4 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



tively refuse to receive them, and is it difficult to conceive of 

 the effects that would naturally follow ? If it is natural for 

 our wives and daughters to scrub, and scour, and clean, and 

 sweep, in anticipation of the call of friends and visitors, would 

 it not be as natural for farmers and farmers' sons to dress and 

 keep the farm which was to be the object of inspection at a day 

 and hour which they could not know long beforehand ? Is 

 there a man in the county on whose farm the note of prepara- 

 tion would not be heard at once ? Would not compost heaps 

 and stone walls be the order of the day ? And wliat chance 

 would there be for wormwood, and burdocks, and thistles to 

 stand as they often do, in the very Goshen of the farm ? 



The undersigned being alone responsible for the Report, Avould 

 earnestly ask the trustees to consider the measure here pro- 

 posed, and to act in the premises according to their maturest 

 convictions. 



The farm of William R. Putnam was visited by a majority 

 of the committee on the 29th of August. It is beautifully situ- 

 ated in Danvers, near to Swan's crossing, so called, upon the 

 Essex Railroad. It consists of seventy acres of as fine land 

 as can be found in the county ; the crops all show it, and the 

 style of cultivating and managing pay the highest compliment 

 to the owner. 



A fine orchard of seventy trees, well fruited for this year, to 

 say nothing of the many trees scattered over the farm, attracted 

 the favorable attention of the committee, from the mode in 

 which the trees were planted. Tlie rows were fifty feet apart 

 by twenty-eight — a portion of them being set out in 1846, and 

 the remainder three years later. A good crop of hay was taken 

 from between the rows, while the rows themselves were kept 

 ploughed, though not manured, since setting out. The leaves 

 of the Aunt Hannah apple were rusted, as were those of the 

 Bartlett pear, while all others, so far as now recollected, were 

 vigorous. The same fact seems to have been noticed elsewhere, 

 as was remarked by several gentlemen present. Who can 

 account for it, or for rust an// where at an?/ time ? 



Mr. Putnam took the committee into a field lying north of 

 the road, where a fine »crop of millet was growing, quite an 

 object of curiosity to some of the committee, being rather an 

 unusual crop. It Avas sown on the 28th of Juno, immediately 



