STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 89 



My farming operations, on this place, commenced in the spring 

 of 1839, when the earth was to be reclaimed from the primitive 

 forest. The process was naturally slow and toilsome. The forest, 

 when removed, left the earth obstructed by stumps and roots that 

 required time and labor to reduce the land to a condition capable 

 of good husbandry. In addition to these hindrances, the soil 

 was mixed with sandstones that required great labor in digging 

 and removing from cultivated fields. The process could not be 

 performed in any one year, even to a limited extent, without a 

 sacrifice of time and money, and this labor must be performed 

 before any efficient attempt at subsoiling and thorough cultivation 

 could be made with present profit and a fair prospect of future 

 improvement. I adopted a plan of gradual improvement, both 

 in clearing and breaking the subsoil, which has been successful 

 and brought its annual rewards. The hard crust which under- 

 laid the native soil was attacked by gradual and persistent 

 assaults, year by year, carrying the plow a little deeper each suc- 

 cessive season, and allowing the new matter brought up time to 

 slack by the influence of air and water, and to form a homogeneous 

 mass with the soil. In this manner, and by successful assaults, 

 the crust of hard pan has been broken and made part of the soil 

 on all my cultivated lands, and the soil greatly improved. For- 

 merly my crop of wheat averaged ten or twelve bushels, and my 

 corn did not exceed twenty or twenty-five bushels per acre. Now, 

 on same land, where the hard crust has been thoroughly broken 

 and mingled with the soil, my wheat averages twenty bushels or 

 over, and my corn averages full sixty, and sometimes amounts to 

 eighty bushels per acre. My meadows, which were formerly lia- 

 ble to fail in dry seasons, and be hardly worth mowing, now yield 

 large and uniform crops of two or three tons to the acre. 



Every man must adopt his mode of improvement, to his means 

 as well as to his soil, in order to reach a satisfiictory result. The 

 soil on wluch I have operated being stony, gravelly and loose on 

 the highest parts, needed no sub-soiling. Here the labor and 

 expense was that of clearing from stone, pulverizing and enrich- 

 ing. On the slopes and in the intervales, the natural soil was 

 underlaid by a hard compact formation of little depth that requi- 

 red breaking and pulverizing to improve the crop and insure its 

 certainty. The best method, under the circumstances, is supposed 



