FARMS. 79 



$200 per yoke ; are so "well fed that they would make good 

 beef at any time ; are worked about three years on tlie aver- 

 age, when, with a little additional feeding, and a short term 

 of rest, they are sol'd to the butcher for about the amount 

 of the first cost. They are fed chiefly with Indian corn 

 meal and hay. 



Several places were visited in West Roxbury. Arthur W. 

 Austin, of this town has a farm of seventy-two acres — thirty- 

 one of which, however, have been added during the last year. 

 All the buildings have been erected by Mr. Austin, who has 

 resided here for fourteen years. He has made striking improve- 

 ments. His first object was to enclose the land with a perma- 

 nent fence, which has been erected in the shape of very handsome 

 faced wall, of so solid and substantial a character, that his 

 heirs and successors, to remote generations, will hardly have 

 occasion to touch a stone for the purpose of repair. The 

 materials of which the wall was built were obtained on the 

 land, and consisted chiefly of boulders of pudding-stone, the 

 removal of which was necessary to render the soil readily 

 workable by the plough. There were several acres of wet 

 meadow on a border of the farm, besides several wet spots in 

 the upland. The meadow has been drained and brought into 

 the cultivated grasses, producing two heavy crops of hay in a 

 season. Some of the other wet spots have, by digging out a 

 portion of the soil, been converted into reservoirs for water — 

 drains conveying to them the surplus water of the surrounding 

 land. Several of these sheets of water are already formed, 

 and a much larger one will be made by excavating the rich 

 muck from -a spot on the tract lately purchased. They add 

 much to the beauty of the place, occupied as they are by num- 

 bers of water fowl — swans, various species, and several varieties 

 of geese, several species of wild ducks, and esteemed domestic 

 breeds. 



Fruit trees have been planted to a considerable extent, and 

 have succeeded well. The fine collection of apples presented by 

 Mr. Austin at the last exhibition of this society, will be remem- 

 bered. Our attention was attracted by a piece of corn, which 

 several of the committee considered very heavy, and promising 

 the largest yield of any they had seen the present year. 



