58 MASSACHUSETTS. AGRICULTURE. 



[Statement of Mr. John Hancock.] 



I herewith give you a statement of my operations and the 

 result on the farm I have offered for the society's premium. 

 This farm I have occupied for fifteen 3^ears. It contains a 

 hundred and sixty-three acres, — twenty-five wood and timber, 

 sixty-five improved, and seventj-jthree pasture. I commenced 

 improvements immediately upon my occupancy, and have 

 adhered to that policy with steady determination. I have 

 cleared forty acres of stone, ten of which was rough pas- 

 ture; have laid three hundred and fifty rods of wall, and 

 removed more than one hundred and fifty from localities 

 where I did not want it, enlarging fields, and regaining con- 

 siderable portions of land. Old hedges have also been re- 

 moved, and the lands they occupied regenerated. Five acres 

 have been drained with stone. On my pasture-lands I com- 

 menced to mow the bushes the first year I came, and have 

 kept it up annually ever since ; and nearly every year I have 

 spread plaster or plaster and ashes. The result is, where 

 formerly the bushes were from two to ten feet high, there is 

 very little growth, except grass. Ploughing I think best 

 where it can be done. Other localities mow. 



When I came to the farm, I found twenty head of cattle 

 and horses ; now I can keep from forty to fifty head. I have 

 built a large barn, and improved 'the water facilities in con- 

 nection with it for the stock. The house, also, I have built 

 entirely anew, with the exception of a small portion of frame. 

 Another improvement I have organized since I built mj^ 

 ■ barn : I keep pens for hogs, into which I put sods, loam, and 

 every thing I can utilize for manurial purposes. In August 

 I commence to tie up my cows over night, and daily mix with 

 their droppings loam and sods, bedding them with sawdust 

 and sand. In this way I accumulate a large amount of valua- 

 ble fertilizer. Another direction in which I have tried to 

 improve is my stock of cattle and hogs. Of hogs, I have 

 the Chester- Whites and Yorkshire, pure bred, and I think 

 either breed well deserving the notice of breeders. In cattle 

 my attention was early directed to Short-horns. I found, 

 however, that the pure-bred cows were not heavy milkers, 

 though grades have proved better. But I started with the 

 idea of getting a pure-bred strain of good milkers, and, not 



