No. 85.] 369 



that is, the old system, cut and cover, is generally discarded by cu"* 

 farmers. Good plows are sought after by them, and in their selec" 

 tion, they show much skill and no little science. In my rambles 

 among them the season past, I have seen much good work ; the straight 

 furrow, lapped according to the most approved methods, evinced a 

 laudable pride and ambition. 



The plowing at our annual fair, is considered as copy work, which 

 every good farmer should endeavor to imitate, by trying to excel it. 



Secondly : The same causes have operated to greatly improve 

 our various kinds of farm stock. Devon, Durham, and Holderness 

 cattle are sought after, judicious crosses with them and our best na- 

 tive breeds, being thought by many to be preferable, in this climate, 

 to either in their pure state. 



In sheep, we have many choice flocks of Saxons, whose wool 

 equals in fineness of fibre, weight of fleece, and the price in market, 

 any in the State. We have all grades between these, and the long 

 wooled Bakewells. 



In swine, we have done much. By crossing the Berkshires with 

 the Leicesters, we think we can challenge the state to produce finer 

 specimens. Two pi^s that took the first premium at our fair, a year 

 last fall, were killed when a few days more than eight months old 

 and averaged 340 lbs. each, showing an average gain of a fraction 

 over twenty ounces per day each, during their life time. 



In horses, we have made advances, but like all dairying counties, 

 we are far behind what we should be. 



DRAINING. 



In nothing are we making greater improvements, than in this? 

 both open and covered. A considerable portion of our land has a 

 stiff strong subsoil. This subsoil, particularly in those narrow 

 swamps known in common parlance as swales, retains the surface 

 water to such an extent as to prove almost destructive to all vegeta- 

 tion, except the most worthless grasses, cold and sour enough to give 

 a whole stock of cattle the nightmare. We have by a judicious location 

 of drains, covered where the amount of water is small, and open 

 where it is large, reclaimed much nearly worthless land, and made 

 it quite productive. 



MANURE. 



There is a very evident improvement in the increased attention 

 paid to the use, saving and manufacture of this, to the farmer, invalu- 

 able article. 



Our best farmers now calculate to get out all their manure in the 

 spring, for the benefit of the spring crops and their meadows. We 

 now generally believe that there is a very great saving of its ferti- 

 lizing properties in applying it in its long state, that the gases that 

 escape in the decomposition may be retained in the soil, rather than 

 wasted by evaporation from the overstored barn-yard. In some very 



[Senate, No. 85.] Y 



