1G6 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



nine parts aslics and one plaster, was put in liills, and a small 

 amount of ashes and plaster applied after first lioeing — seventy- 

 one pounds to the rod. 



The fields of Mr. Hinkley and Mr. Smith were neighbors in 

 more senses than one, and very close competitors, giving each 

 very heavy crops, but it was thought that the entire acre of 

 Mr. Hinkley would carry the most dry corn to the mill. 



It would give us pleasure to have the men who talk so learn- 

 edly of the ignorance of the farmer, and the go-to-mill-with-a- 

 stone-in-one-end-of-the-bag manner of conducting his business, 

 examine both the farms and the farmers between the railroad 

 at Lee and Stockbridge Plain. "We do not say there are not 

 better places in the county, of four miles in extent, but we 

 would rest the question on this ground. 



The corn of Mr. Chamberlain, of WilHamstown, was among 

 the slate hills of the Taconic range, a little more than a stone's 

 throw from Vermont, on an old sheep pasture, planted without 

 manure — sixteen acres in all, affording a difference in soil and 

 crop. We picked a rod of thirty hills, twelve-rowed corn, sixty- 

 four pounds. 



John L. Cooper, of Sheffield, about as near Connecticut as 

 the last crop to Vermont, exhibited a piece of some fifteen acres, 

 no manure ever on the lot. Seed soaked in boiling water, one 

 pint of soft soap to half a bushel of seed, (the crop did not soft 

 soap the owner,) rolled in plaster and planted the 20th of 

 May. It was a heavy crop of very good corn. The committee 

 regretted in this crop, as in several others, the want of a few 

 more spoons. 



J. H. Rowley, of Egremont, presented some twenty-five acres 

 of good corn on hill lands inaccessible to the manure cart. 



Ten of the fields of corn examined gave sixty pounds or 

 more to the rod, and but six of all the entries fell below fifty 

 pounds. 



Stephen Reed, Chairman. 



