John Alexander Binns
Plowing, Plaster, and Clover
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Treatise on Practical Farming, by John Binns, 1804
Courtesy of Virginia Historical Society |
John Binns, at age 21, inherited 220 acres from his father and began farming as the American Revolution ended. Soon, he learned about the beneficial effects of "plaister" (also known as gypsum and Plaster of Paris, a sulfate of lime).
In 1793, he traded his first farm, south of Leesburg, for an estate near Waterford that he aptly named "Clover Hill."
Binns fashioned himself as a reformer, trying to persuade neighbors that ideas compiled in his 1804 book, A Treatise on Practical Farming, made agriculture more profitable and sustainable.
in Loudoun County, Virginia
John Binns: Experimental Farmer
I planted this year, after laying the plantation off into three fields, about fifty acres of corn. This corn was planted about fifteen hundred hills to the acre. …produced between seven to eight bushels to the acre.
Treatise on Practical Farming, by John Binns, 1804
History
1803 Louisiana purchase from France doubles the size of the United States
Economy 1810
United States
Total Population: 5,308,483
Virginia
Total Population: 877,683
Loudoun
Total Population: 21,338 |
Science
Secretary of Treasury instructed consuls to collect seeds, plants, and agricultural inventions.
Crop rotation becomes a regular practice. The understanding of fungus and bacteria in soil and its relationship to increase crop yields is still unknown.
