cleaning; plough shallow; so as not to disturb the deeply buried sod. Let the harrows level and flatten your surface at the next operation; and continue them exclusively in all future stirrings. Your culture will be easier, cheaper, and more abundantly profitable, than those who are accustomed to the old modes will believe, until they see.

If your field requires drains, draw furrows in proper places. If it be naturally wet, break up deeply in very broad lands, on which the harrows may still be used, and drains sufficiently multiplied. If it be stony, rugged, or harsh, either plant other crops; or strengthen your harrows; ridged ground dries the soonest, and burns through; so does all shallow ploughed soil, whether ridged or flat. Attraction of moisture is trifling, and evaporation rapid.

Be not afraid of cutting corn roots, which benefit by excision; throwing out, on the parts attached to the plants, numerous fibres, to draw in and communicate their food.

Your corn, in deeply ploughed and frequently stirred ground, will resist storms and heavy rains, owing to the strength and numbers of its roots, far beyond hilled or ridged plants. If it yields to the storm, and leans, the extent, tenacity, and re-acting contraction of the roots, will generally restore the erect position of the stalks: whereas, in the ridged or hill culture, the roots are short, brittle, and incapable of recovery. It is not uncommon in the deep and flat culture, for those called finger roots, to grow entirely or greatly extended under instead of above the surface; and throw out innumerable fibres, to support the stalk.

Detach all suckers, which are robbers; and top, in due season, to shorten the lever, insure the standing of the stalks, and facilitate the ripening of the grains.

Banish all apprehensions, that working among corn in dry weather, is injurious. The contrary is the truth; for your harrows will, in such weather, have the double effect of more certainly destroying weeds, and pulverizing, to open mouths to take in moisture and gases, from the dews and the air.

It being seldom practised in Pennsylvania, I need not warn you against sowing winter grain in the same year with corn. This not only scourges your land, but interferes with the great use of the cleaning culture, affording the time and opportunity for weeds to recover their pestiferous reign, and is a sure test of slovenly and covetous farming.

If you will not at once believe in this system of corn husbandry, now frequently and ever successfully practised, where the best crops are to be seen, try a small portion of your field—do it justice—and compare it with the old mode, for your own and your neighbour's conviction. Whatever may be hastily thought of these observations, they are, with the most friendly wishes for their prosperity, offered for the serious consideration of liberal minded and unprejudiced farmers; among whom numberless instances of good farming, in other respects, are to be found, and to which the greatest proportion of the corn culture is a mortifying contrast.

September 10, 1820.

MENTOR.

Sept. 18, 1820.

Messrs. Richards & Caleb Johnson—

In the Lancaster Journal of September 8th, 1820, there is an excellent charge of Judge Franklin to the Grand Jury, on the subject of the Act of Assembly "for promoting agriculture and domestic manufactures." I think it well deserving a place in your Magazine; as it contains, in epitome, much useful and impressive advice on the importance of agriculture, and the formation of agricultural societies; by the instrumentality whereof both the principle, and practice of husbandry can be successfully promoted, and most effectually encouraged.—Your obedient servant,

RICHARD PETERS.

Address.

But I am desirous at this time, gentlemen, of introducing to your notice an Act of Assembly of this Commonwealth, passed at the last session of the legislature, which, if its provisions be duly attended to, may produce many beneficial effects. It is entitled, "An Act for the promotion of agriculture and domestic manufactures." The 1st, 2d, and 3d, sections enact:

"That as soon as the Board of Commissioners and two-thirds of the Grand Jury, of any county within this Commonwealth, shall agree, in writing under their respective hands (which agreement shall be filed in the office of the Prothonotary of the proper county) that a society shall be established within the same; then it shall and may be lawful for twenty or more inhabitants of any such county, fifteen of whom shall be practical and actual farmers, under the name of The Society for the Promotion of Agriculture and Domestic Manufactures, in and for such county, to sign an agreement, promising to pay the treasurer of said society, so long as he shall remain a member thereof, the sum of one dollar each, or more, annually, for the purposes hereinafter mentioned, and cause such agreement to be filed in the office of the Prothonotary of proper county; every such society shall by virtue of this act become a body politic and corporate, in deed and in law, with perpetual succession, and all the rights, liberties, privileges, and franchises incident to a corporation, for all the purposes of this act, and to admit new members upon the terms aforesaid. Provided, That the association which shall have first filed their articles of agreement shall be the only one entitled to the privileges granted by this act.

"That the said societies, respectively, shall meet at some convenient place on the Wednesday of the next Court of Common Pleas, after the said agreements shall have been filed as aforesaid, and choose by a majority of votes, out of their number, one president, ten directors, one treasurer, and one secretary, who shall be officers of said society for one year and until others are duly elected. And the said societies respectively, at their first meeting, shall have power to fix on the time and place of their annual meetings on such day of the year as they shall designate, which shall continue to be the day of the annual meeting of the societies respectively, until otherwise altered by a vote of the members as aforesaid; and also to make their own rules and by-laws, not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of the United States, or of this state; and to add other officers to those designated, and prescribe their respective duties. And the president and directors shall have power to summon special meetings of said societies respectively, at such other times as to them shall seem proper.

"That at the next assessment of county rates and levies, after said societies respectively shall have been established and organized in any county within this commonwealth, and annually thereafter, the county commissioners are hereby required to assess, levy, and cause to be collected, in the same manner that county rates and levies are assessed, levied, and collected, an additional sum of fifty dollars for every member which said counties respectively are or may be entitled to elect to the House of Representatives of this commonwealth, and to cause the same to be paid to the treasurer of the society, by warrants drawn on the county treasurer: to be expended, together with their annual subscriptions, in the manner hereinafter mentioned."

I need not read the remaining sections of this law. The pamphlet containing it will be laid upon your table, and you will have an opportunity of deliberately considering it in all its parts.

I wish to impress you, gentlemen, with the importance of this subject, as it affects the vital interests of our country; particularly at a time when our foreign markets are almost destroyed, and we must learn to establish our prosperity on the interchange of