THE FAR MER^S M ONTHLY VISITOR. January, 1842. 



but little of it is in which many a beast had fallen aiid been lost, neighbors had made up their minds not to pur- 



fibrous matter as soino peat, and but little of it is 

 suitable for fuel. Much of this land is now un- 

 der very high improvement, though some of the 

 proprietors with an incredulity and obstinacy 

 peculiar to some men, and evidently in a degree 

 constitutional, will not see the improvements, 

 though their own land in its original swampy 

 and tangled condition, presents a strong contrast 

 with the improved meadows of their neighbors. 

 There are none so blind as those who will not 

 see. Much land remains to have its face washed 

 and its hair combed. These meadows are easily 

 drained; tbe level of the meadow being one 

 hundred and fifteen feet above the Nashua river, 

 and there being an outlet at each end. 



When these lands become perfectly subdued 

 and enriched, lying as they do open to full view 

 with the beautiful village of Groton upon their 

 margin, with the wide horizon and the distant 

 mountains bounding the prospect, it will not be 

 easy to find a more charming landscape. 



7. Another farmer in Groton, Rufus Morrs, 

 whose farming is excellent, has effected great 

 improvements in the reclamation of peat mea- 

 dows. His premises indicate indefatigable indus- 

 try directed by great skill and judgment. 



He disapproves, he says, from long experience, 

 the application of gravel to these lands. He 

 " bogs" the meadow with a hoe, that is, turns 

 over all the sods ; carries on a compost of loatn 

 and manure mixed, plants potatoes, or lays it 

 down with oats to be cut green, or sows it in the 

 fall without any grain. He has sometimes taken 

 up a piece in the autumn; re|)eatedly harrowed 

 it until it was reduced to a fine state ; manured 

 it ; then sowed grass seed at the rate of half a 

 bushel of herdsgrass and a quantity of red-top, 

 but no clover, and the next season has taken a 

 large burden of grass from this land. 



From the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Advantages of Travel. 

 IMr. Editor. — Having cut my corn, and re- 

 moved it to an adjoining mea<low for the conven- 

 ience of husking, cleared the ground of the roots, 

 and ploughed and sown it a' ilh wheat, I thought 

 I could not do better than put in practice the 

 plan recommended in the Cabinet, and go and 

 see what my friends were doing. Accordingly, 

 one fine morning during this remarkably fine In 

 dian summer, 1 mounted my horse, and rode 

 across to my old neighbor Curtis's place. I bad 

 not seen my friend for many years, but had often 

 heard of him as a tip-top manager, well to do in 

 the world, but rather singular in his systi 

 farming. I foimd him on a noble farm of 250 

 acres, which he cultivates with the hand of a 

 master; and after a week spent with him, if I 

 have not returned with ihe-exiierience w hich will 

 pay me cent, per cent for the capital invested in 

 travelling expenses, it will be my own fault. 



All hands were busily employed, although his 

 wheat was sown, his corn husked and put safely 

 away, with the stalks snugly built into a stack 

 adjoining his bullock-liouses, and covered with 

 straw — for while one party with a couple of ox- 

 teams were carting a lot of capital rich earth 

 from the roadside, at the bottom of the hill half 

 a mile from home, where it had been accumulat 

 ing the last year, a drainage fiom several estab 

 lisliments near, where the custom is to permit 

 the washings of their cattle yards to pass away, 

 by the ditch leading down the road, and placing 

 in it a large pen, to the depth of three or foil 

 feet, upon which to feed his hogs, fifty in numbe 

 during their first season of fatting, and by which 

 it will be trodden and rooted into capital manure 

 for dressing corn-land, anotlier party was busily 

 employed in throwing the contents of a muck- 

 hole on to a dry bank, preparatory to the forma- 

 tion of a magnificent compost-heap, during win- 

 ter — the straw-yard furnishing the means of con- 

 verting it into a dressing far more valuable than 

 the best stable dung, more lasting in its effects, 

 and better suited as the food of plants, from the 

 purifying processes of fermentation and pulver- 

 ization. Two other men were cutting a very 

 Wide ditch, or narrow canal, to drain an adjoin- 

 ing swamp, that had formerly been the cause of 

 much sickness, liut now, having come into his 

 hands, it will soon be rendered the most valuable 

 spot of his possessions, giving many hundred 

 loads of earth and muck for future dressings, and 

 rendering what had hitherto been a nuisance, a 

 healthy spot of rich pasture— an old quagmire, 



in which many a beast had fallen and been lost 

 into a lovely meadow, vfith a stream meandering 

 through it, and supplying with water a second 

 cattle-yard below. 



Bly friend is a stickler for the theory and 

 practice of top-dressing, in all its variety of ap- 

 plication, having followed it for years, and de- 

 lved ample proof of its efiicacy ;.,and offers to 

 cultivate a field in tlie following manner, the 

 whole to be managed exactly alike in its prepar- 

 ation. One half to be manured, and turned in 

 before sowing ^^ iih wlient, the other half to he 

 sown at the sauii' liuic, u-ilhout manure; the 

 same quantity of uiaruirc, however, which had 

 been given to the wlji-at on one-half, to he re- 

 served as a spring top-dressing for the other, 

 after being composted during the winter; and if 

 one-third more wheat, and of equally superior 

 quality, be not reaped from this half the field 

 than on the other, then he will forleit any sum 

 that might before have been agreed upon. He is 

 strong advocate for top-dressing meadovvs 

 in the autumn and winter,and has a heap of com- 

 post ready for carrying abroad, that will cover 

 many acres, by which he argues, that grass will 

 be greatly pro"tected from the frost, and be ena- 

 bled to make earlier progress in the spring, af- 

 fording a bile to his cattle a week or ten days 

 earlier at that important .season of the year. 

 Like many others of our improvers, he limes 

 heavily, but his mode of application is singular, 

 and appears to have an excellent effect, judging 

 from the herbage which now clothes his fields, 

 of most excellent quality, white clover and green- 

 iss predominating, lie spreads his lime thick- 

 on the grass-land tbe year before he intends 

 to top-dress with compost, and declares that the 

 effect is surprisingly beneficial, the natural herb 

 age springing after, feeing of quite another spe 

 cies, and peculiarly adiipted for fatting purposes 

 and thus he is in no danger of liming to (Excess. 

 On a meadow on which he jiractised this mode 

 of top-dres.sing the last year, he has, at the pres- 

 ent time, second growth of the finest verdtu'c, 

 far superior in quality to many of the first crops 

 in the neighborhood ; and the cattle eat the whole 

 indiscriminately, leaving no tufts, as is so usual 

 on meadows at this season of the year. 



On my asking if he did not find it expensive, 

 thus to take up and put down, and mix and turn 

 his muck and dung, so often before carrying a 

 broad, he replied — "Certainly: and that is thf 

 perfection of the system. When I go to Phila 

 delphia, and sec the men in Market street busily 

 packing and preparing for sending abroad their 

 merchandise, I do not hear them complain of tin 

 labor and time which it lakes. The liope of re- 

 ward sweetens that, and the more persons they 

 can find employment for, the greater they calcu- 

 late their profits will be ; it is labor, not leisure, 

 to which they look for remuneration, and I find 

 that this principle works quite as well u|)on the 

 farm ; for the more it costs me for labor, the 

 greater are my profits, and also my pleasures — for 

 i love to see fat meadovvs and fiit cattle, and have 

 long been convinced of the truth of that beauti- 

 ful passage of scripture, where it is said, ' there 

 is, that scattereth and yet increaseth.' 1 always 

 debit my fields with the labor bestowed upon 

 them, and they never yet have deceived me in the 

 ' promise to pay,' that I receive from them at 

 the time, with compound interest for years after. 

 A middlhig crop never yet paid a profit ; if it pays 

 expenses it is well — and then the fanner enjoys 

 the satisfaction of having 'spent his strength 

 fur nought,' thankful that it is no worse ; it is 

 the additional bushel which constitutes the profit 

 — and if that be sufficient, I have carried my 

 labor to a good market; and what can, what 

 ought I to expect more ? But this doctrine is 

 Greek to most of my neighbors." 



I was amused to hear one of his neighbors de- 

 scribe his activity and circumspection during the 

 hay and grain harvest; he seemed to be evei-y- 

 where, urging the men to cut low, observing, his 

 profit consisted in the last half inch of tlie grass- 

 crop, and telling thetn he did not care if they left 

 the top standing, provided they cut the last half 

 inch ! remarking of him, that whatever he took 

 in hand was seen to prosper, he was such a for- 

 tunate man; and then he related what took place 

 at the last sale of sheep in that county, where 

 the drovers demanded a higher price than what 

 was generally supposed to be their value : My 

 friend thought otherwise, and after asking if the 



neighbors had made up their minds not to 

 chase? and received for answer, "Yes," 

 the whole ; telling thetn he would be glad to sell 

 them as many as they wished for, the next morn- 

 ing, at his farm, and at the price which he had 

 given, running them out — tjiat is, not permitting a 

 selection of them ; and by. daylight the next 

 morning, they had all been taken oft' his hands, 

 not, however, before he had selected as many as 

 he required for his stock, which happened to be 

 just the best sheep in the lot! 



During this season of aclivHii with my friend, 

 but of leisure with iiiiiuy of ilie rest of us, his 

 other teams were liusily i'iiii>lo_v('(l turning every 

 acre of unoccupied laiul fur wiuici-lallow, plough- 

 ng an extra depth, and laying an inch or two of ' 

 the sub-soil to the influence of the frosts, to be , 

 returned to its bed in the spring, by running back • 

 the furrows, preparatory for crossing and work- | 

 ing for crops. But I must conclude for the pres- I 

 ent, and after having practised some of my friend's I 

 precepts, I may preach again. 1 



Subscriber. 



itS 



Mr. Amos Hill's Farm at West Cambridge. 

 Fiom Mr. Colman^s Report. 



Mr. Hill's farm consists of one hiuidred and 

 ninety-four acres. Tillage twenty-five, English 

 mowing sixty, wet mea<low sixty, pasture twenty, 

 orcharding fifteen, wood ten, salt marsh four 

 acres. The salt marsh is distant from home 

 The greater part of the remainder is in 

 body, and most of it on a level surface. 



Mr. Hill commenced some years since the 

 draining of his meadows. He completed, at his 

 own individual expense, the draining of one hun- 

 dred acres, before a|)pliciition was made to ihi 

 Legislature to effect the great improvement 

 this way of which I have given an account 

 page 354. To this tract his land lies adjaceni 

 This improvement is still going oi-i, a second gate 

 having been erected by which the water is brought ■ 

 entirely under command. The advance in the 

 value of these lands by this improvcinent is enor- 

 mous. It may well quickeu the andjition of 

 others to improve their grounds, wherever im- 

 provement is practicable. Before this operation 

 this land was sold for twenty and sometimes ten 

 dollars per acre ; that which is now thoroughly 

 redeemed and cultivated would readily command 

 two hundred dollars per acre, and will pay the 

 interest upon a larger sum than this, and keep 

 up its condition. The svholetax for the common 

 improvements has been about two dollars an 

 acre ; but even of this trifle some of the propri- 

 etors have complained. This reminds nie of a 

 case in which a kindly disposed man having 

 given a poor neighbor his winter's fuel from his 

 own wood-pile, was in the spring presented by 

 this same neighbor with a bill for cutting the 

 wood given him. Where are the limits to hinnan 

 cupidity.' As 1 observed before, the greater part 

 of this soil is a deposit of rich alluvial mud and 

 decayed vegetable matter, though in some parts 

 a small amount of pejt is found. Mr. Hill speaks 

 with strong emphasis of the value of clay ap- 

 plied to these lands as to be preferred to any 

 manure which can be ]>ut upon them. He puts 

 no clover ujion them, but sows herdsgrass, red- 

 top, and fowl-meadow, which last he considers a 

 valuable gras.s. These meadows when subdued 

 are capable of producing almost any crop. From 

 some acres the last season he obtained crops 

 which yielded him one hundred and fifty dollars 

 per acre. This improvement promises to be one 

 of the most beautiful as well as one of the most 

 productive in the commonwealth. 



Mr. Hill's objects are the production of vege- 

 tables, fruits, milk and hay. His ordinary num- 

 ber of cows is from ten to twelve. These he 

 changes twice in a year ; purchasing new milch 

 cows in the autumn which he turns off in the 

 spring for fatting, and gelling in the fall the cows 

 which he purchases in the spring. He owns 

 pasturage in New Hampshire to which his cows 

 are sent in the spring to be fatted ; and his sales 

 of beef the present year amounted to about fif- 

 teen thousand jiounds. In this way he has the 

 full advantage of his cows in the best of their 

 milking condition ; and his sales of milk average 

 about eight hundred dollars. The average yield 

 of milk he considers about Gi quarts, or a can a 

 day to a cow, which seems not a large yield un- 

 der this ruanagemeiu. In c!]auging his cows so 

 frequently, he pcrh-'ipt; docs not give tlie san:e 



