ESSEX SOCIETY. 57 



I cleared the remainder of the roots, and ploughed the whole, 

 sowing that part planted with potatoes, with oats, and the new 

 piece I planted with potatoes, using about one and a half cord 

 of manure. The oats grew very rank, so as to lodge, producing 

 a great quantity of straw, I should think more than two and a 

 half tons, with very little grain, and the potatoes a middling 

 crop. It was my intention to have ploughed and sowed it after 

 the crop came off, but, on account of heavy rains in fall and 

 spring, I was unable to do it until late in May, 1847. The 

 produce of this year was a great crop of weeds with the young 

 grass, which I nearly gave away for taking off. In 1848, I cut 

 five and a half tons of first quality market hay, when it was 

 weighed from the field, holding out nine thousand one hundred 

 and ten pounds in Boston market, leaving one thousand three 

 hundred and ninety pounds for shrinkage and feeding the teams 

 of the hauler. In 1849, the crop amounted to eight thousand 

 two hundred pounds when weighed from the field, and seven 

 thousand five hundred pounds in market, falling short seven 

 hundred pounds, of a quality a little inferior to the first, al- 

 though selling as high as the average. In 1850, the weight of 

 the crop was about four tons, remaining as yet unsold. All the 

 dressing this land has received since it was laid down, was 

 about ten bushels of ashes on a part of it in 1848, and about 

 fifteen bushels in 1849, and two casks of lime. 

 Ipswich, Sept. 25, 1850. 



Grain Crops. 



There was but one application for the premium on Wheat ; 

 that of Henry Poor, of North Andover, he having raised twen- 

 ty-five and a half bushels of white flint winter wheat upon one 

 acre of land. The committee award to him the premium of 

 eight dollars. 



The experience of Mr. Poor and others, in that part of the 

 county, for a few years past, in growing wheat, leads us to 

 think that winter wheat may again become an important crop 

 for us to raise. Why it is that wheat and rye do not blight so 

 much now as they did ten years ago, we cannot tell. We have 

 8 



