A FARMER'S EXPERIENCE. 257 



Mr. Flint. According to the programme, the Committee 

 had arranged for a discussion to follow Professor Goess- 

 mann's most admirable paper; but you will all remember 

 that one paper, giving the practical experience and daily 

 life of a first-class farmer in Essex County was omitted on 

 Tuesday, and the Committee are very desirous that the farm- 

 ers here should have an opportunity to hear Mr. Webster's 

 paper on his farm-experience. The Committee, therefore, 

 have arranged to have that paper presented at this time; 

 and, if there are any questions to be asked in connection 

 with Professor Goessmann's paper, they can come up after 

 the reading of Mr. Webster's paper. 



The Chairman. I have now the pleasure of introducing 

 to you Mr. Richard Webster of Haverhill. 



MY FARMING EXPERIENCE. 



BY RICHARD WEBSTER. 



My farm-life began at seven years of age, and under the 

 usual forbidding experiences of home-sickness, hard work, 

 and unsatisfied yearning for the pleasures and careless joys 

 of boyhood. I continued on a farm until my thirteenth 

 year, then went to the city, and worked until I was seven- 

 teen years old, and then began to learn the trade of carpen- 

 ter, which I followed as apprentice, journeyman, and con- 

 tractor, with very little interruption, till the fall of 1860, 

 when I gave up entirely. My first thought of farming was 

 in the spring of 1859, after continual failing health for two 

 years previous, when my physician told me a change of 

 occupation was my only hope for life. With weakened arm, 

 struggling with the problem " how to live and pay for it," 

 you see I have nothing but the every-day kind of farming to 

 talk about. 



In the spring of 1859 I purchased the Haynes Place, of 

 forty acres, situated in the West Parish of Haverhill. The 

 land slopes from its frontage, of thirty-two rods, to the 

 borders of the Merrimack River, whose waters enclose a 

 small island overgrown with wood, which, in times of freshet, 

 is also overflowed. Besides this reduction from available 

 land, there are two acres in grove and woodland that are of 

 no profit, except the* growth of wood, leaving the improvable 

 soil about thirty-seven acres. 



