ESSEX SOCIETY. 53. 



The next spring, as soon as it was thawed about two inches, 

 I harrowed and planted potatoes, manuring them with rock 

 weed and kelp green from the sea. My crop was not great, 

 yielding about seventy-five bushels to the acre, worth one dol- 

 lar per bushel. 



Ill the winter of 1851, I hauled about forty loads of vault 

 manure and mixed with gravel, one part manure to three of 

 gravel, and spread it on, about one and a half to two inches 

 deep. In the spring as soon as the frost was out four inches, I 

 harrowed and cultivated, to mix the gravel with the mud, and 

 sowed grass seed on the 20th of March, viz., one and a half 

 pecks herds grass, three of red-top, and five pounds clover seed. 

 In Jane, three months after sowing the seed, I mowed the grass 

 which was badly lodged, and got one and a half tons of hay to 

 the acre. 



I have since cut the second crop, which was about three 

 fourths of a ton to the acre, and there is now a fair prospect of 

 there being as much more for the third crop, making in all, 

 three tons of hay to the acre. The expense of reclaiming this 

 meadow has been about $75 per acre, leaving a balance in my 

 favor of three tons of hay, which may not be so great as some 

 have done, but is better than nothing. 



Salem, Sept. 24, 1851. 



Farms. 



The committee regret that they camiot, from personal ob- 

 servation, speak more generally of the state of farming within 

 the county. We believe there are many farms in our limits, as 

 yet unknown by report of your committees to the society, well 

 worthy of commendation ; from the inspection and report of 

 which, in connection with the statement of the management of 

 their owners, much valuable information would be derived, and 

 the cause of agriculture advanced. At present, with us, pro- 

 gress in the cultivation of the soil depends very much upon the 

 dissemination of the practical experiments of our best agricul- 

 turists ; and until the introduction of schools designed to illus- 



