412 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



July 17, 1829. 



Fiom the Middlelown Gazelle. 



TO CURE OR PREVENT THE CRAMP. 



This painful complaint whicli causes many per- 

 sons to drown, when batliini,^ oi- .suijnining, may 

 be easily prevented by fying something round the 

 limbs near the body, about as tight as is done to 

 draw blood, either before going into the water or 

 getting into be('- Or if the cramp seizes you in 

 bed, tie somc^thing round the limb, between the 

 pain and f'le body, and you will soOn find relief 

 .Someti-'nes I jump out on the floor and rub the 

 part? affected, both before and after tying on the 

 bandage. / also have a foot board, which will 

 sometimes answer the purpose by crowding my 

 lieels against it, and raising my toes towards my 

 body. Temperance in eating, drinking, e.xercise, 

 &c., are very important in preventing a return of 

 this complaint. A CUSTOMER. 



Extracts from a pamphlet containing Proceedings of 

 the Essex Jjgricultural Society. 



JACOB OSGOOD'S STATEMENT.* 



To the Committee on Farms — 



Gentlemen — Agreeably to request, I transmit 

 to you the following account of tlie management 

 of my farm. 



The quantity of land I improve for tillage, is 

 from fifteen to eighteen acres : about live or si.x 

 for corn and potatoes ; about five or six for oats 

 and other grain ; about the same quantity for win- 

 ter rye. The number of acres I mow I judge to 

 be about fifty ; and the number of acres I improve 

 for pasturing I judge to be about sixty or seventy. 

 As to orcharding it is scattered almost all over my 

 farm. As to making manure — in the autumn of 

 the year, when my barn yard is cleared of all the 

 manure made the preceeding year, we then gen- 

 erally haul in about forty connnon cart loads of 

 eartli out of the ronil, or fruin some other place, 

 as circumstances will admit. The next spuug we 

 plough and harrow it three or fom- times, and con- 

 tinue so to do through the summer, as often as is 

 convenient ; and in the next autumn we liaul it 

 on to the land intended for planting the next year. 

 The quantity so made, I judge to be sixty loads. 

 My laud for planting is grass land, which I plough 

 in the autumn, carefully turning it over as smooth 

 as possible. In the spring we harrow it three or 

 four times, as we think necessary, then furrow 

 and plant, after having laid nine or ten loads of 

 manure in the hill to an acre. I estimate my 

 crops of corn, taking several years together, to 

 have been from twenty-five to forty bushels to the 

 acre ; this year I think it to be forty bushels. As 

 to spring grain, it is chiefly oats, which I use 

 principally for fodder ; and I raise of these from 

 one hiuidred and fifty to three hundred bushels in 

 a year. I sow them on the land on which I rais- 

 ed my corn the preceding year. When my corn 

 is harvested, we then split the hills and harrow 

 the ground, and then cross plough it, being careful 

 to take the old furrows all up ; then we harrow 

 it ; and in the winter and early in the spring we 

 put on eight loads of winter dung to the acre. — 

 When tUe spring topene we s[)read the dung and 

 plough it in with a light furrtlw ; then go over the 

 ground with a Ught harrow lengthways of the 

 furrows ; then sow oats and other grain as wo 

 choose, with grass seed ; then harrow all in to- 



* Tlic following statements refer to, and should be consider- 

 ed as appendagfs of the " Report," &c., published page 249 of 

 the current volume of the N. E. Farmer. 



gether — and then lay the ground down to grass. 

 The whole quantity of winter dung, is, I judge, 

 about sixty loads over and above the summer and 

 winter dung already named. I make between 

 thirty and forty loads from sand put in my hog 

 yard, and in a small yard separate from my barn 

 yard, in which I yard some dry stock, when rntide 

 I put it on my meadow land. My stock of neat 

 cattle is generally about twenty-four or twenty-five 

 head, four oxen and twelve cows, ami eight or 

 nine young cattle of different kinds and ages. I 

 also keep two horses, and tvvelve sheep. As to 

 labor, I employ one man and a boy by the yettr, 

 and a man five or six weeks in hay time. In ad- 

 tlition to the above, I inform you (according to 

 yotir request) that I have made nine hundred and 

 forty-seven rods of stone wall on my farm, prin- 

 cipally on my plain land, and have hauled the 

 stones to make it from a distance of half u mile to 

 a mile. 



I an), very respectfully, yours, 



JACOB OSGOOD. 

 Andover, J^ovemher, 26, 1828. 



N. B. The quantity of produce on my farm the 

 present year,has not been accurately ascertained by 

 measure ; but will not vary essentially from the 

 estimates for a series of j'ears, as mentioned in my 

 statement. 



DAVID GRAY'S STATEMENT. 



To the Committee on Farms — 



Gentlemen — The number of acres of land that 

 I improve as pasturage, mowing, antl tillage, is 

 about one hundred. Seventy acres of which is 

 improved as pasturage, which is rocky, and pro- 

 duces a great many bushes, and the low land a 

 considerable (lunntity of grass, that the cattle and 

 horses leave, which with very little labor adds 

 largely to my stock of manure, by putting it in iny 

 cow and hng yanls. For twentj' or tlitrty years 

 [mat, I have planted on the farm about six acres 

 with corn and potatoes annually ; atid it has been 

 my practice to put the compost manure in the 

 hills. My winter manure I spread on the land in 

 the spring of the year, previous to sowing it with 

 barley, oats, grass seed, &c., and it generally pro- 

 dttces a good crop of grass for four or five years ; 

 after the grass grows light I i)lough again. The 

 grass seed that I have commotily sown are clover, 

 herds grass, and red top ; the latter holds the 

 longest and produces the best fodder. In good 

 seasons I get from forty to fifty bushels of com 

 to the acre. For two or three years after the 

 ground is laid down to grass it commonly pro- 

 duces two tons of hay to the acre. The mantire 

 put in the hill is from eight to ten carts full per 

 acre. I manure about twenty acres of my farm 

 in this way, for the purpose of raising corn, bar- 

 ley, oats, and hay. I now come to what I call 

 natural mowing : — I have of that ten acres, a large 

 proportion of which produces good stock fodder, 

 iind has for many years. Twenty-five years since, 

 the fodder growing on this land was light and 

 very poor ; it has been made to produce good 

 fodder at a small expense. My opinion is, that 

 the land produces three times as tntich profit as it 

 did twenty years since. This was effected by 

 clearing the stones and bushes from the land, 

 and by top dressing with manure once in four or 

 fivB years. 



STOCK. 



For ten years past, I have kept on the farm, on 

 1 an average, twenty-five horned cattle, and fifteen 



sheep ; always one, and sometimes two horses 



My stock usually consists of four oxen and eight 

 cows, the remainder young cattle. The labor re- 

 quired to carry on the farm, exclusive of blasting 

 rocks and building stone wall, is, in the summer 

 season, three men and a boy, the remainder of the 

 year one man and boy. 



MANHKE. 



I have prepared manure fur my tillage and nai^ 

 ural mowing land, by cutting and carrying small 

 bushes, grass, brakes, &c. into the cow and hog 

 yards, and mixing tlicm with the soil and wash 

 from the sides of the road adjoining my land ; as 

 some parts of the tillage land is uneven, the low- 

 est of which receives the wash in such abundance 

 as to injure it, that stirplus I cart into the yards in 

 the fall of the year, that it may receive the benefit 

 of the cattle through the winter, and the wash of 

 the manure heaps thrown from the barn ; and by 

 these means, which are not expensive, I make a 



supi)ly of manure for my tillajje and grass land. 



I cart out all the manure from the barn yard in 

 the autumn, which is on an average sixty carts 

 full. The innnure in the hog yards I throw into 

 sharp piles in the spring, and cart it on to the 

 corn land and put it in the hill — the number of 

 cart fulls is commonly thirty-five. 



APPLE TREES. 



I have set out and grafted a large number of 

 apple trees, bitt have not tried any expensive ex- 

 periments on them. Once in two or three years 

 I put on the body and limbs a composition of 

 lime, salt, soap, clnj', cow dung, &c., which ap- 

 pears to kill insects and increase the growth of 

 the trees ; and I think my trees have flourished as 

 well as my neighbors'. 



CIDEH. 



I have made but few experiments on cider 



My method is to put the apples in the cider house 

 as soon as collected, and when ground to let the 

 pomace remttin in the trougit from 12 to 24 hours 

 in cool weather, before pressing it out — when I 

 strain it and put it in the cellar a little before the 

 lermentation is done : I bung it up tight and let it 

 remain till used. I take care to have the mill and 

 casks clean, and keep them so. 



STONE WALL. 



In making a statement of the wall that I have 

 built within three years, I am at a loss as to the 

 expense of it, for it has been considerable on ac- 

 count of removing large stones by blasting and 

 other ways, and as in general the wall is very- 

 heavy, we have built it to appearance so as to last 

 as long as wanted. The number of rods so built 

 is about one hundred and sixty. Although the 

 expense has been considerable, the satisfaction of 

 seeing so good a fence, without the possibility of 

 my cattle injuring my neighbors on account of 

 poor fence ; and together with the great advan- 

 tage of removing those stones out of the way of the 

 oxen, plotigh, scythe, and rake, has given me so 

 much satisliiction that I have forgot the expense. 



WOOD LAND. 



I have abottt 90 acres of wood land, not includ- 

 ed in the above statement, tho largest part of 

 which is fenced. Yours, &c., 



DAVID GRAY. 

 Andover, December 25, 1828. 

 (To he continued. 



