222 



Report on Farms. 



Vol. X. 



lime spread, it is then harrowed again, and 

 then ploughed with a very shallow furrow, 

 to bury the manure. A. L. Elwyn. 



Feb. 2nd, 1846. 



From the Massachusetts Ploughman. 



Report on Farms. 



It is plain matter of fact statements like the follow- 

 ing, that are valuable to the practical man on his farm. 

 The fanner manages, perhaps, as well as he knows 

 how to flo, and yet finds that his success is not such as 

 it ought to be with his means: he looks around him 

 inquiringly of his neighbours, and observes closely how 

 they operate who are apparently more successful than 

 himself; and, of course, if he be intelligent and shrewd, 

 forthwith adapts his course more in accordance with 

 theirs. The man who is indifferent to the lessons 

 taught him by his more enterprising neighbours, will 

 probably improve neither his farm nor his fortune, 

 while he who is constantly on the look-out, will do 

 both.— Ed. 



To the Committee on Farms : 



Gentlemen, — Before the first of July, I 

 had no intention of inviting you to visit my 

 farm, but then learning that there had been 

 no entry which would secure a report from 

 you, I was unwilling that the Society should 

 lose the benefit of a report, for I think that 

 farmers derive their best hints from the ob- 

 servations and experience of practical farm- 

 ers embodied in such reports. 



I am far from thinking my management 

 the best, or among the best, but as it has 

 fully answered my reasonable expectations, 

 I will as briefly as possible state it. 



My farm has a great variety of soil, but 

 the cultivated lands are mostly a gravelly 

 loam. I have about fifty acres in mowing, 

 tillage and orchard; twenty-five acres of 

 meadow, one-fourth of which is peat ; seven- 

 ty-five acres in pasture, and several tracts 

 of woodland. I formerly planted from seven 

 to ten acre^ each year, but I have found it 

 more profitable to raise hay than corn or po- 

 tatoes : this last June from thirty cwt. hay 

 delivered in the barn, I received in my grain 

 bins forty bu.shels of yellow flat corn ; the 

 hay cost me in labour and all fair charges 

 twelve dollars; to raise the corn would have 

 cost me twenty-five dollars at least. 



By recurring to my journal, (for I have 

 long kept a sort of diary in which I have 

 noted the employments of each day, the time 

 of planting, hoeing, harvesting, the arount 

 of crops, the cost of animals, current receipts 

 and expenditures, &c.,) I find that since the 

 first of April, I have expended for labour two 

 hundred and five dollars, and one-third of 

 this has been in making walls, ditches, and 

 permanent improvements. I have kept two 

 pairs of oxen, one horse, and ten cows ; one 

 pair of oxen which two years ago cost me 



fifty dollars, I have sold to the butcher for 

 one hundred and five dollars ; four cows, 

 which cost forty-three, I have sold for seven- 

 ty-eight dollars, and 1 have received in ex- 

 change of cows thirty dollars. I have kept 

 no account of the milk and butter used and 

 sold, which has been less than the usual 

 quantity, I have four fat swine worth se- 

 venty-five dollars, which one year ago cost 

 six dollars; their manure has paid for all the 

 grain they have consumed. I have raised 

 one hundred and fifty-eight bushels of corn, 

 ninety-five bushels of oats, thirty bushels of 

 rye, and one hundred and twenty bushels ot 

 potatoes; of carrots, turnips and beets, about 

 two hundred and fifty bushels, and of other 

 vegetables and fruits an abundance. Some 

 years I have had three or four hundred bu- 

 shels of good apples, this year not more than 

 thirty. I have cut thirty-one tons of English 

 hay, which was made and secured with fifty- 

 five days' labour. I used a horse-rake, which 

 paid for itself in one week; my crop was di- 

 minished by the drought from one-fourth to 

 one-third. My meadow hay was a fine crop, 

 and got in good order ; I have sold twelve 

 loads of meadow hay and straw, and have by 

 estimation fodder enough, corn fodder in- 

 cluded, to keep my stock, and some twelve 

 or fifteen tons to spare. I have carried to 

 market twelve cords of wood, always taking 

 a return load of manure. I purchase com- 

 monly about forty-five dollars worth of ma- 

 nure, which I never use without composting. 

 I have used for planting, sowing and top-dres- 

 sing, 280 loads of compost. 



In the barn-yard and pig-pens I make 

 about one hundred and ten loads, and at lei- 

 sure times get out peat muck, and cart it into 

 the field vvhere it is to be used. I then mix 

 one cord stable or barn-yard dung, preferring 

 the stable, with four cords of nujck; after 

 lying till the heap heats, it is again thrown 

 over, and a ^cw feet of fresh dung or spent 

 ashes added, if necessary. I have found this 

 compost better than clear manure, and equal 

 to anything except pig manure for corn and 

 potatoes on gravelly or sandy loams. I have 

 now on hand more than one hundred loads of 

 this compost, besides a good supply of the 

 barn and pin-yards, and I could not farm 

 without it. With this kind of manure I this 

 year had sixty bushels of corn to the acre, 

 without any extra labour or care, — one-fourth 

 of an acre produced at the rate of seventy 

 bu.shels, and I raised fifty-five bushels of oats 

 on one acre ; no great yields certainly ; but 

 the expense of cultivation, too, was moderate. 

 All the land on which I have this year raised 

 potatoes, corn and oats, has been since 

 ploughed, manured, and laid down with rye 

 and grass seed, with the exception of one 



