REPORT OF MR. FRANCIS H. APPLETON.
531
from the different periods at which they were taken from the tenants, or were secured by exchange and purchase, the yield is also very dissimilar. For instance the land in my hands, from 1865 on, produced on an average per acre, 390 to 494 cwt. of beets, 884 to 1,170“ sheaves of rye, 758 to 1,012 sheaves of summer wheat with one bushel of waste per twenty sheaves, 316 to 411 sheaves of oats with one bushel of waste per seven sheaves ; while the land only three years under my care produced proportionately hardly a third as many beets and a half to two-thirds as much grain.
When the yield of the last-mentioned land reaches that of the first, the whole money returns of the estate will be necessarily largely increased, because the previous expense will remain the same, and the gain will be entirely net.
The farm of Carolinenhof stands behind the others in the average yield per acre, because a plain of 208 acres of a very sandy nature, and consisting entirely of pasturage, has there been hired to extend the game preserves. This is ploughed but not improved by the addition of clay, and can, therefore, be planted with grain only on half of its area, while the other half lies fallow, as the owner will not lengthen the lease.
It should also be known that on the farm of Eleanorenof the land is very bad, and has been extended by later purchases. I propose, however, to render it profitable, and have already transported a large amount of clay and spread it over a portion. On the farm of Haika the soil is in part wet and clayey, and in part gravelly and woody. On the latter portions, before my purchase, the trees were cut away, and the ground leased to parties who were to remove the stumps, but I have it now entirely in my own hands.
I have drained the wet and clayey parts, and intend to cart sand and clay into the portions requiring them.
These two farms stand behindhand in culture and, of course, in yield, and thus lower the average for the whole. The land rented at the Carolinenhof farm is also bad.
If we consider, as I have before mentioned, that the fields had received little or no manure for a long period of years, that they had been badly tilled, had been sown every year and thus become utterly useless, and been left as such; it is really extraordinary to see what the three mainsprings, work,