BERKSHIRE SOCIETY. 285 



thousands of dollars are paid annually by the inhabitants of 

 Berkshire for bread stuffs for home consumption, when, at the 

 same time, more than ten times the amount lays within eight 

 inches of the surface of the earth, and what we want, is to 

 know the surest way to draw it out. 



Our field last year was planted to corn, thoroughly manured 

 and plastered. Early ploughed this last spring and subsoiled, 

 one bushel and three pecks of seed to the acre, harrowed in. 

 When the blade was up two or three inches, we went over the 

 entire field once in a place, with a light harrow, followed with 

 a roller. This process is most valuable if performed just be- 

 fore a rain. I am sensible it helped our grain, but whether it 

 would be good for all kinds of soils is a question I cannot 

 answer. About the time we harrowed, we applied a light coat 

 of plaster. If the crop the previous year was hurt with worms, 

 I would add one peck of salt to three pecks of plaster, and 

 mix before sowing. 



Our seed was obtained from abroad, in which item there is a 

 greater gain than most farmers are aware. Our kind was the 

 Mediterranean, weighing sixty-one and one-fourth pounds to 

 the bushel. 



South Williamstown, Oct. 20, 1851. 



Ploughing Match. 



Peace hath its victories as well as war; it was a sun as bright 

 as Austerlitz that broke upon the field of contest, but the mists 

 which it dispelled were not the murky clouds that hover 

 "dreadfully over death's alembic," but the feathery mists that 

 had been all night long creeping up from the Housatonic, to 

 paint with a thousand rainbow tints the oak and the maple 

 leaf. In the midst of a wide panorama of hills and mountains, 

 the yeomanry of our dear Berkshire, gathered, not to beat back 

 from its soil the footsteps of a tyrant and an invader, but to 

 reveal from the long drawn furrow, the hidden wealth which 

 Mother Earth holds in her bosom ; a wealth more precious than 

 the sands which glitter on the banks of the Sacramento. The 



