124 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICUI.TURE. 



a good crop this year, but also to leave the land in a better 

 state than he found it. 



Thus when he makes a step in advance, it is so much actu- 

 ally gained. He has not got to go over the same ground 

 again. 



This is the way neighbor Wiseman manages his farm. 



If I had a hundred pages, instead of fifteen, I would talk 

 about managing a farm in a different way. 



But I think something may be learned from the experience 

 and example of neighbor Wiseman. 



HAMPDEN. 



From the Report of the Directors on Farms. 



The directors, in laying before the farmers of this county 

 the results of their experience and observation, not only for the 

 past year, but for the past three years, feel it a pleasure to be 

 able to notice the growing interest manifested by many of the. 

 farmers as seen in numerous well-directed efforts for a higher 

 state of cultivation ; improvement of old and worn-out lands, 

 and reclaiming those that have hitherto been entirely wortliless, 

 causing them to produce fine and luxuriant crops. It being 

 our duty in part to visit and examine those farms entered for 

 premium, a duty which has required not a little time, each 

 farm having to be visited twice each year, yet it has been 

 attended to with much pleasure and satisfaction. For we notice 

 a desire to excel in the cultivation of the soil in numerous 

 instances, where but a few years since no such interest was 

 manifested. Among the farms of which it becomes our duty 

 to speak more particularly in the printed report for this year, 

 are those entered by Pliineas Stedman of Chicopee, and H. M. 

 Sessions of South Wilbraham, who entered theirs in compe- 

 tition for the Society's premium of fifty dollars offered in 1856 

 for the best conducted and most improved farm during the 

 ensuing three years, taking into view the entire management 

 and cultivation for that period, including lands, buildings, fences, 

 orchards, crops, stock, <fec., with statements in detail relating to 

 the management of said farms. The formation of soils upon 



