HAMPDEN SOCIETY. 249 



poor that scarcely any thing grew upon it, except a few low 

 blackberry vines. It was ploughed in the fall of 1846, and 

 two hundred bushels of leached ashes, with twelve loads, of 

 about thirty bushels per load, of rich soil from my wood yard 

 and around my buildings, were spread upon it in the spring of 

 1847. Part of it was planted with white beans, and a part to 

 muskmelons and watermelons, — the melons manured in the 

 hill, with two forks full of manure. The beans yielded fifteen 

 bushels, and the melons a fair crop. In the spring of 1848, 

 stable manure was spread on it, and it was planted with mel- 

 ons, garden beans, radishes, and peas, and after the peas a crop 

 of turnips. The melons were a light crop, the vines blighting. 

 The beans were most of them sold for string beans, and the 

 peas produced at the rate of about seventy-five bushels of pods 

 per acre, — the turnips a large crop, very fair and smooth. Last 

 spring, stable manure was again plQughed in, and it was planted 

 with early white corn, garden beans, peas, crook neck summer 

 squash, radishes and tomatoes, and turnips after peas. I am 

 unable to state the yield of these crops, as they have been 

 gathered daily in their season, and sent to market, but am well 

 satisfied with the result of my experiment on waste land. 



West Springfield, Oct. 2, 1849. 



On Sheep. . 



The raising of sheep in this county has diminished to such 

 an extent, that it Avould seem an easy matter to prepare a report 

 upon the subject. The united efforts of all interested in the 

 growing of wool, and of the lovers of lamb and mutton, are re- 

 quired to obviate the causes of this constantly increasing dim- 

 inution. Ask the farmer why his flocks no longer whiten his 

 fields, and he will tell yoa he is as much inclined to keep 

 sheep now as formerly; but they will not thrive, and like 

 Pharaoh's lean kiae, ^vi\{ not please him by their growing fat- 

 ness. The dogs are at the root of the matter ; they so worry 

 and tease his sheep, that the butcher will hardly look at them : 

 so he has given up the raising of sheep as a bad business. Ask 

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