FARMS. 109 



mentioned, which stretches across the middle of this field. By 

 way of experiment, I spread four horse-cart loads of shell lime 

 upon about one-quarter of an acre of this swale, which bore 

 nothing but flags and trash, not worth cutting. The result was, 

 that it brought in a crop of Herds-grass and clover ; and I cut 

 iipon it excellent hay at the rate of about one and a half tons ' 

 per acre. This spring, I set out in the back part of this field 

 from sixty to seventy young apple trees, — intending to break 

 up the ground they occupy, this fall, for cultivation. The first 

 year I cut about five tons of hay ; this year, ten tons of hay, 

 besides three, tons of oat fodder. All my onion ground had 

 eight cords of manure to the acre. The corn and potatoes were 

 manured in the hill. 



I do my work with a team of two horses ; and keep two cows 

 and two yearling heifers, and pigs. I employ, on an average, 

 two men, beside myself, — hiring boys from the village, at times, 

 to weed onions and carrots. 



My purpose is to lay down to grass, piece by piece, the land 

 which has been under cultivation ; and break up in the same 

 proportion of the worn-out grass land, till I get it all in good 

 order. 



I cannot get along as fast as I should wish, on account of the 

 expense and difficulty of obtaining manure. The shell lime 

 which I have used, I burned upon the farm. I have had so 

 much to do to put the premises in tolerable order, from the 

 general bad condition in which I found them, that I have had 

 little opportunity, as yet, to attend to any special matters. 



Danvers Centre, Sept. 29th, 1856. 



Supplement to the Committee^ s Report on Farms. 



It has for a considerable time appeared obvious to many who 

 have carefully watched the progess of the agricultural society, 

 that our annual Transactions were in danger of taking so close 

 a resemblance to those of former years, as to seem to the reader 

 to be a mere re-print of them. Our indefatigable secretary has 

 long observed this tendency, and has spoken of it with earnest 

 apprehension. Others have remarked the same thing. Stereo- 

 typing the doings and the reports of previous years, or seeming 



