76 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



ten cents a busliel for them, whicli lie tliought cheap; but 

 latterly, by a change in the brewers' process — the grains being 

 cut to pieces — the nutriment is nearly all taken out, and 

 though but eight cents a bushel is the price, Mr. Eaton thinks 

 them entirely too dear at that. 



During the last season, Mr. Eaton has kept one hundred and 

 thirty-five hogs, which are fed on the swill collected by the city 

 of Boston. An important object in the keeping of these hogs, 

 is the increase of manure, to be used in increasing the products 

 of the farm. He top-dresses grass land with ten to fifteen ox- 

 cart loads of manure to the acre, and for tillage crops manures 

 much heavier — sometimes, as for roots, and Indian corn, as 

 high as forty loads to the acre. The root crop is chiefly carrots, 

 "which are fed mostly to horses, at the rate of six or seven quarts 

 to each horse per day. 



We have said that an acre and a half of Mr. Eaton's farm is 

 not subject to tillage. It is devoted to a more profitable pur- 

 pose, as it pi'oduces three good crops annually — two in summer 

 and one in winter — the latter, probably, the most profitable. 

 The two summer crops are hay, and the winter crop is ice. In 

 answer to our inquiry as to the effect of winter flowage on the 

 hay crop, Mr. Eaton stated that the crop had rather increased 

 in quantity, and that the quality had not deteriorated. It is 

 not unlikely that the high manuring of some of the surround- 

 ing land may have had an influence in these results. We 

 should add, that ]\[r. Eaton bought this farm eight years ago, 

 giving three hundred dollars an acre for some of it, and that it 

 did not then produce hay enough to keep ten cows. 



The farm of J. W. Robertson, Quincy, adjoins that of ^Ir. 

 Eaton, before noticed. The homestead consists of about seventy 

 acres. lie keeps about forty head of cattle — all cows, except 

 one or sometimes two yoke of oxen — and seven horses. The 

 main object is milk. He has one hundred and forty hogs, which 

 are fed on Boston swill. We should state that most of the 

 hogs kept by ^Ir. Robertson and JMr. Eaton have been bought 

 at Brighton Market ; but !Mr. Robertson is making the experi- 

 ment of rearing some. Ills mode of feeding stock is similar to 

 that followed by ^Ir. Eaton, except that he uses Indian corn 

 meal instead of cotton-seed. His premises, like those of his 



