lltJ MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



manure and fodder, gathered and expended, as be cannot 

 otherwise ascertain which crop or form of product is most 

 profitable in proportion to the amount of manure and labor 

 expended on it. If he puts all his manure in a corn-field, taking- 

 no account of it, he gets so many bushels of corn, but does 

 he know that the same manure expended on another crop may 

 not have produced a greater profit ? Or that the abundance 

 which he has devoted to one crop, may not have been at the 

 expense of another ? In this view it is material that the manure 

 should be valued and accounted for. Valuable in itself, its 

 disposition and judicious application become an element of 

 value, if one crop suffers from its application to another. The 

 large crop in one field which paid well, may, after all, have been 

 costly, if obtained at the sacrifice of other crops in otlier fields ; 

 or tlie same amount of manure may have paid better in the 

 same field with another crop. 



These considerations leave him to the necessity of keeping 

 an account with each field from year to year, by which practice 

 the farmer will soon learn the most economical disposition of 

 manure on his soils for the most profitable crop ; he will, we 

 doubt not, soon become satisfied that the highest manuring is 

 the most economical ; that it is better economy to plant less 

 and manure more ; and that it will be cheaper in many cases 

 to buy manure, or not to break up at all, than to raise a thin 

 crop. 



We have made tliese remarks in no spirit of fault-finding. 

 Mr. Thompson has kept an account during the last four years 

 with each field, and no man knows better than he the actual 

 cost of his crops. If his account does not clearly indicate 

 the facts, or present us with such an inventory of results as 

 we might have expected, it was not intentional. But we have 

 taken the occasion to make these remarks for the benefit of 

 others. 



We do not propose to say any thing at present concerning 

 the manner in which Mr. Roberts presents his farm account, 

 except to suggest that whilst it presents an excellent summary 

 or balance sheet, in a model form, it seems to us that it hardly 

 presents the operations of the farm with sufficient detail; and 

 to add that we do not endorse his credit of corn fodder at 115 

 fter ton. Charles Burton, Chairman. 



