102 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



I do not raise any stock, but depend on purchasing a supply 

 from others. I purchase such cows as may be for sale, often 

 those that are unruly on farms not so well fenced as mine. 

 When past seven or eight y*ars old, they are usually fed 

 highly, till in good condition for the butcher. They have often 

 been milked, however, every day for two, and even three 

 years. By following this method, I do not get many extra 

 cows, but while I keep them, get a large average amount of 

 milk per year, usually six to eight quarts per day from each cow, 

 during the year, which is much more than cows ordinarily 

 yield, going dry three or four months. I certainly would 

 not recommend my practice for general adoption, but some- 

 body must fatten the old farrow cows, and I think my method 

 is a good one for that purpose. 



My hoed crops, for a few years past, have been potatoes and 

 garden vegetables. Have sometimes raised cabbages to the 

 value of $90 ; pease, $80 ; sweet corn, $20 ; and beets, beans, 

 <fcc, in a similar proportion. Have not made this sort of culti- 

 vation a large business, but preferred such crops to Indian 

 corn. 



From somewhat less than an acre of ground I have, in one 

 year, taken over ti^o hundred dollars worth of pease, beans, 

 turnips, cabbages, beets, squashes, cucumbers and potatoes. 

 The turnips followed the pease on the same ground. But the 

 past year, in consequence of the distance from market, and the 

 extra labor and care required, I have mostly given up the 

 raising of sauce, and have had under cultivation, corn, two 

 and a half acres ; potatoes, two and a half ; French turnips, 

 half an acre ; cabbages and fodder corn, half an acre. Pota- 

 toes are planted on sward land, ploughed the previous fall, 

 manured lightly and ploughed again in the spring. They are 

 planted in pieces and in drills, putting the pieces eighteen 

 inches apart ; in this way have fewer small potatoes than when 

 several pieces are put in hills further apart. Have been much 

 troubled with rot some years, but probably not more than other 

 farmers, particularly since I have raised Davis' seedlings and 

 Danvers seedlings for a main crop. Rot here has invariably 

 been greater in potatoes raised on low, moist, loamy soil, and 

 least in those raised on dry, gravelly hills. I raise the purple 

 top, strap-leafed turnip, and a superior white, French turnip. 



