ESSEX SOCIETY. 23 



I cannot give you an exact account of my previous expenses in 

 managing my farm, as I have not been accustomed to keep an 

 account. 



I came on the farm in 1819. It then contained about fifty 

 acres, and kept six head of cattle. All the addition that has 

 since been made to the farm was pasture land. 



For planting, I usually plough soon after haying, and in the 

 spring spread from thirty to forty loads of compost manure, and 

 plough it in. I have, to some extent, practised ploughing grass 

 ground in the spring, and harrow in the manure, but prefer fall 

 ploughing. I plant one year, and sow it down (usually) with 

 oats and hay seed. As to rye, we have not been accustomed to 

 raise it, as it has been considered an uncertain crop. 



I top dress my land that is too wet for cultivation. I. have 

 purchased considerable manure, and have recently purchased a 

 meadow about one and a quarter mile from home, from whence 

 I have hauled considerable peat mud. I have, to some extent, 

 used dry and leached ashes; sometimes they have done well, 

 at other times very little or no benefit has been derived from 

 them. I have also used gypsum, and it has done well, espe- 

 cially on pasture land. 



Methuen, Nov. 3, 1845. 



Daniel P. King's Statement. 



Before the first of July, I had no intention of inviting you to 

 visit my farm, but then learning that there had been no entry 

 which would secure a report from you, I was unwilling that 

 the Society should lose the benefit of a report, for I think farm- 

 ers derive their best hints from the observations and experience 

 of practical farmers, embodied in such reports. 



I am far from thinking my management the best, or among 

 the best : but. as it has fully answered my reasonable expecta- 

 tions, I will, as briefly as possible, state it. 



My farm has great variety of soil, but the cultivated lands 

 are mostly a gravelly loam. I have about fifty acres in mow- 

 ing, tillage and orchard, twenty-five acres in meadow, one fourth 

 of which is peat, seventy-five acres in pasture, and several 

 tracts of wood land. I formerly planted from seven to ten acres 



