| |Buckwheat | Clover | Clover | Clover | Cornr | 2 | Wheat | for | Wheat | or | or | or | and | | | Manure | | Grass | Grass | Grass |Potatoes| ------------------------------------------------------------
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Of this rotation he noted that it “favors the land very much; inasmuch as there are but three corn crops [i.e. grain crops] taken in seven years from any field, & the first of the wheat crops is followed by a Buck Wheat manure for the second Wheat Crop, wch. is to succeed it; & which by being laid to Clover or Grass & continued therein three years will a ford much Mowing or Grassing, according as the Seasons happen to be, besides being a restoration to the Soil—­But the produce of the sale of the Crops is small, unless encreased by the improving state of the fields.  Nor will the Grain for the use of the Farm be adequate to the consumption of it in this Course, and this is an essential object to attend to.”

In a second table he estimated the amount of work that would be required each year to carry out this plan of rotation, assuming that one plow would break up three-fourths of an acre per day.  This amount is hardly half what an energetic farmer with a good team of horses will now turn over in a day with an ordinary walking plow, but the negro farmer lacked ambition, the plows were cumbersome, and much of the work was done with plodding oxen.  The table follows: 

[ILLUSTRATION (TABLE):  PLANTING CHART]

He estimated that seventy-five acres of corn would yield, at twelve and a half bushels per acre, 937-1/2 bushels, worth at two shillings and sixpence per bushel L117.3.9.  In this field potatoes would be planted between the rows of corn and would produce, at twelve and a half bushels per acre, 937-1/2 bushels, worth at one shilling per bushel L46.17.6.  Two fields in wheat, a total of one hundred fifty acres, at ten bushels per acre, would yield one thousand five hundred bushels, worth at five shillings per bushel three hundred seventy-five pounds.  Three fields in clover and grass and the field of buckwheat to be turned under for manure would yield no money return.  In other words the whole farm would produce three thousand three hundred seventy-five bushels of grain and potatoes worth a total of L539.1.3.

A second alternative plan would yield crops worth L614.1.3; a third, about the same; a fourth, L689.1.3; a fifth, providing for two hundred twenty-five acres of wheat, L801.11.0; a sixth, L764.  Number five would be most productive, but he noted that it would seriously reduce the land.  Number six would be “the 2d. most productive Rotation, but the fields receive no rest,” as it provided for neither grass nor pasture, while the plowing required would exceed that of any of the other plans by two hundred eighty days.

On a small scale he tried growing cotton, Botany Bay grass, hemp, white nankeen grass and various other products.  He experimented with deep soil plowing by running twice in the same furrow and also cultivated some wheat that had been drilled in rows instead of broadcasted.