ESSEX SOCIETY. 61 



this crop to your notice, before it was gathered, I have no 

 doubt one acre could have been selected in the field that would 

 have yielded more than forty bushels. I state the facts as they 

 are, not so much to obtain a premium, as to show what such 

 land may be made to produce, by full manuring and thorough 

 culture. On this farm, which is a hard gravelly soil, a large 

 number of hogs are constantly kept, and employed in the 

 making of manure. The yard in which they are penned, is 

 constantly supplied with mud from the meadows on the farm, 

 and the offal from the slaughter houses of the town. In this 

 way there are annually made between two and three hundred 

 loads of manure, a full coating of which is applied to all the 

 cultivated fields of the farm. It is the practice on this farm to 

 plough at all times with two pair of cattle, and a large size 

 plough. These facts are mentioned as explanatory of the crop 

 produced, especially as the soil is of ordinary quality. 

 Danvers, Sept. 21, 1850. 



Joshua Fosses Statement. 



I offer for inspection a piece of land containing one acre, 

 from which I have harvested one hundred and eighty-six bush- 

 els of ears of corn. Planted from the 10th to the 12th of May, 

 land a dark loam, with light subsoil. Planted in 1849, with 

 corn, in the spring of the year it was broken up and maruu'ed 

 in the hole with about fifteen loads to the acre. In the spring 

 of 1850, there were spread on about thirty loads of manure, 

 containing about thirty bushels to the load, and about sixteen 

 loads dropped in the hole. The corn was planted three feet 

 between the rows, by two and a half between hills. At the 

 second hoeing it was thinned out, leaving from two to three 

 stalks in a hill, and at each hoeing the ground was kept as 

 nearly level as possible. Stalks cut about the 15th of Septem- 

 ber, and all the suckers carefully taken off. The corn was 

 harvested from the 20th to the 25th of October. 



The following is the amount of labor done the present sea- 

 son upon this crop : — Two days' work of two men and one 

 yoke of oxen ; four days hauling manure and dropping in the 



