124 MIDDLESEX SOCIETY. 



cultivated about twelve acres of potatoes, on one of the city 

 commons, disconnected from the city farm, both last year and 

 the present. The product last year was about 2500 bushels. 

 •The prospect looks fair for a good crop this season. 



During the last season, a large shed, ninety feet long and six- 

 teen feet wide, on the west side of the street, was entirely built 

 by the inmates ; also, wheelbarrows and such other implements 

 as are necessary on a farm, were made and repaired by them. 

 Shoes for the inmates were also made and repaired by them. 



In the course of last winter the inmates worked about ten 

 weeks on the hill on the Chelmsford road, between the farm 

 and the city, cutting the hill down at the highest point about 

 fifteen feet, and filling up the valleys on each side of the hill, 

 making the road of a very easy grade. 



The present season, the inmates have been employed a con- 

 siderable portion of the time in removing a large gravel ridge 

 near the farm house, and digging a cellar for a new building, 

 eighty by thirty-six feet, and three stories high, which is now 

 in progress of erection. 



There are about the same number of males sentenced hither 

 by the Police Court of Lowell, as there are of paupers at our 

 alms house, who are able to work. 



Lowell, September, 1850. 



Abel E. Bt^idge^s State7neni. 



My farm consists of eighteen and three-fourths acres, of 

 which five and three-fourths acres are upland, and thirteen acres 

 meadow. This was covered with brush pine and maple stumps, 

 when I purchased, in the fall of 1846 — the wood was cut in 

 1840. It was very wet, swampy land. I dug a ditch around 

 the meadow, four feet wide and three deep, at a cost of fifty 

 cents a rod. In 1848, I cleared four acres ; in the spring fol- 

 lowing, I seeded to grass two acres, and planted two acres with 

 potatoes, and cleared the whole at an expense of $50 per acre. 

 The two acres seeded to grass, produced six tons of hay the 

 first season. This year, I gravelled three acres, at a cost of 

 $15 per acre ; seeded to grass five acres, which produced one 

 and a half tons of hay to the acre, and planted five acres with 

 potatoes. 



