28 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc 



know that on the average here in New England we have 

 very little land that it pays to work, and when we have a 

 clear acre, free from stone, we work it for all we can get out 

 of it. 



Secretary Sessions. It seems to me you rather dodge the 

 clover point in Professor Roberts' question. He asked if 

 we could afford to use grain when we had ensilaoe and 

 clover. 



Profejssor Cheesman. I have had no experience with any 

 system of farming in which clover could be maintained with- 

 out resorting to artificial cattle foods. My experience 

 teaches me that the men who grow the most clover (and I 

 can refer to one man who grows four tons to the acre, — Mr. 

 Charles L. Johnson, one of the best farmers in Massachusetts, 

 who has sold from three hundred to three hundred and 

 twenty dollars' worth of milk per month from twenty cows) 

 use enormous quantities of cotton-seed meal and linseed 

 meal. Whenever they want to increase production, they 

 find that to make more milk more concentrated food is re- 

 quired, 



Mr. C. A. Mills (of Southborough). I feel somewhat in 

 doubt whether it is wise or safe to follow the advice of experts, 

 for I notice they have quite difterent ideas here. Professor 

 Cheesman has referred to the excellent farm of Mr. Johnson, 

 a farm that I pass very frequently, and a man with whose 

 methods I have been very much pleased ; and of course I 

 approve of them because his methods accord almost entirely 

 with my own idea of what is wise for the milk producer in a 

 town like Southborough. 



Now, gentlemen, I believe that we are suffering here in 

 New England from land exhaustion. That is one of the 

 questions that confronts New England, confronts Massachu- 

 setts. If these lands were highly productive they would be 

 occupied and used. One of the ju'ime reasons for the aban- 

 donment of these lands is because they no longer have plant 

 food. Now, how have they become exhausted? I think 

 largely by raising the grains. That is what the New Eng- 

 land farmer primarily did. He raised corn and oats, wheat 

 and barley, and sold them and thus impoverished these lands. 

 The farms of New England have been impoverished because 



