MIDDLESEX SOCIETY. 135 



E. A. S^ A. Lawrence's Statement. 



Our farm contains one hundred acres. Soil, slate and grav- 

 elly loam ; thirty-five acres in mowing and tillage ; the remain- 

 der, pasturing. We plant, this year, five acres with potatoes. 

 Since the potato rot has appeared, we have made use of but 

 little manure in raising potatoes, substituting peat mud, plaster, 

 and ashes. We have planted ground, where we had corn the 

 previous year, putting a handful of plaster and ashes in the hill ; 

 and on peat land, by putting straw in the hill. Average yield, 

 about two hundred bushels per acre. 



We plant two and a half acres with corn. We plough our 

 ground for corn, as soon as is convenient, after haying ; and, in 

 the spring, spread about fifty loads of compost manure, from 

 the barn cellar, and plough it in. We also make use of a small 

 quantity of plaster and ashes, about the hill, in planting. Av- 

 erage yield, from sixty to eighty bushels per acre. We have 

 improved twenty-five acres of pasture land, by planting ; ma- 

 nuring in the hill, with compost manure. We sow down our 

 ground to grass, in the spring or fall, as circumstances may re- 

 quire. We have reclaimed three acres of peat meadow, by 

 draining ; removing stumps, roots, &c., to the amount of about 

 twenty cords per acre. We planted it first with potatoes, then 

 carted on gravel, and seeded it down to grass ; yield of hay, 

 two tons per acre. We have also reclaimed five acres of rough 

 pasture land, which produces about two tons to the acre. We 

 top dress our meadow and wet land, once in two years. We 

 cut ninety tons of English hay ; our cattle, on an average, 

 number about twenty. We keep a considerable number of 

 swine to increase our manure, and save the wash of the dairy. 

 We keep eight cows, making from eight hundred to eleven 

 hundred pounds of butter, annually. We have dug a cellar 

 under our barn, twenty-five by seventy feet. It is connected 

 with a hog yard, by a covered drain, for hogs to pass and re- 

 pass. We cart in sods, peat, and earth, to the barn-yard and 

 cellar. Five cows stand in the barn, all the nights of the year. 

 We have also prepared a bed of peat, which increases our ma- 

 nure, by absorbing the water from the sink drains, &c. 



