194 WORCESTER SOCIETY. 



years it has been a sure crop, and has always found the most 

 ready market at the most remunerating prices of anything that 

 I could raise on the farm, and when consumed at home, either 

 by hogs, horses, or cows, has given better returns. 



The question is frequently asked, what kind of land will 

 answer to grow carrots on ? where can you get the seed, and is 

 there more than one kind ? and can you grow them any where 

 and in any quantities where corn or potatoes will grow ? 

 Twenty years ago, or ten years ago, questions like these would 

 have been hard to answer ; but at this late day every boy 

 knows that carrots cannot be raised at the rate of seven hun- 

 dred bushels the acre, (which is an average crop in Massachu- 

 setts,) on land that would grow but thirty bushels of corn, or 

 fifteen of rye ; they must not be entrusted to land in so poor 

 tilth, neither should corn or any other crop. 



In answer to some of the questions above, I would state, 

 that I know of but few farms, containing twenty-five acres, in 

 Worcester county, that have not land enough suitable to grow 

 all the carrots the owner can profitably consume. I should 

 prefer a deep gravelly loam, with a loose subsoil, because such 

 land is more easily cultivated, and the roots more readily pene- 

 trate to a greater depth, and the root will be finer, and more 

 free from useless prongs ; but I have found no objection to our 

 moist high hill land, which in Sutton, as well as in many other 

 towns in our county, is composed of a mixed soil to the depth 

 of five or six inches, which alone has stood may croppings, 

 and a clayey compact subsoil, which our farmers, until very re- 

 cently, and even now, are exceedingly fearful of disturbing, for 

 fear, perhaps, of entrusting their manure below the old worn 

 out soil, or, perhaps, because they have not thought upon the 

 subject at all. 



I found by experience that there was no harm in breaking 

 through and exposhig one or two inches of this subsoil at each 

 ploughing until you reach a depth of ten or twelve inches, and 

 beyond this to go still deeper with the subsoil plough, and then 

 manure at the rate of forty loads of strong manure to the acre, 

 for a corn crop, (which is as small a quantity as is profitable for 

 any farmer to use, if he looks for other crops to follow,) and 



