62 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



iinderdrained by the present owner in 1857, before which time 

 " it was good for nothing." It was of this field that a former 

 occupant and lessee speaks in his statement, made thirty-two 

 years ago, when he says : " There is of wet meadow land not 

 more than five acres, which is never tilled, but drained, and 

 yields good crops of stock hay." At the time of the com- 

 mittee's recent visit, (in November,) the crops had been har- 

 vested. Upon the one and one-eighth acres in mangel wurzel 

 the crop measured sixteen hundred bushels, or fourteen hun- 

 dred bushels to the acre ! The two crops of English grass upon 

 the four acres and thirty-three rods measure twenty-seven tons. 

 It is proper to state the method by which the quantity was ascer- 

 tained. The hay was upon the scaffold and occupied the space 

 from the scaffold floor to the great beams, a height of eight 

 feet. One of the bands was measured, and seven hundred cubic 

 feet were estimated to weigh a ton. By this method (one 

 usually adopted and considered reliable where weighing cannot 

 be had) the first and second crops upon this piece of land are 

 foun^ to amount to the astonishing quantity already mentioned 

 — twenty-seven tons, or six and four-tenths tons to the acre. 

 As Dr. Loring's method of draining, together with his descrip- 

 tion of the land before draining, were minutely described by 

 him in the Society's Transactions for 1859, already referred to, 

 it is quite unnecessary to repeat any part of his statement in 

 this report. That part of the land under consideration where 

 the above mentioned crop of mangel wurzel has been this year 

 grown, with the exception of the one-eighth of an acre, which 

 was in potatoes, was in corn in 1861 ; and the crop, as Dr. 

 Loring informed the committee, was ninety bushels of shelled 

 corn. The amount of manure applied for the corn-crop was 

 twejity-five ox-cart loads, spread and ploughed in. For the 

 mangel wurzcls this year forty-seven loads were put on, twenty- 

 five being ploughed in, and twenty-two loads put in the drills ; 

 the said drills being two feet apart. 



The remarks of Dr. Loring, casually made during the com- 

 mittee's walk over the farm, on the subject of succession of 

 crops in connection with the field above mentioned, are regarded 

 as too valuable to be lost. " Mangel wurzel will follow ruta- 

 baga well, but the reverse is not true. Ruta-baga grows smooth 

 and iiandsomc on new land taken u]) in Jvuic andwell manured. 



