1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



167 



and coarse grass, and leaving it to decay on the 

 ground. He advocated the leaving of all land 

 that would not pay for thorough fencing to grow 

 up to wood. A good stone wall is the right kind 

 of fonce, and when it is once built the material 

 is always at hand to repair any breach that may 

 be made in it. It does not pay, said he, to split 

 rails for fences in Massachusetts, where good tim- 

 ber is so valuable. 



Many of our pastures in Franklin county are 

 filling up with white weed, a kind of feed which 

 cattle or sheep are not particularly fond of, to say 

 the least. When the land is level it can be plowed 

 to great advantage, and by seeding to clover, and 

 the application of plaster, and turning everything 

 under that grows, for two or three years, he said 

 they could double the value of almost any poor 

 pasture, and if convenient to fence it, they raised 

 a good crop of buckwheat, and thus got a quick 

 profit, but all this time they took care to keep 

 the clover growing. 



He considered the system of soiling to be the 

 death of the pasture if extensively practiced. If 

 all the stock that are fed or pastured on the land 

 remain on it all the time, night and day, it will 

 hold its own tolerably well, if not stocked too 

 high or over-fed. He called attention, in clos- 

 ing, to the fact that the farmers in the western 

 part of the State noticed that the best pastures 

 were upon the eastern and southern slopes, shel- 

 tered by forests on the north and west, and the 

 best farmers there were coming to think it best 

 to preserve these forests, and wei'e even now plant- 

 ing maple, and other trees, for the purpose of af- 

 fording shelter to the lands. 



T. J. PiNKHAM, of Chelmsford, thought the 

 Chairman had taken the correct view of the cause 

 of the wearing out of farms, or rather pastui-e 

 lands. He said cur lands wei'e sick and debili- 

 tated from over-stocking, and this was true of 

 all kinds of lands. All the matter that was ever 

 created still exists, but we have taken it from the 

 western part of the State to the east, and we are 

 now doing it from the Western States, and if this 

 is not remedied, they will be as poor as our State 

 is. He did not believe that to increase the num- 

 ber of our cattle was to increase the value of our 

 land. 



C. L. Hartwell, of New Marlboro', spoke of 

 the prevalence of brush, fern, &c., in the old pas- 

 tures in the western part of the State, and wished 

 to know the most advantageous method of clear- 

 ing the land of them. Thousands of acres in the 

 Commonwealth were covered with hardback, and 

 although among these the ground is very fertile, 

 cows will not feed, and an economical method of 

 destroying these would be of great benefit to 

 farmers. Fire will not kill them, and mowing 

 will not effect the purpose, and these and white 



weed are a great drawback to improving our pas- 

 tures. He thought the cause of the deterioration 

 of our pastures was more in the division of our 

 lands than in over-stocking. Where cattle feed 

 the most, ferns, briars, &c., do not grow, and he 

 thought the evil of them might be, in a great 

 measure, remedied by dividing our pastures into 

 small lots, and changing cattle round. 



Mr. Brooks, of Princeton, had had forty years 

 experience in farming, but he thought it took 

 more than that time to learn the business. He 

 had tried several methods of getting rid of the 

 evils complained of by the previous speaker. He 

 had burned the "pod" and then scattered seed and 

 sometimes plaster over the land, and by this 

 means had got rid of it. In relation to hardback, 

 he had eradicated it by mowing two or three 

 years. He considered it was a great advantage 

 for a farmer to divide his lands into small lots, 

 as by this means warmth was derived from the 

 walls, and as the snow always lay in greater 

 quantity under the walls, and as all knew there 

 was much fructifying matter in snow, he attrib- 

 uted the fine vegetation that was always observed 

 under walls to this cause. Speaking of the extra 

 work in plowing small lots, he said from his ex- 

 perience he had found that these could be plowed 

 as cheap in proportion as large ones. We want 

 manure on our lands, but he said he was satis- 

 fied we could carry off one-quarter of the pro- 

 ducts of our farms and they would not deteriorate, 

 and if we could not keep our cattle on the pas- 

 tures three-quarters of the year we must furnish 

 fertilizers to the land from some other source. 

 He knew that, in his section, the farmers had 

 mostly some money at interest, and as it was a 

 fact that half the men who were using this 

 money failed every twenty years, he knew it 

 would be better for the farmers to use their 

 money on their land, and they would be sure of a 

 profit instead of an entire loss. He thought that 

 money spent judiciously on pasture lands was an 

 excellent investment. The speaker said that, 

 thirty years ago, he had a pasture which one of 

 his neighbors valued at $20 per acre, and it re- 

 turned him at that time $1,20 simple interest; 

 now the same party estimated the same land to 

 be worth $200 per acre, and with an investment 

 of $50 per acre it paid the interest on the pres- 

 ent value. He urged every man to renovate what 

 he could — the more the better, and related an 

 anecdote in illustration of the paying advantage 

 of this. 



Mr. Brooks spoke of the benefit of draining, 

 and thought this could be done well and cheaply 

 with stones. Speaking of manure, he said a 

 bushel of corn would produce more manure than 

 would grow another bushel, and he argued this 

 from the fact that a ton of hay fed to an ox will 



