To George Washington from Landon Carter, 27 October 1796
From Landon Carter
Cleve [Va.] 27. October 1796
Dear Sir
Owing to my absence from home on the arrival of our weekly post, I did not receive your Favor of the 17th inst. until the 24th at night. I immediately prepared a Letter for continuance of the correspondence, you seemed to be willing to comply with. Upon a review of that Letter tho, I resolved to suppress it on acct of the subject: That was of a nature to involve too much of conjecture. Your well known Character assures me that you wish only to tread upon established ground: Therefore the food of Plants is too unasscertained a subject, I imagine, to be acceptable.
I will for the present content myself with laying before you some experience, that I have had, in the course of crops best adapted to the restoration of the Land: And I must request you to keep in view the postulata in my late Letter.1 I once wrote to a Society in George Town in Culpepper County; which was printed in the Gazzette, by Timothy Green, in Fredericksburg, 9. Octobr 1794. Extra: That too would perhaps aid my letter; but I must request you to suppose me to have been free from those blunders, the Coppyist, or Printer, have stamped upon it; for it is by a false stop changed from my expression.2
The rational conclusion from my Postulata is, that cultivation under fit Crops & proper method, will restore land from a State of stirillity to a pristine fertillity. If Earth is considered to enter into the com[po]sition of vegitable food, that is seen to circulate in the Air; & a free divided state of the Soil, under proper guards against heat, must be the most apt state for attracting matter so arranged: And the same may be remarked of each matter that has ever been advocated as the Chief agent in that business.
The mode of Plowing I have pointed out; and you will see my choice of Crops, in the publication alluded to, fully argued as to fitness. I have chiefly now to express my favorite arrangement.
A naked Fallow3 I deem to be destructive of the Land; and even when manured it is but a cross operation. I would practice Fallow in preferrence to Indian Corn preparation; for small grain: But I would solicit shade, in aid to Oblique plowing, to make my Fallow conducive to fertillity. Indian Pease is the growth I have adopted, not merely for its shade but as a moderate claimant from the Earth, by means of its direct down root; and because it occasions a profuse tendency to it; of such aerial matters as lead to fructify the Earth: For that plant strongly attracts from the Air. To make this draft the more copious, it will perhaps occur to you that there must be a croud of them together, for collectiveness is not, in this Case, as two to three but as two to four. On account of those ideas I never sow them broad; I should thereby single the pease, and loose the benefit of Plowing thro’ the season: Leaving the soil to grow compact, and in a Level position; which reduces the surface, that presents to the Air, to the least possible extent. I plant the pease 12, 15, or even 20, in a place—say in furrows three feet apart & 18 to 30, inches in the step; tho I have it in contemplation to put in future 10, to 12, & only one foot in the step; and when I plow them, the mouldbd4 always directs the cast to a ridge in the middle; So as that the pease will ultimately stand on a little ridge: And I plow so close as even to start & press them Over.
Let not this alarm the Farmer; for the plant sustains so much from the air, that it never flags for so rude a push, but gathers vigor from the near approach of the air to its ruits: Nor can they suffer injury from a crouded state, for the same reason; but rather acquire accumulated supplies by the association. My Letter grows long, and the continuation of the subject must be deferred.
I am equally with you convinced of the utillity of Societies toward the promotion of any Science; and should exult to find an Establishment of that kind, under congenial Auspices, in some way practicable. A Recluse myself, and under a consequent want of Influence, any attempt by me to set such a thing on foot would of course be fruitless; therefore has not been at all aimed at on my part: But I willingly would follow; tho I cannot lead. I am Dear Sir with every Sentiment of Esteem and respect for you and for your relative regards Your most Obt & very humble Servant
Landon Carter
P.S. As possibly you may not come at once to the Gazzette and it may be necessary for the better understanding my purpose I have inclose you one from my File—to be returned.5
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. Carter last wrote GW on 28 Sept. and enclosed a lengthy essay on Indian corn (see n.3 to that document).
2. In a letter of 29 Jan. 1794, Carter had written to the president of the Culpeper County, Va., Society for the Promotion of Agriculture and Domestic Manufactures. That letter, which appeared in the extraordinary issue of The Virginia Herald and Fredericksburg Advertiser for 9 Oct. 1794, reads: “As you have not yet honored me with a letter, to open to me the extent of your object as a society, I hardly know how to address you, or how to limit my address as to the sciences … Agriculture with its relative sciences then, will be the subject of my present letter. … The journeyings through this my misjudging country … invited a comparative view, and a search into the causes of such an abuse of agriculture, as presented itself on all sides, and … in every direction.” Acknowledging that land must be “enriched” in order to allow man “to live in comfort upon a contracted boundary,” Carter mentioned his study of British agricultural innovator Jethro Tull and sought to add to Tull’s contributions by discussing the destructive heat of the sun. Carter “looked for a shade to seclude the rays of the sun; and … some means to prevent the dissipation [of “the subtile salt”], during that period in which the soil must be exposed to the sun. …” He then addressed the advantages of cultivating Indian peas: “The earth I found would be sufficiently defended from the heating effects of the sun by a crop of Indian pease, whose umbrageous growth would darken all beneath, and nourish the absorbent powers of the loosened glebe.” Carter noted that the “pea vine” sheds its leaves, which “are left behind when the crop is taken off; Thus the close covering of an alkaline production, will … afford the means required to establish my component salt.” This recommended practice “allows the farmer to take a crop alternate, peas and wheat every year, from the same field,” which he alleged would prove beneficial to the land. This model of crop rotation would reduce labor and land requirements, increase the population of “freemen to hire,” and therefore discourage slavery, which Carter condemned. He added the following postscript to the letter: “Inclosed you have a sketch of the most connected result from the practice, I have yet been able to effect.” The postscript was followed by the “sketch of a course of Indian pea fallow,” a manuscript copy of which Carter enclosed with the present document (see n.5).
Timothy Green published, alone or in partnership, The Virginia Herald from 1787 to 1815 and again from 1817 to 1819.
3. A fallow is “Ground that is well ploughed and harrowed, but left un-cropped for a whole year or more” ().
4. A moldboard is a board “or metal plate in a plough” made to turn over the soil and to help form a furrow or trench ().
5. Carter enclosed a three-page manuscript version of his “sketch of a course of an Indian Pea fallow, and the succeeding Crop; the mode, and observations, with the proceeds,” which appeared as a postscript to his letter of 29 Jan. 1794 (see n.2 above). The enclosed sketch, which is in DLC:GW, reads: “Fifty three Acres field of common Corn Ground, of the light sandy sort of Land—part indeed very much so, was ploughed in May, and harrowed down very well; then it was laid off by furrows three feet apart—into these furrows were dropped a good many pease, say 10 to 15, at the step distance of 2 to 2½ feet.
“Seventeen and a quarter Bushels of pease were spent in seed, and covered by drawing over a harrow—finished about 20th June. Observation, the late ploughing and harrowing threw up a vast number of wild Garlic, which was quite destroyed by the Sun.
“About the time of sunning (a critical time) one ploughing was given with the mould board to the pease; this earthed them up well, and the row was well broken. No more labor was bestowed till the pease pretty well ripened, fit for pulling up by the roots—except some indifferent hands were employed to pull out the scattered large Weeds, that grew in the ground.
“Notes. All the pease that are formed, tho’ still green, will ripen in the curing. A hand can easily pull up, one with another, an Acre a day; I have since found, though that year they were slow, and it involved a late sowing my wheat.
“Four hundred & ninety Bushels pease were threshed from the Vines, and the Straw made a very excellent food for Stock. Note, many pease were lost by remaining in the Stack through the Winter; for they were partly from neglect, and partly for the experiment, how they would stand the Winter, left to be trodden in the spring by Horses. The different proceeds from Stacks of the same size, induced me to suppose a great loss was sustained by negligence, or by theft—that difference being in some a fourth more. The Vines were stacked round three poles rafterwise—Sticks about 4 to 6 feet, and 8 to 10 feet long. The Stacks were thatched with Rye straw, and bound down with Straw Ropes.
“Fifty six & a half Bushels of Wheat were sown after the field was plouged cross the Pea rows, and covered in with the harrow.
“Six hundred and Seventy three Bushels of Wheat were made from the field.
“Note, The late sowing occasioned the Wheat to be in the seed leaf five days before Christmas; at which time, after a favorable Fall, there came on a most inveterate spell of dry frost, and continued long.
“Observation, After these Crops the field speedily was clothed in green, which infers it had been accumulating while it had bestowed on me two valuable Crops.” The sketch is followed by a note in GW’s writing: “The above is taken from a publication in the Fredericksburgh Advertiser Extra: 9th Oct. 1794.” On the verso, GW wrote another note: “It does not appear from the foreg[o]ing account—nor from the Letter which enclosed it, that the Pea Crop is Ploughed more than once after Planting, or sowing them; but that there is a disagreement as to the manner of doing. By the first, the mould is thrown to, and by the latter from the Pease. An explanation is necessary.” The latter note contains similar wording to GW’s twelfth query on Indian peas, found in GW’s letter to Carter of 8 November. With that letter, GW returned the enclosed issue of The Virginia Herald.