24 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



"with Chinese sugar cane the last year. The crop of cane failed, 

 and the land was ploughed and seeded to rye in September, 

 1857, at the rate of one and a quarter bushels per acre. 



Two acres of winter rye were cultivated on land which was 

 trenched fourteen inches deep, and from Avhich a great amount 

 of stone has been removed by the Board, within the last three 

 or four years. When commenced upon, this land was literally 

 a bed of rocks, and nearly worthless for the product of any 

 crop ; under the direction of the Board, it has become valuable, 

 and has produced, the present year, 56|- bushels of r3'e, and 

 5,500 pounds of straw, together with 480 bushels of purple-top 

 turnips, a much smaller yield than was expected, owing to the 

 disobedience of orders on the part of the head farmer. The 

 market value of this cannot be less than one hundred and 

 seventy-five dollars. 



A portion of the half acre of Avinter rye, south of the barn, 

 was cut when in blossom, for the purpose of soiling four cows. 

 The cows were fed eight days, tlie time which the rye was in 

 suitable condition for fodder, and consumed the crop growing 

 upon 13,384 square feet, nearly five-sixteenths of an acre of 

 land, which would amount, estimating the rye at twenty dollars 

 the acre, to $6.14, showing the money value consumed daily 

 by each cow, to be 19 and -^^\ cents, 12 and y-^^- cents more 

 than the cost of pasturage, as estimated by the committee on 

 stock, in their experiments of 1856. The remaining part of 

 this half acre produced seven and one-quarter bushels of rye; 

 the straw was not weighed. 



The principal products of the farm for the year have been 

 as follows, viz. : — 



