186 ^rASSACriUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Expense of manure and hauling, 

 seed and planting, 

 hoeing, 

 harvesting, 

 ploughing and harrowing, 



174 bushels at 30 cents per bushel, . 



Leaving the clear profit of .... . ^25 20 



Statement of Charles G. Davis. 



French Turnips. — As I entered for a premium upon French 

 turnips, I do not purpose to neglect making a statement of my 

 experience, even though I may not become entitled to the 

 premium. 



The new law requires all field crops to be weighed, and I 

 have taken the precaution this year to weigh every thing 

 which comes into or goes out of the barn, from the horse, cow, 

 heifer or pig from month to month, to the hay, oats, and other 

 produce, and have already seen the good effects qf this plan in 

 the more accurate and systematic knowledge which is derived 

 from it. I have thus been led to believe that most farmers 

 estimate a much larger amount of product than they actually 

 pruduce, especially in hay and oats. 



For instance, I supposed that I had a very good crop of 

 Swedes, with which I felt perfectly satisfied, but they weighed 

 as they went into the cellar, with roots trimmed, 10,265 

 pounds, which, at sixty pounds per bushel, gives one hundred 

 and seventy-one and five-sixths bushels, or at the rate of six 

 hundred and eighty-seven bushels per acre, hardly up to the 

 society's standard. 



I make this statement because I desire to see how it will 

 compare with the statements of others who may have weighed, 

 as they are required to do, every turnip of the merchantable 

 crop. 



The quarter-acre sowed was a part of a two-acre field, 

 ploughed and subsoiled last fall. It had been in grass for 

 more than twenty-five years, and how much longer I am unable 



