178 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



tilizing agent, viz., rotten eggs and plaster. Late last spring 

 I purchased one hundred and thirty-two boxes, in each of which 

 ten dozen of eggs had been packed in plaster for the Califor- 

 nia market. An opportunity for shipping them did not offer 

 till the eggs were spoilt. I purchased them for about what 

 the boxes were worth, and as yet have used but a small part ; 

 shall experiment another season on various crops. 



BROOM CORN. 



HAMPSHIRE. 



Statement of Avery D. Hubbard. 



The land on which my crop of broom corn was raised con- 

 tains just one acre, and is of a light, sandy soil. In 1852 a crop 

 of corn was raised, of about twenty bushels to the acre. In 

 the fall of the same year it was sown with rye, and had a fair 

 crop of about ten bushels to the acre. No manure of an} r kind 

 was used on it in 1853. The land is light and mellow, and is 

 easy to cultivate. Ten cartloads of compost manure were 

 spread upon it just before ploughing. The manure was made 

 the winter previous in my hogpen, which is directly under my 

 home barn. It is composed of about two parts of swamp 

 muck to one of horse manure, all thoroughly worked together 

 by the hogs, and did not cost over fifty cents a load, though I 

 have set the price a little higher. I ploughed about the 20th 

 of May, and planted on the 23d with Woodward's improved 

 planter, dropping about one-half bushel of super-phosphate of 

 lime in the hill. The rows were about three feet apart, and 

 the hills two feet apart. The corn was well stocked and very 

 even. The drought affected the crop but little, the land being 

 ploughed deep. The crop was gathered about the last of Sep- 

 tember, and has been scraped and the seed cleaned up. I have 

 made no account of carting or spreading the manure, as I think 

 it improved the land more than what the manure cost. 



