36 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Jan. 
Tomatoes are sown under glass; and as it is impor¬ 
tant in early spring to economise the room in the 
hot beds, they are first transplanted from the seed 
bed to a vacant space in the hot bed, six inches 
apart, and when too large to stand so closely, they 
are again transplanted twelve inches apart, and when 
the weather is right, they are taken up and placed 
in the open plat where they are to mature. At one 
picking of tomatoes, this season, 32 bushels were ob¬ 
tained, which, from their earliness, sold at $1.75 
per bushel. Pole beans are produced early by dig¬ 
ging large deep holes for the hills and filling them 
partly with fresh hot horse manure; over that a suita¬ 
ble covering of earth is placed, and the beans are 
planted. For all early vegetables the ground is 
stoutly dressed with hot horse manure, which is 
plowed in, and which, by its fermentation, keeps 
the land warm and mellow, and brings the plants 
along very fast. Early potatoes are first started 
either on manure heaps undergoing fermentation, or 
in hot beds; and when the weather will admit, and 
the sprouts are six to eight inches long, they are 
carefully taken up by hand and transplanted in the 
drills in the open plats. This process forwards the 
crop from fifteen to twenty days. On one quarter 
of an acre, managed in this way, this season, 81 
bushels of marketable potatoes were dug, which, 
for their earliness, sold at $1.75 per bushel, or at 
the rate of $567, per acre. 
In visiting Mr. Pierce’s grounds, I was most inte¬ 
rested in a field on the borders of Spy Pond. Origi¬ 
nally a high bank, shut down nearly to the water. 
This bank was dug away and tipped into the pond, 
until a long strip, or three acres of land was made, 
which was raised eighteen inches above the surface 
of the water. The earth taken to make this land, 
was a sandy and fine gravelly subsoil, with the ex¬ 
ception of two or three inches of the top, which was 
surface mould, placed there to form an immediately 
tillable soil. The waters of the pond will come into 
and stand in a hole dug any where on this land, 
more than eighteen inches deep; and the moist exha¬ 
lations from below keep the surface so moderately 
moistened, that the growing crops do not suffer in 
the driest seasons. The land being of a sandy and 
fine gravelly nature, it admits of much moisture 
without becoming cold, heavy or baked; and as it 
has been abundantly enriched with manure, it pro¬ 
duces the finest of vegetables when, perhaps, other 
fields are suffering severely with drouth. The crops 
are grown upon ridges or beds, formed by back fur¬ 
rowing with the plow, and varying from two to six 
feet in width. This is done to prevent any bad ef¬ 
fects that might otherwise arise from heavy rains, 
falling upon a flat surface, already moist enough. 
In general, three crops are taken from this land, each 
year. For instance, on the wide beds, a row of early 
beets grows on each border; a row of hills of sum¬ 
mer squash in the centre, and celery in the dead fur¬ 
rows. The beets are first off, and then the squashes, 
and the soil composing the beds is used in earthing 
up and bleaching the celery. Mr. Pierce’s average 
weekly sales of vegetables for nine months, in 1849, 
were as follows: 
In March,... $49 00 
April,. 50 00 
May, .. 80 00 
June,. 90 00 
July......... 140 00 
August,. 139 00 
September,. 140 00 
October,.. .. 180 00 
Nbvember, .............. 39 00 
The total cash receipts for the sale of fruits and 
vegetables, for 1849, were as follows: 
Of Peaches,... .. $591 GO 
Porter Apples,. 148 60 
Bartlett Pears,... 18 12 
Bell do ..... 4 75 
Greening Apples,. 12 50 
Baldwin do (windfalls.).-.... 36 00 
39bbls do picked,...'. 185 50 
$997 07 
Total vegetables of all kinds,. 2,629 72 
$3,626 79 
These are certainly large receipts to derive from 
the products of twenty-six acres of land. It is true 
that Mr. Pierce has the advantage of a ready mar¬ 
ket and good prices; but after making every allow¬ 
ance that exists, or can be thought of, I think we 
must all conclude that high cultivation is the true 
system; that 
“ ’ Tis folly in the extreme to till 
Extensive fields, and till them ill; 
For more one fertile acre yields 
Than the huge breadth of barren fields.” 
I next visited Leonard Stone, Esq., at his farm 
in Watertown. Mr. Stone’s home farm consists of 
15 acres of woodland and pasture, 25 acres of re¬ 
claimed meadow, and 80 acres devoted to fruit, mar¬ 
ket gardening, and a rotation of field crops. The 
largest portion of his tillage land is a stiff, moist 
loam, resting on a substratum of clay; and although 
the surface is quite rolling, it requires a great deal 
of draining to fit the soil for profitable tillage. The 
balance of the tillage-land is a light, dry, warm loam, 
with some very gravelly knolls, and the whole rests 
upon an open gravelly subsoil. 
The owner has for several years been clearing his 
tillage-fields of stones, which were formerly so nu¬ 
merous as to be much in the way of the plow. They 
have been sunk in the construction of drains, and 
thus the surface of about every acre of the stiff 
land has been relieved of both stones and surplus 
moisture. The ditches for drains are dug about 
three feet deep, and of convenient width to work in; 
in them, drains arc first laid, six inches wide and ten 
inches high, of small cobble stones, and covered with 
larger sizes of the same; the ditches are then filled 
with small stones, to within a foot of the surface of 
the ground; a layer of shavings or tough sods is 
then put on, and the work leveled up with loose 
earth. The drains thus constructed have stood from 
eight to twelve years, and still work well. 
