Twelve
acres of oats were cut for forage, and the rest yielded 33 bushels to
the acre,--a little over 1300 bushels.
The alfalfa and timothy made a good start. From the former we cut, late
in June, 21/4 tons to the acre, and from the timothy, in July, 21/2
tons,--50 tons of timothy and 45 of alfalfa. Each of these fields
received the usual top-dressing after the crop was cut; but the timothy
did not respond,--the late season was too dry. We cut two more crops
from the alfalfa field, which together made a yield of a little more
than 2 tons. The alfalfa in that dry summer gave me 95 tons of good hay,
proving its superiority as a dry-weather crop.
Johnson started the one-and-one-half-acre vegetable and fruit garden in
April, and devoted much of his time to it. His primitive hotbeds
gradually emptied themselves into the garden, and we now began to taste
the fruit of our own soil, much to the pleasure of the whole colony. It
is surprising what a real gardener can do with a garden of this size. By
feeding soil and plants liberally, he is able to keep the ground
producing successive crops of vegetables, from the day the frost leaves
it in the spring until it again takes possession in the fall, without
doing any wrong to the land.
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