248 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



to be the average of the entire crop. The crop of Mr. Noyes 

 was in excellent condition for marketing. I can hardly agree 

 with friend Noyes as to the cost of raising his crop. Adding 

 the cost of topping the onions, I cannot make it figure less than 

 one hundred dollars on the assumption that he used but three 

 cords of manure to the half acre, which I understand is his 

 statement. The great difference between my figures and his is 

 in the cost of cultivation. There are peculiarities worth noting 

 in the management of Mr. Noyes and Mr. Rolfe. Mr. Noyes 

 did not plough his land in the spring, and ploughed under 

 nearly all the manure in the fall. Mr. Rolfe harrowed his ma- 

 nure in. Mr. Rolfe's soil was, as seen by the committee, a clay 

 loam, quite free from gravel at the surface ; on such soils, ma- 

 nure could be more safely harrowed in than on lighter soils, as 

 the moisture they retain helps to rot the manure, and thus the 

 surface is not dried so readily as on gravelly soils, to the detri- 

 ment, sometimes, of small seed, in their vegetating and their 

 subsequent growth. Again, on a wet, heavy soil, in early spring, 

 manure harrowed in just below the surface, serves to under- 

 drain the land of superfluous moisture, and thus favors the vege- 

 tating and early growth of seed. 



In West Newbury we found ourselves in a community where 

 the art of farming had been handed down from father to son 

 for five or six generations. Back from the farm-house of this 

 generation stand the houses dwelt in by past generations, there 

 being usually three on each homestead, the relics of antiquity 

 doing service as out buildings. Tfiree or four generations dwelt 

 under the hospitable roof of Mr. Rolfe, from the aged grand- 

 father — aged ninety-two, with all the vigor of threescore and 

 ten yet upon him — to the energetic young man just girding 

 himself to walk in the steps of his ancestor, and maintain the 

 honors of his house. Mr. Rolfe informed us that there had not 

 been a farm sold in the neighborhood as far back as his memory 

 ran. All honor to Newbury Old Town ! What a wealth of 

 association rises in one's mind as he looks around on these 

 ancient homes. I would sooner live in a log cabin, surrounded 

 by these associations, than to exist in the finest palace in the 

 land without them. When will our irreverent Yankee mind 

 give an English meaning to that richest of words, " Home " ? 

 It exasperates me when men talk of leaving the community 



