where a gentleman of a more public spirit has given them ocular demonstration of the success.

About eighteen months ago, I made a purchase of about three hundred acres of land near Burlington, and resolved to improve it in the best and speediest manner, that I might be enabled to indulge myself in that kind of life, which was most agreeable. My fortune, thank God, is such that I can enjoy all the necessaries and many of the indulgences of life; but I think that in duty to my children I ought so to manage, that the profits of my farm may balance the loss my income will suffer by my retreat to it. In order to this, I began with a meadow, on which there had never been much timber, but it was always overflowed. The soil is very fine, and black about three feet; then it comes to a bluish clay. Of this deep meadow I have about eighty acres, forty of which had been ditched and mowed. The grass which comes in first after ditching is spear-grass and white clover; but the weeds are to be mowed four or five years before they will be subdued, as the vegetation is very luxuriant.

This meadow had been ditched and planted with Indian corn, of which it produced above sixty bushels per acre. I first scoured up my ditches and drains, and took off all the weeds; then I ploughed it, and sowed it with oats in the last of May. In July I mowed them down, together with the weeds, which grew plentifully among them, and they made good fodder. I immediately ploughed it again, and kept harrowing till there was an appearance of rain; and, on the 23d of August, I sowed near thirty acres with red clover and herd-grass, allowing six quarts of herd-grass and four pounds of red clover to an acre in most parts of it; in other parts, four quarts of herd-grass and three pounds of red clover. The red clover came up in four days, and

the herd-grass in six days; and I now find, that, where I allowed the most seed, it protects itself the best against the frost. I also sowed an acre with twelve pounds of red clover, and it does well. I sowed an acre more with two bushels of rye-grass seed and five pounds of red clover; the rye-grass seed failed, and the red clover heaves out much for want of being thicker. However, in March next I intend to throw in six pounds more of red clover, as the ground is open and loose. As these grasses are represented not durable, I have sown two bushels of the sweeping of hay-lofts (where the best hay was used), well riddled, per acre, supposing that the spear-grass and white clover seed would be more equally scattered when the other shall fail.

What surprised me was to find, that the herd-grass, whose roots are small and spread near the surface, should be less affected by the frost than the red clover, whose roots I measured in the last of October, and found that many of their tap roots penetrated five inches, and from its sides threw out near thirty horizontal roots, some of which were six inches long, and branched. From the figure of this root, I flattered myself, that it would endure the heaving of the frost; but I now see, that wherever it is thin sown it is generally hove so far out, that but a few of the horizontal and a small part of the tap roots remain covered, and I fear will not recover. Take the whole together, it is well matted, and looks like a green corn-field.

I have about ten acres more of this ground ready for seed in the spring, but expect to combat with the weeds. a year or two. That sown in August I believe will rise so soon in the spring, as to suppress them in a great measure.

My next undertaking was a round pond of twelve acres. Ditching round it, with a large drain through the

middle, and other smaller drains, laid it perfectly dry. This, having first taken up all the rubbish, I ploughed up, and harrowed it many times over, till it was smooth. Its soil is blackish; but, in about a foot or ten inches, you come to a sand of the same color with the upland. From the birch that grew upon it, I took it to be of a cold nature, and therefore I procured a grass which would best suit that kind of ground, intermixed with many others, that I might thereby see which suited it best. On the 8th of September, I laid it down with rye, which being harrowed in, I threw in the following grass seed; a bushel of Salem grass or feather-grass, half a bushel of timothy or herd-grass, half a bushel of rye-grass, a peck of burden-grass or blue bent, and two pints of red clover per acre, (all the seed in the chaff, except the clover,) and bushed them in. I could wish they had been clean, as they would have come up sooner, and been better grown before the frost; and I have found by experiment, that a bushel of clean chaff of timothy or Salem grass will yield five quarts of seed. The rye looks well, and there is abundance of timothy or Salem grass come up amongst it; but it is yet small, and in that state there is scarce any knowing those grasses apart. I expect from the sand lying so near the surface, that it will suffer much in dry weather.

B. FRANKLIN.

TO THOMAS HOPKINSON.*

On the Vis Inertia of Matter.

Philadelphia, 1747.

ACCORDING to my promise, I send you in writing my observations on your book; † you will be the better able to consider them; which I desire you to do at your leisure, and to set me right where I am wrong.

I stumble at the threshold of the building, and therefore have not read farther. The author's vis inertia

* Thomas Hopkinson was born in London, in April, 1709. He possessed a fine genius, and a finished education, having been a student at Oxford. He came to America while young, and married and settled in Philadelphia, where he died in 1751. He was distinguished for his classical attainments, general learning, the brilliancy of his conversation, and his fondness for philosophical studies. Being an intimate friend of Franklin, he was associated with him in his electrical and philosophical experiments. In a note to one of his letters on electricity, Franklin says; "The power of points to throw off the electrical fire was first communicated to me by my ingenious friend, Mr. Thomas Hopkinson, since deceased, whose virtue and integrity in every station of his life, public and private, will ever make his memory dear to those who knew him, and knew how to value him." He mentions other assistance derived from the observations and experiments of his friend. It is an honorable proof of Mr. Hopkinson's talents, learning, and character, that he was chosen the first president of the American Philosophical Society, instituted in the year 1744. (See above, p. 29.) He also took an active part in founding the City Library and the College of Philadelphia, and was a zealous promoter of public institutions and improvements. He left several children, among whom was Francis Hopkinson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, well known as a writer of genius, wit, and ability, and for his valuable public services during the revolution and subsequently to that event.-EDITor.

It was a book by Andrew Baxter, entitled An Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul, wherein its Immateriality is evinced, &c. One of the chief objects of this book was to prove, that a resistance to any change is essential to matter, consequently inconsistent with active powers in it; and that, if matter wants active powers, an immaterial being is necessary for all those effects, &c. ascribed to its own natural powers. After stating the several proofs, questioned by Dr. Franklin, of a Vis

essential to matter, upon which the whole work is founded, I have not been able to comprehend. And I do not think he demonstrates at all clearly (at least to me he does not), that there is really such a property in matter.

He says, No. 2, "Let a given body or mass of matter be called a, and let any given celerity be called c. That celerity doubled, tripled, &c., or halved, thirded, &c., will be 2c, 3c, &c., or c, c, &c., respectively. Also the body doubled, trepled, or halved, thirded, will be 2a, 3a, or ja, ja, respectively." Thus far is clear. But he adds, "Now to move the body a, with the celerity c, requires a certain force to be impressed upon it; and to move it with a celerity as 2c, requires twice that force to be impressed upon it, &c." Here I suspect some mistake creeps in, by the author's not distinguishing between a great force applied at once, and a small one continually applied, to a mass of matter, in order to move it. I think it is generally allowed by the philosophers, and, for aught we know, is certainly true, that there is no mass of matter, how great soever, but may be moved by any force how small soever, (taking friction out of the question,) and this small force, continued, will in time bring the mass to move with any velocity whatsoever. Our author himself seems to allow this

inertiæ, or "force of inertness," in matter, the author adds; "If the immateriality of the soul, the existence of God, and the necessity of a most particular, incessant providence in the world, are demonstrable from such plain and easy principles, the atheist has a desperate cause in hand." (See the third edition, pp. 1-8.) In fact, Mr. Baxter's doctrine seems to establish, rather than disprove, an activity in matter, and consequently to defeat his own conclusion, were not that conclusion to be found from other premises. Primâ facie, it seems better for Mr. Baxter's system to suppose matter incapable of force or effort, even in the case, as he calls it, of resisting change; which case appears to me no other than the simple one, of matter not altering its state without a cause, and a ca ise exactly proportioned to the effect. B. V.