PliOCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' ClUB. 585 



siderable stock on the place, and all fat, there is corn to sell. Now, 

 it has been stated that the ground on which this corn grew had been 

 covered with gravel four inches deep, and that plowing was shallow. 

 It is true that a gravel hill was carted on a portion of this reclaimed 

 marsh, but it was applied to the ground in grass, not to that in corn 

 and the plowing, as I have said, was full twelve inclies deep. To nie 

 it is a new idea that ground can be either too rich or be plowed too 

 deep for corn, whatever may be its character, providing it is well 

 drained. I will take the occasion to add that this farm, in its natural 

 state, required a great deal of work to make it productive, but it 

 seems to have been selected, and wiselj^ so, with other views than of 

 simple productiveness. The groves of oak, hickory, maple and ever- 

 greens, the ra])id mountain stream, and the roaring waterfall in a 

 dense forest, and the hills, glades, ravines, and nooks, beautified by 

 touches of art, give a value to one seeking relief from city cares. A 

 shelter belt of choice evergreens north of the green-house, and planted 

 in rows, and now grown as much as fifty feet high, is noticeable. The 

 branches of the outer rows are left untouched, and they sweep the 

 ground ; the branches of the inner roM^s are cut away to a consider- 

 able hight ; there are long, quiet aisles disturbed by no storms, not 

 dissimilar to the interior of a vast cathedral. The forest trees are 

 trimmed up that the trunks may become more serviceable for timber 

 and lumber ; and worthless underbrush is cut away that valuable 

 sorts may have a chance to grow, and they, too, are trimmed that 

 they may become shapely trees, all of which presents a specimen of 

 forest culture worthy of imitation. I noticed that the two barns had 

 become insufficient. Ever from the New Testament days, thrifty 

 farming has been indicated by the barns being found too small, and 

 I think that this fact indicates the kind of farming on this place full 

 as well as facts in greater detail could. The cattle are fed on corn 

 stalks, hay, and oat straw cut by horse power, to which meal of oats, 

 peas, and corn in the ear, wet M'ith water, is added. The horse-power 

 is also used to thrash grain and to saw wood, which fitted for the 

 stove, is piled up under shelter. The yield from the orchard this year 

 was fifty barrels of Eussets, fifty barrels of Greenings, Baldwins, &c., 

 and seventy-five barrels of cider apples. The yield of common oats 

 was about thirty bushels to the acre. Three pecks of Norway oats 

 were sown on new land of the marsh, and the product was forty-five 

 bushels, averaging tliirty-five pounds to the bushel. Considering 

 that almost all the work is done in the absence of the proprietor. 



