NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



35 



transplanted from the S3ed bed to a vacant space in 

 the hot bed, 9 inches apart, and when too large to 

 stand so closely, they are again transplanted twelve 

 inches apart, and when the weather is right, they 

 are taken up and placed in the open plat, where 

 they are to mature. At one picking of tomatoes, 

 this season, thirty-two bushels were obtained, 

 which, from their earliness, sold at $1,75 per bush- 

 el. Pole beans are produced early by digging 

 large deep holes for the hills and filling them part- 

 ly with fresh hot horse manure; over that a suita- 

 ble covering of earth is placed, and the beans are 

 planted. For all early vegetables the ground is 

 stoutly dressed with hot horse manure, which is 

 plowed in, and which, by its fermentation, keeps 

 the land warm and mellow, and brings the plants 

 along very fast. Early potatoes are first started 

 either on manure heaps undergoing fermentation, or 

 in hot beds; and when the weather will admit, and 

 the sprouts are six to eight inches long, they are 

 carefully taken up by hand and transplanted in the 

 drills in the open plats. This process forwards 

 the crop from 15 to 20 days. On one quarter of 

 an acre, managed in this way, this season, 81 

 bushels of marketable potatoes ■ were dug, which, 

 for their earliness, sold at $1,75 per bushel, or at 

 the rate of $567 per acre. 



In visiting Mr. Pierce's grounds, I was most in- 

 terested in a field on the borders of Spy Pond. — 

 Originally a high bank, shut down nearly to the 

 water. This bank was dug away and tipped into 

 the pond, until a long strip, or three acres of land 

 was made, which was raised eighteen inches above 

 tlie surface of the water. The earth taken to 

 make this land was a sandy and fine gravelly 

 subsoil, with the exception of two or three inches 

 of the top, which was surface mould, placed there 

 to form an immediately tillable soil. The waters 

 of the pond will come into and stand in a hole dug 

 anywhere on this land, more than eighteen inches 

 deep; and the moist exhalations from below keep 

 the surface so moderately moistened, that the 

 growing crops do not suffer in the driest season, 

 the land being of a sandy and fine gravelly nature, 

 it admits of much moisture without becoming 

 cold, heavy or baked; and as it has been abundant- 

 ly enriched by manure, it produces the finest vege- 

 tables when, perhaps, other fields are suffering se- 

 verely wath drought. The crops are grown upon 

 ridges or beds, formed by back furrowing witli the 

 plow, and varying from two to six feet in width. 

 This is done to prevent any bad effects that might 

 otherwise arise from heavy rains, fiiUing upon a 

 flat surface, already moist enough. In general 3 

 crops are taken from this land, each year. For 

 instance, on the wide beds, a row of early beets 

 grows on each border ; a row of hills of summer 

 squash in the centre, and celery in the dead fur- 

 rows. The beets are first off, and then the 

 squashes, and the soil composing the beds is used 

 in earthing up and bleaching the celery. Mr. 

 Pierce's average weekly sales of vegetables for nine 

 months, in 1849, were as follows: — 



In M;iriii, $40 00 



April, - - 50 00 



May, 80 00 



Inne, 90 00 



July, 140 00 



August, - 139 00 



SeiUember, ---... 140 00 



October, 180 00 



November, - - - - - - 39 00 



The total cash receipts for the sale of fruits and 

 vegetables, for 1849, were as follows: — 



Of Peaches, $591 60 



Porter Apples, 148 60 



Bartlett Pears, 18 12 



Bell do. 4 75 



Greening Apples, .... 12 50 



Baldwin do. (windfalls,) - - - 36 00 



39 bbls. do. picked, - - . 185 50 



S997 07 

 Total vegetables of all kinds 2,G29 72 



$3,626 79 



These are certainly large receipts to derive from 

 the products of 26 acres of land. It is true that 

 Mr. Pierce has the advantage of a ready market 

 and good prices ; but after making every allow- 

 ance that exists, or can be thouglit of, I think Ave 

 must all conclude that high cultivation is the Xrue 

 system : that 



" "'TIS folly in the extreme to till 

 Extensive fields, and till them ill; 

 For more one fertile acre yields 

 Than the huge breadth of barren fields." 



I next visited Leonard Stone, Esq., at his farm 

 in Watertown. Mr. Stone's home farm consists 

 of 15 acres of woodland and pasture, 25 acres of 

 reclaimed meadow, and 80 acres devoted to fruit, 

 market gardening, and a rotation of field crops. — 

 The largest portion of his tillage land is a stiff, 

 moist loam, resting on a substratum of clay; and 

 although the surface is quite rolling, it requires 

 a great deal of draining to fit the soil for profita- 

 ble tillage. Tlie balance of the tillage-land is a 

 light, dry, warm loam, with some gravelly knolls, 

 and the whole rests upon an open gravelly subsoil. 



The owner has for several years been clearing 

 his tillage-fields of stones, which were formerly so 

 numerous as to be much in the way of the plow. 

 They have been sunk in the construction ol" 

 drains, and thus the surface of about every acre of 

 the stiff land has been relieved of both stones and 

 surplus moisture. The ditches for drains are dug 

 about three feet deep, and of convenient width to 

 work in; in them, drains are first laid, six inches 

 wide and ten inches high, of small cobble stones, 

 and covered with larger sizes of the same; the 

 ditches are then filled with small stones, to within 

 a foot of the surface of the ground ; a layer of 

 shavings or tough sods is then put on, and the 

 work leveled up with loose earth. The drains 

 thus constructed have stood from 8 to 12 years, 

 and still work well. 



There are two reclaimed swamps on this farm of 

 about 12 acres each; they are underlaid at suitable 

 distances with stone drains, wherever there is 

 sufficient fall to the land to produce a good draught 

 through them; and where the land is nearly level, 

 open ditches are made. The open drains used fre- 

 quently to become inoperative by the washing and 

 cavinsr in of their banks — occasioned by high fresh- 

 ets in the spring, .\fter various experiments, the 

 following plan for their protection was adopted: as 

 early in the summer as the water had fallen away, 

 so as to admit of working, a commencement wa-s 

 made at the lower end or outlet of the ditch, by 

 throwing a temporary dam across it, a few rods 

 above or up the ditch; the portion thus freed of 

 water was then cleared out; the sides were made 

 of a uniform and proper slant; narrow trenches 

 were dug, four inches lower than the natural level 

 of the bottom of the ditch; sods were cut from the 



