164 WORCESTER SOCIETY. 



is too troublesome a job for him and gives it up. While Mr. C, 

 more of a thinking man, works himself or men under cover 

 during wet weather, and works his carrot ground only when 

 the sun shines, so that the weeds may all perish before any 

 moisture can come to their aid, and this is the end of weeds for 

 this dressing. Hoeing his ground so soon after the seed is 

 sown, but few weeds ever start. Mr. C. concludes that he 

 can do no better business than to grow, from year to year, a 

 suitable quantity of roots to meet his wants. Mr. C. is a good 

 natured man, and trusts firmly in the doctrine that "seed time 

 and harvest shall never fail ;" calling his men and boys at ten 

 o'clock in the morning he takes them under the shade of a fa- 

 vorite tree and gives them a wholesome lunch (no grog), and 

 then says. Come boys let us now go and look after the weeds 

 whilst the dew is off; then he takes them back to the corn or 

 potato field without any loss of time. At harvest he reports 

 his crop and obtains the premium. He is surprised with the 

 result himself, while Mr. A. and Mr. B. stand afar off, and either 

 cry out sour grapes, or it is naught, it is naught. Would not 

 our society be as much benefited by a report from Mr. A. and 

 Mr. B., as by one from Mr. C. ? 



The rata baga crop entered for the society's premium was 

 harvested this day, Nov. 18th, and 129 bushels were pulled, 

 topped and carted to the cellar in three hours by four men and 

 two boys with the aid of a yoke of oxen and cart. One fourth 

 of an acre was surveyed and the result was as above. This 

 was nothing more than an average quarter from a field of sev- 

 eral acres which has been recently reclaimed from a bad un- 

 sightly pasture, said to have been worth in the fall of 1849, |i7 

 per acre, and this by a former member of your committee ; this 

 appraisal was when the soil was about being disturbed from its 

 native slumbers for the first time. 



Underdrainage was commenced on this land in the fall of 

 1849, and ditches of three feet wide and two and a half feet deep 

 were cut at the rate of about 250 rods to the acre, and filled 

 with stoues taken from the field. The land was first ploughed 

 in the fall of 1849, and has been worked with the plough and 

 harrow, up to June, 1851, but no crop was taken from it until 

 the present year, as it was not sufficiently subdued to receive a 



