112 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



then pastured one or two, bringing the whole course into six 

 or seven years, because flax cannot be raised on the same 

 ground oftener than once in six years. Then at the end of 

 six or seven years we would go back and go over the same 

 ground again. Where we had land enougli, say seven fields 

 on a farm, we. could have one of each of these crops every 

 year. I have practised that system more than half of the 

 whole time. Since that time the article of flax has gone out 

 of use here, and I do not cultivate it at all. After following 

 this course three times over, which would bring it from eigh- 

 teen to twenty-one years, my land was raised more than fifty 

 per cent, in value in product. I had improved it more than 

 fifty per cent, by that course, without any manure. 



I agree with the gentlemen who spoke last night on the 

 subject of corn. We can do much better to manure so as to 

 get a very heavy crop where we plow than to undertake to 

 cultivate more ground ; but I did not hear one of them give 

 any account about the back part of their farms. Their culti- 

 vation was apparently confined to a very small spot. The 

 manure that is taken from the whole farm is probably placed 

 on this small spot of ground. Now I must state to this board 

 that I am in possession of some two hundred and sixty »acres 

 of land, and there is not an acre of unproductive ground 

 upon it. There is not an acre of waste land there. I do not 

 suppose this will agree with the common course of culture at 

 the present time. 



I will mention that on the farm where I now live, there was 

 a piece of ground of just about an acre, lying on the south 

 and west side of a piece of woods. It was so barren that 

 nothing grew upon it, and the land so sloping that all the 

 soil had been washed off, so there was no herbage there. I 

 bought the farm in 1834. The second or third year after- 

 wards I thought I would do something with that place, and I 

 plowed it and soAved it with rye. I got six bushels of 

 very poor rye from the piece. I put on a little southern clo- 

 ver and let that field lie about four years. Then I plowed 

 it up again and put on about six cart-bodies of barn-yard ma- 

 nure, which had laid some time and its goodness had evapo- 



