104 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Statement of Cyrus Kilburn. 



My farm contains one hundred and twenty acres, is pretty 

 well divided into tillage, mowing, pasturage, orcharding and 

 woodland. I have not kept an accurate account in detail of my 

 farming operations, so as to show a debit and credit side, and be 

 able to strike a balance, and thus exhibit the loss and gain for 

 the last three years ; but I will attempt to give some general 

 account of my operations. 



In the first place, I raise wheat sufficient for my family, an 

 average of twenty-five bushels a year, — a winter Ttheat called 

 the blue stem, which I have raised for about twenty-five years 

 without any apparent deterioration. 



Indian corn is my staple cereal ; I raise from one hundred to 

 one hundred and fifty bushels a year ; this year but one hun- 

 dred bushels, owing to the extreme heat and drought, the heat 

 being almost as unfavorable for making a crop of corn as the 

 drought. I raise from twenty-five to thirty-five bushels of rye 

 yearly ; thirty-five bushels this year, the straw selling for $35 

 at my ])arn ; potatoes yearly, about two hundred liushcls, one 

 hundred only this year, fifty of which are the Early Rose, a 

 potato that fills the place so long needed, an early, prolific, good- 

 eating potato ; also, one that can be taken from the ground be- 

 fore the potato malaria stalks abroad with destruction in its 

 wake. I cultivate the various vegetables for culinary use, such 

 as cabbages, pease, beans, beets, onions, parsnips, squashes, toma- 

 toes, etc. Also melons of the various kinds, and when I have a 

 surplus of any of them, I dispose of them in the market. My 

 squashes this year, for the first time, have proved a failure. 



My hay crop is usually good, sufficient for thirteen neat cattle 

 and two horses, and frequently I sell my surplus hay after win- 

 tering my stock. My corn forage is usually equal to three tons 

 per acre, which is cured by cutting up as soon as the ears are 

 well glazed, and stocked, and put in the barn as soon as it is 

 cured enough to keep, although it may mould some, which I 

 consider no detriment to it, thereby being more tender and 

 palatable for the cattle. 



]\Iy oi-chard yields a good supply of apples, pears and peaches, 

 for home consumption, and I have a surplus which is sold yearly 

 for about !5>75. 



In the spring of 1869, I procured two hundred peach-trees, 



