. OI-. XVII. NO. *i. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER 



839 



[M 



S \CHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL SOCI- l in the preceding seasons. I have no wlieat sow,,. 

 T,,T.,r T,.,,.! TiTT.r./-.T.rnci Tu„„„ *wq1„<. nnrpa in rvfi. With ffrass Seed, har- 



ETY FARM REPORTS 



The subjoined is the account of Caleb Wether- 

 op. of Mai-lboro, County of Middlesex, of his 

 irru ; lor which the Society awarded a premium of 

 lie hundred dollar.s. Marlboro is one of the best 

 arming towns in the State, and Mr. Wetherbee is 

 ne of the best farmers in Marlboro. 



My dear Sir, — I herewith subjoin for you the 



|.nswers I received fi-om Mr. Wetherbee when I 

 Tas at his farm in September last. I thought Mr 

 illen's examination would be minute, without any 

 «ference to my accidental visit, but as Mr Weth- 

 irbee relied upon his answers to me and Mr Allen 

 ilso, I send them to you. 



Respectfully and very truly, yours, 



BENJ. GUILD. 

 Hon. p. C. Brooks. 



1. The farm consists of one hundred and eighty 

 lores, besides one hundred and twenty acres of 

 wood. 



2. The soil is a rocky bllick loam. 



3. The modes of improvement adopted, consist 

 in a rotation of crops, ditching and manuring. 



4. I have fifteen acres under cultivation; nine 

 )eing in corn, and six in potatoes. 



5. Twenty loads of manure are usually applied 

 to an acre ; ten fresh manure, ten compost. 



6. The green manure is spread, the compost is 

 out in the hills. 



7. My method of cultivation is, to break up 

 sward land in the Autumn— in the Spring manure, 

 larrow and plant potatoes. If corn were planted 

 irst, it would be destroyed by the worms ; after 

 3ne year of potatoes, corn is planted for one, and 

 sometimes two years, and the succeeding Spring 

 the land is laid down to grass with grain. 



8. About twenty-five acres are mowed, and I 

 get about sixty tons, or nearly two and a half tons 

 to the acre. 



9 & 10. I am not in the practice of irrigating 

 my land. 



I have twelve "acres in rye, with grass seed, har- 

 rowed over upon burnt ground, for pasture. The 

 wood has been recently cut off. 



17. I have laid down the present season, six 

 acres with barley as 'above, for mowing; twelve 

 acres with the rye, for pasture. 



18. Mv manure is thus prepared. One hun- 

 dred and fifty loads of loam and soil are carted 

 annually into the barn yard and pig-stye adjoining ; 

 that in the barn yard is ploughed every fortnight; 

 about thirty of the loads only are put in the pig- 

 stye, and it is ot\en filled up with meadow mud, 

 vegetables, loads of brush, wash of the dairy, &.c. 

 &c. In this way a large amount is accumulated. 



19. I keep five yoke of oxen. Two are fatted 

 annually, and their places supplied from the droves 

 from the country. I keep twenty-five cows of na- 

 tive breed. I do not raise any calves. [ buy heif- 

 ers in the Autumn, to come in in the Spring. It 

 is cheaper to buy than to raise my stock, i keep 

 two horses for the farm work. I have no sheep. 

 I have four barns. The average width is thirty 

 feet. The whole length one hundred and eighty- 

 nine feet- I have a cellar under only one of them. 

 It is 31 feet long by 11 in width, and used for a 

 vegetable cellar. I have no cover for the manure. 



20. My cows are of native stock. 

 23. The amount of butter made this year is not 



yet determined ; but the nett proceeds 



for 1835 were $736 66 at 22 cts. a lb. 

 '36 827 32 24 " " 



'37 601 50 24 " 



The year '37 I had three cows less, and Mrs. Weth- 

 erbee's ill health made the product of the dairy 

 less than before. These three years the farm was 

 managed at the halves, in consequence of Mrs. W's 

 ill healtli. I make no cheese but for home use. It 

 is difficult to procure female labor. I have a very 

 good milk cellar, and the wash of the dairy is very 

 important for the 'hogs, and the hogs for manure. 



23. I have sixteen hogs, bought of the New York 

 drovers. . 



24. They are fed with vegetables, weeds, daiiy 



tcmber for the purpose of being fiitted, amounted 

 to 2951 lbs. As to the weiglit of pork; I have fat- 

 ted sixteen hogs, twelve of which are killed. The 

 twelve which I have killed weighed in the market 

 4808 lbs. The remaining four I shall kill in about 

 two weeks. They will not vary much from 1600 

 lbs. I have tried the effects of apples and pump- 

 kins boiled together for about three months ; and 

 am fully satisfied that good pork can be made with 

 them, with the addition of a small quantity of meal. 

 I can truly state that I have never made so great 

 a weight of pork with so small a quantity of meal ; 

 and am fully of the opinion that apples are valua- 

 ble to feed hogs and cattle with, if properly ap- 

 plied. The quantity of corn wliich I have raised 

 this year, as nearly as I can ascertain without ac- 

 tual measurement, is 375 bushels— of potatoes 

 about 900 bushels— rye 193 bushels— barley 133 

 bushels — and fifty cart loads of pumpkins. 



In respect to labor, in addition to the regular 

 help, I think that ! have hired to the amount of one 

 man for five or six months. I have done a large 

 amount of work aside from the ordinary farm work, 

 such as getting in and harvesting the crops. I have 

 carted on to my low meadow lands about 300 loads 

 of gravel and loam. I have made from 200 to 300 

 rods of ditches in the same meadows ; besides 

 building a number of pieces of stone wall. All of 

 which is respectfully submitted. 



(Signed) CALEB WETHERBEE. 



Marlboro, Nov. 28, 1838. 



^, J „„ri wash until September, then they have meal, pota 



11. I mow twenty acres of low meadow, and "^asn> umu i^epuei , j^ making an 



n- r fnp^ ann nnmnkuis ; ana tlllS year l diu iiiaKniu an 



obtain less than a ton to an acre. Five acres of | toes arm pmnpKuis , j 



this land yielded, about seven tons of excellent j experiment wi^hap|^^^^^^^ 

 stock hay, of the fowl meadow grass. A piece of ^3- -from "Y "«= J 



less than five acres of similar land, produced ^ «- --l^^ ^r .nXa on the farm consists 

 "^t" rl<^St.::\hri:r:tm:f ;ery of one man by the yl at |170. , One man eight 



wet, and cart on gravelly soil from upland. The 

 success is very satisfactory. [This land was in 

 fact the most productive of his grass lands.] 



13. I have nine acres in corn. I plough and 

 spread manure as in the 5th and 6th answers, and 

 cross plough the ground. The crop is not yet har- 

 vested. I conjecture it will yield 50 bushels to 

 the acre. Five acres of it were in Canada corn, 

 planted in order to ripen early. This is the first 

 time of trial with this seed. 



14. I have six acres in potatoes, planted in hills. 

 I manured as in 5th and 6th answers. They are 

 hoed twice only. They will probably yield 300 

 bushels to the acre. The kinds are the blue, round 

 red, and Cumberland. 



15. Other vegetables are raised only for family 

 use. 



16. I have six acres in barley, laid down with 

 grass seed, for mowing. I sow two and a half 

 bushels of barley to the acre. Of grass seed, 3 

 pecks of herds grass, 1 peck of red top, and 5 or 6 

 lbs. of clover. No manure i3 applied, excepting 



months at $20 a month. Extra labor in haying 

 and other occasions, on walls &c., is equal to sjx 

 months. [This is supposed to bfe exclusive of his 

 family labor. The amount of this is not known.] 



27. I have never counted my apple trees. I sup- 

 pos^e there are from 500 to 800 over the farm. I usu- 

 ally put up about one hundred barrels of apples, and 

 make three hundred barrels of cider. Most of my 

 trees are grafted. AH the small trees are engrafted. 

 In the two last years I have set about three thous- 

 and scions. 



28. I raise a few pears, peaches, cherries and 



plums. 



29. I have not been troubled with the canker 

 worms. I find the borers troublesome, and not easily 

 destroyed. 



To Benj. Goild, Esq., Secretary oj the Massachu- 

 setts Agricultural Society. 



SiR^ The quantity of butter made from the Ist 



of April to the 1st of December from twenty five 

 cows, four of which were dried the first of Sep- 



At an argument for the -culture of Beet Sugar 

 in Michigan, the Committee of the Legislature 

 computed the consumption of foreign sugar in 

 that State at near half a million of pounds, or 

 $50,000. 



The approaching season bids fair to be very pro- 

 ductive in fruit. "The past winter has been so 

 mild that the trees are already giving evidences of 

 their returning vigor. The greatest danger is to 

 be apprehended from their too rapid advancement ; 

 in which case a lale frost would be nearly fatal. — 

 .V. Y. Sun. 



The New Orleans^ Picayune says the tiines are 

 harder than they were ever before known in that 

 city,— that the stores are full of all kinds of goods, 

 but nobody to buy tliem. The world will learn, 

 by and by, that overtrading is not so good as prt)- 

 ducing. — Boston Times. 



Ex-President Adams has accepted the invitation 

 of the New York Historical Society to pronounce 

 before it an address on the approaching fiftieth an- 

 niversary of the inauguration of Washington as first 

 President of the United States. 



A bill passed by the Mississippi Legislature, re- 

 lieves all the revolutionary soldiers in that State 

 from taxation, and allows them a pension of $100 

 per annum. 



Imprisonment for debt in Michigan, was abolish- 

 ed, immediately, totally, and forever, by the legis- 

 lature of that State on the 15th ult. 



The mulberry fever has got as far as Ohio — the 

 legislature of which State has passed a bill to en- 

 courage the culture of silk. 



Extremes.— On the 14th of March, snow fell to 

 the depth of a foot in Indiana;— on the 20th, the 

 mercury was at 75, in the shade. 



