58 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Scpt.^ 



In this connection, I wish to relate an experience of mine, 

 some ten years ago. For several months I was located on a 

 large farm in the Anholt region of north Germany. The com- 

 munity in which I lived had a population of about two thous- 

 and people, most of them working in one way or another for 

 this single large farm. It was a semi-feudal system. On the 

 farm was a windmill, one which had been built in 1738, a 

 one-man affair, it is true, but for nearly one hundred and 

 seventy years it had been milling rye and wdieat into flour. 

 The bulk of the product was used at home, and the by-prod- 

 ucts were used on the farm. The interesting thing about it, 

 however, was that in this Avindmill, almost medieval in its 

 nature, I found installed an up-to-date bolting machine of 

 American manufacture. When the Germans could send to 

 this country for the necessary machinery and find it profitable 

 •to do the work on their own farms, I wonder if the time has 

 not come when our gristmill must be brought back again and 

 equipped with the machinery for milling flour? 



The Farm ]\Iust Be Re-organized. 



AMien our New England farmer keeps more stock as a re- 

 sult of raising more grain, a definite and conscious re-organi- 

 zation of many of our farms will become necessary. This 

 will lead to greater efficiency in all departments of farming. 



Roughly speaking, every hill farm has land belonging to 

 one of three classes : 



(1) Tillable land which can be w^orked by machinery. 



(2) Steep side hills and stony land,, now in grass, which 

 ^re difficult to plovv\ 



(3) Permanent pastures. 



It is on the first of these that our grain crops must be 

 grown, and rotation must be practiced. In fact, looking back 

 over my own experience, for the last twelve years, I can see- 

 where I have failed time after time, in giving service to my 

 supporters in the state of Alassachusetts. I advised rotation 

 as it seemed to me farms ought to be — laid out on the square 

 and on the level, with fields of such a size that it would be- 

 fairly easy to develop a three, four or five-year rotation. 

 This idea is rotation as it is taught. All of you New England 

 men know that the great difficulty is simply that the land is. 



