174 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



must have lost several bushels in movino;, which would have 

 been saved had it been carried directly from the field into the 

 barn, and have made the crop near or quite fifty bushels per 

 acre, making a clear gain of about $48 per acre — a sum suffi- 

 cient to have bouglit the land a few years ago, and which, in 

 many parts of the county, would now buy land equally as good, 

 and in some much better. 



Mr. Ruggles supposed, at the time of planting in the spring, 

 that he had an acre of land, and entered it for a premium ac- 

 cordingly. Subsequent measure, however, proved that there 

 was but one hundred and thirty-three rods. I visited the field 

 several times, and, as the land was strong and well manured, the 

 corn grew rapidly and threw up a large quantity of suckers, 

 which, as he states, were cut to let in the sun, of which there 

 was some need, as the field was a perfect swamp. The prac- 

 tice of cutting the suckers is objected to by some cultivators, 

 as injurious to the crop. In this case the suckers and top 

 stalks were both cut, whether to its injury or benefit is not 

 known ; one thing, however, is certain, there was an extraordi- 

 nary large crop. The field, by measurement, contained one 

 hundred and thirty-three rods, from which there were harvested 

 one hundred and forty-seven baskets of corn on the ear. On the 

 27th of October, I went to Mr. Ruggles' place, and helped him 

 ehell two baskets of cars of the corn, and found it to yield 

 forty-two and one-half quarts of shelled corn, or ninety-seven 

 nineteen thirty-seconds bushels on the one hundred and thirty- 

 three rods. As there has been dispute about so large a crop 

 of corn being raised in our county, I have been very particular 

 about the measure, although I had no doubt of Mr. Ruggles' 

 honesty in the statement, yet, to satisfy myself as well as the 

 public, I measured the corn, which was put up in a regular bin, 

 and found tliat there were two hundred and twenty-six cubic feet 

 of ears, which — according to my figuring, and allowing 2,747.70 

 cubic inches to the heaped bushel, which, I believe, is the stand- 

 ard, being five hundred and ninety-seven and twenty-eight 

 Imndrcdtlis inches more than a level bushel — would give one 

 hundred and forty-two baskets of ears; and, as it would pack 

 much closer in a lari-e bin than baskets, I think there could 

 have been no mistake about the measure or quantity. I should 



