180 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Seed corn, tliirty-tlirce quarts, . . . $2 00 

 Seventy-two loads manure, twenty-five bushels 

 each, ...... 



Planting, ...... 



Ploughing and hoeing, first time, 



" " second time, 



" " third time, 



Cutting and curing stalks, . 

 Harvesting, ..... 



$65 26 



The corn cost sixty-five cents and six mills per bushel. Now 

 should we subtract one-half the expense of manure, as is the 

 practice of those who contend for premiums, it would have cost 

 but forty-six cents and seven mills per bushel. My object in 

 this experiment is to prove that the largest crops are not 

 ahvays the most profitable. 



"West Needham, November, 1853. 



PLYMOUTH. 

 Amasa Howard's Statement. 



The acre of land on which I raised the crop of corn, entered 

 by me for a premium, is a hard, slaty soil. It had been in 

 grass for the last ten years, producing, with but one top-dress- 

 ing in that time, annually, from one and a half to two tons of 

 hay. 



Last May I drew on the whole field, containing (according 

 to a late survey) one acre, fifty-two rods and a fraction, and 

 ploughed in, nine inches deep, forty-four loads of green manure ; 

 then thirty-four loads from my slaughter-house cellar, and har- 

 rowed it four times. From my compost heap I drew on seven- 

 teen loads, dropping it in the hills ; planted 23d and 24th of 

 May, three feet and about three or four inches one way, and 

 eighteen inches the other, putting three kernels in a hill. The 

 third week in June cultivated it, and the fourth week cultivated 

 and hoed it. It was hoed again the last week in July. I did 

 not cut the stalks till very ripe. 



