®ljc JTarmev's iHot»tl)to btsttor. 



133 



Yet keeping a strict account with tlie crops I 

 have taken away, charging them with the inter- 

 est on the cost of the hind, there is no acre in 

 my possession that lias not paid all expenses, if 

 I except the taxes and interest on wild lands and 

 the cost of chopping over eighteen acres of 

 mountain land at Warner two years ago on 



, which I have heen unable to procure a burn. 

 The history of three fields in my possession 

 might present illustrations as the mite I should 

 he able lo contribute to the common treasury of 

 information on husbandry. A crude and a new 

 beginner, others can take up and follow my me- 

 thod so far as it seemeth to them worthy of imi- 

 tation. 



Field No. 1 is the Ferry Plain lot, being a turn 

 in the intervale on the east side of the Merri- 

 mack river in Concord: on the longer side of 

 this lot the river has been making annual in- 

 roads for the distance of some fifty rods ever 

 since I first became its owner. The lot now 

 contains thirty-three acres, I having reclaimed 

 full three acres of sand where the river is mak- 

 ing to take the place of at least three acres 

 washed away on the other side. The current of 

 tli3 river strikes on the broadside of the bank : 

 it carries oft every season thousands of loads of 

 alluvial deposite rich as a manure bed, which 

 goes down stream to fertilize fielis below, or 

 else is swept into the ocean. Eleven acres of 

 this point estimated then as of the value of fifty 

 dollars tlie acre, from which the washing away 

 reduced the appraisal one-half, made the cost of 

 §195. For the other twenty-two acres I paid 

 the sum of $1000, making the cost of the field 

 $1195. The entire lot, being long cultivated 

 with little or no manure, in its whole extent did 

 not give the value of one-fourth of a ton of hay 

 to the acre. I commenced increasing the crop 

 of hay by turning up, as deep as I could well 

 break it, six and eight acres in a season: I pur- 

 chased as much manure at the tavern stables as 

 I could get at three dollars the cord, laying out 

 the manure besides from my own yard. 1 raised 

 good potatoes and corn: I had great trouble 

 with worms, sometimes the cut worm taking off 

 more than half the corn, and the seed sometimes 

 failing to come up. i found the ground, rich to 

 appearance, wanted action and life. 1 however 

 improved the land continually, and, besides the 

 planted ground increased my crop of hay to 

 twenty-five tons, getting on the laid down fields 

 from two to four hundred bushels of oats annu-- 

 ally. 1 commenced the making of compost ma- 

 nure, and have sinco gradually substituted that 

 entirely for stable manure purchased. My me- 

 thod of composting for that field, has been the 

 laying oft' a plat some twenty by forty feet and 

 covering the foundations with loads of black 

 muck: then breaking half a dozen casks of 

 Thomaston lime, slacking it with water, and 

 spreading fine lime in its most active mate: then 

 overlaying that with other loads of the black 

 muck. Upon the top of this laying, careful not 

 to bring the fresh lime in immediate contact, I 

 place all the manure made during the winter in 

 the stalls and yard and in summer by the yard- 

 ing of cattle, whether it be fine or unrotten, over 

 the last foundation, to a depth just as large or 

 small as the quantity I find it convenient to be 

 drawn. Over this is laid another layer of the 



■ muck : upon that, another breaking and spread- 

 ing of lime ; and upon that, another layer of 

 muck. 1 have sometimes overlaid the bed thus 

 laid down with ashes leached or unleached, 

 night soil in small quantities; and once I was so 



fortunate as to obtain a hundred bushels of dam- 

 aged salt at fifteen cents the bushel. The salt 

 worked admirably laid over the compost heap — 

 it warmed and kept up the action of decomposi- 

 tion going on in the pile, at the same time it 

 kept oft the freezing so the heap could be laid 

 out in the field the moment the snow disappear- 

 ed. This manure heap, thus laid down in Sep- 

 tember and October, is not stirred over or moved 

 until the following spring, when it is cut through 

 with a sharpened hoe and taken upon the field 

 in carls of forty to fifty bushels to the load at 

 the rale of twenty and twenty-five loads to the 

 acre. Six years ago I commenced subsoiling the 

 Ferry plain lot. My first experiment was on 

 five acres of the highest and dryest intervale 

 part. I followed the subsoil plough after the 

 common plough breaking tho sward — the first 

 plough turned over to the depth of eight inches, 

 and the subsoil plough following stirred without 

 turning over eight inches below it. The ma- 

 nure on this grass land was all turned under to 

 the depth of the first plough: potatoes were 

 planted between every third row. The potatoes 

 between and under the turf did not come up so 

 quick or so regular as if planted in the common 

 way: the crop however was a profitable one, 

 averaging one hundred and thirty bushels to the 

 acre. The second year this lot was treated with 

 another dose of the same kind of compost — 

 planted with corn, which though coming up 

 poorly, gave fifty bushels to the acre, with from 

 four to six bushels of beans to the acre among 

 the corn. The third year gave still another dose 

 of the same kind of compost; and here with 

 two hoeings was a crop of 150 bushels of pota- 

 toes to the acre. Every crop thus far more than 

 paid for the labor and manure, with the interest 

 and laxes on the land. The fourth year, early, 

 (he field was ploughed once and sown with oats, 

 with about eight pounds of southern clover and 

 a peck of herdsgrass timothy to the acre. The 

 crop of oats was one of the first and best — it 

 was fully seventy-live bushels of well-filled 

 grain to the acre. The effects of the lime and 

 ashes in the compost upon the mineral pails of 

 the subsoil brought into action were seen in the 

 better stamina and strength of straw throwing 

 out and filling out more perfect grain. Last 

 year and this year this lot has produced each 

 year full fifteen tons of the best hay: the rowen 

 or second growth of the last year's crop fed oft' 

 was equal to a full ton of hay to the acre. This 

 is again springing in the course of a week after 

 the second crop of hay is taken off. In like 

 manner of ibe above 1 have prepared, one year 

 behind it, seven other acres, in the lowest part 

 of this lot I observed the subsoiling to raise the 

 field fully four inches upon the surface working 

 in the ground like leaven in ibe kneading trough- 

 The two crops of potatoes, one of corn, one of 

 oats, and last of hay upon this ground were fully 

 equal to the first. The hay this year was all of 

 three tons to the acre. Before this operation, 

 the sward ground of the twelve acres did not 

 give ninth over a half a ton to the acre. It may 

 be mentioned of the first field, that strips were 

 left in its whole length where no subsoil plough 

 was used, and that upon these strips every year 

 the crop has been visibly less under precisely 

 the same treatment in all other respects. Next 

 to this, prepared with the subsoil plough two 

 years ago, is a field of six acres on the outside 

 sandy skirt of the river: it gave last year good 

 corn and potatoes, the former fifty and the latter 

 one hundred and fifty bushels to the acre: late 



planted, perhaps twenty-five bushels ot these 

 potatoes were rotten. The same field, being the 

 edge reclaimed from flowing sand, produced 

 three tons of marrow squashes worth in the 

 IJostoti market one cent and a half a pound. 

 Seven acres, ploughed and subsoiled last fall, 

 manured in addition to the common quantity of 

 compost with the mixture of 200 lbs. of Icbaboe 

 guano with 200 lbs. of ground plaster, on the 

 last day of July presented a most beautiful 

 growth of potato vines, rich and deeply green — 

 enough, if no rust or rot shall take hold, to give 

 fully two hundred bushels to the acre. These 

 fields of potatoes, in drills, with the compost 

 spread and harrowed under, have been hoed 

 twice. The witch or fin grass prevailing in 

 them as it does all along the river intervale, hav- 

 ing been brought down by the freshets, has heen 

 much less trouble where the subsoil plough cut 

 it off almost to the bottom of the roots, and the 

 frost of winter in the turned-tip ground had 

 meliorated the roots of this mischievous grass. 

 The hay cut and cured upon this lot this year 

 lias been fifty-six tons, which cost in the labor 

 of making, not over $1 50 per ton : it bears, at a 

 fourth less than common, the value of eight dol- 

 lars per ton in the field, $448 

 The oats, near their gathering, say 40 

 bushels to the acre, six acres, 

 240 at 40 96 

 The potatoes, seven acres, at 150 bu- 

 shels to the acre (if they do not 

 rot) say 1000 bushels at 40 cents, 400 



$944 

 The expense of manures, ploughing and culti- 

 vation cannot come up to one-half, taxing it two 

 hundred dollars for interest on the value of $100 

 to the acre, would leave a profit of nearly five 

 hundred dollars upon this land. The whole po- 

 tato crop, and of course nearly half the profits, 

 is yet a matter of uncertainty. The increase of 

 the quantity of hay upon the Ferry plain is what 

 I regard as the great proof of improvement un- 

 der my method of treatment. 



My second field is a part of two lots of the 

 Dark plains land near the Ferry plain lot. Forty 

 acres of this land twelve years ago was set oft' 

 to me at five dollars the acre: the hollow part of 

 this lot was considered as a morass impractica- 

 ble, and the upland of no value beyond the little 

 growth of wood and timber that remained. 

 About forty acres lying beside of it, of small 

 growth in part and cleared in part, remains with 

 only some tan acres cultivated as a rye field un- 

 til the present year. Sown into clover after the 

 rye, this lot has heen most excellent pasture for 

 cows the present year. The other forty acres is 

 now nearly all cleared off. Naked as it was 

 supposed, lumber made into square timber and 

 boards and plank and fuel when it was worth 

 much less than it now is, have been taken off 

 these forty acres worth at least §1000 after pay- 

 ing the expense of cutting and carrying away. 

 The hind has been left, and that is brought into 

 play, worthless as it may seem, in pasturage of 

 the present season worth at least one hundred 

 dollars. The muck bed in the hollow upon the 

 same premises has furnished manure in a set ies of 

 years of the value of more than $500. A field of 

 early potatoes upon the lightest part of this land, 

 between four and five acres, is a mark of admira- 

 tion to several beholders the present season 

 On Saturday afternoon, July 22, sixteen bushels 

 of potatoes dug upon this field from less than 

 twenty square rods, sold in Concord street for 



