MIDDLESEX SOCIETY." 13 



raised 18 inches, shingled and clapboarded it, and made a cellar 

 under the whole. The cellar was divided. in the centre, length- 

 wise, by a substantial partition, — one half to be used for ma- 

 nure, the other for keeping roots and fruits. He set 200 apple 

 trees in the spring, and built 30 rods of stout stone wall. At the 

 time when the committee made their visit, the second week in 

 September, there were growing 16 acres of corn, 2 of potatoes, 

 and 2 of ruta bagas. He had raised 4 acres of oats, and cut 

 40 tons of English and 4 of meadow hay. A portion of his 

 farm, 50 acres, being mostly a worn-out and stony pasture, he 

 purchased in the spring of 1845. Of this portion, he had 

 ploughed and brought into a tolerably productive condition, 16 

 acres. 



The third premium is awarded to Charles Stearns, of Bille- 

 rica, who owns a small farm situated on the southwesterly side 

 of the old Middlesex Turnpike, in a region whose physical 

 features would discourage and defeat all ordinary attempts at 

 improvement It is enclosed by neat and substantial stone 

 walls, and has produced, the present year, 16 tons of hay, 30 

 bushels of rye, 30 bushels of corn, and 100 bushels of potatoes. 

 The labor has been all done by Mr. Stearns and his two sons, 

 the eldest of whom is about 14 years old ; and they have 

 earned $70 in the last six months by laboring elsewhere. The 

 statement of the produce may seem small to those who have 

 not examined the premises, but the committee had no hesita- 

 tion in believing that the rewards, which the society proposes 

 for the exercise of labor, could be nowhere more appropriately 

 bestowed. 



Two other farms were presented for premiums. One of them 

 offered by Jabez Huntington, of Marlborough, had already re- 

 ceived the second premium, and, consequently, was a candidate 

 only for the first ; and the committee would willingly have 

 awarded it, had not the farm at West Cambridge outrun all 

 competition. Mr. Huntington gave to the committee an inter- 

 esting statement exhibiting, in detail, the improvements he had 

 made on the farm, — which he had owned eleven years, — in the 

 clearing up of brush-wood, the reclaiming of brake-swamps 

 and bog meadows, the construction of stone wall, (425 rods 



