FARMING IN NEW ENGLAND. 257 
average about 1,000 bushels ashes per year, at 20 cents per bushel, $200; interest and 
taxes, $2,000; total, $3,995. This leaves a profit of $3,005, without considering the 
products not estimated. The Messrs. Wakeman are brothers. Another brother con- 
ducts an adjoining farm with like energy and success. The old farm upon which they 
were raised, and which then yielded but scanty returns for rude culture, now pays well 
by its abundant crops for the plentiful and intelligent labor bestowed upon it. 
Mr. FrankJin Sherwood, and his son, Arthur Sherwood, of Westport, have a farm of 50 
acres, worth $400 to $600 per acre for farming purposes. They obtained this year, on 
oue acre and 34 rods 400 bushels of early rose potatoes, worth $1 25 per bushel; 90 
barrels of white globe onions on 4} acres, at $7 per barrel, and 600 barrels of red globe, 
at $5 per barrel, worth, together, $3,630. On the onion land 25 loads of barn-yard 
manure per acre were applied, and one ton per acre of bone-dust on 24 acres. The total 
expenses for labor and manure did not exceed $630, leaving $3,000 for interest, super- 
vision, and profit. 
These were the two principal crops sold, but Mr. Sherwood had a fine crop of Surprise 
seed oats, potatoes of several varieties, fruit and cider, yielding enough to pay the 
hired labor, which cost about $1,000. 
Captain Sherwood till within a few years followed the sea. His success as a farmer 
illustrates the benetit of thorough business habits upon the farm. 
Mr. Nathan Hart, of West Cornwall, in the northwestern part of the State, makes 
the following statement : 
“My farm consists of 130 acres, 30 acres being in wood and unimproved swamp land. 
The swamp land up to this time has been valuable only as a deposit of rich muck for 
mixing with more concentrated manure and as an absorbent in manure cellars. The 
farm crowns a hill, running east, south, and west to the valley, giving it a warm 
exposure. I came into possession of the place in the spring of 1848, when the buildings 
were out of repair; the surface of the meadow and arable land was thickly covered with 
rocks, from half a ton to eight or ten tons in weight, so that there was not an gcre that 
could be mowed conveniently with a machine. The first year the farm carried 13 cows, 
a yoke of oxen, and one horse, with a purchase of a little extra feed for winter use. 
“With a farm in this condition, bought, with the stock and implements, mostly on 
credit, how to pay for it, and at the same time improve it, was the problem to be solved. 
To show that it has been done to some extent, I will state that in the years 1869~70, with 
$35 paid for pasturage, the farm carried 23 cows, one pair of oxen, and two horses, and 
$50 worth of hay and straw was sold. Forty acres have been cleared of rocks, laid in 
substantial walls, so that machinery is now used with facility, and the whole is in a 
good state of cultivation. The house has been repaired at an expense of $2,000, new 
barns have been built with manure cellars under the stabling, and a working capital 
concentrated many fold greater than existed at the beginning. Money loaned has 
been lost, which if safely invested wouid now have amounted fo more than half the 
present capital. The pasturage has been increased by cutting off the wood and clear- 
ing land well adapted to grazing. The wocd brought about $2,000 gross. Fields have 
been cleared of all the rocks not too large to blast or move without blasting and piled 
up in substantial walls, and the land has been thoroughly manured and planted with 
corn, followed by oats or wheat and seeded with clover and timothy. In this way forty 
acres have been fitted for the plow or mower, and the raising of any crop adapted to this 
climate. For example, a two-acre field, cleared as stated, was manured with 21 cart- 
loads of barn-cellar manure per acre and planted with corn, and gave a yield of 75 
bushels per acre. 
“The tollowing year the field was manured as before and planted with tobacco, with 
the exception of one-half acre unmanured and planted with potatoes. Tho tobacco 
yielded 3,333 pounds, and sold for $691. In the fall, after the crops were removed, the 
field was sown with wheat and seeded with clover and timothy. ‘The yield was 36 
bushels of handsome white wheat per acre. The following years it was mowed twice, 
yielding a very large crop. With top-dressing once in three years it has continued this 
yield to the last year, when the second crop failed from the drought. 
_“ Another field of seven acres was taken up in the same way, one half at atime. The 
yield of corn was 75 bushels per acre, and of oats 72 bushels. Another acre in the same 
field. at one time gave 102 bushels of shelled corn, and the subsequent grass crops were 
in proportion. These crops were not guessed at, but theland was measured with chain 
and compass, and the grain accurately measured, and a premium obtained from the 
county and State agricultural societies. 
“This success is mainly duc to a thorough system of clearing the land and manuring, 
doing well what is done, and making it pay as the work goes along. Let no man sup- 
pose, however, that he can take a farm in all its native roughness and sterility, and 
with little capital but his bare hands, and arrive at desirable results, while eating the 
wread of idleness, allowing his manure heaps to be drenched with rains, and going on 
from year to year without any definite plan of operations.” 
Mr. Hart’s farm is situated away from any village or very favorable market. He 
keeps a dairy, and until the last two years mado butter and cheese. Since then he has 
17 A 
