FORAGE CROPS IN NEW ENGLAND. 151 



tiling of the possible capacity of our average New-England 

 soils. The farm upon which these experiments have been 

 carried on is called a hundred-acre farm, and, when I first 

 knew it, had sixty acres in mowing, tillage, and pasture, and 

 forty acres in wood. 



It kept from three to five cows and heifers, a yoke of oxen, 

 and a horse. About forty acres were mowed or cultivated 

 annually, and about half the pasture was also mowed nearly 

 every year to keep down the bushes. The pasture would 

 never keep three cows well through the season ; but by pas- 

 turing the mowing-lands as soon as the crop of grass was 

 removed, and feeding some hay and grain, the previously 

 named number of animals managed to live. 



The annual sales consisted of two or three tons of hay, a 

 little butter, two or three veal calves, a hog, and occasionally 

 a few eggs and chickens. 



The hay sold paid the taxes ; and enough wood was cut in. 

 winter to pay a hired man for six or seven months. 



The manure was all thrown out through stable-windows in 

 winter, and left where it dropped in summer, chiefly in the 

 bush-pastures. 



My grandfather bought the farm more than eighty years 

 ago, and commenced improving it by digging what stones 

 could be pried out with crowbars and levers, and piling them 

 in rows, about four feet high, across the farm. 



The number of stone walls required to fence a farm at 

 that time, it would appear, depended chiefly upon the amount 

 of material at hand. Our fields averaged less than two acres 

 each, Avhile several contained less than a half-acre. 



A piece of swamp-land was flowed by an expensive dam, 

 with the view of killing bushes, and bringing in swale-grass, 

 which was cut, and carried on shore upon hand-poles. A 

 large amount of the soil in this swamp was dug out in dry 

 seasons, and carted to the barn-yard for composting, leaving 

 several unsightly frog-ponds to be counted in among the 

 improvements. The large rocks left undisturbed, after build- 

 ing the two or three miles of heavy wall, were thicker in the 

 mowing and tillacre fields than were ever the hav-cocks in 

 the best grass-year. The usual rotation was, first year, 

 potatoes on sod, ploughed in the fall, and cross-ploughed in 

 the spring (the numerous rocks made it necessary to cross- 



