CORRESPONDENCE. 177 



on it as we had power to make, and we think it not 

 easy to raise an acre of good corn and prepare it for 

 market for a less sum than forty dollars, calHng the 

 manure that the corn crop takes fifteen dollars, or one 

 half the whole manure put on. We will call a good 

 crop worth forty dollars — and this is surely more than 

 it will average — then the stover may be worth one 

 ton of stock hay — not merchantable hay — say eight 

 or ten dollars : and this will be our net profit. Now 

 an acre of land, within twenty miles of Boston, that 

 will produce one ton of hay, will give us more net 

 profit than the corn ; for hay has averaged fifteen dol- 

 lars per ton at the barn for thirty years past, and the 

 after-feed will often pay for the getting. 



As the expense of raising an acre of corn is so con- 

 siderable, we should never plant more land than we can 

 put in high order. If we should average fifty or sixty 

 bushels per acre, we should be well paid for our 

 trouble ; but how often we see less than thirty on an 

 acre ! 



But we must have some grain to mix with our vege- 

 tables, &c. for fattening pork, beef, &c. And for this, 

 we advise to the raising of buckwheat on farms that 

 have fields suitable for that grain. Sandy loams, that 

 often produce nothing worth gathering, will yield fif- 

 teen bushels to the acre with very little labor. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



To the Editor of the Cultivator : 



Dear Sir, — Last August, after I finished my hay- 

 ing, I undertook to plough some low land, which was 

 too wet to be touched in the spring. There was only 

 one acre of it, and we succeeded in ploughing it in 

 one day, and laid it quite flat. I intended to plant it 

 16 



