THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY. 69 



where I put the Brighton Fertilizer, it was not more than a 

 week before I could see quite a difference. The grass looked 

 greener than it did anywhere else. The next year I sowed 

 some mangels, and dug in some of this Brighton Fertilizer 

 with the other manure ; and I got a great crop, although I 

 did not weigh or measure to see how much there was. Tliis 

 year I planted some mangels on the same ground, putting on 

 nothing but barnyard-manure, and the crop was very much 

 poorer both in quantity and size ; so that I think it will be 

 a great help when the land is highly manured. I do not 

 think it will do much, if any, good in raising a crop of vege- 

 tables or any thing else, unless the land is well manured 

 before it is put on. 



Mr. E. B. Smith of Waltham. I have thought that per- 

 haps one trouble with our meeting this afternoon was, that 

 the farmers of Arlington, knowing a great deal, just take it 

 for granted that every one else knows as much as they do ; 

 and therefore they have not considered it necessary to begin 

 at the beginning, and tell the process of raising some of the 

 principal crops. I should have been very much pleased to 

 know their method of preparing the ground for the growth 

 of squashes, melons, spinach, and other garden-crops. I hope, 

 that, in the short time that remains this afternoon, we shall 

 hear some of the farmers of Arlington, and that they will 

 describe their method of preparing and caring for some of 

 these principal crops. 



Mr. HuJViPHREY. I am interested, in a small way, in market- 

 gardening. Although I am more than fifteen miles from 

 Boston, yet we have scattered along our valleys a population 

 that must be fed ; and to these people I cater, in a small 

 way. Being some distance from market, I raise some of the 

 more substantial vegetables, — onions, cabbages, and potatoes ; 

 and I find that they are remunerative crops. I hail from that 

 district, where, for some years past, the raising of tobacco has 

 been almost universal, and where almost all the other crops 

 have suffered from the partiality shown to that one crop. 

 But circumstances have changed ; and we have been obliged 

 to turn our attention to some other branch of farming. Some 

 have gone back to the old corn-fields and broom-corn, and 

 fattening cattle ; others, like myself, have gone into market- 

 gardening ; while a few continue to raise tobacco. I find, that, 



