it. This is a great mistake. The bounty of the Commonwealth, and the awards of this society, do not contemplate the mere outlay of money. The combination of economy, judg ment, taste, and labor is what should be aimed at; and other things being equal, we deem that the most meritorious case in which much has been done with comparatively small means. What we most desire is to see the farmer "magnifying his of fice," alive to all its dignity, facilities, and excellence. Believing, as we do, that there is no profession which requires more good sense, and affords more real enjoyment, than this, we earnestly wish that farmers, as a body, would seek a higher development of their own intellectual nature, while they render their farms more and more productive.

CHARLES BABBIDGE, Chairman.

Statement of Josiah Bigelow.

The farm I invited you to inspect, known as the "Dana Place," in Groton, I purchased in the fall of 1849; it contained about forty-eight acres-keeping at that time one horse, one cow, and a few hens, and from it were sold yearly about eight or ten tons of hay, and sometimes a few winter apples, besides what were raised and consumed by the family. Onehalf of the farm had, probably, never been ploughed, but was used as mowing land, and the quality and quantity of hay was inferior. The other half was considered by most people as rather dry and poor land. The buildings were badly arranged, inconvenient, and out of order, and the whole enclosed by an old and weak rail fence. Every thing assumed an unpromising appearance except the location, which was good. I remodelled the dwelling house, added two rooms, made a dairy, cellar, and ice house in the north part, and a cistern capable of holding a supply of water sufficient for the dryest time. I have made about eighty rods of close board fence, five and six feet high, with stone underpinning, to enclose about six acres with the house and other buildings, and built a new barn, one hundred feet long, now filled with hay, with a good cellar under the whole. I have also put up a building for a granary, henery, and pig

gery. I have removed some unsightly elevations to fill up hollows equally unsightly, to the amount of not less than two thousand loads; have ploughed for the first time all the swales and other lands never before ploughed; and have enclosed the farm with a substantial picket fence, with a stone underpinning. I have set about one thousand fruit, besides some hundreds of forest trees, buckthorn and arbor vitæ hedges, shrubbery, &c. and all within four years from last spring, the time I commenced my farming operations. I have also ingrafted about fifty large apple trees, out of one hundred that had ceased bearing, which give a very fair return this year. On what was considered the poorest land, I raised last year one hundred and six bushels of shelled corn to the acre, for which I obtained a premium. I have for the last two years raised not less than three hundred bushels of shelled corn, and expect as much this year, although an unfavorable season. I have purchased thirty acres of land, which in part has been, and the whole is intended for, a pasture, adjoining my farm, and a small wood lot at a little distance; but I have confined all my operations to about thirty acres of the first purchase, from which I have cut about all my hay, say fifty-five to sixty tons. I hope to have about six hundred bushels of carrots this year, about the quantity I have had for several years before this on the same piece of land, together with wheat, oats, corn, potatoes, &c. I do not, by any means, think my farm in a high state of cultivation, as it could profitably be made to produce one-third more than at present.

In 1852 I stall fed eleven thousand pounds of beef, and one ton of pork; in 1853, six thousand pounds of beef, and three thousand six hundred of pork; and have fed out all the hay and grain, thus far, that had been raised on the place. I hired a pasture in the town, for which I paid seventy dollars per year, this year and last. It may probably be asked how I procured manure to renovate my farm in so short a time. The first two years I purchased about twenty cords, at four dollars per cord, which I intermixed with muck, (of which I purchased an acre near by,) and of which I have used five or six hundred loads within four years, which, together with what I have been enabled to make in all ways, has amounted to a great deal each year.

I have used the meadow muck with very satisfactory results on my dryest land, and never have applied it (after removing the acidity by lime or exposure to the atmosphere) without being favorably impressed of its utility on land of sandy loam, applied with or without other fertilizing matter. I have endeav ored to make manure in every possible way by giving swine a good share of loam and muck, and helping them turn it over with a fork. In this way I make three parcels in the year. The same operation is gone through with in cattle yards, and before winter sets in I have as much muck in the barn cellar as will absorb all the moisture of the droppings, and no more -as I find it lost time to cart in and out more than is wanted for that purpose. As the cellar does not freeze, the manure is worked over in stormy weather; and I find that with what is made by the house vault, the hens, and in all other ways, I have pretty large piles in the spring. I have seen good effects from guano and other concentrated manures when fortunate in the application of them just before a shower. I have this year one man and boy eight months, and one for the year, with additional help in haying time, and a few days at other times. GROTON, September, 1854.

Statement of Robert Murray,

FOR MISS S. GREENE.

This farm has been in the charge of the subscriber since the year 1835. For convenience' sake, therefore, the report is made in my name in behalf of Miss Greene, the proprietor.

The farm consists of one hundred and thirty acres. In 1835, the first year I was upon the place, we cut not over three small horse cartloads of very poor hay. No part of the farm was then under cultivation except, of course, that part of the land appropriated to the garden. There was no farm barn upon the place, and no necessity for any. All the hay we cut was put in one corner of the carriage house, and there was plenty of room for it. In 1836 we built a barn sixty feet square. Since that time we have added one hundred and ten feet of barn, with cellar under the whole, besides two corn barns, and other build

ings, as the increased productions of the farm required. I now feel the want of still more barn room. The farm is divided as follows: About twenty acres of woodland or ornamental forest trees, eighteen acres of pasturage, and the balance tillage and mowing. I have reclaimed four small lots of meadow, amounting in the whole to about five acres. Each of the lots is small. This fact, as a large proportion of the expense consists in the draining, makes the cost of reclaiming these five acres much greater than what it would be in ordinary cases. The average expense has been two hundred and fifty dollars per acre. I was obliged to build one hundred and sixty-three rods of cov ered drain, with stone, fifteen inches in the clear, covered with slate stone brought from Newton, and placed so far beneath the surface as to be out of the reach of the plough. If there had been one hundred acres of meadow instead of five, the same amount of drain might have been sufficient. I took my levels in draining so as to be able to keep the water eighteen inches below the surface. In this way I can make it either tillage or grass land as I see fit. the average two tons to the acre. this land was entirely worthless. at least ten per cent. upon the whole amount expended upon it, and is decidedly the most productive land on the place.

When in grass, I cut upon Previous to the draining, Since that time it has paid

All my manure is used in a compost state; the materials being barn manure, night manure, and meadow mud, all mixed together, broken up fine and thrown into heaps at least four feet high, using no more barn and night manure than will insure a good fermentation. I always throw it over at least twiceam not satisfied with the fermentation until I find the thermometer rises to ninety degrees when plunged into the heap. I then consider it fit for the land. For all crops I put upon the land at the rate of seven cords to the acre; I spread upon the surface, and either harrow or work in with the cultivator; this last is preferable.

I seed down in the fall, from the first to the twentieth of September, using three pecks of herds grass and half a bushel of red top to the acre. I use no clover. I prefer abundant seeding, giving a close surface, and leaving no space for weeds. I work in the grass seed with the spring-tooth horse hay rake,

with birch branches tied on the teeth; it does the work in a better manner than the old-fashioned bush harrow.

I have sometimes used lime and plaster on the land as an experiment, but never with any good success. Guano I consider too expensive for a farm. I plough from ten to eleven and a half inches deep with the Michigan plough. I consider deep ploughing as absolutely essential to a good crop, particu larly in a dry season.

I kept the last season eight cows, one yoke of oxen, two horses, and from six to ten swine. Each fall I am in the habit of purchasing fifteen heifers with calf, to keep over, to eat up the corn stover, oat straw, &c., and to make manure. These I sell again in the spring at a liberal advance. To do the work on the farm, I require and use one pair of horses and one yoke of oxen. The kind of swine I prefer is a cross of one-half native and one-half Suffolk. For cows, I have found the native and Ayrshire half bloods the best for dairy purposes.

In 1853 my wheat field consisted of about four acres, from which I received one hundred and two bushels of wheat, which I sold for one hundred seventy-eight dollars and forty-six cents, and the straw, of which there were six tons, for eighty-five dollars and sixty-five cents, making the whole amount of receipts from this single field two hundred sixty-four dollars and eleven cents. My wheat I sow about the tenth of September, two bushels to the acre. I do not approve of using manure as a top dressing. I think that, by this mode of applying manure, at least fifty per cent. of the strength is lost by evaporation.

I keep a journal of all my farming operations, under various heads. The farm is divided into nine different lots. I keep a separate account, debt and credit for each lot, charging it with the amount expended upon it day by day, by way of labor, or for manure and seed, and crediting it with the products received from it. At the close of the year the balance is struck, showing at a glance the gain or loss for the season.

In the statement below I give the result of my farming operations for the year 1853, taken from my books. The results of the present year I, of course, cannot as yet ascertain; I can guess how much corn and wheat, &c., I am going to have. But as the committee observed, I have no column in my book for