160 WORCESTER SOCIETY. 



about twelve inches of the top, and the soil was then thrown 

 in witli the ox shovel as on the drains. These boulders varied 

 in size all the way from a bushel basket to a molasses hogs- 

 head, and there were some few much larger. I will here state 

 this has been my practice of getting rid of large as well as 

 small stones for several years, and I find it decidedly cheaper 

 than blasting and building large and needless walls. The 

 next process was to plough, which I was enabled to do in a 

 pretty thorough manner, the drains and stone holes having 

 taken up all the surplus stones as deep as I wished to run a 

 plough. I ploughed and harrowed several times during the fall 

 of 1849. In the spring I found no difficulty in working the land 

 early on account of wetness, and in June and July, after seve- 

 ral workings, forty loads of manure, containing twenty -five 

 bushels each, were carted on to the acre on one part, and 

 ground bones to the same value on to a part, side by side, and 

 about one-half the lot was sowed to turnips the 1st of August. 

 The other part was not cropped that season, as the ground 

 was not mellow enough to secure a crop. (Bones succeeded 

 well with turnips, but the grass as yet has been lighter.) Dur- 

 ing the fall of 1850, this idle part was frequently worked over 

 and manured as the other was the year before, and it was 

 sowed to turnips July 15th, and the crop gave about 700 bush- 

 els to the acre on either side. 



The half sowed to turnips in 1850 was sowed to oats in 1851, 

 and the last half, in May, 1852, with grass seed, and at this 

 time the whole lot is seeded to grass. A precise account has 

 been kept of the labor and manures and the amount of crops 

 to this time, excepting the hay on a part of the lot the present 

 season, which was estimated, and could not have valued much. 

 I paid by contract for cutting drains $52 92. Manure at the 

 stable was reckoned, at $1 per load, $95. Bone dust, fifty 

 bushels at forty cents, $20. All other labor, up to harvesting 

 the first crop, $91 60— making a sum total of $259 50. The 

 whole amount of crops taken oft" up to this time $172, after 

 paying all expense of tillage and harvesting — leaving the lot 

 in debt $86 50, which sum, with interest, I have no hesitation 

 in saying, may be realized without any other labor than gath- 

 ering the crops within the two coming years. 



The lots on the east and west sides receive as much benefit 



