FARMS. 9 



sively for pasturing, I sow three or four lbs. of wliite clover. 

 In that way, I have raised for five years an average of not less 

 than forty bushels of sound corn to the acre. If the grass 

 fails, in part, I scatter more seed in the spring and bush it in. 

 When it is to be grazed, the cows are kept from it till it gets 

 a good start, sometimes a foot high. Nearly all my high land 

 has been laid down in that way for twelve years, because of the 

 saving of labor. My pasturing is in four lots, and I am con- 

 vinced of many advantages in the division. More stock can be 

 kept, by one-eighth, on a given number of acres ; and by keeping 

 on each, one week at a time, when you come to the fourth the 

 grass must be fresh and large, and the cattle arc quiet and 

 peaceable, which is not the case when in one lot ; I am a believer 

 in the old saying that a " change of pasture makes fat calves." 



Of stock, I made a small beginning, keeping but four cows 

 the first summer, and hired part of the pasturing at that; and 

 in the winter kept seven, partly on meadow hay. Now I keep 

 twenty-five head in the winter on the same number of acres 

 mowed over, and what land I have bought helps to increase the 

 number from thirtj^-seven to forty, with the additional purchase 

 of $30 worth of meadow grass standing. In the summer 

 I keep from fifteen to twenty cows, varying as my customer 

 wants milk, knowing that he must be supplied in August, when 

 the feed is short, as well as in June, when it is green and sweet. 



Moist land I depend upon entirely for grass, having turned 

 nearly all my high land to pasture except a few acres, an 

 orchard, where I raise all kinds of vegetables, southern corn, 

 &c. I am fully satisfied of one fact, that the more land a per- 

 son has (if he undertakes to cultivate and manure it sparsely) 

 the poorer he is. I have about thirty-five acres of the moist 

 land, twenty of which have been reclaimed, the rest is on the 

 river, and liable to be covered with water one-third of the year j 

 experience has taught me to let that alone. My great desire 

 was to improve the land — never being satisfied to raise only 

 my own corn and potatoes ; some four acres had been gravelled 

 by my father, but improvements on meadows in those days were 

 hardly known. The meadow was uneven, and not sufficiently 

 drained, all the ditches running from the edge to the centre, 

 not even one head ditch on the whole farm. The gravel in 

 2* 



