242 HAMPDEN SOCIETY. 



bushes have been cut and ploughed up ; inequalities levelled ; 

 many acres of new land cleared, and sowed for the first time ; 

 and the whole brought into a state to be easily tilled in future, 

 or, whenever a supply of water is to be had, to be turned into 

 pasture. 



In the meadow part of the farm, the committee first exam- 

 ined a field of twenty acres of corn. Until this spring, as far 

 back as can be remembered, this had been divided into about 

 one-third arable land, on which grew, nearly every year, a 

 scanty crop of corn ; about one-third, of hide-bound mowing, 

 and the rest abandoned to brush, brier, and vine. This year, 

 the whole field has been cleared, ploughed, and levelled, so as 

 to be uniformly planted, and the average yield of corn cannot 

 be less than thirty-five bushels to the acre. A mowing lot, of 

 ten acres, three years ago was cut in two by an old passage 

 way and balk, full two rods wide ; in the centre rose a gravelly 

 knoll, which grass never attempted to cover ; in one corner was 

 a swamp hole, whose only growth was flags and cat-tails ; and 

 old fences ran through the lot in all directions. At the present 

 time, the balk is entirely obliterated ; the interior fences are 

 cleared away ; the knoll has been manured, by foddering upon 

 it, so as to have produced, this season, two good crops of grass : 

 and the swamp is changed into meadow grass land. 



The same proofs of well spent labor, are seen upon every 

 part of the farm. Substantial fences have been built, wherever 

 needed. Here, two or three acres have been reclaimed by 

 draining, and made for the first time accessible to teams ; here, 

 another lot has been gained from the alders, by the side of the 

 brook, which had always possessed it. A field of ten acres, 

 which had felt very much the want of manure, while in the 

 hands of other persons, is now covered, after being manured 

 two seasons, with a growth of corn which can rarely be 

 equalled. The committee examined it carefully in many places, 

 and using the methods commonly employed in computing the 

 yield of corn, they could not arrive at an average of less than 

 one hundred bushels per acre. 



A still more interesting and uncommon spectacle, in New 

 England farming, was that of thirty head of fat cattle, belong- 



