tion, there was a generous downpour.

The rain was beneficial to about a thousand grains of Cape of Good Hope
wheat that Washington had just sown and by the thirty-first he was able
to note that it was coming up. For several years thereafter he
experimented with this wheat. He found that it grew up very rank and
tried cutting some of it back. But the variety was not well adapted to
Virginia and ultimately he gave it up.

In this period he also tried Siberian wheat, put marl on sixteen square
rods of meadow[4], plowed under rye, and experimented with oats,
carrots, Eastern Shore peas, supposed to be strengthening to land, also
rib grass, burnet and various other things. He planted potatoes both
with and without manure and noted carefully the difference in yields. At
this time he favored planting corn in rows about ten feet apart, with
rows of potatoes, carrots, or peas between. He noted down that his
experience showed that corn ought to be planted not later than May
15th, preferably by the tenth or perhaps even as early as the first, in
which his practice would not differ much from that of to-day. But he
came to an erroneous conclusion when he decided that wheat ought to be
sown in August or at the latter end of July, for this was playing into
the hands of his enemy, the Hessian fly, which is particularly
destructive to early sown wheat. Later he seems to have changed his mind
on that point, for near the end of his life he instructed his manager to
get the wheat in by September 10th. Another custom which he was
advocating was that of fall and winter plowing and he had as much of it
done as time and weather would permit. All of his experiments in this
period were painstakingly set down and he even took the trouble in 1786
to index his agricultural notes and observations for that year.

[4] "On sixteen square rod of ground in my lower pasture, I put 140
Bushels of what we call Marle viz on 4 of these, No. Wt. corner were
placed 50 bushels--on 4 others So. Wt. corner 30 bushels--on 4 others
So. Et. corner 40 bushels--and on the remaining 4-20 bushels. This Marle
was spread on the rods in these proportions--to try first whether what
we have denominated to be Marie possesses any virtue as manure--and
secondly--if it does, the quantity proper for an acre." His ultimate
conclusion was that marl was of little benefit to land such as he owned
at Mount Vernon.

Many of his experiments were made in what he called his "Botanical