ON THE CULTIVATION OF CROPS, 63 



ALLEN PUTNAM'S STATEMENT. 



To the Committee on Grain Crops: 



Gentlemen — One acre and 95-100 of a square rod 

 of ground was measured by Mr A. Brown, as the accom- 

 panying certificate shows, and has been in my possession 

 only about two years. What had been done to it in 

 years preceding, and what had been the crops from it, I 

 have no means of learning, except that of inquiring of 

 my neighbors. The information they furnish, renders it 

 probable, that about one half of it, having been planted 

 to corn two or three years, and not highly manured, 

 was in 1834 sowed to grain and grass seed, and that it 

 had given a crop of hay annually from that time up to 

 the present year. The other half was planted to corn 

 in 1834, '5 and '6, having applied to it each year about 

 10 cart loads per acre, of common farm manure. In 

 1837 it was sowed with grain and grass seed, and has 

 been in mowing since. Neither part is remembered to 

 have been top dressed since it was laid down. The 

 crop of hay, I am told, was light in 1840. I know it 

 was so the first year 1 mowed it — 1841. Then the yield 

 by estimation was not more than ten or twelve hun- 

 dred pounds of hay per acre. 



The soil is not uniform. Some limited spots are quite 

 gravelly, and on them, my crop this year suffered much 

 from drought for a few days. Other spots, the lov^ 

 ones, have a deep black and strong soil — these ma^ 

 make one fifth or one sixth of the acre. One portion 

 or one quarter perhaps of the whole, may still be showing 

 the beneficial efiects of having been once, some sixty or 

 an hundred years ago, the foundation and yards of a 

 dwelling house. The remainder is a loamy soil, of ordi- 

 nary quality, neither poor nor rich. 



About the 20th of September, 1841, I broke up the 

 whole held, about two acres. The depth of ploughing 

 then was not uniform ; the average was probably be- 

 tween six and seven inches. The land was left as the 

 plough laid it, until the spring. 



On the 2d and 3d of May, the present year, 1 put 

 evenly upon the two acres, 64 ox cart loads, about 30 



