82 



REPORT ON MIXED CROPS. 



The onlj entry for a premium was by Mr. Cheever Newliall, of 

 Dorchester. We consider Mr. N.'s experiment to be eminently 

 successful, and award to him the Society's first premium of $6. 



J. M. MERRICK, 

 C. C. SEWALL, 

 C. BRECK. 



To the Trustees of the Norfolk Agricultural Society . 



Gentlemen : — Among the premiums offered by your Society 

 the present year, is one for the best conducted experiment in the 

 cultivation of mixed crops of grains and vegetables, in alternate 

 rows. 



In order to ascertain whether or not Indian corn and cabbages 

 could be grown together in this way profitably, I selected what I 

 supposed to be one acre of good clayey loam, which had been in 

 grass seven years, and had been mowed and pastured every year. 

 This was ploughed in the month of May, nine inches deep, with a 

 Michigan plough ; eight loads of night soil, after being thoroughly 

 mixed with about four cords of loam from the same field, were 

 spread evenly over the surface and well harrowed in. On the 

 first day of June, the land was marked out with a plough exactly 

 six feet apart, and cabbages set in the furrow two feet apart,— 

 three or four days afterwards, corn was planted between each row 

 of cabbages, in hills twenty-two inches apart, five or six kernels in 

 a hill ; at the first hoeing it was thinned out, leaving four stalks in 

 each hill. Both the cabbages and corn were hoed twice only. 



The cabbages were marketed in September and October, and 

 sold for one hundred and fifteen dollars. 



In the month of August, twelve barrels of the corn were gath- 

 ered green and sold in Boston for fifteen dollars ; the remainder 

 of the crop was cut up near the ground about the 15th of Sep- 

 tember, and shocked upon the field. The first week in October it 

 was husked, and produced eighty-eight baskets of corn on the 

 ear. On the eleventh of November, one basket was shelled and 

 weighed thirty-eight and one half pounds, making 3388 lbs., 

 which, divided by 56 lbs., the standard for a bushel, gives sixty 

 and one half bushels, which, together with the twelve barrels sold 



