FARMS. 49 



time. The same can be said of corn and tomatoes. Squashes, 

 liowever, ought not to be planted successively on the same 

 land. 



I have made it a point to get my seed into the ground at the 

 earliest possible time in the spring, as my nearness to a good 

 city market renders it expedient to give special attention to the 

 raising of early vegetables. In order to avail myself of the 

 advantages of the earliest spring market, I found it profitable 

 to start my plants, such as lettuce, early cabbages, tomatoes, 

 etc., in hot beds. For this purpose I constructed, a few years 

 ago, three ranges of beds, each two hundred and twenty-five 

 feet long, situated on a southerly slope, and facing the south. 

 They are made about a foot high, and have a sash covering, 

 and above this a trellis covering, stuffed with salt hay or straw. 

 These hot-beds are managed as follows : — In the fall I fill them 

 with litter, house the sashes, and lay down the trellis cover. 

 This prevents the earth from freezing inside of the beds. 

 About the first of March I take out the litter and put in about 

 six inches of horse manure, and cover the manure with about 

 four inches of soil, sow the seed, and close the bed nights with 

 both coverings. After the seed comes up, I water the plants 

 every other day, and keep the covers open in the day time to 

 let in air, except when the weather is too cold for the plants. 

 Transplant into the fields about the fifteenth of April. By this 

 means I can get cabbages into the market by the twentieth of 

 June, and some exceptional years I have got them into Boston 

 market as early as the ninth of June. The lettuce generally 

 heads in the bed, ready for market, by the fifteenth of April. 

 Tomatoes are generally ripe and ready for market from the 

 middle of July to the first of August. 



I have never tried the experiment of making butter, but have 

 taken it for granted that it was more profitable to sell the milk, 

 especially in view of the fact that there was a good milk route 

 connected with the farm when I commenced occupying. This 

 route I have supplied ever since. During the summer the cows 

 get their whole living in the pasture — no extra feed. In the 

 autumn they have had the range of the mowing fields. In the 

 winter, they have generally had ten bushels of beets, with what 

 English hay, black grass and rowen they would eat. The roots 

 were fed out to them once a day only — mornings. 

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