1853. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



443 



For the New Eni^land Farmer. 

 "OLD FIELDS." 



Messrs. Editors : — Your correspondent R. B. H. 

 in the N. E. Farmer 20th of August, expresses a 

 correct idea of the land called "old fields" at the 

 present day, and the bad treatment they have re- 

 ceived from their owners. These old fields were 

 considered the best land by the first settlers ; they 

 most readily yielded the important articles which 

 constitute the "staff of life." If they could talk, 

 it would be on this wise to the proprietors : "you 

 have shown partiality; you have bestowed labor 

 and manure on lands less deserving than we are, 

 because they were obstinate and would not pro- 

 duce without; while we were ever obedient and 

 freely yielded our utmost mite for your benefit, 

 without manure or much labor ; and now, because 

 we cannot do more, you despise us and show your 

 ingratitude by giving us a bad character and be- 

 stowing all your favors on hard, stony, cold lands 

 you could not coax nor drive to produce a crop 

 without manure and an abundance of labor ; 

 whereas, if you had treated us so and not slighted 

 and starved us, but had bestowed upon us the 

 same amount of manure and half the labor, we 

 should have continued to reward you with as val- 

 uable, if not better crops, to this day, than your 

 favorites, mud, clay and stones." I have had an 

 opportunity to be acquainted with the use, and 

 have seen the abuse of "old fields" or pine plains ; 

 it was my lot to be born on old fields; I received 

 my nourishment from old fields, and a plenty of it 

 too, and grew six feet high on old fields, and was 

 educated on old fields, as any one would readily 

 suppose by reading this. 



The times have strangely altered since the war 

 of 1812 ; corn and rye were dear and labor cheap, 

 during a period of twenty years or more dating 

 from 1792. Rye, if I remember aright, averaged 

 as high as $1,25 or $1,50 a bushel from that time 

 till 1820 ; it sold at f 2,50 in the time of the last 

 war with England,and in the years 1836 and 1837 

 it sold for $2 or more a bushel, so that skinning 

 old fields in those days was a kind of necessary 

 evil. At the above named periods farmers in New 

 England were compelled to raise their own bread 

 stuff; very few were able to eat wheat flour brought 

 from the West, it being proportionably dear, which 

 made the skinning of old fields a more excusable 

 business than at the present day. When a man's 

 labor was worth but 75 cents a day and rye worth 

 $1,25 or $1,50 a bushel, there was an inducement 

 to encourage the farmers to raise Tye ; but now la- 

 bor is worth a dollar a day and rye but 83 cents, 

 the farmer can sell his time at a higher price than 

 he would get by continuing t]ie process of skin- 

 ning old fields. At the former period spoken of 

 above, it was difficult for a farmer to fi^d employ- 

 ment off from his own farm ; and if he could it was 

 more difficult to get cash pay ; and he could do 

 better at raising rye on old fields, even at 7 bush- 

 els to the acre, than doing nothing. Now he had 

 better convert his old fields into sheep-pastures or 

 woodlots than raise rye upon them at the high price 

 of labor and the low price of rye. Summer fallow- 

 ing was formerly practised in Middlesex, as now 

 stated to be the case by R. B. H, in Hampshire 

 County; but the practice has been abandoned for 

 years by many of the rye producers here, because 

 frequent plowings they consider injures light soils 



by exposing them so much to the weather that the 

 fertilizing principles in the soil are dissipated. 



The most successful method of raising rye on 

 old fields that I have witnessed, and least injurious 

 to the soil, is to plow the ground well in June 

 when the full coat of grass and weeds have at- 

 tained a good growth, then not disturb it again 

 till the middle or last of August, then sow from 

 16 to 24 quarts of rye to the acre, which is a plen- 

 ty for old fields, and a bushel of red-top seed; then 

 harrow with an iron harrow well both ways, and 

 smooth off with the bush harrow. The March fol- 

 lowing sow any quantity of clover seed on top of 

 a light snow. It is an object of importance on 

 such land to start a coat of some kind of herbage 

 which goes far towards restoring it to a state of 

 fertility ; the naked soil exposed to the drying 

 winds and scorching rays of the sun will not im- 

 prove much in value. On this plan I have raised 

 15 or more bushels of good rye to the acre on old 

 fields. These old fields ought to rest more than 

 three years between cropping,everyseventhyeari3 

 often enough to skin them unless manure can be 

 applied. I cannot recommend the above system of 

 farming, where a better one can be adopted. I was 

 told yesterday by a man from Connecticut, that a 

 farmer there bought a large tract of old, worn out 

 fields of the worst description for five dollars an 

 acre, and by sowing seed and plowing in herbage, 

 he restored it to such a state of fertility that it 

 produced fine crops and was worth fifty dollars an 

 acre ; this man was an eye-witness to what he re- 

 lated to me. It strikes me that such a course of 

 enriching land must be more economical than buy- 

 ing manure at the customary price. While the 

 farmer is plowing in the green crops, his land is 

 rising in value probably to the amount of what he 

 would derive from the crops on the same land ma- 

 nured in the same amount of time. I think old 

 fields may be much improved without manure by 

 a judicious system of management; plowing in 

 any of the natural herbage of the soil is better 

 than nothing. 



All kinds of grass and weeds, as well as clover 

 and buckwheat, derive a great part of their sub- 

 stance from the nutritive gases of the air, which 

 plowed in at a proper time, will fertilize the soil. 

 I believe that old fields in different locations of 

 the State require different fertilizing materi- 

 als. Gypsum and lime seem to be useless in 

 this neighborhood, but in some other sections of the 

 State the best results have followed their use. I 

 have found mud, ashes and coal dust excellent ap- 

 plications to my light land for the production of 

 corn and rye. I concur withR. B. H. in his opin- 

 ion in regard to rotation and making a deep soil by 

 gradually deeper plowings and exposing earth to 

 the sun that never felt its influences before. These 

 old fields have experienced the blighting curse of 

 thoughtless man's cupidity, and restoring them to 

 fertility again is all up-hill work, but science can 

 accomplish it, and at the same time remunerate the 

 skilful cultivator for his labor. Old fields so much 

 despised will compare with a benevolent class of 

 people who give away all they have, and for a com- 

 pensation, are rewarded with a privilege and the 

 honor of a seat in the poor-house. If they had been 

 so obstinate that they would not have produced 

 without manure at first, they, some of them, would 

 have ranked with our best lands at the present 

 time. 



