86 IVIASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



have concordant results in a field of nine and a half acres, on 

 the more retentive natural grass-land of Mr. E. F. Bowditch, 

 and also equivalent results on two fields, — in all, seven and a 

 half acres, — planted in like manner by Mr. Edward Burnett, 

 of Southborough. Perhaps these twenty-five acres, cultivated 

 as an experimental crop, in fields of the area given, represent 

 the largest area ever devoted to an experimental crop in New 

 England, and the results must possess value as being thus 

 freed from local circumstances and circumscribed conditions, 

 which in small plots are so apt — nay so certain — to obscure 

 the results. 



The field in experimental corn on Waushakum Farm, this 

 year of grace 1875, occupies a plain, with a depression run- 

 ning through the centre, and is bounded on the west side by 

 a stone wall, on the north by the highway, on the east by 

 woodland, muck-land and mowing in about equal lengths, 

 and on the south by woodland. The area is eight acres. 

 The soil a gravelly loam on gravel, for the most of the field, 

 but runs to a limited area of muck-land in the depression. A 

 considerable length along the bounds is sapped by the roots 

 of neighboring trees, and the wood on the south side aflTords 

 shade over a considerable space, at certain hours of the day. 

 The field has been in sod since 1872 ; and previous to this 

 date, crops of corn, fodder-corn and oats had been taken 

 from dunged portions of the field. The 1874 crop of hay was 

 light, scarcely half a ton per acre being harvested, while an 

 adjoiuing piece of this field, apparently in similar condition, 

 and left in grass, yielded this year a scant one-third of a ton 

 by estimate. 



In May we commenced operations on the land, by plough- 

 ing a broad furrow seven inches deep, with a Holbrook swivel- 

 plough ; using our horses for this labor in the mornings only, 

 and in the afternoons easing them by lighter farm-work. A 

 careful record has been kept in hours of the time of men and 

 horses employed on, or in connection with, this field, and it 

 has been our intention to take no account of "spunt work" 

 but to try and obtain for our own infoima ion, for future use, 

 the actual cost to us of working the crops. 



We purchased our fertilizer of Messrs. Jackson and 

 Bowker, No. 53 North Market Street, Boston, gentlemen on 



