SECRETARY'S REPORT. 01 



for milk cattle ; but I do not consider them to be so good for fatten- 

 ing cattle. 



[In spring all the manure made during the past winter should be 

 cartid to tlie field, placed in a heap, and twice turned. All bones 

 should be gathered and broken up with a hammer, all coal and wood 

 ashes, scrapings of sewers, the dung from the fowl-house, and the 

 contents of the privy, should be collected and made into a compost, 

 with dry loam or bog earth. 



The above manure may be used for that portion of the field 

 devoted to cabbages, potatoes and turnips. It should be put in the 

 bottom of the drill on which the above are to be planted or sown. 



When the ground is properly plowed and hariowed, and a suffi- 

 cient quantity of sound seed sown, say at least four poutids to the 

 acre, tlie turnip crop is as certain as any other. 



The sowing of turnip seed should be commenced early in June, 

 and may be continued up to 20th July. If the fly takes the first 

 sowing, a second will be likely to succeed. 



The turnips, when well up and getting strong, should be thinned 

 out to a foot apart, and the hoe and cultivator passed through them, 

 at least twice before they meet in the drills] 



If the land is too heavy for root crops, beans and peas will suit 

 for number one, taking care to sow them in drills, and to prepare 

 the land as above described for root crops. 



If It be thought absolutely necessary to suratner-fallow, that is, to 

 plow without sowing, which only happens when the soil is so hard 

 and heavy that it cannot be pulveiized in any other way, you ought 

 not t) spread the manure on the land in the preceding fall, but plow 

 the land and ridge and furrow it with as much care as for a crop. 

 You need not touch it again before the month of June, when you 

 must plow it again and hairow it so as to render it even, and destroy 

 the roots of the weeds. You may then draw the furrows in a 

 straigiit line, giving them a uniform breadth, and so as to facilitate 

 drainage. About the middle of July, you must plow it again, and 

 sow it with plenty of buckwheat. At tlie end of September, plow 

 it again, having previously spread it with dung. In this case, the 

 buckwheat is plowed under with the manure, and serves greatly to 

 increase tlie latter. The land thus prepared ought to be sown with 

 wheat in the ensuing spring, and you may add a little timothy and 

 clover. A bushel of timothy will suffice for four or five acres, and 

 three or four pounds of clover to each acre. 



By following the method above described, you will have, in the 

 year 1851, quadrupled, or more than quadrupled the fertility of the 

 £oil. 



I have now done all that I can for field A. 1 have weeded and 

 manured it as well as I can ; and after having taken the crop of roots 

 and the crop of wheat or barley next year, 1 leave this field to rest 

 until the other fields have been improved iu the same way, and 



