50 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



nected with a roof over it of sufficient height to allow the sun 

 to strike under. On the south side of this yard is the piggery, 

 with sliding doors to connect with the barn yard. On the east 

 and west sides of this yard are gates, by which we pass into 

 one and drop the material for composting, and drive out of the 

 other. It will be seen, by the annexed statement, that a good 

 stock of hogs is kept through the year ; and we manage, by 

 scattering corn among the mud and manure, to make them per- 

 form most of the labor of composting. If they do not suffi- 

 ciently mix muck and manure, we shut up the hogs by the slid- 

 ing doors, and open both gates, and plough through and through, 

 and then let them on again. The shed is covered; and no 

 liquid but urine being there, any deficiency of moisture is made 

 up by letting in water from a four-thousand-gallon cistern, sup- 

 plied from the roofs of the out-buildings. These are so arranged 

 that the water is conducted from all of them into the cistern, 

 which is of wood, and stands above ground at a sufficient 

 height to discharge water through a pipe into a trough in front 

 of the cattle stalls, and also, when desirable, into the swill 

 boiler. 



These improvements have all been so uniformly done in the 

 summer months, that, but for the stock, no help would have 

 been required during the winter. There not having been, for- 

 merly, stock enough on the place to occupy all of one man's 

 time, a lot of twenty acres (about half in wood) was purchased, 

 with the view of the laborer's time being employed in winter, 

 and cultivating the other half, which was done with great suc- 

 cess; which I think will be conceded by the committee when 

 they examine the annexed account of the results of the agri- 

 cultural operations on the limited scale of the two pieces of 

 land above mentioned. 



With the view of arriving at definite conclusions as to the 

 profit of cultivating the different crops, I have caused to be 

 entered every night the labor and expense of each day in a 

 Farm Record. From this book I put the entries under the 

 separate hcad3, and have struck a balance, and transmit here- 

 with a copy of the same, embracing every entry in detail, which 

 the committee arc at liberty to make such use of as they 

 see fit. 



