280 NORFOLK SOCIETY. 



Farms. 



Tlie committee on Farms made their first visits June 28th, 

 July 3d and 5th ; and their second visits Sept. 12th and 13th. 

 In making these visits your committee have not only found 

 them highly gratifying, but full of instruction. There were 

 four farms entered for premiums. Three farms were visited by 

 request, not with a view to a premium, and some others were 

 visited in the course of our rides, to witness the progress of im- 

 provements. Your committee were highly gratified by the 

 interest exhibited in farm improvements. Waste lands were 

 being subdued, enclosed and drained, where hassocks, alders, 

 wild roses, water grass, and other aquatic plants once occupied 

 a soil which was neither wood-land, bush pasture, nor meadow, 

 but rather a compound of all but what it should be. This is 

 now laid out in clear enclosed fields for tillage or grass, adding 

 much to the Commonwealth in its yield and pleasant appear- 

 ance, in its freedom from all that was oftensive to the eye, and 

 nearly worthless. When your committee reflected how small 

 a proportion of the aggregate of all the land in this county, and 

 probably in this Commonwealth, is fit for tillage, being in their 

 estimation but about six acres in a hundred, it influenced them 

 much in awarding their premiums. 



The farm of Gardner Green Hubbard, is situated in West 

 Needham. The whole farm consists of about three hundred 

 and sixty acres ; his homestead is about two hundred acres. A 

 portion of the soil is a thin, yellow loam, or sandy ; some is of 

 a deed black loam, and much of it is low meadow, or springy 

 land, which has been partially covered by surface water. Mr. 

 Hubbard has given width to the road, relaid face walls, taken 

 down old division fences and put the same in substantial balance 

 walls ; cleared the land of stone and bushes, carried off" spring 

 and surface water by under drains, pruned, scraped and washed 

 old fruit trees, cleared them of borers, tilled the land, and has 

 given a new, social, and profitable appearance to all that he has 

 taken in hand. Mr. Hubbard has exercised much nice and 

 good judgment in all that he has done with a view to future 

 improvements, which will harmonize in every part. His col- 



