164 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



the barn all the remainder of the summer, feeding them on clo- 

 ver, green oats, and corn-fodder, sowed for that purpose. He 

 admits that corn-fodder is not the best milk producer, but he 

 don't see how he could get along without it, although he ex- 

 presses his determination to try more Hungarian grass another 

 year. He has adopted "soiling" as a necessity < his pastures 

 being unequal to sustain all the stock he must keep in winter, 

 to produce the large quantity of manure which his large farm 

 requires. Still, he has no doubt of the expediency and econ- 

 omy of " soiling," by which he makes a very few acres sustain 

 his fourteen cows during the summer, and he has a barn cellar 

 full of manure in the fall. 



Mr. Appleton's sheep are thoroughbred Cotswolds, of which 

 he is very fond and very justly proud. He keeps them for the 

 breeding of rams to be sold as stock animals, and the recent ex- 

 hibitions of the Essex Agricultural Society have demonstrated 

 his success. 



The farm buildings are in good repair, and the implements 

 were not only of the most improved kinds, but were evidently 

 well taken care of, instead of being left to lie and rot where 

 they were last used, as is often the case. The barnyard and 

 cellars were well adapted for making manure, which is, after all, 

 the great secret of agricultural success. There are now win- 

 tered on this farm sixty head of cattle, estimated by counting 

 five sheep as equal to oae cow, and four horses as equal to five 

 cows. The swine, of course, perform their part in the making 

 of manures. 



Mr. Appleton believes in " high farming," and endorses the 

 old assertion, that " if high farming will not pay, then low will 

 not." Thus far, he says, he has only been making a farm, and 

 it is his wish that the Essex Agricultural Society send its com- 

 mittee on farms, three years hence, to ascertain the result of 

 his experiments, and his endeavors to get his farm in high con- 

 dition. By that time he expects to be able to show that his 

 pecuniary investments have not only been productive, but pro- 

 fitable. 



The committee have seen in Mr. Appleton's management 

 much that is worthy of high commendation, and they regard 

 his experiments in reclaiming low lands — viewed as experiments 

 — as of great value to the agricultural interests of Essex County, 



