8 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



A. I do, with corn and other crops. 



26. Do you think old orchards may be new topped and culti- 

 vated with profit ? 



A. I do, but think they should be cut closer to the body to 

 prevent them from being too tall. 



27. Do you keep a journal of your farm operations ? 

 A. Do not. 



Elijah Wood I Jr.''s, Statement. 



The farm, in part, wliich I offer for premium, I purchased in 

 1840, it being in a low state of cultivation, with a large propor- 

 tion of pine plain land, which had been cropped to death with 

 rye. The buildings were very poor and inconvenient. The 

 main house had been thoroughly repaired, new put up, making 

 a convenient tenement for my father and myself. The barn has 

 been built anew. The first year after the purchase, all the 

 stock that could be kept in the winter on English hay, was five 

 cows and a horse, and that, a share of it, was cut where the 

 cows are pastured now. Since that time I have added some 

 140 acres ; about equal proportions of meadow, woodland, and 

 light pasturing. The pasturing has all been ploughed and 

 manured, except the last, purchased in 1849, and that comes in 

 turn next year. I plant with corn one or two years, as the 

 case may be, ploughing from seven to eleven inches, according 

 to the depth it was before turned, and the nature of the soil, 

 endeavoring to run a little deeper every year, spreading on 

 from twenty-five to thirty-two loads of compost manure to the 

 acre, and plough again (if sod land) as low as can be without 

 disturbing the sod, (if not) make one turning answer the pur- 

 pose. I have this year used the swivel plough to avoid the 

 dead furrow. I prepared a compost for the corn-hills, never 

 more than 300 lbs., of guano for the six acres, (this year only 

 150 lbs.,) with about four proportions of plaster. All the ashes 

 made in the house, and excrements from twenty hens, are mixed 

 with two loads of loam, and thrown over every day till used, 

 when but a small handful is put in each hill. The crop is hoed 

 level three times, sowing before the last hoeing, six quarts of 

 herds-grass, one peck of redtop, and five lbs. clover. If cxclu- 



