214 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



distance from each other. Their average length was from six 

 to ten inches. Mr. Perry's carrots have long been at work 

 under ground silently and secretly ; and had his statement been 

 filed with the secretary in time, they probably would have made 

 as clean a sweep on the root crop premiums of Worcester 

 county as the Know Nothings have of the other political parties 

 in Massachusetts. The weight of his carrots was twenty-one 

 thousand three hundred and sixty-seven pounds, and sold at the 

 rate of one hundred and six dollars and ninety-eight cents for 

 the lot. Cost of raising the same, forty-five dollars, leaving a 

 balance for profit of sixty-one dollars and ninety-eight cents. 

 Mr. Perry thinks his crop would have been larger if it could 

 have remained in the ground a few days longer ; for, on trying 

 an experiment with a wire around one of his carrots one and a 

 half inches in diameter, he found its increase in circumference 

 from November 1 to November 4 to be one-third of an inch. 



Could not Mr. Perry, and all others, find a remedy for the 

 above difficulty in sowing their seed earlier in the season ? 

 Notwithstanding Mr. Perry's crop of carrots was of more 

 weight, and raised at less expense, than the other two competi- 

 tors, he is debarred from a premium by reason of his delay of 

 one day in filing his statement with the secretary. Therefore 

 the committee recommend that a gratuity of four dollars be 

 paid to him out of the society's funds. 



The committee, after taking all the different facts into con- 

 sideration, award the first premium of six dollars to Harvey 

 Dodge, of Sutton, for the best crop of carrots raised on his 

 half acre of land; and five dollars to William T. Merrifield, of 

 Worcester, for the next best crop of carrots on the half acre 

 entered by him. 



Statement of Samuel Perry. 



The half acre of carrots which I enter for the society's pre- 

 mium for 1854 has had carrots in it, with some variations, for 

 three previous years, having had beets, parsnips, and oats on 

 some parts, without showing any perceptible difference between 

 the crops of carrots following these various other crops and 

 that on land occupied by carrots for four successive years. 



