29 



The live stock of the farm consists of about fifty head, most of 

 Avhich are cows, the milk from them being sent to Boston. The 

 cows have generally been selected from the common stock of the 

 country, but a few Ayrshires have latterly been kept, the products 

 from which have been such as to induce Mr. Adams to try the 

 blood more extensively. He purchased in 1859 the Ayrshire bull 

 Troon, imported the previous year by the Massachusetts Society 

 for Promoting Agriculture, and is rearing several heifers, the pro- 

 geny of this bull from selected cows of the herd. 



The barns on the farm are commodious and convenient. The 

 stock is not kept at the barns, except in the winter season, being 

 pastured in summer. Much of the fodder is cut for the stock — 

 a two-horse endless chain poAver, by which threshing and other 

 work may be performed, operating the cutter. 



In another part of the town, near Braintree, the Committee 

 called at another of Mr. Adams's farms — one on which stands the 

 ancient mansion (ancient for our country) in which the two Presi- 

 dents, John and John Quincy Adams, were born. Its style of 

 architecture by no means agrees with the fashion of this genera- 

 tion, but it is still in good condition, and under the management of 

 a neat New England housewife, its interior presents an appear- 

 ance of comfort which may often be sought in vain in more modern 

 and pretentious dwellings. 



This farm, consisting of about 200 acres, has been leased for 

 several years to Mr. Charles A. Spear, whose management pre- 

 sents such an example of the profits of farming as is seldom seen 

 in this country. He pays a rent which is considered equal to a 

 fair interest on the value of the farm — not, of course, what some 

 of it might be worth for house-lots — and makes for himself a sat- 

 isfactory profit — thus making tenant farming profitable to both 

 landlord and tenant. By the improvement of some portions of the 

 farm and greatly increasing the growth of grass, he has been ena- 

 bled to more than double the number of cattle kept. The im- 

 provements have been expensive, but have still been made to pay. 

 On some boggy and wetlands, which were formerly actually worth- 

 less, so far as regards the production of a crop, he has expended 

 ^100 per acre in drainage and covering with earth — mostly gravel 

 — yet it has for five years paid the interest of more than ^200 an 

 acre. It has produced an average of more than three tons (at 

 two cuttings) of good hay to the acre each season. The produce 

 of the farm is converted chiefly into milk. 



The farm of Jacob F. Eaton, Quincy, consists of forty acres, all 

 of which, except an acre and a half, is adapted to tillage. It is 

 a milk farm, and the number of cows and other stock kept, is un- 

 usually large in proportion to the extent of land — being twenty- 

 nine head of cattle and eight horses. The farm has produced all 



