AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



9 



PUGLISHKD BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Aoricultuual Warbhouse.)-ALLEN PUTNAM, EDITOR. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 15, 1843. 



N. E. FARMER. 



PREMIUM FARMS. 



[Continued. 1 

 Ephraim Abbotts Statement. 

 To the Trustees of the Mass. Agricu'tural Society : 



The subscriber makes the following answers to 

 the inquiries respecting farms, publislu'd in the N. 

 E. Farmer, vol. xx. page 273. 



Ans. 1. My farm consists of 114 acres, of whicli 

 7.3 are pasturage, mowing and tillage ; the rest i.s 

 wood land. 



2. My soil is principally gravelly loam, the re- 

 mainder peat meadow. 



3. My upland abounds in stones, which m.ike 

 deep plowing difficult. Where I can, I plow from 

 5 to 8 or '.) inches deep. I have plowed but about 

 two acrea of peat soil ; one and a quarter acre of 

 which I had several years before covered with 

 earth about three inches deep, upon n mas.sy and 

 wild cranberry bottom. This I plowed 8 or 9 inch- 

 es deep, for the purpose of getting earth enough 

 below the roots and moss to cultivate. The ne,xt 

 year's plowing was not more than three or four 

 inches dee,i. that the sod and moss might not be 

 disturbed. The rest was plowed 6 or 7 inches 

 deep. 



4. I have no plain land, or such as may be call- 

 ed thin soiled, e.xcept a few gravelly knoll.'?. I 

 have found great benefit from plowing land deep, 

 that had br'en worn by excessive cropping. Land 

 that pro(ii;c 'd potatoes or beans scarcely sufficient 

 to pay for i'arvesting, I plowed twice in a furrow, 

 and to the depth of nearly or quite a foot. It af- 

 terwards produced heavier crops of beans, wheat 

 and grass, than any other land I have. It suffered 

 much from drought before the deep plowing, and 

 very little since. 



.5. My Hnd, before I purchased it, had been for 

 many years the dower of a widow, and afterwards 

 was the inheritance of a minor ; and all which had 

 been plowed or mowed, was very much exhausted, 

 and the pasture covered with bushes. My home- 

 stead consists of about 3(i acres — 11 acres are 

 woodland — of the remainder, 9 acres were in grass, 

 the rest in pasturage, when it came into my pos- 

 session. I hired it for three years, before I pur- 

 chased it, in which time I broke up two acres of 

 tlie grass land. That which was not broken up, I 

 mowed; two acres of which were in Indian hills, 

 and yielded more hay in proportion than the other 

 parts. But I did not obtain in either of the three 

 years more than two tons and a half of hay, and a 

 half ton of this was meadow hay and bushes. 



My method for improvement is deep plowing 

 and dressing with compost, made of peat mud with 

 lime, ashes, and barn manure. My circumstances 

 did not permit me to purchase stable manure, ex- 

 cepting a very little. My peat meadows I have 

 improved by ditching, sub-draining, and covering 

 'with earth and manure from my hog-yards. 



('). I till about fi 1-2 acres : put about 30 loads 

 lof compost to the acre on land that I plant: have 

 iput none on grain crops on plowed land. 



7. My manure is applied in compost. 



8. I spread and harrow twice, and in different 

 directions, to mix the dressing well with tho earth, 

 after which I sometimes roll and sometimes plow 

 in. 



0. I plow green-sward from 6 to 8 inches deep, 

 where the stones will permit; generally in the au- 

 tumn; and roll across the furrows, after drawing 

 ofli'the stones. In the spring, I harrow twice with 

 a heavy liairow; then spread and harrow, &c. as 

 stated in answer to question Sih. When I roll af- 

 ter harrowing in the dressing, I plant with a seed- 

 sower. If I plow in after harrowing on green- 

 sward, I endeavor to plow so shallow as not to dis- 

 turb the sod. I have sometimes, after harrowing 

 in the dressing, turned two furrows towards each 

 other and planted between them. The furrons 

 were not turned sufficiently near to form a ridge. 

 Ground thus prepared, I prefer planting with a 

 seed-sower. The largest crops I have ever raised 

 were planted in this way. 



10. Have 11 1-2 acres of upland mowing, yield- 

 ing about 1 2-5 ton to the acre. Three or four 

 acres need new seeding, and I should have plowed 

 it before this time, if I had not needed >ny manure 

 to improve the pasture land that I am endeavoring 

 to reclaim. 



11. No land irrigated. 



12. Put about 15 loads of manure from my hog- 

 yard, to an acre of peat meadow. Have dressed 

 about 33 4 acres in this way. 



13. Mow about two acres of lowland, consisting 

 of narrow runs and peat meadow, which might be 

 made English mowing and arable land, at an ex- 

 pense of about 100 dollars per acre. The grass 

 cut on the runs Is more than half English. I have 

 not weighed my liay ; but estimating GOO cubic 

 feet of white grass, and 700 feet of mixed clover, 

 herds-grass and redtop, per ton, I have 16 Ions of 

 upland, and 6 12 tons of peat meadoiv hay, which 

 is nearly all clover, herdsgrass and redtop, and 

 11-2 ton of run and fresh meadow hay, and more 

 than two tons of second crop; making in all about 

 26 tons. 



14. I have reclaimed about 3 3 4 acres of peat 

 meadow. In the autumn of 1831, soon after I pur- 

 chased my homestead, I commenced on I 1-4 acre, 

 covered principally with long moss and wild cran- 

 berry (by some called heath.) I first dug a ditch 

 through the centre, about .3 feet wide and from 3 

 to 4 feet deep, which was deeper than the peat, 

 and extended into the sand beneath. After the 

 meadow had become sufficiently consolidated, the 

 wild cranberry was mowed, and tho mud drawn to 

 my barn-yard and hog-yards. The sand >vas spread 

 on the meadow, and the whole piece covered with 

 earth about three inches deep. The earth used 

 was taken from the side of a field by the road, 

 where it was necessary to build a bank wall. In 

 the spring of 1832, I put compost dressing on about 

 three-quarters of the piece, and sowed the whole 

 with grass-seed, herdsgrass and redtop and oats. 

 The oats and grass that grew, made about a ton of 

 good fodder. For several succeeding years ityield- 

 ed never less than two tons of good hay. The 



part not manured, did not yield so large a burden 

 as the other part. Three years after, this part was 

 manured ; and afterwards it yielded a largo bur- 

 den. 



In the fall of 1839, I deepened and widened the 

 main ditch, and by making a sub-drain about IS 

 rods, and bogging a bushy and braky piece adjoin- 

 ing, increased the meadow to about 1 1-2 acre, 

 and plowed the whrile. In the spring of IS40, I 

 planted it with potatoes. Owing to unfavorable 

 eircumstances, the potato crop was small. In It34I, 

 I sowed the old part with oats and the new wiib 

 wheat. Both kinds of grain yielded well ; but I 

 have not data from which I can state the amount. 

 With the wheat and oats I sowed herdsgrass, red- 

 top and some clover, and this year the crop was 

 more than two tons to the acre, of entirely English 

 hay. 



In the spring of 1841, I commenced the reclaim- 

 ing of a piece of peat meadow, lying in the corner 

 of a pasture. About an acre of the central part of 

 tho meadow was nearly free from stones, bushes, 

 and brakes. I surrounded the smooth part with a 

 ditch four feet wide. The peat was from 2 1 -2 to 

 4 feet deep. This was removed for manure. Tiien 

 sand was taken from tho bottom in some places to 

 six feet below the surface, and with what was tak- 

 en from one corner (less than a square rod,) and 

 some ditches, running from the border, and from 

 some sub-drains, afterwards made, was sufficient 

 to cover 2 1-4 acres nearly 2 inches deep. This 

 sand. Dr. S. L. Dana, of Lowell, was good enough 

 to analyze for me. He found that which had most 

 of a clayish appearance, to contain 3 per cent, of 

 geine and 2 per cent, of sulphate of lime, and that 

 which appeared to be mere white quick sand, to 

 contain 1-2 per cent, of sulphate of lime, 10 per 

 cent of silicate of potash, (1-3 potash,) and one per 

 cent, of geine. I think it was much less expensive 

 covering the meadow with this sand, than it would 

 have been with any other earth that I could have 

 obtained. Besides, I believe the sand was better 

 than earth taken from a bank or hill would have 

 been. 



The subduing of the borders without the ditch, 

 and preparing them to receive the sand, was many 

 times more expensive than applying the sand. 

 They were so rough with stones, and also so wet, 

 that they could not be plowed, and abounded so 

 much with brakes and bushes, that it was necessa- 

 ry to dig a great part of them with hoes, and to 

 dig out great quantities of stones, and to fill the 

 holes with sods and earth, and make open ditches 

 and sub-drains, before the sand could bo applied. 

 Besides open ditches, I made more than 40 rods 

 of sub-drains. These were made by digging ditch- 

 es about two feet wide, and Irom three to four feet 

 deep. The water courses were laid with stones as 

 large or larger than a mun's head, and covered with 

 flat stones, dug from the meadow. These were 

 covered with meadow hay, then with sods, then 

 with mud, and then with earth taken from the bot- 

 tom of the ditch. The earth and mud are so deep 

 that a plow can never injure the drains by moving 

 either sods or stones. Ten or twelve rods, howev- 



