Statement of J. A. Merriam.

My farm which is entered for the society's premium contains sixty acres and thirty-eight rods, in two separate lots. The home lot contains forty-three acres and one hundred and twenty-seven rods, and is divided into nine acres and sixty rods of woodland, twenty-one acres and five rods of pasture, nine acres and thirty-six rods of mowing, and four acres and twenty-eight rods of ploughing, and one lot containing sixteen acres and seventy-one rods, of which about four acres are an alder swamp and birch knoll, and all used for pasturing.

The valuation of the assessors is :

1 acre 34 rods of corn, 581 bushels, allow

ing 80 pounds for a bushel, at $1.10, 128 bushels of potatoes, at 42 cents,

2 tons straw,

$270 00

44 27

64 35

53 76

10.00

I came upon my farm in the spring of 1842, and have spent a good deal for seven years past in improving the land by blasting and removing large rocks, carrying off small stones from the fields, filling stone holes and hollows, levelling for mowing, and have finished about six acres in this manner. I have built two hundred and thirty rods of wall, estimated to cost from seventy-five cents to five dollars a rod, and new topped forty rods. I have grafted forty-seven apple trees, (a part of them bearing,) four pear trees, and have a good supply of other fruit. I bed my cattle in the stable with straw and refuse hay, and throw it with the manure out of the window, and use it for surface-spreading on the mowing and tillage land in the spring. In the summer I make about forty cartloads in the barn yard, using loam and swamp mud, and cart loam into the hog yard. I usually remove from it twenty-five or thirty loads in the fall to the mowing ground, and spread it in the spring. That removed from the barn yard in the fall is used to put in the hills of corn and potatoes. For the last three years I have not built so much wall as I did in the four preceding years, having built about thirty rods of wall, ten rods of it estimated to cost five dollars a rod after the stones were blasted and drawn from beds. I have removed the stones and filled up the holes on about two acres, and have

grafted about twenty apple trees. The water for the barn and soft water for the house are brought in lead pipes from a well in the orchard twelve feet deep, which usually failed in a dry time, but has been made to supply us well by digging trenches from the bottom of the well, five rods long, into the hill, and fifteen feet deep at the upper end, stoning up a small channel, and then filling with small stones, and completing by filling with the earth dug from it. I usually pasture from six to eight cows and one horse. My oxen and other stock are kept on hire. This year I milk six cows, one of them three years old, and am raising three calves. The season has been unfavorable for hay and grain, the ground being so wet in the spring it could not be ploughed in good season. One lot was sown towards the last of May, the other about the 10th of June. My corn was planted the 1st and 2d of June, and the wire worms destroyed about fifty rods before it came up, which were planted afterwards with potatoes. Later in the season the hay and grain were injured by dry weather.

BARRE, October 31, 1854.

HAMPSHIRE.

Report of the Committee.

The committee report that entries for premiums have been made by Austin Smith & Sons, of Sunderland, and by Theophilus P. Huntington, William P. Dickinson, and Royal W. Smith, of Hadley.

The committee visited the farms of these gentlemen as directed by the rules of the society; and we take pleasure in saying here, that the hospitality with which we have been received has been such as to induce the hearty wish that we had as many premiums to award as there have been entries made, so that none of our friends need go unrewarded.

We find, however, that there are but two premiums-one of twenty, and the other of ten, dollars. The first of these we have awarded to Austin Smith & Sons, of Sunderland, and we are confident that a discerning public will find reasons for our so doing in the accompanying statement of these gentlemen.

So far we found plain sailing, and if that course had brought us into harbor we should have been glad; but there were competitors from Hadley, all of whom exhibited good farming, and so equally good that it was difficult to discriminate in favor of either against the others. In the farm management of Mr. Huntington and in that of Wm. P. Dickinson we saw much to commend. These men have exhibited the right spirit, and, so far as we can judge, the right practice, with regard to the reclaiming of waste lands. Our region of country would soon be more beautiful and more productive, and, though now healthy, would be still more conducive to health and long life, if all owners of lands would farm them as well. Both in the reclaiming of swamp land and in the cropping of their lands generally they have done well. Their practice proves farming to be a paying business-more profitable than any other business equally safe. Between them as compared with each other, and when both were brought into competition with Mr. R. W. Smith, the question was one which it seemed almost impossible to decide. Your committee, however, believed that Mr. Smith's farm management was quite as good as theirs, and his statement was somewhat full, conforming more nearly than theirs with the conditions on which these premiums were offered; which two considerations, taken together, induced them to award the second premium to Royal W. Smith, of Hadley, unless Mr. Huntington, whose farming we much approve, but whose statement was very deficient, will consent to make out a new and more full statement, one that shall be satisfactory to the executive committee; in which case we award the second premium to him.

We do not understand that the rules of the society require long statements. It is, however, to be supposed that the man who takes your premiums for good farm management is a good farmer; that his example is worth considering, at least, if not worthy in all respects of imitation; and if so, then it is incumbent on the competitor to make such a statement as would enable other farmers to comprehend his proceedings, and to imitate them if they choose. We specially commend that part of Mr. R. W. Smith's statement which relates to the composting of manure for his corn.

AMHERST, 1854.

J. A. NASH, Chairman.

Statement of Austin Smith & Sons.

The farm which we have entered for premium consists of sixty-four acres, situated in Sunderland-twenty-six acres being contained in the homestead, and thirty-eight acres in the two meadows in town.

The greater proportion of the soil is a sandy loam, the remainder a clayey loam.

Fences are dispensed with, except on twenty acres of the homestead, the remainder being employed in cultivating, in rotation, the various crops raised upon the farm.

During the present year our farm has been cultivated as follows: Twenty-four acres in grass; fifteen in broom corn; thirteen in Indian corn; three in wheat; four in rye; two and one-half in oats; and one-half acre in potatoes.

It has been our aim to labor for the improvement of the farm rather than the largest possible present crop. This we endeavor to do by thorough cultivation and a continual effort to increase the amount of manure made on the premises. We have made and applied the present season five hundred and fifty loads of barn-yard and compost manure of thirty bushels each, and have, besides, purchased and applied two hundred bushels of ashes, seven hundred pounds of guano, ten bags of. super-phosphate of lime, and one ton of gypsum-from each of which we have observed very satisfactory results, with the exception of the guano. The ashes and super-phosphate of lime were principally put in the hill at time of planting-the ashes for corn, the lime for broom corn.

Our barn-yard and compost manures we apply at planting time, harrowing in that which is well rotted, and ploughing in the coarse. The manure from the horse stables is thrown into the hog yard, and, with a frequent addition of muck or loam, a large quantity of excellent manure is made. Our winter-made manure is applied almost wholly in the spring, our practice in this respect having undergone an entire change within a few years.

We seed down to grass by four methods, according to circumstances: By hoeing in seed at the last hoeing of Indian