SECRETARY'S REPORT. 301 



been all the rfiore sure. It is not a result of the cultivation of 

 what, for tlie want of a better term, I shall call special crops, 

 that is, cultivated crops that arc relied upon as the chief income 

 of the farm, — such as broom-corn or tobacco. He has practised, 

 from the first, a mixed husbandry, directing his efforts con- 

 stantly to the production of the greatest quantity of grass and 

 the different kinds of grain, not for sale to much extent until 

 converted into beef, pork, mutton, butter, cheese, etc. He raises 

 his own stock chiefly, and in this way avoids something of the 

 disappointment of. his neighbors, who, after feeding their stock 

 through the winter, are sometimes compelled to sell for little or 

 nothing more than they gave for it the previous autumn. Of 

 late he has added a flock of sheep to his other stock, principally 

 for the pur])ose of raising lambs for the market. His sheep and 

 cattle, though chiefly grades, are bred with greaf care and skill, 

 and with reference to the special purposes for which they are 

 designed. The milking qualities of his ewes are as carefully 

 regarded as his cows, and, as he claims, with quite as much 

 reason. The readiness with which his stock is taken by the 

 butchers shows the success to which he has attained, both as a 

 breeder and feeder. 



Mr. Green dates his first marked success in agricultural 

 Qperatious from the time when he began the use of.lime. 



He became interested in a kiln in Whately, some six or eight 

 miles distant, and for several years used it largely. Its effect 

 was very marked, in bringing in white and red clover, while the 

 grain raised by him was almost uniformly better than that of 

 his neighbors, who used no lime. 



This, with plaster, is the only fertilizer that has ever been 

 used, except what is made upon the farm. Of late, he has sub- 

 stituted oyster shell for the Whately lime. Clearly perceiving 

 tliat with his system the amount of his income would depend in 

 great measure upon the amount of grass that he could raise, he 

 made this a matter of the first importance, and finding his own 

 experience to corroborate the assertion that manured land will 

 produce a much more nutritious hay than unmanured, he com- 

 menced and has followed tlie practice of top-dressing, until he 

 now has in permanent meadow a lot of twenty acres, which, 

 for the quality and quantity of its produce, is probably not often 

 equalled by any of the grass lands of the low river valley. 



