ESSEX SOCIETY. 25 



corn fodder included, to keep my stock, and some twelve or fif- 

 teen tons to spare. I have carried to market twelve cords of 

 wood, always taking a return load of manure. I purchase 

 annually about forty-five dollars worth of manure, which I 

 never use without composting. I have used for planting, sow- 

 ing and top dressing, two hundred and eighty loads of compost. 

 In the barn yard and pig pens, I make about one hundred and 

 ten loads, and at leisure times get out peat muck and cart it into 

 the field where it is to be used. I then mix one cord of stable 

 or barn yard dung (preferring the stable) with four cords of 

 muck ; after lying till the heap heats, it is again thrown over, 

 and a few feet of fresh dung or spent ashes added, if necessary. 

 I have found this compost better than clear manure, and equal 

 to any thing except pig manure for corn and potatoes on grav- 

 elly or sandy loams. I have now on hand more than one hun- 

 dred loads of this compost, besides a good supply in the barn 

 and pig yards, and I could not farm without it. With this kind 

 of manure, I this year had sixty bushels of corn to the acre, 

 without any extra labor or care. One fourth of an acre pro- 

 duced at the rate of seventy bushels, and I raised fifty-five 

 bushels of oats on one acre ; no great yields, certainly ; but the 

 expense of cultivation, too, was moderate. All the land on 

 which I have this year raised potatoes, corn and oats, has been 

 since ploughed, manured, and laid down with rye and grass 

 seed, with the exception of one acre of meadow, which, in April, 

 I sowed with oats and grass seed after spreading three hundred 

 pounds of guano ; the oat straw was very rank, and the grass 

 has started handsomely. I have tried guano, salt, saltpetre and 

 ashes this season, but I forbear to speak further of results, be- 

 cause you, gentlemen, have seen them, and will determine for 

 yourselves. 



My corn land I usually plant but one year; it is always 

 ploughed in the fall, because the team is in better condition for 

 work, more vegetable matter is ploughed under, and the soil 

 sooner becomes mellow. I have practised ploughing in August 

 or September, for rye ; laid the furrow flat, rolled it, spread on 

 from twenty-five to thirty loads of compost (thirty bushels to 

 the load), harrowed well, then sowed one peck of herds grass, 

 4 



