30 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



potatoes at the rate of from two to four hundred bushels an 

 acre, and corn from sixty to a hundred bushels ; but when we 

 come to raising oats we can barely get forty bushels, and to 

 try to raise peas in my locality it seems to me would be almost 

 hopeless. 



Professor Cheesman. Before I answer that question, let 

 me put myself right with the meeting. I did not start out 

 by recommending that we should all grow grain. That was 

 not the central idea of the paper. The central idea was the 

 same idea that Professor Roberts has, — grass ; and the next 

 two prominent features, cotton-seed meal and linseed meal. 

 Now, then, what comes next ? Some of us can grow grain 

 crops, others cannot ; and I am not here to recommend them 

 to try it. I laid down this general qualification in the paper, 

 that each one of us should decide for himself; and that is 

 why I started out at this State Board meeting by presenting the 

 question from the stand-point of general principles, to make it 

 suggestive rather than to lay down a general rule for every- 

 body to follow, because in Massachusetts it is exceedingly 

 difficult to grow grain crops. I will say this, that, where 

 one can grow corn and potatoes, it is best to seed down with 

 oats ; and, if we raise roots and feed middlings and corn meal 

 and other meal stuffs only moderately, if we do not want 

 to continue to buy meal, it is an advantage to grow grain 

 crops. If the gentleman in New Hampshire whose figures 

 I have quoted, without using very much artificial fertilizers, 

 and the man in Maine whose figures I have quoted, using no 

 cotton-seed or linseed meal at all, can grow in their rotation 

 a crop of oats at a net cost of twenty-one cents and a fraction 

 a bushel, we ought, in the Connecticut valley and some 

 other favorable spots in the State, to be able to grow the oat 

 crop, and, with abundant clover crops, dispense with the 

 feeding of cotton-seed and linseed meal. 



With reference to the case of Mr. Johnson, I presented 

 his experience as that of the most remarkable grower of hay 

 that we have in the State of Massachusetts. 



The question which Professor Rol)ert8 has raised is, would 

 I grow more grain ? That depends on how many cattle I 

 can keep on my farm, for we do not want to l)uy any 

 more grain than is necessary for the number of cattle 



