140 

 STATEMENT OF GEO. B. LORING. 



The hay crop which I enter for premium was raised on four 

 and three-eighth acres of land ; the measurement being taken 

 from an accurately surveyed map of my farm. 



The soil is heavy and clayey. Five years ago it was 

 thorough-drained ; was ploughed at that time, in the autumn ; 

 having yielded a small crop of poor grasses the summer pre- 

 vious. Since draining it has borne one crop of corn, two crops 

 of roots, one crop of barley. The barley was sown in the 

 spring of 1861, and yielded fifty bushels to the acre; it was 

 two-rowed. With the barley was sown half a bushel of herds- 

 grass, half a bushel of red-top and ten pounds of clover to the 

 acre. The grass seed was harrowed in with a light harrow and 

 heavily rolled. The barley was harvested [in August ; and I 

 cut the same season fifteen hundred pounds of clover hay to 

 the acre. 



I found this spring that the grass was somewhat winter- 

 killed — the clover being entirely destroyed in many places. 

 As the season went on, however, the herdsgrass came into the 

 vacant places, and the growth of grass was very luxuriant. 



The first crop was cut in the middle of July, and amounted, 

 by measurement, to seventeen tons and one-half. 



The second crop was cut in the middle of September, and 

 amounted, by measurement, to nine and one-half tons. The 

 whole amount of hay raised on the four and one-eighth acres 

 is twenty-seven tons. 



It was impossible to weigh the crop ; and in making the es- 

 timate of the weight, the solid feet of the mows have been 

 divided by seven hundred, as the divisor most applicable to 

 hay recently packed. 



The land had been heavily manured for the corn and root 

 crops that had been raised upon it. 



Salem, Nov, 7, 1862. 



