e he had
been so much engaged that he had not been able to prepare a copy of his
and General Knox's for you, and that if I would send you the one he had
given me, he would replace it in a few days. I immediately sent it to
you, wishing you should see both sides of the subject together. I often
after applied to both the gentlemen, but could never obtain another
copy. I have often thought of asking this one, or a copy of it, back
from you, but have not before written on subjects of this kind to you.
Though I do not know that it will ever be of the least importance to me,
yet one loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion
for them. They possess my paper in my own hand-writing. It is just I
should possess theirs. The only thing amiss is, that they should have
left me to seek a return of the paper, or a copy of it, from you.

I put away this disgusting dish of old fragments, and talk to you of my
pease and clover. As to the latter article, I have great encouragement
from the friendly nature of our soil. I think I have had, both the last
and present year, as good clover from common grounds, which had brought
several crops of wheat and corn without ever having been manured, as I
ever saw on the lots around Philadelphia. I verily believe that a field
of thirty-four acres, sowed on wheat April was twelvemonth, has given me
a ton to the acre at its first cutting this spring. The stalks extended,
measured three and a half feet long very commonly. Another field, a year
older, and which yielded as well the last year, has sensibly fallen off
this year. My exhausted fields bring a clover not high enough for
hay, but I hope to make seed from it. Such as these, however, I shall
hereafter put into pease in the broadcast, proposing that one of my
sowings of wheat shall be after two years of clover, and the other after
two years of pease. I am trying the white boiling pea of Europe (the
Albany pea) this year, till I can get the hog-pea of England, which is
the most productive of all. But the true winter-vetch is what we want
extremely. I have tried this year the Caroline drill. It is absolutely
perfect. Nothing can be more simple, nor perform its office more
perfectly for a single row. I shall try to make one to sow four rows at
a time of wheat or peas, at twelve inches distance. I have one of the
Scotch threshing-machines nearly finished. It is copied exactly from
a model of Mr. Pinckney sent me, only that I have put th