FARMS. 15 



county of Essex. Mr. B.'s estimate, I believe, was 1,000 bush- 

 els to the acre for this spot. I cannot estimate it at less than 

 that, and indeed find I had marked on my memorandum as 

 high as 1,200 to the acre, for the spot referred to ; and in my 

 present estimate of 1,000 bushels I am fully sustained by sev- 

 eral gentlemen, trustees of the society, who visited and examined 

 this field just before the onions were pulled. They were then 

 lying upon the ground, and perhaps seen to better advantage. 

 This amazing yield, it is true, is confined to a comparatively 

 small spot ; but if the whole eight acres shall be found to have 

 less than 5,000 bushels of m.arketable onions, I shall be disap- 

 pointed. The average would be 625 bushels, and as that 

 amount has not unfrequently been reached in the county, I 

 cannot Ijelieve it too high. The manure was chiefly the 

 decomposed kelp before mentioned, ploughed in, with a small 

 quantity of compost manure. Mr. B.'s usual quantity of kelp 

 is eight or ten cords to the acre, but in 1854 he put on twelve 

 cords per acre, and undoubtedly that extra amount is felt in this 

 year's crop, although some fields have suffered by the drought. 



A lesson is to be learned from the fact, that upon one side of 

 the under-drained field, for perhaps thirty rods, the last year's 

 crop was turnips, and there the onion top is yet somewhat 

 green ; but where the onion follows a carrot crop, it is nearly as 

 ripe as when following onions themselves. The onion rows in 

 this, and all the other lots, are fourteen inches apart. 



Other fields in onions presented crops every w^ay equal to the 

 one above described, with the exeption of the quarter or half 

 acre particularly described. One of these fields, now partly in 

 grass, w^as taken out the pasture in 1836. 



Guano, it may be said in passing, has proved useless upon 

 Mr. B.'s annual crops of all kinds, though two hundred pounds 

 per acre, he thinks, has given an extra ton of hay. 



Mr. Brown has five acres in squashes. One measured acre 

 lias this year produced ten wagon loads, of one ton each. 

 The squashes are now all stored in lofts well ventilated, lying 

 two deep, and they afford a sight worth any man's ride of a 

 dozen miles to Marblehead to see. Of the five acres in 

 squashes, two acres are of the pure Marrow. These weighed 

 thirteen tons, and they are a splendid exhibition of this de- 

 licious vegetable. Of another squash, however, resembling the 



