46 



MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



find it equal to yard manure, and better for corn. I usually 

 make fifty loads of compost. I draw twenty-five loads of muck 

 to my cornfield in the fall. About the first of April following 

 I draw out to this muck heap twenty loads of barn-yard manure. 

 I add five hundred pounds of plaster and fifty bushels of oyster- 

 shell lime. As soon as the frost is out of the ground I mix 

 these ingredients. When the compost heap begins to warm I 

 pitch it over, to prevent burning. The manure will be well 

 rotted and fermented and fit for use by the time it is wanted 

 for planting. I have never failed of a good corn crop with this 

 manure. I compost all my manure, and usually make from two 

 hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty loads annually. 



I till about fifty acres in nine years, breaking up five acres 

 of sward land each year. My system of rotation is, first, a 

 corn crop, then oats, and lastly grass. .1 raise enough pota- 

 toes for my own use, and very little' rye. 



My farm is usually stocked with twenty head of cattle in the 

 winter, of which about one-third are fattened and sold in the 

 spring. 



My hay and grain are fed out to cattle on the place ; but my 

 dairy products, annually sold in market, average not less than 

 five hundred pounds of cheese and two hundred and fifty pounds 

 of butter. 



During the present year I have cultivated six acres in corn 

 and potatoes, and four acres in oats, and mowed twenty acres. 

 The labor has been wholly performed by myself, except for 

 sixteen days in the hay season, when I hired a man to assist me. 



Products : — 



30 tons of hay, at $12.50, . 



5 acres of grass, sold at $11.50, 



250 bushels of corn, at $1, 



150 bushels of oats, at G2i cents, 



Pasturage of 13 horned cattle, 26 weeks, at 



331 cents, .... 

 25 bushels of potatoes, at 50 cents, 

 20 bushels of apples, at 50 cents, 

 527 pounds of cheese, at 10 cents, 

 250 pounds of butter, at 20 cents, 



