corn and other crops of 1801, that all the hands of the farm, not indispensably engaged in the crops, should, so soon as corn-planting is completed in the spring, be uninterruptedly employed in raising mud from the Pocosons, and from the bed of the creek, into the scow; and the carts, so soon as the manure for the corn and potatoes in 1800 is carried out, are to be incessantly drawing it to the compost heaps in the fields, which are to be manured by it. What number of hands can be set apart for this all-important work, remains to be considered and decided upon.

Penning Cattle and folding Sheep

On the fields intended for wheat, from the first of May, when the former should be turned out to pasture, until the first of November, when they ought to be housed, must be practised invariably; and to do it with regularity and propriety, the pen for the former, and the fold for the latter, should be proportioned to the number of each kind of Stock; and both these to as much ground as they will manure sufficiently in the space of a week for wheat, beyond which they are not to remain in a place, except on the poorest spots; and even these had better be aided by litter or something else, than to depart from an established rule, of removing the pens on a certain day in every week. For in this, as in everything else, system is essential to carry on business well, and with ease.

Feeding.

The work-horses and mules are always to be in their stalls, and all littered and cleaned, when they are out of harness; and they are to be plenteously fed with cut straw, and as much chopped grain, meal, or bran, with a little salt mixed therewith,

as will keep them always in good condition for work; seeing, also, that they are watered as regularly as they are fed; this is their winter feed. For spring, summer, and autumn, it is expected, that soiling them on green food, first with rye, then with lucern, and next with clover, with very little grain, will enable them to perform their work.

The oxen, and other horned cattle, are to be housed from the first of November until the first of May; and to be fed as well as the means on the farm will admit. The first (oxen) must always be kept in good condition; housed in the stalls designed for them; and the cows (so many of them as can find places) on the opposite side. The rest, with the other cattle, must be in the newly erected sheds; and the whole carefully watered every day; the ice, in frozen weather, being broken, so as to admit them to clean water.

With respect to the sheep, they must receive the best protection that can be given them this winter; against the next, I hope they will be better provided for.

And with regard to the hogs, the plan must be, to raise a given number of good ones, instead of an indiscriminate number of indifferent ones, half of which die or are stolen before the period àrrives for putting them up as porkers. To accomplish this, a sufficient number of the best sows should be appropriated to the purpose; and so many pigs raised from them as will insure the quantity of pork, which the farm ought to furnish.

Whether it will be most advisable to restrain these hogs from running at large or not, can be decided with more precision after the result of those now in close pens is better known.

The exact quantity of corn used by those, which are now in pens, should be ascertained and regularly reported, in order to learn the result.

Stables and Farm Pens.

These ought to be kept well littered, and the stalls clean;. as well for the comfort of the creatures that are contained in them, as for the purpose of manure; but as straw cannot be afforded for this purpose, leaves and such spoiled straw or weeds as will not do for food, must serve for the stables; and the first, that is, leaves and corn-stalks, is all that can be applied to the pens. To do this work effectually, let the cornstalks be cut down by a few careful people with sharp hoes, so low as never to be in the way of scythes at harvest; and whenever the wheat will admit carts to run on it without injury, let them be brought off and stacked near the farm pens. In like

manner let the people, with their blankets, go every evening, or as often as occasion may require, to the nearest wood, and fill them with leaves for the purposes above mentioned; bottoming the beds with corn-stalks, and covering them thick with leaves. A measure of this sort will be, if strictly attended to, and punctually performed, of great utility in every point of view. It will save food, make the cattle lie warm and comfortable, and produce much manure. The hogs also in pens must be well bedded in leaves.

Fencing.

As stock of no kind, according to this plan, will be suf fered to run on the arable fields or clover lots (except sheep in the day on the rye fields, as has been mentioned before), partition fences between the fields, until they can be raised of quicks, may be dispensed with. But it is of great importance, that all the exterior or outer fences should be substantially good; and those also which divide the common, or woodland pasture, from the fields and clover lots, are to be very respectable.

To accomplish this desirable object in as short a time as possible, and with the smallest expense of timber, the post and rail fence which runs from the Negro quarters, or rather from the corner of the lot enclosing them, up to the division between fields Nos. 7 and 8, may be placed on the bank (which must be raised higher) running to the creek. In like manner, the fence from the gate, which opens into No. 2, quite down to the river, along the Cedar Hedge Row, as also those rails which are between Nos. 1 and 2, and between Nos. 2 and 3, may all be taken away, and applied to the outer fences, and the fences of the lanes from the barn into the woodland pasture, and from the former (the barn) into No. 5; for the fences of all these lanes must be good, as the stock must have a free and uninterrupted passage along them, at all times, from the barn-yard to the woodland pasture.

All the fencing from the last mentioned place (between me and Mr. Mason), until it joins Mr. Lear's farm, and thence with the line between him and me, until it comes to the river, will require to be substantially good; at its termination on the river, dependence must be placed in a water fence; for if made of common rails, they would be carried off by boatmen for fire-wood. The fences separating fields Nos. 1 and 8 from the woodland pasture must also be made good, to prevent depredations on the fields by my own stock.

Crops &c. for 1801.

No. 5, is to be in corn, and to be invariably in that article. It is to be planted (if drills are thought to be ineligible until the ground is much improved) in rows, 6 feet by 4, or 7 feet by 3, the wide part open to the south. These hills are to be manured as highly as the means will admit; and the corn planted every year in the middle of the rows of the preceding year; by doing which, and mixing the manure and earth by the plough and other workings, the whole in time will be enriched.

The washed and gullied parts of this field should be levelled, and as much improved as possible, or left uncultivated. Although it is more broken than some of the other fields, it has its advantages. 1st, It has several inlets extending into it, with easy ascents therefrom; 2dly, It is convenient to the mud in the bed of the creek, whensoever (by means of the scow) resort is had thereto, and good landing places; and, 3dly, It is as near to the barn as any other, when a bridge and causeway shall be made over the Spring Branch. To these may be added, that it is more remote from squirrels than any other. Nos. 6 and 7, or such part thereof as is not so much washed or gullied, as to render ploughing ineligible, are to be fallowed for wheat. One of which, if both cannot, is to have the stubble ploughed in and sown with rye, and the low and strong parts to have timothy or orchard-grass seeds, perhaps both, in different places, sprinkled over them, for the purpose of raising seed. On the rye pasture the sheep are to be fed in winter and spring, and treated in all respects as No. 3 in 1800.

In the Years 1802, 1803, and so on.

The corn ground remaining the same, two fields, in the following numbers, will be fallowed for wheat, and treated in all respects as mentioned above; and if pumpkins, cymlins, turnips, pease, and such like growth, are found beneficial to the land, or useful and profitable for stock, ground may readily be found for them.

These are the great outlines of a plan, and the operations of it, for the next year, and for years to come, for the River Farm. The necessary arrangements, and all the preparatory measures for carrying it into effect, ought to be adopted without delay, and invariably pursued. Smaller matters may, and undoubtedly will, occur occasionally, but none, it is presumed, that can militate against it materially.