UMASS/AMHERST

BlEDbb D2fi5 ISTfi E

■

■

hh

li

ii

<5 C^Ui>Lcx Vta

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT

SECRETARY

asMc|us£tts ^0art flf Jgicultnrf,

WITH AN APPENDIX

CONTAINING

EEPORTS OF DELEGATES APPOINTED TO VISIT
THE COUNTY EXHIBITIONS,

AND ALSO

RETURNS OF THE FINANCES OF THE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES

18 6 9

BOSTON:

WRIGHT & POTTER, STATE PRINTERS,
79 Milk Street (Corner of Federal).

1870.

STATE BOARD OP AGRICULTURE.
187 0.

MEMBERS EX OFFICIIS.

His Excellency WILLIAM CLAFLIN.

His Honor JOSEPH TUCKER.

Hon. OLIVER WARNER, Secretary of the Commomoealth.

WILLIAM S. CLARK, Pren't Mass. Agricultural College.

appointed by the governor and council.

MARSHALL P. WILDER, of Boston,
JAMES F. C. HYDE, of Newton, .
LOUIS AGASSIZ, of Cambridge, .

Term Expires.

. 1871.

. 1872.
. 1873.

CHOSEN BY THE COUNTY SOCIETIES.

Massachusetts, LEVERETT SALTONSTALL, of Newton,

Essex, GEORGE B. LORING, of Salem, .

Middlesex,

Middlesex North, . . . .
Middlesex South, . . . .

Worcester,

Worcester West, . . . .
Worcester NmHh, . . . .
Worcester North- West, .
Worcester Sotiih, . . . .
Worcester South-East,
Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden,

1871
1872

JOHN B. MOORE, of Concord, . . . 1873
ASA CLEMENT, of Dracut, .... 1871

JOHN JOHNSON, of Framingham, . . 1872

THOMAS W. WARD, of Shrewsbury, . . 1872

JOHN T. ELLSWORTH, of Barre, . . 1872

LEWIS H. BRADFORD, of Fitchburg, . . 1872

CHARLES C. BASSETT, of Atliol, . . 1871 .

NEWTON S. HUBBARD, of Brimfield, , 1871

WILLLiM KNOWLTON, of Upton, . . 1873

A. PERRY PECK, of Northampton, . . 1873

Hampshire, JOHN A. MORTON, of Hadley, . . . 1871

Highland, GEORGE T. PLUNKETt, of Hinsdale, . 1872

Hampden, WILLIAM BIRNIE, of Springfield, . . 1873

Hampden East, . . . .^ HIRAM CONVERSE, of Palmer, . . .1873

Union, E. W. BOISE, of Blandford, .... 1871

Franklin, IMLA K. BROWN, of Bernardston, . . 1871

Berkshire, ANDREW J. BUCKLIK of South Adams, . 1873

Hoosat Valley, NAHUM P. BROWN, of Florida, . . . 1873

Housatonic, RICHARD GOODMAN, of Lenox, . . 1873

Norfolk, ELIPIIALET STONE, of Dedham, • . 1871

Hingham, ALBERT FEARING, of Hingham, . . . 1873

Bristol, AVERY P. SLADE, of Somerset, . . . 1872

Bristol Central, .... NATHAN DURFEE, of Fall River, . . 1873

Plymouth, CHARLES G. DAVIS, of Plymouth, . . 1872

Marshfield, GEORGE M. BAKER, of Marshfield, . . 1873

Barnstable, GEORGE A. KING, «f Barnstable, . . 1871

Nantucket, JAMES THOMPSON, of Nantucket, . . 1872

Martha's Vineyard, . . . JOHN PIERCE, of Edgartown, . . . 1871

CHARLES L. FLINT, Secretary.

SEYEIN^TEENTH ANNUAL REPOET

SECRETARY

BOAED OF AGRICULTURE.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Common-
wealth of Massachusetts.

The past year furnishes a striking illustration of the depend-
ence of the farmer upon the vicissitudes of the season. A
spring of more than usual moisture started vegetation into
a vigorous and rapid growth, very favorable to the hay and
other early crops. The barns were well stored, and had it not
been for the gales of September which visited some sections of
the State with disastrous violence, and the floods of October,
more general in their destruction, it would have been a year of
imusual prosperity. Still, notwithstanding these drawbacks,
the general record of the year is one upon which we may dwell
with satisfaction.

The most serious obstacle with which the New England far-
mer has to contend is the want of free and open markets, open-
ing a more direct trade between the producer and the consumer.
The prices which the consumer has to pay for farm products are
high enough, perhaps, but they do not find their way into the
farmer's pocket. As a general rule, probably less than fifty per
cent, of what an article of farm produce costs the consumer in
the retail market reaches the hands of the farmer who produced

6 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

it. This fact which might be established beyond dispute by in-
numerable illustrations, has had, and is having, a depressing effect
upon our agriculture. It is driving young men from the farm
and reducing the taxable valuation of our strictly farming
districts. It has contributed largely to create the impression in
the popular mind that farming does not pay, that the tillage of
the soil offers less inducement than most other pursuits.

Our great markets, which fix and control prices, are subject to
the control of municipal regulation. The only remedy would
seem to be a radical change in our market system which must
be a work of time.

The stock of the farms has been generally healthy. The
most noteworthy exception has been that to which allusion is
made in the following

REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS ON CONTAGIOUS
DISEASES AMONG CATTLE.

To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts.

The undersigned Commissioners on Contagious Diseases
among Cattle, in presenting their Annual Report, feel that they
have occasion to congratulate the legislature and the people of
the Commonwealth, that no contagious disease has ravaged and
destroyed our herds as in some former years. The Pleuro-
pneumonia seems to have been eradicated. At least no cases of
it have come to the knowledge of the Commissioners during the
year past, and we would fain hope to be exempt from its
scourge in the long future. The Cattle Plague, or Spanish
Fever, which was imported from the West to our State last
year, creating wide-spread panic and alarm, did not as it was
feared it might, reappear witli the warm season, and the influx
of Western and South- Western cattle. Stringent laws were
passed and enforced by the legislatures of several of the Western
States, which prevented all driving of Texas cattle to the
Northern and Eastern markets. By this means the immense
herds along the great routes of travel, from the Kansas border
to the seacoast, have been kept free of the plague, and our
own cattle protected from its ravages. Although, as a general
rule, the business of stock husbandry in the State, during the
year, has been successful and prosperous, and the herds exempt

THE CATTLE DISEASE. T

from prevailing disease, it has not been universally so. On the
23d of October last, the Commissioners received a communi-
cation, through the secretary of state, from the selectmen of
Great Barrington, conveying the information that a " malignant
and fatal " disease was prevailing among the cattle of portions
of that and the adjoining town of Egremont, and asking for
the aid and cooperation of the Commissioners in dealing with
and exterminating it. Correspondence was entered into with
the town authorities, and it appearing that the disease did not
abate, and that that community was becoming much alarmed
about it, one of the Commissioners visited those towns on the
6th of November, to assist in investigating the matter. By this
examination it appeared, that about the 20th of July, a cow
belonging to Mr. D. C. Milliard sickened and died in a very
unusual manner, but without attracting special attention. He
lost another in August in the same manner, and yet another in
September. Early in October, or soon after the great freshet,
and when the cattle were quite generally allowed to run on the
flowed meadows of Green River, unconfined by fences, (which
had been swept away by the flood,) many other cattle, the prop-
erty of adjoining farmers, sickened and died, apparently with
the same disease that had destroyed Mr. Milliard's. At the
time of the visit of the Commissioner, thirty had died and
others were sick. No rational explanation could be given of
the cause of the disease, and no remedies discovered to stay
its progress or cure the diseased animals. It was found that in
some respects the disease resembled the Spanish Fever ; in others
it was entirely unlike it. The animals affected by it generally
gave no signs of disease until six or eight hours before death,
and in some cases died almost before they were known to be
sick. They all died in terrible agony and with convulsions.
All the post mortem examinations showed precisely the same
condition of the internal organism, — all the organs of the chest
apparently healthy, and those of the abdomen, with the excep-
tion of the spleen and bladder. The spleen was in all cases
very much enlarged, inflamed and softened, and its texture
destroyed. It could not be ascertained that .|lie disease was con-
tagious. One animal would sicken and die, t^hile others in con-
stant contact with it would remain perfectly healthy. The pecu-
liarities of the disease and its progress appeared to be such, that

8 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

th6 Commissioner did not deem it best to isolate the diseased ani-
mals until after further and more thorough examinations had
been made. Accordingly, Dr. Richard Beebe, a physician of
Egremont, was engaged to take the case in hand and make an
investigation of the matter, and to report to the Commissioners
the results of the investigation. He commenced his labor at
once, and on the 24th of December, forwarded to us a history
of the progress of the disease from its commencement to that
date, its symptoms, and the results of curative efforts. He
says : —

" The same day I saw you at Mr. Clark's, when I was going home,
about 5 o'clock P. M., I discovered a cow in D. C. Milliard's lot,
some little distance fi-om the others ; she was eating grass, but she
would take two or three bites quite rapidly and then chew a few
m.oments in the same way, and then stop altogether, with her head
within six inches of the ground, as if listening to some peculiar
sound, and then go on again as above stated. This was about 5
o'clock. In about twenty minutes after I passed, Milliard saw some-
thing wrong about the cow, and drove her into the stable. She went
directly to eating old hay, and continued to do so for some time,
when his man milked her and found she gave no milk of any conse-
quence. Still the man thought she was not sick ; told Milliard he did
not think she was sick. About half-past six Milliard said to his man
he thought the cow did not look right and wished him to go for
me. He came to my place, about half a mile, and went directly back ;
only gone about half an hour, and when he got home the cow was
dead, and he says he left her chewing her cud.

" I did not make an examination till morning (Sunday, Nov. 4) ;
found stomach apparently healthy, small intestines and bladder
ulcerated and quite full of thin, bloody water. When I came to the
spleen it retained its shape, but the moment I touched it, it broke
and run like water. I could not do anything about weighing it ;
judged it would have weighed eight lbs. ; there was no coagula about
any of the blood in any part of the animal, not even the cavities ;
there did not appear to be any fibrine in the blood. Milliard drew
the cow eighty rods or so from the barn to bury her, with a yoke of
oxen, and when he took the oxen off, he said, ' I think that ox is
sick,' pointing to o Aof them. I looked at him ; he did appear some-
what stupid; his pmse was 50, his horns cold; he was standing
humped up, his hind legs too far under him, respiration too rapid,
and with that peculiar drawing up of the flank — sudden jerking

EFFECT OF MEDICINE. 9

and gulping — which characterizes the breathing of all, or most all
that have been sick.

" I then prepared the following prescription : —

" Rosin pulvis, elm bark pulvis, ginger root pulvis, cayenne pepper
pulvis, each one dram ; cincho quinine, two scruples. Mix in half
pint warm water and give every two to four hours.

" They gave the ox two doses, four hours apart ; then Milliard
learned of some other remedy, and gave the ox, but he died in the
same manner as did the others, and with the same general appear-
ance. I would here state that all the cattle that have died, that
any one has seen, have died in most terrible pain and convulsions.

" The next cow sick was owned by a Mr. Jones ; gave the above
prescription and she got well; the next was H. D. Hollenbeck's,
found dead in the morning ; did not know as she was sick. I ex-
amined her Nov. 7, and found the same things in all respects as far
as disease, like Milliard's. Next was G. M. Hollenbeck's ; died with-
out treatment ; showed same condition of things. Next was H. D.
Hollenbeck's, discovered in the afternoon of November 10 ; gave
medicine immediately, took four quarts blood, reaction came on, her
horns became so hot that they were uncomfortable to hold in the
hand ; gave medicine every four hours ; cow recovered about the
fourth day. I did not think the bleeding did any good. She
began eating and increasing in her milk. In all cases of milch cows,
loss of milk is a universal and constant symptom.

"November 16, D, C. Milliard had a cow taken sick; gave the
medicine and she recovered. November 22, George Lee, of Ashley
Falls, lost a cow in the same way ; died in about four hours from
first symptoms. I did not see her nor did she take any medicine.
The man who opened her said the stomach was not, in his opinion,
healthy ; the spleen was diseased ; he described a falling off of the
mucous membrane of the stomach, or rather an adherence of the
epithelial covering of the mucous membrane to the contents of the
stomach — which I discovered in all cases, and which I think is
post mortem. I think, from what I can learn from the man, that the
cow died with the same disease. November 29, Gilbert Ford lost
a cow ; found dead in the morning ; did not know she was sick, only
that she had a peculiar breathing the night before, of which Ford
thought nothing. The next day he found another cow breathing in
the same way, and sent for me. We gave the medicine ; she was sick
in the same way as others and very bad, but she recovered after a
few days. December 18, Rawson Brown found a cow sick ; sent for
me ; she was growing rapidly w^orse ; he did not think it of much use
to give anything more, for he had got and given already two doses
2

10 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

of my medicine, but we increased the dose to almost double the
amount of quinine, and gave every four hours, and she came out of
it all right. This Brown lost a cow, I think, in Sej^tember with
this disease, and I think she was a dry cow ; at any i-ate this one was,
and he was feeding her to fat.

"This disease has been so peculiar in its commencement and
progress, that I can't say very much to give you light on the subject.
I have told you almost all the symptoms in these cases, except that'
in perhaps one-half the cases there is a great desire and good deal of
effort to urinate, but with no great amount of urine ; one of the
cows, after she had recovered a few days, had a large abscess on her
side, which indicated a bad state of the blood,

" I cannot make out that the disease is really contagious. Most of
the cases, however, are in herds that have run on adjoining faims ;
and then, again, there are cases that have not been near any of the
disease, as any one knows of. D. C. Milliard says his oxen had not
been with or near his cows till after the third one died, and that
they had not run on the Green River at all, and had not been with
the cows more than three weeks, and he thinks they must have
taken the disease from the cows ; but the other ox has not been sick,
nor have any more of his cattle been sick. Again, there are herds
of cows right below him that have been exposed by his cows, and
yet have not been sick.

"It appears to me just like typhoid fever in its coming to a town
or neighborhood ; some families Avill have fever, perhaps all, and yet
again not more than one ; maybe three or four families will have it
adjoining, and then again skip two or three ; and like such fevers it
appears to be a jjoison of the blood, and in all probability the poison
is taken into the system sometime before they are sick, and they are
taken sick in (so far as danger to life is concerned) proportion to
the amount of poison, and its deleterious effects upon the system.
There appears to be a loss of fibrine about the blood of all I have
examined, but still I cannot ascertain any cause for the disease that
gives me the least satisfaction, nor why the cows in our vicinity
should be diseased more than in any other parts of our towns or
county. I only know this, that such is the fact, and that it does
appear to be of a malarious character ; and I do believe that the
medicine I have given, in a case that has got twenty-four hours to
live (or in other words, that would live twenty-four hours without
treatment), will cure all or almost all, if properly given and at-
tended to."

MEETING AT PITTSFIELD. 11

In consequence of the favorable report of Dr. Beebe, in
relation to the curability of the disease, and the probability
that it was not contagious, the Commissioners did not deem it
necessary to take any further measures for its suppression.
It continued to decline, and at this date no cases of it are known
to exist. The disease in its progress has entailed great losses
on the farmers of that section of the State, and filled them with
fear for the future, but there is apparently no occasion for alarm,
or reason for the recurrence of the disease, other than what may
exist in its epidemic or malarious character.
For the Commissioners,

Levi Stockbridge.

PUBLIC MEETING OF THE BOARD

At PITTSFIELD.

The Annual Meeting of the State Board of Agriculture, was
held at Pittsfield, in the chapel connected with Rev. Dr. Todd's
church, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, December 7th,
8th, and 9th.

The Board was called to order at 2 o'clock, on Wednesday,
by Alexander Hyde, of Lee, Chairman of the Committee on
Meetings, who addressed the assembly, as follows : —

Gentlemen of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture.

It is my duty as chairman of the committee of arrangements,,
to welcome you to Berkshire. I see that my friend Flint has
put me down on the programme for an address of welcome. I
did not consent to make a speech, but simply to say we are glad
to see you. I know not what it is to feel big with a speech.
I have labored sometimes to be delivered from a speech,
but never to be delivered of one. I can say, however, most
heartily, we are glad to see the Massachusetts Board of Agri-
culture in this ultramontane county. Individual members .
of the Board, we have frequently welcomed to our homes,
but this is the first time we have been honored with a session of
the body in the county. We regret that the season of the year
is so unfavorable for the examination of our agriculture. Our
hills look bleak in winter, and some of you may think that we

12 ' BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

must keep our cattle on hemlock browse. Our down-east friends,
accustomed to granite and silicious soils, have been a little in-
credulous as to the reports we have made of our premium crops.
They could hardly believe that we could raise a hundred bushels
of corn on an acre, and the same amount of oats, sixty bushels
of rye, and four hundred of potatoes ; and a few years since the
Secretary, with one or two members of the Board, came up to
Berkshire, in the summer, to spy out the land, to see the crops
growing, and to ascertain whether we told big stories, or did
actually raise big crops. I took the Secretary and his com-
panions to one of my neighbors who owns a farm of good
strong land, and who had reported a crop of one hundred and
nine bushels of oats to the acre. We found my neighbor in the
hay field, and the Secretary asked him, " How do you know
that you raised so many bushels on an acre ? " The farmer
stretched himself up at full length and replied, " I measured
the land and weighed the oats myself." I never knew whether
the Secretary was convinced or not, but if he was not, I was.

It is said that dwellers among mountains are always fond of
their home, and are a little inclined to boast about it. The
Swiss are proverbially homesick when absent from their moun-
tain homes. You will excuse us, therefore, if we indulge in a
little self-glorification. It is a trick we learned more than
twenty years since, when we celebrated the centennial settle-
ment of the county by a Berkshire jubilee, and called home the
sons who had emigrated.- We never knew till we heard the
speeches of these wanderers, that we lived so near heaven on
these Berkshire hills. We knew the scenery was good, but we had
thought the soil a little rough, rocky and barren ; but they told
us there was no place on earth so good to live and die in, as
Berkshire. They probably thought so just at that moment, for
it was a fair day in August, and we had had a good dinner, and
were comfortably seated in a tent, with a good look-out upon
the mountains, which were round about us, as they are round
about Jerusalem. The pilgrims felt the associations of their
youth called up, and their hearts burned within them as they
spoke ; but I noticed that few of them ever came back to live
and die in Berkshire. You have no such associations, and I
fear may have a worse impression of our mountain home, as seen
tlu^ough the gloom of winter, than it deserves. We feel that

BERKSHIRE COUNTY. 13

" the lines have fallen unto us in pleasant places, and that we
have a goodly heritage." I have traversed the length and
breadth of the county several times, have visited all the towns,
and examined the farms and crops in most of them, and shared
the hospitality of many of the citizens, and am free to say that,
in my limited range of travel through the world, I have no-
where found more comfortable homes, better livers, nor more
intelligent citizens. Much of our soil is rocky, and abounds in
cold springs ; but when the rocks are blasted out, and the super-
fluous water drained off, it produces luxuriant crops, especially
of grass. We have long been famous for our butter and cheese
dairies, and are now sending large quantities of milk to New
York. I am sorry to add that in many of our mountain towns,
the pastures have degenerated through neglect, and will not
support the stock they once did. The mowing lots have received
all the manure of the farm, and are in good condition ; but the
pastures, exhausted of the proper nutriment for grasses, have
resolved on a rotation of crops, and are producing hard-hacks,
brakes and alders. If any gentleman of the Board can stimu-
late our farmers to better care of their grazing lots, and teach
us how to restore them to their former sweet herbage, he will
be doing the county a good service.

Agriculture was formerly the leading pursuit of our popula-
tion, but the war of 1812 brought in some manufactures,
which have steadily increased in importance, till the products
of the loom, the anvil, and the Fourdrinier machine, probably
now outvalue those of the soil. A little local jealousy may
have sometimes sprung up between these branches of industry,
but it was entirely groundless, and they now move on in perfect
harmony, mutually sustaining and encouraging each other.
We have found that where manufactures flourish, there agri-
culture flourishes. There is no market equal to the home mar-
ket. In and around our manufacturing villages population
clusters, and real estate rises almost to fabulous prices, while
on the hill towns the population is decreasing, and farms can be
bought for less than the cost of the buildings, and in some cases
for about the cost of the fences. It is said that half the popu-
lation, and half the wealth of the county, are now concentrated
in the four manufacturing towns of Adams, Pittsfield, Lee and
Great Barrington. Our ancestors came from Cape Cod, Rhode

14 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

Island, and the towns in Connecticut bordering on the Sound,
and apparently tired of a monotonous level country, went to the
other extreme and settled first on the hills. A son of a Cape
Cod farmer emigrating to Mt. Ephraim, as Berkshire was then
called, was told by his father to pitch his tent on a hill and near
some brook. The son did as he was ordered, and selected his
home on one of our mountains, where he had a good look-out
and plenty of water, but the location was too solitary for man's
social nature, and a stone chimney and a few red-rose bushes
mark the spot, where once stood a human habitation. We find
many such old landmarks scattered among our hills, and it has
become a question of some interest, what is to be the future of
our hill towns. Is Mt. Ephraim to become Mt. Desolation ?
We believe not. Already there is a dawn of better times. Those
who dwell in cities, and buy and sell and get gain, have found
on our hills just the contrast they need with their city life, and
our farmers are fitting up their homes, and entertaining their
city cousins with bread and milk, and the songs of the whip-
poor-will and nightingale to the tune of ten to fifteen dollars
per week.

Our mountain towns also abound with springs, brooks and
lakes, and are just the place where fish can be bred with great
success. No other county in the State furnishes such facilities
for fish-breedhig as Berkshire, and we expect our learned associ-
ate will this week teach us how the thing is done. We have
already made a beginning, and on one of the hill towns east of
us, a farmer has made a reservoir covering some fifty acres,
where he has trout weighing two to three pounds, which any
one may catch, provided he will pay sixty cents per pound for
the privilege of fishing. The time may come when trout may
be one of the staple articles of export from the county, and an
extra train may be required to carry our fish to New York, as
is now necessary to transport our milk. " Ichabod " cannot be
written on our mountain towns, if ichthyology can restore them
to their former glory.

It is a great mistake to suppose that improved and large breeds
of cattle cannot thrive on our mountain pastures. The Roan
Duke made the Middlefield cattle famous throughout the State,
and when he had served his day and generation in that town,
he was transferred to the hills of Shelburne, where he did equally

GOOD LAND— GOOD CATTLE. 16

good service, and where his posterity make the best herds of
high grade Durhams that it has ever been my pleasure to see.
The Middlefield and Shelburne farmers raised their broad-hipped
Durhams mainly by the agency of grass, with little aid from
grain. What one town has done, another may do. What two
towns have done, all may do. As Joseph Anderson, who im-
ported the Roan Duke into Shelburne, said to us last fall : " In
order to have good cattle, we must have good land. My first
effort when I took this old rough farm, was to improve the land.
My crops acted on the stock, and the stock reacted on the crops,
and the action and reaction have been continually progressing."
This is the right style for farming, both for hill and valley.

But I will not trespass on your time. Again bidding you wel-
come, and hoping that Berkshire farming will receive a great
impulse from your deliberations, I introduce to you Mr. Richard
Goomand, president of the Berkshire Agricultural Society, who
is a lawyer by profession, but a farmer from choice. He was
not so fortunate as to be to the manor of Berkshire born, but
when he came to the years of discretion, was wise enough to
select for his home one of the most beautiful locations in the
county, where among his books and his herds, he sets us an
example not of " ease with dignity," but of skilful industry and
busy research, and having a fluent tongue and limber pen, is
ever ready to communicate the results of his investigations, and
we feel much obliged to him for thus identifying himself with
all the great interests of the county.

Richard Goodman, of Lenox. — The formal manner in which
I have been introduced by my friend, Mr. Hyde, might lead you
to expect a formal speech from me ; but there is neither the
time nor the opportunity for me to indulge in any extended
remarks ; and it is hardly worth while to reiterate the welcome
which has been extended to you by Mr. Hyde. But as the rep-
resentative of the Berkshire Agricultural Society, one of the
oldest in the State, composed not only of farmers, but of man-
ufacturers and others, who have an interest directly in farming,
and also an interest in the prosperity of the county and the
State, I welcome you here among the hills of Berkshire. It has
been the custom of our southern friends, of more fervid climes,
to welcome their guests "with bloody hands to hospitable
graves." But we welcome you to-day with the white mantle of

16 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

peace — cold externally as chastity, but pure as virtue. But the
coldness outside, I trust, will be more than compensated by the
warmth of the hospitality which you will receive from the resi-
dents of this place. We welcome you, not only as ordinary
guests, but because we want to see such men as you are, en-
gaged in the vivifying industry which underlies all those on
which the prosperity of our county depends. It is too old and
too trite a saying to be reiterated, that upon agriculture depends
the prosperity, and I might say, the virtues of the community.

We may inquire here, why is it that men like those who are
our guests to-day should assemble in Berkshire, and at other
times in Amherst and in other places in Massachusetts, for the
purposes of disseminating agricultural knowledge ? Why is it
that similar conventions do not take place in relation to the
other industries of life ? It is because it is apparent to all, that
without the fostering of a business so important as this, there
might be danger of the whole fabric of the country being shaken.
But, gentlemen, we welcome you to-day among our moun-
tains ; and although we are far removed from " the Hub," al-
though we are not gathered often in the meshes and nets that
surround that centre of our eastern universe ; yet you are come
now to a people who are not at all barbaric. We have outlived
all the greenness of our youth. We have got used to the im-
proved machines of farming. We would welcome you at another
season to land really flowing with milk and honey ; to land
where as good cattle are produced, where as good grain is
raised, where as fine crops of corn, oats, and other cereals are
produced as in any other part of the State. We are not in the
condition of General Washington, who, having taken an inven-
tory of his stock, exclaimed, " Here I am keeping 101 cows, and
I have to buy my own butter." We have passed beyond the
condition of the tenantry of Lord Derby, who, having been
presented with steel ploughs, returned them at the end of the
season, saying that they wanted to return to the old wooden
ones, because they were satisfied that steel ploughs increased
the crop of weeds ! We have tried all the improved implements,
and all the new processes of culture; and although, gentlemen,
like all others engaged in this pursuit, our principal aim is to
make our labor profitable, yet beyond that, we want to raise our
agriculture, its products and its processes, to a level in many

GULF STREAM OF INTELLECT. IT

other respects besides material prosperity, with the other avoca-
tions of the county.

Now, it is a remark current throughout the country, current
especially throughout this part of fhe country, that the young
men are forsaking agricultural pursuits, because they do not
pay. Well, that is undoubtedly one reason why our young
men are forsaking the culture of the soil and flying to the cities
and towns ; but there are other and as important reasons under-
lying that. Nearly a century ago, before the heat of the Gulf
Stream was discovered, a winter voyage from England to New
York or Boston w^as a hazardous thing, and the vessels engaged
in foreign trade went during the winter months to Charleston
and other southern ports, which were flourishing when the ports
of New York and Boston were not in a prosperous condition.
But after Dr. Franklin broached his theory of the Gnlf Stream,
and that became thoroughly known to the commercial com-
munity, the vessels coming from abroad went at once to the
ports of New York and Boston, and the trade of the ports of the
South decreased, while that of the ports of the North pro"
portionately increased. It is the warmth of the gulf stream of
intellect, trending towards our cities and towns, which draws
our young men to the centres of population from the country,
as well as the great desire to make money. The young men of
this age are different from their fathers, in that they are reach-
ing out for more education. They are not satisfied with plod-
ding on behind a plough or a team, even when they can make
money, when they see their compeers in the towns and cities
rising above them in intellectual stature. That is what we
want in Berkshire. We have as good a race of men, young
and old, as is to be found elsewhere ; our farmers are encour-
aged by their manufacturing friends, and by their compeers in
other business ; and all that we want now to elevate us to a
position equal to that of others, is scientific education upon
agricultural subjects. When I look around and see among the
distinguished members of this Board, men who are devoting
themselves to the purpose of elevating this profession, when I
see men whose names are renowned, not only throughout this
country, but throughout the world, I congratulate them upon
the great work that they are doing, I congratulate the country
upon the great good it is receiving from such work ; and it is
3

18 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

because of those efforts, coming from such men, to elevate us as
an agricultural community, and to make us what we should be
and ought to be, — it is upon that ground especially that I wel-
come here to-day the distinguished men who compose the Board
of Agriculture of Massachusetts.

SALT AND ITS USES IN AGRICULTURE,

BY PKOF. CHARL-ES A. GOESSMANN, PH. D.

The discovery of common salt — in the commercial meaning
of that article — belongs within the earliest stages of the human
family. Wherever we find it mentioned upon the first pages of
history it is spoken of as something known. Its presence in the
waters of the ocean, of various lakes, and of certain springs, it
appears, was not less recognized, than its occurrence as an exu-
dation of the soil in particular localities.

Saline exudations so frequently found in the Orient, in com-
mon with the residues of accidental evaporations of some of
those natural saline solutions, previously alluded to, have fur-
nished, in all probability, its first supply. Its manufacture for
commercial purposes by artificial heat applied to iron pans,'
similar to our present mode of working, has been credited to
ancient Romans. Grecian and Roman writers, even centuries
before the Christian era, begin to treat of it from a scientific
point of view, although sometimes under a different name.
Dioscorides, at the end of the first century, speaks of its peculiar
cleavage, and describes already some of the differences between
the salt resulting from the evaporation of sea-water and the
rock salt. The famous alchemist Geber, who lived within the
eighth century, it is stated, was engaged in experiments to refine
the commercial common salt for chemical ^Durposes.

The idea regarding the chemical constitution of the pure salt
has changed quite naturally during the progress of the natural
sciences, and of chemistry in particular. Our present view con-
cerning its composition could scarcely have been advanced
before 1810. The isolation of the metallic elements of the
alkalies, and the proper recognition of the nature of the muriatic
acid had to precede, before Sir Humphrey Davy could conceive
the idea of proving by experiment, that the pure salt consisted
of the two elements, sodium and chlorine. "We observe at the
close of the last and the beginning of the present century,

CHEMISTRY OF COMMON SALT. 19

during a period of thirty-six years, some of the most profound
thinkers, and, of the most skilful experimenters in the natural
sciences of that age, engaged in presenting facts which bear
upon the question here under discussion. Scheele recognized
in 1774, for the first time, a peculiar gas by treating black oxide
of manganese with muriatic acid, which subsequently became
better understood by the name of chlorine. Sir Humphrey Davy
succeeded, in 1807, in isolating, by means of a powerful electrical
battery, the element sodium from caustic soda under proper
circumstances. Gay Lussac and Thenard proved, in 1809, by
very careful experiments, that the pure salt did not contain the
element oxygen as one of its component parts ; they advanced
soon after, for the first time, the idea that the peculiar green
gas which Scheele had obtained from the muriatic acid ought
to be considered an element. Sir Humphrey Davy was the first
chemist who, in 1810, adopted the proposition of these illus-
trious French savants ; he named that element, on account of
its (pale) green color in its gaseous state, chlorine, and pro-
duced finally the pure salt from its component parts by burning
sodium in chlorine gas. Knowing once its elementary constitu-
tion, there remained but little to be done to learn the relative
proportion of its component parts. The simple introduction of
the balance, whilst repeating Davy's experiment, demonstrated
the fact that twenty-three parts of sodium had combined with
thirty-five and one-half parts of chlorine, producing fifty-eight
and one-half parts of chloride of sodium, i. e., pure salt. Nat-
ural solutions of chemically pure salt are not known ; its demand
is supplied by saturating pure carbonate of soda with pure
muriatic acid. Natural crystals of pure salt may be obtained
by separating carefully individual crystals from well developed
crystallinic masses of rock salt. I do not propose to treat here
in detail of all the highly interesting and important physical
and chemical properties of the chemically pure salt, for it would
but amount to a more or less accurate copy of our text-books in
physics and chemistry, and may be studied from them directly
with much greater advantage. What I intend to attempt is to
engage your attention for a discussion on " common salt " as
known in commerce and industry, with particular reference to
its application in the various operations of our agricultural
industry. As these operations require a salt of different mechani-

20 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

cal conditions, and of a different chemical composition, which
both requirements are governed by the peculiar mode of its
manufacture, I find it advantageous, in the interest of our
mutual understanding, to begin with a short sketch of our
modes of manufacturing the different kinds of salt, and to con-
clude with its various uses.

I. Our Modes of Manufacture.

There are two kinds of salt in commerce ; the " coarse saU,^^
including the salt obtained from natural rock salt deposits and
the salt made from brines and sea-water by means of solar heat,
and the " common fine salt," or boiled salt, produced by arti-
ficial heat. The coarse qualities of salt are the results of a slow
evaporation; the fine qualities that of a rapid evaporation.

ON COARSE SALT.

The coarse qualities are manufactured from sea-water and
from brines. In France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, the West
Indies, and along the shores of both the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans on our continent nearly all the coarse salt made from
sea-water is produced in basins along the seashores. These
basins are either natural or artificial ; several of them are, in
either case, connected in such a manner as to admit of a sys-
tematical working of the saline solutions in their different stages
of concentration. In Ohio, Virginia, Michigan, New York,
and, of late, in Nebraska and Kansas, where the natural brines
are used for the manufacture of coarse salt are preferred, wooden
vats, protected by wooden covers — for the frequency of rain-
showers throughout the more favorable portions of the year, and
the low temperature at night during spring and fall, interfere
very seriously with a successful evaporation, and thus econom-
ical manufacture", in open basins ; wooden vats, with suitable
movable covers, secure also a cleaner article. The rules adopted
in the construction and systematic arrangements of these vats
or basins are prescribed by the composition of the brines or saline
solutions turned to account for manufacturing purposes. A
short description of our most extensive solar salt works (Onon-
daga Co., N. Y.) may serve here as a general illustration.
The brines of Onondaga are of a very good quality ; they con-
tain a considerable quantity of sulphate of lime (gypsum), a

TO OBTAIN PINE SALT. 21

very small quantity of chloride of calcium and chloride of
magnesium, besides traces of chloride of potassium, bromide,
and iodide of magnesium, and some carbonate of protoxide of
iron, with free carbonic acid. The main object, under these
circumstances, is to remove the entire amount of iron, more
than one-half of the sulphate of lime, and as much as possible
of the very objectionable deliquescent compounds — chloride of
calcium and chloride of magnesium. To obtain these results,
the following mode of working is pursued : the brine — being
usually in its fresh state, colorless, and highly charged with
carbonic acid — is filled into shallow vats and kept there until
most of the carbonic acid has escaped and the protoxide has
been fully oxidized and settled as a brown-red, insoluble precip-
itate of hydrated peroxide of iron ; the saline liquid is then
drawn off to a lower series of vats, where it is left for evapor-
ation until crystals of salt appear ; during this period the excess
of sulphate of lime is separated. The brine being now com-
pletely saturated with salt is now called salt-pickle ; it is ready
for salt-making, and consequently removed from the separated
impurities to another set of vats, where, by mere solar heat, the
separation and accumulation of a coarsely crystallized salt takes
place. The salt is, from time to time, gathered, whilst the re-
maining mother liquor will be discharged as soon as it reaches
a concentration from 28°-30° Baume.* The less attention has
been paid to the separation of the iron and of the excess of
sulphate of lime (plaster or gypsum), the more concentrated
the mother liquor from which the salt has been gathered, the
less the salt-crystals themselves have been washed with new salt
pickle before their removal into perforated tops for drainage,
and the less chance they have enjoyed in rendering that last
process efficient, the more inferior is the quality of the coarse
salt produced. A good coarse or solar salt must be of a neu-
tral reaction, hard, large-sized, white or colorless, and produce
a clear solution.

ON COMMON FINE SALT.

The finer-grained qualities of salt are obtained by the direct
or indirect application of artificial heat to iron kettles, iron

* Compare, for further details, my report "On the Manufacture of Solar Salt";
Syracuse, N. Y. 1864.

22 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

pans, or wooden vats ; the more rapid the process of manufacture,
the smaller are the crystals resulting from one and the same
brine. In Europe, almost all the boiled salt is manufactured in
a system of large pans of from four hundred to one thousand two
hundred square-feet capacity ; in most of our own salt-boiling
establishments are used hemispherical cast-iron kettles of from
one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty gallons
capacity. The kettle system is exclusively used at the Onon-
daga Works, N. y. ; in the Saginaw Valley, in Michigan, are
employed, besides the kettles, large wooden vats heated by
steam ; in Ohio and South-western Virginia is, for weak brines,
the so-called furnace-system in operation, which may be con-
sidered a combination of direct heat and steam heat, for evap-
oration. The steam heat being applied at the more advanced
stages of evaporation produces a larger-sized salt. The best
qualities of Virginia brines, for instance, at Saltville, in North-
western Virginia, are very successfully worked in cast-iron
kettles. Inferior brines, particularly those which contain a
larger proportion of the chlorides of calcium and magnesium,
as a general rule, are best worked by a slow process of evapora-
tion, for the salt crystals are in that case more perfectly devel-
oped, and the inferior mother liquors consequently best ex-
cluded.

The process of salt-making is quite obviously an operation for
the separation and thus purification of the chloride of sodium
(salt) from its accompanying foreign admixtures ; the general
rules, which apply to the proper management of a successful crys-
tallization, find their application here. Brines which contain a
considerable percentage of the sulphate of lime, or of soda, or
of magnesia, or several of them, produce always smaller crys-
tals than those which contain less or none. The boiled salt of
the Onondaga brines is, on that account, always smaller and more
compact than that manufactured from the brines of Michigan,
Ohio and Western Virginia. The European system of manu-
facturing common fine salt in a system of large iron pans, — a
fore-heater and a grainer, — our own modes of making fine salt in
wooden vats by means of steam, the furnace system of Ohio, and
the Chapin system of Saginaw differ in one essential feature from
the kettle system ; they aim at the removal of certain impurities
in a separate vessel and the making of the salt in another one,

VARIETIES OF SALT. 23

whilst in the kettle system the separation and removal of the
impurities take place in one common vessel with the making
of the salt. The manufacture of boiled salt in hemispherical
cast-iron kettles is peculiar to our country ; its success, so far as
the quality of our home-made salt is concerned, is more due to
our superior qualities of brines, and the skill of the workmen
in charge of its manufacture, than to the fact that the mode of
making our boiled salt is based, in that particular case, on the
safest principle. From the fact that twenty to thirty kettles are
placed in rows over one common fire and along one com-
mon flue, it will be apparent that the separation of salt must
take place within the various kettles at a different rate and
under otherwise different circumstances. The salt obtained
from the various kettles differs consequently more or less in its
mechanical condition and its composition ; the salt obtained
from the front kettle is more compact, of a small grain, hard
and heavy, whilst the salt made in the back kettles is of a looser
aggregation, consequently bulky and light. To secure a desir-
able uniformity for commercial purposes, the salt is always mixed
in the storehouse before packing. The chemical composition
of the boiled salt is, to a large degree, controlled by the same
circumstances which have been pointed out in the case of the
composition of the coarse qualities of salt. As not two brines
are of an entire corresponding composition, there can be no two
samples of salt, made from two different brines, alike. All our
commercial varieties of salt differ, therefore, somewhat on
account of the mode pursued in their manufacture and the na-
ture of the saline solutions turned to account for their produc-
tion. A good "common fine salt" ought to be of a neutral
reaction, of a clear wliite color, of a pure, agreeable saline
taste, and of a gritty feeling between the fingers ; it ought to
dissolve without any particular residue in five to six parts of
water, and its moisture ought not to exceed from four to five
per cent.

Our present demand of salt, which is still almost exclusively
confined to its uses for domestic purposes and in agricultural
industry, exceeds our production — a fact which is not so much
due to a real want of suitable natural home resources as to
their disadvantageous local distribution. Whilst the Central,
Middle and South-western States are daily increasing their local

24 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

natural salt resources, the Eastern States seem to be destined to
draw their supply of salt from New York, the West Indies and
England. What influence the extensive rock-salt deposits of
Petite Anse and Neyba, of St. Domingo, and the excellent
brines of Goderich, C. W., will have in the future on our daily
increasing demand may be well conjectured. Of the thirty-
two to thirty-four million bushels of salt which we at present
most likely annually consume, only from fifteen to sixteen mil-
lions of bushels are of home production. We use the largest
amount of salt in our meat-packing and dairy business, — less
for the promotion of animal life, and the least amount for the
promotion of vegetable growth, — at least as far as in the latter
case a direct application is concerned. T}ie highly desirable
consumption of salt, on a becoming scale, in the industrial arts,
is still depending on a future wise legislation ; the absence of
an alkali trade and the varied allied industrial branches are not
less to be deplored by the farming community than by others ;
for, to say the least, it deprives agriculture of many cheap and
valuable sources of by-products and refuse materials of an ex-
cellent fertilizing quality.

II. On the Uses op Salt in Agriculture.

ON MEAT-PACKING.

The element chlorine, one of the constituent elements of salt,
imparts its preserving quality more or less to most of its com-
binations with the metallic elements. Some of these compounds
are quite successfully applied for the preservation of anatomical
objects, and of objects for collections in natural history in
general ; most of them are, of course, from an economical and a
sanitary point of view, objectionable for any general application
in domestic industry. The meat-packer does not aim at a mere
preservation of his beef and pork ; his main object will always
be to secure the keeping of his meat in its most palatable con-
dition, and as much as possible of its natural color. Chloride
of sodium, or what means here about the same, a good com-
mercial salt, answers both ends satisfactorily, if properly applied.
It does not necessarily change the color of the meat, nor does it
affect its tenderness beyond reasonable limits ; it is also a good
antiseptic, for it prevents, if present in a sufficient quantity, the
development of organism of a lower order, which in their

SALT FOR MEAT PACKING. 25

growth, as a natural consequence, will hasten the disintegration
of the meat mass, and thus its final putrefaction.

Practice recommends the use of the coarse and hard qualities
of salt for meat-packing, for the following reasons : they dissolve
gradually, and contract the meat by degrees to a desirable com-
pactness ; they keep the salt pickle within a certain moderate
concentration ; they cannot enter mechanically into the meat,
and thus overcharge it, and may therefore be applied in a suffi-
cient excess, so as to compensate for the losses of pickle by
leakage, &c., without endangering the tenderness and the flavor
too prematurely. The common fine salt answers for a short
period of keeping very well, and is consequently used in the
packing of meat for immediate family consumption. Fifty to
fifty-six pounds of coarse salt are usually taken for the salting
down of one barrel of meat; the bottom and the top of the
barrel are always carefully covered with a layer of coarse salt.
The coarse qualities of salt which are used in our country are
either manufactured from brines or from sea-water. The purer
the salt, the nicer is the flavor of the meat. A salt which con-
tains large quanties of foreign saline admixtures, particularly
of chloride of calcium and of chloride of magnesium, imparts a
pungent and disagreeable taste, and injures also the color of the
meat ;" for these saline compounds have themselves, both an
unpleasant taste, and being at the same time in a higher degree
hycroscopic, they cause a more copious discharge of juice from
meat, which renders the latter of a paler color, and of a harder
texture ; the color of the packed meat is frequently improved
by an addition of nitre (nitrate of potassa), which in itself, if
practised on a small scale, is a quite harmless proceeding. We
are using mainly the coarse salt made from our own brines and
from sea-water, besides the English coarse fine salt, and the
Turk's Island salt, including that from some other localities in
the West Indies. In some countries the rock salt is used for
meat-packing ; Texas meat-packers are at present engaged to
give a trial to the superior rock salt of Petite Anse, La. A good
rock salt is well fitted for that purpose, yet, on account of its great
hardness, it has to be broken up in smaller pieces than common
solar salt. The United States government requires that the
beef and the pork for army and navy use shall be packed with
Turk's Island or Onondaga coarse salt. At the New York works
4

26

BOARD OP AGRICULTURE.

the finer salt crystals are removed by means of a screen from
the coarser portion, which renders the latter still more accept-
able to the meat-packer. The commercial brand of a coarse
salt is by no means a sufficient title, as a general rule, for its
particular fitness, for no kind of salt in our markets is so inde-
pendent in its good composition, from the nature of the saline
solution or brine, which has been turned to account for its
manufacture, as the coarse qualities. How much the mode
of manufacture, and its careful working makes itself felt in that
direction, is best illustrated by the fact that the oceanic water,
which does not show any particular difference in its chemical
composition, and which at the same time must be considered
a very inferior saline solution or brine, as far as its com-
position is concerned, furnishes us with some of the best
and also some of the most inferior articles of coarse salt in our
markets.

To convey some idea about the character of the various
brands of coarse salt, which may come under our notice^ I
give here some analytical results of my own, with but one ex-
ception— the Turk's Island salt.

For the sake of a due appreciation of these figures, I will add,
that the sulphate of lime, within proper limits, must be con-
sidered as being the least objectionable foreign admixture of
salt, and that the percentage of water (as given) may be looked
upon as being here merely accidental ; it ought, for that reason,
not to enter into any calculation of comparative merits.

o ^

"A %

•3 i"

.fcj s

> ^

-.-1

? <

1 «

^. ^

5

-a o

c •»

•^ >.

O P- h-J

<!'^

o ^

Chloride of sodium, .
Sul|)hate of lime,
Chloride of calcium, .
Chloride of magnesium,
Moisture, .

98 882

96.004

97 512

07S2

1315

0.000

0 004

0.092

0 234

0.008

0.089

0.089

0.330

2.500

2.130

95 831
0.316
0 3.56
0.140
3.344

SALT FOR DAIRY USE.

27

Rock salt of
Neyba, St.
Domingo,
W. I.

Turk's Island,
W. I., coarse
salt, (solar.)

o

1 «

CO

Solar salt, Ne-
braska, Lin-
coln Co.

Chloride of sodium, . . . .

98.33

96.76

93 06

98.13

Chloride of magnesium, .

0 09

0.14

024

0.08

Sulphate of lime, ....

148

1.56

1.22

0.25

Sulphate of sodaj . . . .

0.07

0.64

035

0.39

Sulphate of magnesia,

0.07

0.00

0.18

0.00

Moisture,

0.30

0.90

4.95

1.20

ON DAIRY SALT.

The dairy business, a most important branch of our agricul-
tural industry, has attained of late such commanding propor-
tions, that the amount of salt required in its operations bids
fair to be counted henceforth by millions of bushels. The
peculiar nature of our dairy products calls for the best qualities
of ealfc in our markets. A good dairy salt ought to be of a
• neutral reaction and of a pure saline taste — free from pungent
after-taste ; it ought to be of a properly reduced granulated size,
free from any offensive odor, without any stain in color, and,
what is of not less importance, free from colored specks. The
better qualities of the English " common fine salt," for instance,
Ashton's brand, etc., were not many years ago almost exclu-
sively used by our dairymen. This practice, it appears, was not
a little favored by the fact that the exporters of provisions in
our seaport towns dealt also largely in foreign salt. Whatever we
may think at present about the past, we have to recognize the fact,
that the home manufacture of superior articles of salt has re-
ceived of later years considerable attention ; our salt manufac-
turers have taken advice, and numerous farmers' societies and
experienced dairymen assure us, that there is at present less cause
to believe in the assertion of bygone days, that nothing but
Ashton's, or English double refined salt, will make a good
butter. As a common fine or boiled salt is in every instance the
result of a more rapid evaporation, and thus most liable to be
affected in its desirable good composition by the retention of
impure mother liquors, washing processes have been devised,
by which our fine salt, designed for dairy purposes, is freed from
its obnoxious features. It was quite apparent that the presence-

28 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

of the chlorides of calcium and magnesium, and the sulphates
of soda and magnesia, which all brines in part at least con-
tain, must injure the sweet taste of the butter in particular,
if present beyond mere traces ; to exclude them either entirely,
or to reduce them to a harmless fraction, has been the object of
our dairy salt-men, at least in some centres of that branch of
industry — New York Onondaga works, for instance.

A salt of a decided alkaline reaction, caused by a too liberal
use of slacked lime for the exclusion of iron — in the interest of
a fair white color — or those qualities which contain larger quan-
tities of the carbonates of lime and magnesia, are very objection-
able. They cannot act otherwise but bring on a decomposition
of some of the neutral fatty compounds, of which the butter is
mainly composed, and which a good cheese to a varying propor-
tion contains. This decomposition itself becomes manifest by a
so-called rancid taste and an objectionable odor, and is due to
the liberation of some of the volatile fatty acids, as butyric acid,
etc. The presence of slacked lime in substance in any kind of
salt, be it ever so small, renders that salt not only unfit for dairy
use, but also for meat-packing. Our home-made dairy salt is
manufactured from the coarse (or solar) and from the common
fine salt ; if made from the former kind, it must be ground finer,
for both ought to be in such a state of division as to be readily
dissolved when worked into the butter or the curd ; both kinds
ought to be used by iveig-Iits, and not by measures. The English,
Ashton's brand, is somewhat more bulky than both of our home
products, and that portion of our home product which has been
obtained from boiled salt is again lighter than that produced
from solar salt ; in composition there need to be scarcely any
difference if made with equal care. The quantity of dairy salt
which ought to be used in salting butter and cheese depends
somewhat on the amount of moisture retained by either of them
when ready for salting ; to have a fulli/ saturated solution of
salt left is the real object. Well endorsed quantities are one
ounce of the best dairy salt to every one pound of butter, and
one pound of it for every one hundred pounds of curd.

Whilst I have thus far spoken of the liability of spoiling an
otherwise well prepared butter, or a good curd mass by adding an
inferior salt, etc., I need scarcely to add, that I do not entertain
in the slightest degree the opinion, that the best salt will ulti-

SALT FOR BUTTER. 29

mately save an otherwise carelessly made butter. There re-
mains but little doubt in my mind, taking the peculiar nature
of our dairy products into consideration, and that of the butter
in particular, but that in many instances, where the salt has been
blamed for a prematurely rancid butter, or a badly flavored
cheese, it would have been sometimes, at least, a safer presump-
tion to suspect some other oversight in their manufacture.
Aside from the well recognized good influence of a good pasture,
a good water, and a proper temperature whilst manufacturing
on the general character of our dairy produce, here under dis-
cussion, it is manifest, tliat the sweetness of odor or taste, of a
good butter for instance, does depend to a large extent, on an
unimpaired neutral state of the various fatty compounds, of
which the butter consists. Whatever inaugurates changes in
that direction ought to be carefully excluded ; an inferior salt,
as previously described, is one of the causes, which hastens a
change for the worse ; an insufRcient amount of a good salt an-
other ; a lengthy exposure to the atmospheric air before remov-
ing effectually most of the caseine (cheese-stuff), and of the
milk-sugar, another ; and too high temperature whilst manufac-
turing, (best 52° to 54° P.) and too much stirring and thus spongy
state of the new made butter are other causes. An unneces-
sary exposure even to the air, after a careful management of the
entire operation, must be counted among the various principal
causes, which practice and science have thus far recognized as
affecting most decidedly the preservation of the butter. We re-
sort to a salting of our butter, to aid in the free discharge of
the buttermilk, and to contract it ; to shorten thus the process
of washing, and to saturate the entire fat mass with a saturated
solution of a good salt, which shall exclude the air, and at the
same time act as an antiseptic towards the small quantities of
caseine (or cheese-stuff), and of milk-sugar, which a desirable
limited washing of the butter after its separation from the butter-
milk will leave behind. Pure butter is the most complicated
natural fat mass on record : it consists of not less than eight
fatty acids in combination with a substance known in its iso-
lated state by the name of oil-sweet or glycerine. Four of these
acids in their isolated state are solids ; four of them are liquids ;
these latter acids are remarkable for their unpleasant odor and
taste ; whilst in combination with that peculiar compound, the

30

BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

oil-sweet, that strong odor is not noticeable, bat as soon as that
combination by some cause or another is disturbed, their objec-
tionable odor and taste become manifest, and we say the butter
is rancid. Practice seems to endorse in the interest of the mak-
ing and preserving of a good butter, the following rules : have
your apparatus for butter-making well cleaned ; do not churn at
a higher temperature than from 50 to 56° F. ; keep off all offen-
sive odors, for fats as a general rule absorb them very readily ;
carry the entire process on with speed, and shorten thus the in-
jurious access of air under very disadvantageous circumstances ;
wash the separated butter under little agitation with a saturated
solution of best dairy salt, and repeat this last treatment but a
few times. Too much washing injures the quality of the butter
as far as the nicety of its flavor is concerned ; too little washing
leaves too much milk-sugar, and particularly caseine (or cheese-
stuff) behind. This caseine is, in the language of chemists, a
nitrogenous substance, and is most remarkable on account, not
only of its disposition to break up into very disagreeably smelling
and tasting substances, but also to have the property to impart
its own instability upon other more stable compounds, as, for in-
stance, the neutral fats of the butter. Its effect on the butter
is a mere question of degree, which salt under the most favorable
circumstances, will only prevent for a limited time. The larger
the amount of caseine left, the sooner will the butter be changed,
a result which a perfect tight-packing, and thus most efficient
exclusion of the air can only somewhat delay. The following
analysis may give some idea about various kinds of salt, — com-
mon, fine and dairy salt, which we are consuming for family
use, and in the dairy business.

Common Fine and JBoiled Salt.

Of Onondaga,
N. Y.

Portsmouth,
JUich.

Mason City,
Ohio.

Sulphate of lime, .
Chloride of calcium,
Chloride of magnesium,
Moisture,
Chloride of sodium,

1355
0.155
0.136
3000
95.353

0.805
0.974
0.781
6.752
90.682

0.614
0.041
3.470

95789

SALT FOR ANIMALS.
Dairy and Table Salt.

31

English— Ash-

Onondaga dairy

ton's salt.

salt.

Sulphate of lime,

1.4300

1.2630

Sulphate of magnesia,

0.0480

0.0225

Sulphate of soda,

-

0.0260

Chloride of magnesium,

0.0600

0.0370

Insoluble matter,

0.0500

0.1200

Moisture,

0.7600

0.70U0

Chloride of sodium,

97.6520

97.8315

ON SALT AS A PROMOTER OF ANIMAL LIFE.

Natural instinct, no doubt, has induced man and beast to
make use of common salt. Its intrinsic value was always well
recognized ; the oldest writings, sacred and profane, refer to it
by using its name frequently in a figurative sense ; it had en-
tered as an ingredient, with an emblematical meaning, in the
Jewish dispensation ; heathenish authors spoke in praise of it ;
Pytliagoras calls it a substance dear to the gods. Homer calls it
divine, Plutarch speaks of it. as a symbol of the soul. The
Arabs of the present day, we are told, use it as an emblem of
hospitality, and the Abyssinians carry pieces of salt with them to
offer it for tasting to those whom they wish to meet as friends.
"We ourselves consider it an important spice to render our
food palatable, and believe its direct use, within proper limits,
almost indispensable for the continuation of the normal func-
tion of our organs of digestion and secretion. Almost all wild
and taitied herbivorous animals, without exception, hunt by
natural instinct for sources of salt to supply their craving. The
opinion that the direct use of salt as an addition to our food was
not necessary for the support of animal life — for most articles of
our food did contain already a sufficient amount of it to answer
for all practical purposes — may be true under particular, excep-
tional circumstances, and as far as a mere maintenance of life is
concerned ; yet as soon as the promotion of a vigorous animal
life in general comes into consideration it has lost its force
as an argument, particularly as far as our domestic herbiv-
orous animals, as horses, cattle, sheep, and the like are con-
cerned. We concede, also, as far as man is concerned, that

82 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

our practice of adding salt to our food must be looked upon
as being, in part at least, a taste acquired by cultivation.

Carefully conducted practical experiments by some of our
foremost agricultural chemists have settled that question ; their
experiments have reduced to figures what mere experience in
more favored localities in a general way seemed to indicate.
Boussingault proved by cows, that those which had been fed
with an addition of salt to their food did not yield more milk,
or contained more fat, or had increased in weight of flesh ; yet
they looked more healthy and more vigorous ; in fact, their
whole exterior had been highly improved as compared with
animals which had been fed with the same food without an ad-
dition of salt. Liebig came to the same result ; he found
in the case of two oxen, which were to be fattened in the stall,
and of which one received its food mixed with an additional
dose of salt, while the other one did not receive any, that
the latter one soon looked bristly, dull, inactive and sickly,
while the first one, which had received salt as an addition to
his food remained smoothly skinned, lively and vigorous. Pas-
ture-feeding on a good grass crop, with its accompanying limited
physical exercise in the open air, has been always considered
the most normal food of our domesticated herbiverous animals
as far as an aromatic, tender meat, with a liberal amount of
well distributed fat, is concerned. The well recognized su-
perioj' quality of meat from the cattle and sheep raised upon
the marsh meadows along the seashores of Northern Germany,
Holland, Belgium, England and elsewhere, has been ascribed
to a large degree to the fact that their food — the marsh grasses
— is frequently salted by the spray of the oceanic waters. Most
of those who are at present engaged — remote from access of sa-
line solution — with the raising and fattening of cattle and sheep
are taking lessons from the previous observations, and are using
freely salt, apparently with decided advantage ; they presume
that a proper daily dose of salt does aid in a well-regulated and
thus economical digestion ; for it seems to favor a speedy solu-
tion and assimilation of the food, and at the same time creates
an increased desire for water, which being promptly supplied
causes an increased secretion of urine and perspiration. As
nature has chosen these two ways, among others, to remove from
the animal system those substances, which either have served

PRACTICAL INVESTIGATION. 33

their purpose, or are worthless whilst in an excess present, they
conclude quite properly that an increased secretion of urine and
V perspiration may dispose of these obnoxious substances more
freely, and thereby render a somewhat abnormal high stall feed-
ing and a want of desirable exercise less serious. The results
of practical investigation, it appears, may be summed up in the
following statement: salt does not increase directly the live
weight, yet it favors an economical digestion and assimilation
of the requisite normal amount of food, and it allows us, if de-
sirable, to feed our stock high without incurring a particular
corresponding risk ; it enables us thus to shorten the time for
getting our live stock up to a desirable market value, and as-
sists us, under certain circumstances, to dispose advantageously
of a larger proportion of other farm productions, as grain, hay,
etc., in the form of live weight.

Having thus far considered merely what direct experimental
investigation seems to teach, it may not be without some inter-
est to see what results chemical and physiological inquiries here
have ascertained. Numerous analyses of animal substances
have established the fact, that the soda compounds and chloride
of sodium (salt) in particular, represent in every instance the
main portion of the soluble inorganic substances of the ashes of
the entire mass of any animal of the order of mammalia. It
has been proved that our own system in its normal condition
does contain a certain amount of salt, and that every class of
animals contains it in a particular proportion, varying only
within certain limits. It has also been ascertained that salt forms
an important part of the soluble saline inorganic compounds of
various secretions, as perspiration, mucus and urine, and that
the kidneys in particular are the organs which dispose of its
excess consumed. As salt (chloride of sodium) furnishes by
far the largest portion of the soda compounds, which the an-
imals of a higher order consume, it has been presumed that
the main portion of the soda compounds found in the animal
system has been directly derived from the chloride of sodium
consumed. This assumption implies, as a natural consequence,
that chloride of sodiummust necessarily act in two directions,
in its unchanged state and in its products of decomposition ;
the presence of free hydro-chloric acid (muriatic acid) in our
stomachs suggests this view. Knowing that it renders, under

34 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

certain conditions, various nitrogenous matters, as the albumin
and the caseine soluble, and that it retards the coagulation of
the (ibrine, it has been presumed, apparently with much pro-
priety, that its constant association with the so-called (proteine)
nitrogenous substances within the animal body must have some-
thing to do with the transformation of those peculiar com-
pounds, although we do not yet fully understand the manner
in which it is accomplished.

A few analytical results of reliable authors (C. G. Lehmann,
HofFnian and others) may serve as an illustration of some
previous statements.

Human Blood.

Coagulum or Clot. \ ' ' ' '
( Corpuscles,

f Water, .

Serum = j^lb"'"^"' '
j Fatty Matters,

L Salts,

0.30 >
12.70 i
79.001

7.00 !

0.06 j

0.94J

13.0

87.0

100.00

Blood of Verlebrce.

1,000 parts, leave —

Dry substance, 220.0

Which contains —

Nitrogen, 37.0

Mineral substance, .... 10.0

Containing —

Potassa, 0.5

Lime and Magnesia, 0.2

Sulphuric Acid, 0.5

Phosphoric Acid, 0.5

Chloride of Sodium, Soda, Sesquioxide of Iron, Silica, . . 8.3

Analysis of the Ashes of the Serum.

Chloride of Sodium, 61.087

Chloride of Potassium 4.054

Carbonate of Soda, 28.880

j3 Phosphate of Soda, 3.195

Sulphate of Potassa, 2.784

100.000

COMPOUNDS IN THE BLOOD. 35

Flesh of the Verlehroe,
1,000 parts, leave —

Dry substance, . ' 250.0

Wliich contains —

Nitrogen, . . 40.0

Mineral substance, 15.0

Consisting of —

Polassa, 5.0

Phosphoric Acid, 6.5

Lime and Magnesia, 0.5

Sulphuric Acid, 0.5

Chloride of Sodium, Soda, Sesquioxide of Iron, Silica, . . . 2.5

"We believe, as I previously mentioned, that the chloride of
sodium is partly decomposed in the animal system, although we
do not yet know how it is brought about ; for our stomach in its
normal condition contains always some free muriatic acid. The
serum of the blood of our herbivorous animals resembles closely
in its composition, as far as its mineral constitutents are con-
cerned, that of the human blood ; it contains at least three parts
of soda to one part of potassa, although these animals do live
on a food in which the potassa largely predominates ; the bile
contams almost exclusively soda compounds, whilst the juice of
the flesh of herbivorous, as well as the carnivorous, animals,
contains almost exclusively chloride of potassium. It is under
these circumstances, most likely, that the potassa of the vege-
table food continually decomposes the chloride of sodium (or
salt) by forming chloride of potassium, which is subsequently
constantly and copiously secreted, particularly in the urine,
whilst the sodium combines with the phosphoric acid and the
various peculiar organic acids, which were either previously
combined with potassa, etc., or were formed in the course of the
assimilation of the food. Whatever we may think about the
details of the mode by which these changes may be accom-
plished, we have to acknowledge that the observations stated are
pointing in that direction. One important feature of a more
general character must have become prominent in the dis-
cussion of my subject, namely, the decided preference of the
animal economy for soda compounds ; for we notice, that al-
though our domesticated herbivorous animals do live on a food
in which potassa compounds largely predominate, they accumu-
late soda compounds, and reject to a considerable degree the

36 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

potassa. It is rendered thus manifest that soda and potassa,
although resembling each other quite closely as far as their
general chemical properties are concerned, must exert a quite
different influence on the animal system, and cannot substitute
each other beyond narrow limits without affecting its normal
functions.

ON SALT AS A PROMOTER OF VEGETABLE GROWTH.

Mere practical experience, we cannot deny, has rendered
quite frequently contradictory and conflicting answers regard-
ing the question ; is a direct application of salt for fertilizing
purposes really advantageous or not, and if so, under what cir-
cumstances have been obtained good and valuable results ?
Considering the situation of those at an earlier stage of inquiry,
who have endeavored to enlighten us on that question, we find
it could not be otherwise ; for it is with salt, as with all other
artificial fertilizers : to apply them, and to draw correct conclu-
sions from the results obtained, are two quite different and
separate operations, and not necessarily connected. As long as
the peculiar ivants of tlie soil and its physical conditions, as well
as the nature and the composition oii\\Q fertilizers, have not been
carefully ascertained, it would have been better to suspend our
decision than to proclaim hasty conclusions ; without being able
to trace reasonably the connection between cause and effect our
decisions cannot claim to be final. To experiment, for instance,
loith salt upon a piece of land before convincing ourselves about
its deficiency in soda compounds, would be as much out of
place as to consider salt and the refuse of salt-works necessarily
identical substances. An oversight in both directions has no
doubt been productive of many conflicting statements. I pro-
pose to enumerate here, first, some of the best supported experi-
mental results of practical investigations of an early date, and
shall subsequently attempt to reconcile them with conclusions,
etc., of a later date.

The luxuriant grass crops upon marsh meadows along the
seashores have been pointed out frequently as a proof of the
advantageous influence of saline solutions on the growth of
grasses. Agriculturists of note have recommended the direct
use of small quantities of salt from time to time upon a warm
and dry soil, and asserted, as far as the experiments in England

SALT AS A MANURE. 37

are concerned, that in most cases of experiments with salt, where
negative* results have been obtained, the soil might be reason-
ably suspected as having contained already a sufficient amount
of soda compounds and of chloride of sodium to answer all
practical purposes. All these recommendations of a direct use
of salt as an efficient fertilizer have one important feature in
common, namely, they caution to use but little at a time, to
apply it in a finely divided state, and to use it only at intervals
of years. As directly injurious effects on the other hand are
pointed out : its serious influence, for instance, on the tobacco
leaf and on the juice of the beet-root. It is claimed {Nesslar')
that its presence interferes with a ready combustion of the
former, favoring its charring, an effect in which it acts quite
reverse to potassa compounds ; in the case of the juice of beet-
roots it has been proved ( Grouven) that it increases, in a con-
siderable degree, its percentage of soluble saline compounds,
and thus reduces the value of the beet juice for the manufac-
ture of sugar. The fact that larger quantities of salt are death
to our common flora, and that it merely supports a vegetation
of its own, becomes at once manifest to those who glance at the
vegetation in the immediate vicinity of salt-springs and marine
inlets. In sight of these statements we are obliged to sum up
our case thus far in the following verdict : the direct use of salt
alone, as an artificial fertilizer, requires great precaution in the
manner of its application, and in the selection of crops, for its
beneficial effects seem to be due in a great measure at least to
its indirect action.

More detailed and well planned inquiries of a later date con-
cerning the causes of the peculiar workings of the salt tend to
confirm the previous verdict ; they gave us besides, some valu-
able information in other directions. Our whole system of
manuring our farm lands is based mainly upon the principle to
restore to the soil those substances which we carry off by our
crops in larger proportion than nature can supply. The im-
portance of an artificial fertilizer is therefore due to its rate of
consumption. Numerous analyses of soil have taught us that
soda and potassa compounds are almost invariably accompany-
ing each other, and are in most cases more or less constant
admixtures of the soil. Thousands of analyses have demon-

* These localities were along the seashore, and within access of oceanic spray, etc.

38 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

strated the fact that all plants, with the exception of a compara-
tively limited number of species of plants growing along the
seashores or in the vicinity of saline springs, contain much
smaller quantities of soda than potassa compounds, and, as a
natural process of the disintegration of rocks and soil does
render, in all probability, soda as well as potassa accessible as
plant-food, there is far less reason, as a general rule, to expect
as soon an exhaustion of the soil on soda compounds as on
potassa.

These few considerations explain to us the position, which
soda compounds — and chloride of sodium is not only its cheap-
est, but also, for obvious reasons, its most diffused form in our
lands under cultivation — do occupy in the vegetable economy ;
they have to be considered of secondary importance as plant-
food for the promotion of vegetable life as long as a relative
percentage of the various mineral substances in the ashes of
plants may be taken as a measurement of their importance in
the direct support of the promotion of their growtli. Care-
ful experiments by E. Wolf have left no doubt that salt
is liable to injure the growth of plants; he experimented
with seeds of two of the most important natural groups of
cultivated plants — the graminas and leguminosse — (barley and
vetch) ; he found that 0.52 percentage of salt in a soil
would considerably retard vegetation, and that 1.02 percentage
would even kill the germ ; the only saline substance among
our artificial fertilizers, which somewhat excelled the salt
(chloride of sodium), was the salmiak (chloride of ammo-
nium) ; finding that the nitrates, phosphates and sulphates of
soda and ammonia act far less injuriously, we conclude, quite
properly, that the chlorine — one of the constituent elements
of salt (and salmiak) — must be one of the causes of a fre-
quently-reported injurious effect in consequence of the direct
use of salt for fertilizing purposes. The injurious effects, of
late recognized in many instances, in Germany and elsewhere,
where the celebrated Stassfurth dungsalt has been extensively
used, have caused their present transformation from combina-
tions of chlorine into combinations with sulphuric acid or
into sulphates. The belief in the general efliciency of salt
as a fertilizer has been apparently so much shaken in Ger-
many that numerous factories at Stassfurth, etc., are now

USE OF SALT-REFUSE. 39

engaged to manufacture a so-called concentrated dungsalt
by a process which aims at, if not the entire, at least, the
partial exclusion of the chloride of sodium (salt) from its
saline constituents. The fact that the price of the Stassfurth
dungsalt is controlled at present by its percentage of chloride
of potassium, and not by that of the salt (the chloride of so-
dium), illustrates almost as well as anything else the drift
of opinion.*

I have stated already that many reports on experiments with
salt speak of it as refuse-salt, or salt-refuse, or refuse of salt works,
designations, which apply to substances of a quite different com-
position and value. These substances are obviously recommended
because a good salt is too expensive to be economical. Salt-refuse,
coming from our home salt works, may be obtained from three
different sources ; it may be an incidental result of the manu-
facture of salt — a salt of an inferior color ; it may be the
ground-up incrustations of the boiling kettles, or the dried-up
mother liquors. The first kind is most properly called refuse-
salt ; it consists mainly of salt (80-90 per cent.), with varying
quantities of sesquioxide of iron, caustic, carbonate and sul-
phate of lime ; it is frequently used for salting hay, and
entirely unfit for other domestic uses. The second article, from
our salt-boiling establishments east of the Mississippi River,
consists of salt and gypsum (plaster, sulphate of lime), varying
from 10-90 per cent, of the former and 90-10 per cent, of tlie
latter ; from the brines of Kansas and Nebraslia this article
would consist mainly of sulphate of soda, sulphate of magnesia
and sulphate of lime, which imparts a much higher value to it.
The third article, the dried-up mother liquors, would contain
large quantities of the chlorides of calcium and magnesium,
besides chloride of sodium and smaller percentages of chloride

* Analysis of two Specimens of Stassfurth Dungsalt.

I. II.

Chloride of sodium, 84 56

Chloride of potassium, 3 18

Sulphate of potassa, ' . . 2 1

Sulphate of soda, - 7

Sulphate of lime, 1 5

Carbonate of lime, - 2

Coal and other organic substances, 7 2

Water, 3 9

40 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

of potassium ; the presence of potassa and magnesia enhances
its value. Nobody acquainted with these facts would credit the
good results obtained by their indiscriminate use to the salt
alone. We find, thus, that the leading agriculturists of Europe,
after years of practical and scientific investigation, have arrived
at the conclusion that the benefits to be derived from a direct
use of salt are quite exceptional, on account of its general,
although limited, diffusion throughout our cultivated soils, and
its slight demand on the part of our farm plants in general ;
and that its exceptional good effects, wherever noticed must be
due to its indirect influences on the soil and its inorganic plant-
food. Some of these indirect influences are : it aids in the
solution of phosphate of lime, in the transformation of gypsum,
etc. ; it increases the water-absorbing properties of soil — hence
its effect upon dry and warm soil — and assists thus, apparently,
by both its chemical and physical action, in a more speedy dis-
integration of the soil. The practice of adding saline mother
liquor to liquid barn manure, or salt to dry barn manure, or to
compost manure, or to guano, or to superphosphates, and to
all such other artificial fertilizers, which are affecting its com-
position, derives its general recognition as being frequently a
good one, no doubt, from such exceptional influences as previ-
ously enumerated.

In reviewing my previous statements, I am inclined to indorse
the advice I read off: the safest and cheapest may of siippl?/ing-
salt to your farm Ia?ids, if at all desirable, is to feed it to your
live stock, for natural channels of distribution are always the
best.

MINERAL MANURES.

The President. The subject for discussion is Mineral
Manures. All our fertilizers are divided into two great classes
— organic and inorganic. The organic manures come from the
air, that great reservoir provided by nature. The inorganic
manures, which are found in the ashes of plants, must be de-
rived from the soil, and they are far more important than we
generally consider them. These inorganic manures are very
apt to be exhausted from the soil, by being carried off in the
crops. I think all our old farms are suffering greatly for the

MINERAL MANURES. 41

want of inorganic and mineral manures, and I hope that all the
gentlemen present, not only of the Board, but the practical
agriculturists in the community, will give us their views freely
upon this important subject. The discussion is open for every
one. I see Mr. Foote, of Williamstown among the audience. I
remember that when I was in college, he used to go round and
gather up all the ashes he could find for his farm, and I hope he
will give us the results of his experience.

AsAHEL Foote. I did not expect to be called on, in the
presence of these representatives of science, to lead in a dis-
cussion of this sort. I am very happy to see it announced in
one of our leading agricultural journals, that at this and subse-
quent sessions, an abundant opportunity will be afforded to
farmers to ask questions and elicit information upon the various
topics that are discussed. This is just as it should be. What
we farmers want, what we particularly need, is information —
light. I hope it is just what we feel that we want, for if we
want it we shall ask for it ; and I know of no surer method of
obtaining light, whether from the heavens above or the earth
beneath, than by asking for it. For the lighting of our dwell-
ings in these latter days, I know that we are indebted not wholly
nor chiefly to the flowing oil well, but mainly to the simple pro-
cess oi pumping, by which the illuminating fluid is brought to
the surface from its hidden depths below ; and for our mental
illumination, we Yankees are indebted not altogether to the
learned essay or to the flowing lecture, however instructive, but
largely to that inquisitive faculty, that pumping power, if I may
so call it, by which our Yankee nation is characterized. I hope
that during this and the succeeding sessions of the Board there
will not be wanting numbers of live Yankees who shall justify
their reputation in this regard by giving full scope to this, their
peculiar gift; especially as I cannot help "guessing" that these
embodiments of sciences, commissioned by the powers that be,
and sent out from the " hub " to all parts of the Commonwealth,
for the very purpose of enlightening our ignorance out here on
the rim, are just the wells we need to pump for our enlighten-
ment.

You have been pleased to mention some of my operations in
farming, particularly with reference to the use of ashes as a
6

42 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

manure. I have had some experience in that line for the last
thirty years. I began about thirty years ago by using leached
ashes, delivered on my premises at four cents a bushel, for
which I am now glad to pay eight cents a bushel and haul
them four miles. I have great faith in the virtue of ashes,
whether live ashes or leached, for agricultural purposes, on
gravelly or sandy soil. I have never known them, in my experi-
ence, to fail. I have used them in various ways — sometimes by
composting them with muck and barnyard manure, sometimes
by mixing them with plaster. Of late years for my corn crop, I
have more commonly pursued the latter method, of mixing per-
haps two bushels of plaster with three of ashes. I find that with
this simple dressing, dropped in the hill when planting corn, I
double my crop on ordinary gravelly soils. I put a moderate
handful in a hill, taking care that the corn is not dropped upon
the ashes. Live ashes might be used in the same way, but they
must be used, of course, more cautiously. In the case of live
ashes, the effect is more immediate, I doubt not, on the crops,
owing to the presence of those properties which, in the case of
leached ashes, are drained out in the processes of leaching ;
but the effect of the leached ashes which we get from the soap-
boiler is far more durable. I have seen an instance where
leached ashes were applied liberally twenty-five years before
and the effect was still visible.

Professor Chadbourne. I should be glad to say a few words
upon tlie subject of mineral manures. My friend Foote has re-
ferred to certain wells, which he has intimated have come up
here from the " hub," to be pumped by those who live upon the
rim of the universe. I live on the rim. I have not only lived
in Berkshire, and, therefore, claim to have been upon the rim,
but I live now on the outer rim. I have come from a place where
we call this " the hub." I supposed my friend referred to the
scientific men who have made the study of plant-life a specialty,
and, therefore, are supposed to know exactly what plants need
in order that they may grow well. I do not believe there is a
chemist or naturalist in the world who knows so well what a
plant needs for its growth, as the plant does itself. I am fully
satisfied that long before chemists were invented, or naturalists
known, the plants understood that thing. Tlie best that scien-

ASH OF THE PLANT. 43

tific men have been able to do is simply to take an analysis of
the plant and watch it, and find out what the plant itself takes
from the soil, what it constantly demands for its growth. When
we take a plant and burn it, the ashes of the plant are the
mineral manure which the plant has taken out of the soil, and
it says to us, by the ashes we get, " That is the very substance
we want, and must have, and will have, or we won't grow."
That is the answer the plant gives us, and that is the way we get
it. The chemist can take these ashes and analyze them, and
find out exactly what they contain ; and we find that these ashes,
as we should naturally suppose, after knowing something about
chemistry, came from the rocks. The granite and. feldspathic
rocks, when ground and analyzed, are found to contain these
very materials. But then, in ordinary soil, and especially in
our soil here in New England, we find these particles of rock so
coarse that many of them, even though they may be quite small,
will remain hundreds of years before they are crushed down
and dissolved. Now, that material in the shape of these par-
ticles, not crushed down, not dissolved, is of no more value to
the plant than if it were ten thousand miles from the plant.
The plant cannot feed upon these particles, and something
must be done to crush and decompose them, so that the plant
can get hold of them. That is the advantage that we have in
the West, that our soils have been crushed and pulverized so
finely, that these materials are given up more readily to the
plant than they are in this section of the country.

Now, take aslies. You have what the plants have once taken
up, and it is in a very minutely divided state, and it is in the
state in which the plant needs it. Let us see what the result
is. It is said that these ashes do a wonderful work, and there
are several reasons why they do. Li the first place you put
upon the soil the very things that the plant needs, because they
are the very things you have obtained from plants — the very
things that the plants took up. That seems to be plain enough.
But there is more than that. In many soils, there is a tenden-
cy to the formation of acids, which are prejudicial to the pro-
duction of crops. If you put on live ashes, the free alkaline
is present, and if leached ashes, the sub-alkaline is present,
and it at once neutralizes the acids. So much is gained.

44 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

Then another thing. The free potash in these ashes is not
only set free for the plant, but the ashes affect the particles
of soil, and favor its decomposition, and therefore they not
only give to the plants what they themselves possess, but they
really favor the formation of more ashes in the soil.

Now, if we burn a plant, we shall find, ordinarily, that we
obtain from it just about a given quantity of ash ; not exactly,
but there is a certain quantity which every plant must have, or
it will not grow. Every man here, I suppose knows that all
our plants take a great deal of their food from the air. They
do not take as much as Liebig and others used to teach that
they did, — .1 have found that out ; they take a great deal of
their carbon from the soil ; there is no doubt about that. But
they do feed largely from the air, especially our large-leaved
plants, and it is absolutely impossible for them to do it, unless
they can obtain from the soil just the amount of mineral ma-
nure which they need, because they must have, for every pound
of wood they make, and for every single seed they make, a
given amount of that mineral manure. If they cannot have
that, they will not feed upon the gases of the air. They are
just in the condition of a sick man, or a man with no appetite,
who is brought to a table where there is an abundance of food ;
he cannot eat. There is the table and the food upon it, but the
plants have no appetite ; the gases pass by the leaves, and
they cannot take them in. Now, put your aslies upon the soil
and see that they have the mineral manure tliey need, and they
are like a man with an appetite ; he will eat anything ; he will
clear the table. Let the air come in contact with those leaves,
the thousand mouths are open, and they take it in. Do you not
see that by putting on mineral manures in this way, you are
robbing the air, or taking out what nature put there for the
plant to use ? Here are two men, with fields side by side, in
equally good condition. One man keeps his soil well supplied
with ashes, as my friend Mr. Foote does, and his plants flourish,
because they are able to take in the gases from the air. The
other man has just as much air, but it has gone by his plants
without giving them any nourishment, because he has not sup-
plied his soil with mineral manures, and they could not take it
in. That is the way. Pump the air. It is forty-five miles

HOW ASHES WORK. 45

deep ; and when you have pumped it all clear one day, there
will be just as much over your land the next morning as there
was the day before, for the air is constantly changing. Keep
tapping it. Put on the mineral manure.

There is another very important thing in regard to ashes,
which is seldom referred to. One of the most essential things
that we want is nitrogen, in such a form that the plants can take
it up. Here is an atmosphere forty-five miles deep, as we say,
but it is really a great deal more than that, and a very large
portion of this atmosphere is nitrogen, the very thing we want
to make manure of. We want to get this nitrogen into the
plants, and if our friend Goessmann could only give us some rec-
ipe by which we could take this nitrogen from the air and put
it into our manure readily and cheaply, we should not be obliged
to go to the Chincha Islands for guano. We want something
that will hold every particle of ammonia we have in the soil
and that shall fix it as it conies from the air. There is more or
less set free in the air from decomposition. If you have ashes,
if you have any alkali or any caustic body present where de-
composition is going on, instead of the ammonia set free pass-
ing off, you have more oxygen taken from the air, and you
have nitre formed. You know that in old revolutionary times,
they used to go out and dig up the soil under barns and houses,
leach it, and get out the saltpetre that was in it, to make gun-
powder. You can do it any day. Dig up the earth under any
old barn, where the urine settles, and where the rain does not
fall, and you will find it rich in nitre, which we want for plants.
Throw ashes round a privy, where the urine is spreading, and
where the water cannot come down, because the nitre is very
soluble, and you will see, in the summer time, sharp crystals
shooting, and you will find that these are crystals of nitre.
And oftentimes, in stables, you will see the plastered walls cov-
ered with a coating that looks like frost. It is nitre. Decom-
position has been going on ; there is ammonia, and there is
nitre formed. Now, if there is any decomposition of this kind
going on, instead of its passing off in the form of ammonia, it
is changed into nitre, and you have it there in the soil.

You see, therefore, how valuable ashes are. You see that,
in the first place, they give back to the soil the very thing the

46 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

plant wants to live on ; in the next place they favor the decora-
position of the soil, and make more ashes ; in the third place,
they give an appetite to the plant, so that it can feed on the air ;
and finally, they tend to fix the ammonia in the form of nitre,
which is one of the most valuable manures we have.

Our Western soils, as you know, are very rich and fertile.
We carted ashes from the University and spread about forty
bushels to the acre on a piece of blue-grass land. The soil is
deep and rich naturally, but when we came to cut the grass we
cut two tons on this land to one on land where the ashes were
not applied. It would pay to give a good round price for ashes,
even if their effect was to be exhausted on the first crop ; but
I have no doubt that next year, the effect will be still more
marked. There is a great deal in this inorganic manure.

A Member. Can you tell us anything about coal ashes ?

Prof. Chadbourne. I will say that coal ashes differ wonder-
fully. Wood ashes, upon the whole, have about the same
chemical composition ; coal ashes are an entirely different thing.
The ash of coal is made up from the inorganic material that
was in the coal plants, just as in our plants, together with the
sand, the slate, the clay, the iron, and all the materials carried
in and deposited with the plants when the plants were deposited
to make the coal. Therefore, you see that these ashes are made
np largely, in many cases, of what we call fine sand and clay.
Some of our finest coal, like our best Lehigh coal, deposits but
very little material, and the ashes are composed mainly of the
inorganic material in the plants ; but then, they contain very
little of those active materials of which I have been speaking.
Those ashes, however, when they are fine, can be used to very
good purpose as an absorbent. They can be used round privies
and similar places, and put round trees, and they are better than
fine sand to make a clayey, tenacious soil soft and friable. So
that, indirectly, coal ashes are much more valuable than they
have had the credit of being. But, directly, I have never seen
any great advantage from them.

A Member. What is the value of leached ashes as compared
with unleached ?

Prof. Chadbourne. That question reminds me of the philo-
sophical remark of one of Dickens' characters, Jack Bunsby :
" The value of that observation depends upon the application of

WANT OF POTASH. 47

it." So the value of leached as compared with unleached ashes,
depends upon the application you want to make of them. If
the thing you want in your soil is potash, then of course you
want unleached ashes, because it is the potash that is taken out
by leaching. That is a thing that is sometimes almost entirely
wanting. On some sandy soil you want that potash ; there is no
question about that. But, on the other hand, if you want min-
eral phosphates or sulphates, you will get more value for your
soil, from the same amount of money, by putting on leached
ashes. If you need potash, then what you want is unleached
ashes. If you want phosphates, and those things that will con-
tinue to fertilize the land for a great length of time, then spend
your money for leached ashes.

Col. Wilder. How is it with the soils of New England, that
have been long under cultivation ?

Prof. Chadbourne. They generally lack potash, as well as
other elements. I will say this, that I would buy leached ashes
if I could get them, and unleached ashes if I could get them, and
all that I could get of both kinds, even if I had to pay more than
Mr. Foote does. I used to have them hauled on to my land in
Williamstown. I had a great pile there one winter ; they froze,
and froze dry, and there came a wind that took them and
strewed them right across the field, and the last time I was there,
there was a strip clear across the field to the fence where the
grass was four times as high as it was anywhere else.

Col. Wilder. I am of the opinion that there is no mineral
manure that we need so much upon our soils here in New Eng-
land, that have been long under cultivation, as potash. I
would purchase ashes at almost any price at which I could pro-
cure them. I should consider them a cheap manure at fifty
cents a bushel. I have never used any manure on my soils that
would produce such a wonderful effect as ashes. If I wished to
have fair and beautiful fruit, I would apply ashes ; and in fact,
I have never applied them to any crop that I did not consider
them the cheapest manure I could use. I derive this opinion,
not merely from my own experience, but from the fact that on
all our new, virgin soils we get the fairest crops of any that we
grow. I saw that illustrated lately at the meeting of the
National Pomological Society at Philadelphia, where the fruits
from the new State of Kansas, although that State is not so

48 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

fertile as California, were quite equal to any of the fruits that
were exhibited from California. I am not prepared to say that
the fairness, or beauty, or size, or excellence of those fruits was
derived from potash ; but we all know that on lands newly
burnt over we get the fairest fruits, the finest vegetables, and the
best grain. I have always been very much in favor of the use
of ashes.

I was much pleased with the remarks of Prof. Goessmann, and
especially with the caution that he gave us. I consider salt a very
dangerous article to use, unless it is used with great caution.
It may be owing to the region where I live, so near the ocean ;
but I must say, that in all the applications I have ever made of
it, even to asparagus beds, which I know will take a great
quantity of it without injury, I have never yet seen any benefit
resulting from it.

Mr. Thompson. I will explain the method by which I have
arrived at a number of results by the manufacture and appli-
cation of manures this past year. First, I will state how I
became interested in the matter of using ashes.

In 1832, there was a lot of land of five acres adjoining my
father's farm. It was purchased by a man who was a shoemaker,
and was new to the business of farming ; that is, he had not
been brought up to it from his youth. The land had been worn
out, both as pasturage and as a mowing lot, until it got so poor
that it would not give more than three-quarters of a ton of hay
to the acre. He had an idea that he could purchase manures
and make the land better, and make a profitable business of
farming. He bought all the leached ashes from the soap-
boilers, paid seventeen cents a bushel for them, and carted them
two miles ; all the manure he could get from the livery stables,
and all he could buy from other sources. He used to give fifty
cents a load then — twenty bushels to the load. He went on to the
lot and applied his leached ashes to about an acre, " fore and
aft," as we sailors say. Next he applied his barnyard manure
that he bought in the vicinity, of those who were not so much
interested in producing crops as he was, and sold their manure,
instead of using it on their own land. Then he applied the
livery stable manure to another acre. The result was right
before my eyes every day while I was on the farm adjoining it.
The benefit of the horse manure was evident in the first crop to

EXPERIMENT WITH ASHES. 49

such an extent that the land yielded nearly three tons of hay to
the acre. The result of the cow manure was a medium between
the crop of the previous year and the crop produced by the
horse manure. You could hardly perceive that there was any
particular advantage the first year from the leached ashes ; the
next year you saw the advantage, and he run it five or six years
before he applied any more, and then he broke it up. The third
year ashes were applied where the horse manure was, and you
could see the effect as plainly as you can see these aisles be-
tween the benches. The cow manure ceased to show much
effect the third year ; the ashes, I think, did not lose their effect
upon the soil for years and years.

Ten years ago, I had occasion to oversee the laying out of a
park for our agricultural society. I wanted to make the track
as hard as I could, at as small expense as possible. If we used
clay, we had got to cart it two or three miles, but we could
readily get coal ashes carted to the park, to get them out of the
way as waste. I got some as good soil as I could, and put it on
the track — our common poor land that wouldn't spindle corn
in two years, if it would last so long. "We mixed that soil with a
little of the yellow loam, and then ploughed and harrowed it,
and applied these coal ashes to it, two or three inches deep, and
in three years from that time I mowed it with a mowing
machine, and I think I cut a ton and a half of as good clover as
ever grew in the world on that park ; and to-day, it is in such a
condition that it would grow fifty bushels of corn to the acre, if
you turned the soil up. That is simply the result of the
application of coal ashes.

I bought last year all the coal ashes I could get carted to my
place for twenty-five cents a load of sixteen bushels. The folks
thought I was crazy to have coal aslies tipped upon my farm.
I mixed these ashes with peat muck at about the rate of
three loads of muck to one of ashes. Early in the spring I had
it sliovelled over. There was part in the ground and I kept
moving it until it was thoroughly composted. I had a piece of
land which was sowed to rye, which had had corn on it the year
previous ; the manure was ploughed in, and then a spoonful
of Pacific guano applied to a hill ; the yield was fifty-eight
bushels to the acre. I seeded that in October of last year to
rye, and did not put on any manure. In the spring I wanted
7

50 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

to test the value of this compost of coal ashes and peat, and I
had a man drive in with, a team, and scatter this compost over
strips of the usual width, leaving every alternate strip. I then
sowed the whole, and rolled it over ; I did not harrow it. If
you could see that field to-day, you would see that the seed has
taken firm hold where this compost was spread, — the clover is
developed handsomely ; but the strips where I put none of this
compost are almost as barren as this floor. The seed did not
take at all, through the season of drought, — for we had five
weeks of drought, as the Irishman said, in August.

Now, I have had the whole lot covered with a compost that I
make of cow droppings and peat, for the next year's trial ; and
I am in hopes that I shall then see the effect of this compost of
coal ashes and peat, in comparison with barnyard manure com-
posted with peat.

A Member. Will you please to tell us what the soil is ?

Mr. Thompson. The soil is a rather dry, sandy loam. Per-
haps I ought to say that I reside in Nantucket. I have had it
stated to me that the refuse of gas works was useless. I had
some of it carted to my place, and had fresh peat muck mixed
with it — about one load of the gas lime (twenty bushels) to four
of the peat muck. In March I had my men cart salt water right
from the dock. I used three hundred and fifty gallons of salt
water, equal to a bushel of salt, but in a better condition to mix,
as it is ready to compost with the peat and lime at once. I let
that remain until April, and then I had it applied broadcast to
grass land, by the side of barnyard manure, and when we mowed
the grass, I could not tell the difference. This land was a wet,
loamy meadow, over a peat bottom. I planted potatoes, with
this compost in the hill. The potatoes were not equal to those
which were planted in kelp, or kelp, peat and lime.

I also experimented with salt, lime and peat, on potatoes —
one bushel of salt to one barrel of slacked lime, thoroughly dis-
solved in three loads of peat. The crop was almost a failure.
Peat, with twenty pounds of soda ash in the dry, then dissolved
thoroughly, gave a very fair result, but not equal to the kelp,
or the kelp, peat and lime.

My objects in these experiments was to ascertain what I could
produce a crop with, at the least expense. It costs high to get
kelp and cart it seven miles and a half, or else give $1.50 for a

COAL ASHES. 51

load of say, a quarter of a cord. I find that makes the best
potatoes, but, as I say, it is an expensive manure ; therefore I
made a compost of one load of kelp, two loads of peat, that I
got on my own land, and say a barrel of lime. The kelp carried
the salt, and the lime was slacked and dissolved, and it was
composted in alternate layers of peat, and kelp and lime. The
potatoes produced in the hills to which this compost was ap-
plied were as smooth as they could be, and almost all large,
where they grew from a cutting of one eye to each piece. It
was not a large yield, only twenty-five or thirty bushels of
" Early Rose " from one bushel treated in that way ; but they
were all large, fair, merchantable potatoes.

My experience and observation in regard to wood ashes would
induce me to give as Colonel Wilder has said, even fifty cents
a bushel if I could be sure of getting them at that price. I will
say, that the farmers on Long Island send vessels down to the
State of Maine to bring up ashes by the cargo, and it is these
ashes which have made the lower end of that island into
vegetable gardens for the city of New York.

Mr. Colt. Can't you apply your peat without composting it ?

Mr. Thompson. Yes, sir, but it would have an injurious
effect, because, spread broadcast in the fall, or laid out so that
the frost would act upon it, the acid in it would rather have a
tendency to retard vegetation.

Mr. Colt. Then you think the coal ashes take the acid out ?

Mr. Thompson. Yes, sir ; any alkaline matter would neu-
tralize the acid in peat.

A Member. Have you experimented with coal ashes alone,
and if so, with what result ?

Mr. Thompson. Yes, sir. I do not know that you would
call the ashes I have applied coal ashes, because, whenever we
speak of the use of coal ashes, we are immediately combated
with the assertion that all coal ashes are more or less impreg-
nated with wood ashes ; but the amount of wood that is used
is so small, simply a few chips to kindle the fire, that I must
think the quantity of wood ashes is too small, in proportion to
the whole amount, to have any appreciable effect. The whole
effect, I think, is from the coal ashes, and it is a good effect.
You may put them right on the soil, especially if it is of a clay-
ey nature or low ground, and you will see the grass come in

52 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

very readily, almost as readily as with the ashes from peat.
You may take off the whole of the top soil, and apply peat
ashes for a year or two, and it will all come in with white
clover, without any other application, so that I would be will-
ing to purchase ashes under any circumstances. I have just
bought a farm, the pastures of which have been run down, and
which I am determined to cover with all the ashes I can find,
to see if I cannot renovate them.

A Member. Does Mr. Thompson mean that coal ashes will
produce white clover ?

Mr. Thompson. I do, on our land. I will say, that many
years ago, I rode over our island with Judge Bishop, where
there is a moss growing that will destroy almost all vegetation.
Then in 1832 and '33, there were 14,000 sheep on our island,
and they took out the last elements, it seemed to me, of vege-
tation, and there was nothing but organic matter left there. The
Judge said to me, " Why, my dear sir, put on coal ashes ;
harden up your soil, so that it will not blow away ; then the
crops will grow."

J. F. C. Hyde. I did not intend to speak this afternoon, but
this discussion leads me to say a few words.

I have used wood ashes on strawberries with the most grati-
fying success. I have raised the greatest crop of strawberries
that I ever raised in my life from their application. I do not
believe that I can go astray in the use of wood ashes. But as
that has been said a great many times, and as you all believe
it just as strongly as I do, I will pass on to coal ashes.

I have used coal ashes sometimes with pretty good results.
It seems to me there is a difference in the coal. I have used a
great many cords of coal ashes which I have procured for the
expense of carting, no charge being made for them. I have
carted them from the village near which I reside, Newton Cen-
tre, to my own ground, and screened them there, or I have
screened them at the place where I obtained them, and then
carted them away. I use a screen such as we use to screen
gravel for the highway. I have used the ashes from both red-
ash and white-ash coal. I am not learned enough in this mat-
ter of coal to say that the red ash is richer in those materials
that go to benefit the soil than white ash ; I can only say, that
I have had the best success from the ashes obtained from the

WOOD, PEAT AND COAL ASHES. 53

red-ash coaL Of course, much depends upon the place you get
coal ashes from, or the way in which the coal is used. If your
ashes are obtained from kitchen fires, kindled every morning,
you see, of course, that you get a large amount of wood ashes ;
but if you get them from a furnace where the fire is kindled
the first of November, and does not go out until the next May,
and not a stick of wood is used during all that time, you get,
of course, no wood ashes, only coal.

My last experiments were made with coal ashes obtained
from such a source, where no wood was used, and I must say,
that beyond serving a good purpose as an absorbent, I do not
believe they were of any value ; and as an absorbent, they were
no better than sand would have been. But then, it may be, as
Prof. Chadbourne has remarked, that they act mechanically upon
the soil, and therefore may be used to advantage in some places.

I pass to peat ashes. These are generally regarded as of little
value, because it is supposed that they contain very little pot-
ash ; but I use peat ashes with very great advantage, and I
would pay something for them. I use them as an absorbent.
I put them into privies, to absorb the liquid, and then mix
them with muck, and use them in this combination with very
gratifying results.

Now, to return to coal. I cannot agree with Mr. Thompson
in regard to the use of coal ashes upon grass land ; or I should
say that they do not have that effect upon the lands about Bos-
ton that they have down in Nantucket. I have used them upon
grass land, and noted the results very carefully ; I have used
them on wet land and dry land, and I could not see a particle
of difference in the grass. If I use wood ashes, I can write my
name in the grass almost, and I can bring in white clover where
there did not seem to be a particle of it before, so that it would
do your eyes good to see it. Coal ashes never produce such a
result with me.

One word in regard to salt. I have tried salt to some extent,
and I agree fully with what Col. Wilder has said, that salt is of
no sort of use with us about Boston, and I have great fears
about using it. I have seen it applied to asparagus, so that not
a single living thing could grow in the bed but asparagus, and
the soil seemed scorched and barren ; and yet that asparagus
did not do nearly so well as my friend Moore's, where he uses

54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

other manures. What is the use of applying salt, if it pro-
duces no effect ? I know that in some places among these hills,
you can apply gypsum, and write your name in the grass, but
witli us, you might as well apply so much dust from the middle
of the street ; it would do just as much good.

I only speak of our locality. I have spread salt upon grass
without the least result. The notion has prevailed among nur-
serymen and orchardists, that we must apply salt to plum-trees,
and one man went so far that he applied it until he said he
could taste the salt in the leaf of the plum-tree — which I did
not believe ; but I never could see any good results coming
from that. I am free to say, however, that I do not profess
to know but very little about it, except from my own observa-
tion and experience. But I cannot say that I have seen the
least beneficial result from the use of salt.

Mr. Slade. We are in the habit of using considerable
leached ashes, coming from the northern part of New York
State. We have an idea that there is a vast difference in the
quality of those ashes, depending upon whether they are hard-
wood or soft-wood ashes. I call upon Prof. Chadbourne to give
the farmers a simple rule by which they can determine whether
they are valuable or otherwise.

Prof. Chadbouene. The pump sucks ! (Laughter.) Of
course, any chemist can analyze a given specimen of ashes and
tell exactly what they are ; and in almost all of our agricultural
books you will find an analysis of the ashes of all the common
woods that are burned. I know of no way myself to direct the
farmers, except that if they know where the ashes are produced,
and have a book like Johnston's, where these analyses are given,
they can see about what the average composition is. As to
giving any simple rule, it is utterly impossible for me to do it.
So far as I am concerned, I say the pump sucks there.

Mr. Slade. Take, for instance, a few soft-wood ashes in a
saucer and apply vinegar, will the result be the same as it
would if they were hard-wood ashes ?

Prof. Chadbourne. It will not be the same. The ashes
differ in the amount of free potash they contain ; and the more
free potash they have, the more vinegar it will take to deposit it.
But then, the vinegar itself is a variable quantity, and you
would have to consult a chemist to get vinegar of a certain

CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES. 55

strength. These are some of the points whicli I intend to dis-
cuss to-night, to show the utter unreliableness of three-quarters
of the experiments that are made, because we do not know the
strength of the vinegar.

Mr. Goodman. I want to say a few words in behalf of my
friend Mr. Salt, who, I think, has been badly treated by my
friend Col. Wilder and other distinguished gentlemen here. In
the first place you must recollect that these gentlemen who are
advocating ashes against salt, (and I have not a word to say
against my friend Mr. Ashes) come from the seaboard, which
has naturally an atmosphere saturated with salt, and that salt is
not so efficacious there as elsewhere ; but I apprehend that no
one can deny the great uses of salt in connection with agricul-
ture, any more than he can deny the relation of the atmos-
phere to the ocean. It may be a matter of inquiry how far
those countries which are notorious for their verdancy and
greenness, for the richness of their pastures and the quality of
their grass, for instance, Ireland and England, are influenced
by the saline particles which emanate from the ocean, as it
courses by these islands and modifies their atmosphere. There-
fore, when you undertake to say that salt has no influences
upon certain soils, you must not charge it entirely upon salt,
until you analyze that soil, and analyze otlier soils, and see
whether there is not a difference in the effect.

Now, in relation to all these inorganic manures, there is no
doubt that it can be laid down as a prime principle, that they
are all beneficial, because the soil is made up primarily of in-
organic matter. We know that our soil is composed of the
rocks that have been ground to pieces by the process of abrasion
that has been going on for ages. Therefore, these inorganic
matters, when exhausted from the soil, can be practically re-
placed. On the other hand, we can go through the process of
burning the plant, and undertake to make from the ashes a per-
fect manure, so that the plant will grow as strongly and in the
same condition as in the natural state. It is just as impossible
as it is for those French chemists to succeed, who have under-
taken to introduce life by a mechanical process, instead of the
old natural way. I apprehend that life can be introduced in
only one way, and neither French nor any other philosophers
can bring life into the world by mechanical or chemical means.

56 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

Now, when you undertake to make perfect manures from the
salts or from the ashes of a plant, you are at fault, because you
have not the appliances for appropriating these elements which
nature has. You cannot penetrate into the mystery of the
veins and arteries of the human system, or into tlie mysteries of
vegetable physiology, by which a tree is produced, so that you
can do it artificially ; you can only approximate to it. We can
only approximate to what are the best manures for certain vege-
tables and plants ; and therefore, when Mr. Hyde and Colonel
Wilder tell us that they tried this manure and that manure on
their pear-trees or their strawberries, we rely upon what they
say, because they have tested theory by experiment. But when
Colonel Wilder tells me that he would not apply salt, I tell him
that he has not lived yet on the hills of Berkshire ; but I hope
he may, and change that meagre climate of the eastern portion
of the State to the strong, health-giving influences of our Berk-
shire hills.

Now, when you come to apply these things to the soil, you
have got to look at them just as the doctor looks at his patient.
If an allopathic doctor is called in to a person who is sick, the
first thing he does (I say it with all deference to my allopathic
friends) , is to get a bolus down his throat, and experiment upon
him, see how it affects him ; and after a while, by continually
experimenting, he may get hold of the right medicine. But, in
my opinion, the homoeopathists should be our exemplars in the
treatment of the soil, because they first inquire into the previ-
ous conditions of the man ; they ascertain, in the first place,
what hereditary influences he has derived from his parents ;
they inquire what have been his habits of life ; in what atmos-
phere he has lived ; they watch the condition of his blood, and
then they are able to bring out and apply the medicine which
will be most likely to restore the patient to health. So when
we apply these manures, we want to find out the condition of
the soil, what has been grown there, what elements are ex-
hausted, and taking all these things into consideration, we are
able to apply the manure specially adapted to meet the neces-
sities of the case.

Now, as to this matter of salt. As the Professor has told us,
there is no question that it was used centuries ago as a manure,
by men who thought themselves as wise as we are — the Greeks

USE OF MINERAL MANURES. 67

and Romans — with decided advantage. Our agricultural his-
tories tell us that among the ancients it was one of the most
valuable manures. When you get among hills as far from the
ocean as ours, you will find salt is a beneficial manure ; but you
must not use it on our fields as you would use it on an aspara-
gus bed. No man would use guano as he uses oth^er manures.
You cannot use superphosphates as you use any other manures.
You cannot use any mineral manures as you use barnyard ma-
nures. They must be used with great caution. I apprehend
that salt used as we use barnyard manure, would be injurious ;
but if used with discretion, on certain soils, there is no doubt
that it will be of great benefit. Take a country like this,
where oats are a valuable crop. One of the greatest complaints
among farmers is, that they do not stand up ; and what is the
reason ? The reason is that the silicate in the soil is exhausted.
If you apply salt, and restore that, you will find that your oats
will not fall down. When salt is properly applied to our soils,
you will find that a stiffiiess is given to the grain, and that it is
beneficial in that respect.

Nitre from the powder-houses has been used in Connecticut,
and in some parts of Massachusetts, with great advantage. No
more luxuriant crops can be produced by any known fertilizers,
than by the proper use of these saline manures.

Salt is also beneficial in destroying cut worms, which so much
trouble us with our vegetables. It is useful, also, as we know,
in connection with lime and peat. I apprehend, therefore, that
we cannot condemn the use of salt as a manure. It may not
be of so much service in some parts of the country as in others,
but there is no doubt that in many sections, and especially here,
it is a valuable manure.

But after all, in the discussion of mineral manures, we must
concede this, — that whatever value they may have, they come in,
as a general thing, only in aid of the manures wliich we ought
to make upon our own farms. There is no succedanewn that
will take the place of barnyard manures, properly made and
properly composted, the liquids as well as the solids carefully
preserved ; because, when that manure is properly applied to
the land, you get all the benefits you can get from any or all
the mineral manures together. You have there, probably, the
most perfect manure that can be made ; and you will find that
8

58 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

the plants themselves, which Prof. Chadboiirne tells us are the
best judges of what they want, will extract from this barnyard
manure all those materials, organic and inorganic, that they
need, and appropriate them in the best way. Without saying a
word against the proper use of bought manures, it seems to me
that every fai-mer errs when he does not undertake, on his own
farm, to manufacture, to the fullest extent of his ability, those
manures which are made by his cattle, and which, in the bodies
of the animals, have had their solubles and solids mixed in
proportions which no chemist can imitate ; and I apprehend
that we get there as near a perfect manure as it is possible for
the mind of man to conceive.

Question. Have you used salt on your farm ?

Mr. Goodman. To some extent.

Question. Will you state how, and what was the result ?

Mr. Goodman. I have only used it as a top-dressing, and its
effect was very good.

Question. How much ?

Mr. Goodman. I have scattered it just as I would scatter
gypsum ; just as little as I could.

Question. Coarse or fine ?

Mr. Goodman. I have used refuse salt, cheap salt, which I
get from the stores in New York. I have never seen any in-
jurious effect upon the land to which it was applied. I have
always found it beneficial.

Col. Wilder. I rise, not for the purpose of controverting any
of the propositions of Mr. Goodman, but to say that I suppose
it is understood, that in the remarks which Mr. Hyde and my-
self made, we only spoke of the use of salt in our region. I
think I made that remark. What we come here for is to get
experience. We want some gentleman in this assembly who
has used salt, to tell us how much he has used to the acre, and
what have been the results. We all know that salt is a good
substance to destroy worms ; but I noticed that Prof. Goess-
mann cautioned us in regard to its use. Mr. Hyde and myself
have both tried it, with our usual care, and found it disadvan-
tageous. 1 do not doubt that salt can be used in combination
with manures with good results. I know it can be used with
lime and peat with great advantage ; but in that case the salt
undergoes a chemical change ; it is not salt, in the proper sense.

SALT FOR ANIMALS. 59

I did not wish to be understood, neither do I now, as saying
that salt may not be useful on the hills of Berkshire ; but it is a
settled fact, from the experience of my friends and myself, that
on the seacoast no good result follows its application, even to
an asparagus bed.

Mr. Beebe of Beartown. I have used salt, from a bushel to
three bushels to the acre, with good success on oats, potatoes
and wheat. Grass is very much improved by the application of
salt as a top-dressing when the land is seeded down. I simply
sow the salt on the sod with the grain, harrow the whole in
together, and then put the grass-seed on top, without stirring
the soil.

Li regard to the feeding of salt to animals, I think it likely
to be very injurious, unless great care is exercised. I believe
that nine-tenths of the cattle that are said to die of murrain in
New England, are killed by the feeding of salt to large numbers
of cattle, without taking proper care that tlie young animals do
not get too much. I have seen several die in my pastures in
two or three hours, when inexperienced men have come in and
thrown down salt.

Take one bushel of salt and three bushels of marl, and let it
lie four months under a shed, and then add five bushels of this
compost to a cord of muck, and I warrant you one of the best
manures that was ever made in Berkshire County, for all your
sandy land. That is a recipe Prof. Mapes gave my brother for
twenty dollars, and he tried it on sandy land near West Stock-
bridge, ten or fifteen years ago, and that land still produces
double the quantity of grass that is yielded by the same quality
of land adjoining. I think, also, that it is the greatest prevent-
ative of rot in potatoes that I have ever used.

I have used salt on land that I planted with oats, and find it
very beneficial in stiffening the straw, as well as in increasing
the weight of the grain. It raised my oats six inches above tlie
crop standing side by side, with the same cultivation except the
application of salt.

Mr. Butler. I believe that salt on our Berkshire land is
decidedly beneficial. Col. Wilder undoubtedly will tell me that
his animals require little or no salt running at large in his fields.

Col. Wilder. Not a bit.

Mr. Butler. I thought you would say so, sir. Now, my

60 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

animals, and those of every other Berkshire man, eat salt with
the same avidity that they would meal or grain, once or twice
a week.

One gentleman speaks about salt injuring animals. I know
perfectly well that that is so ; and I know that it can kill plants ;
but this capacity to kill, to my mind, certainly proves it to be a
benefit, if properly used. My friend Judge Bishop, of Lenox,
once bought some salt in New York at a low figure, and sowed
so much upon his grass land that it entirely killed the grass for
a year or two ; but after that he had better grass than he ever
had before, or ever knew the land to produce ; and that lot has
continued to bear grass from that time, some six or eight years
ago, to this day.

The fact that animals refuse to take salt, is sufficient proof
that the plants do not need it ; and the fact that the animals in
this part of the State will eat salt twice a week, proves that the
land will be benefited by salt. I have bought all the refuse
salt I can get for six years, and composted it with my barnyard
manure. On one side of my barn there is a gravel and cement
floor, and I use considerable straw litter on that side, and com-
post the salt with the manure on that side. I can mark the
place where that salt goes just as plainly as I can see these aisles.

So far as the amount is concerned, I believe if a man applies
four bushels of good salt to the acre and ploughs it under, it
will be no injury. One of my neighbors found that the wire-
worm had got into his corn. He replanted it and put a teaspoon-
ful of salt on top of each hill after planting ; there came a rain,
and he had no more trouble with the wire-worm. The corn
did well.

Mr. FoOTE, of Williamstown. If any gentleman present has
experimented with ashes, live or leached, upon the potato crop,
I would like to have him state the result of his experience. In
a single experiment that I made, the ashes were rather detri-
mental than otherwise.

Mr. Butler. Last spring I planted a lot of potatoes, and I
told my boy to put a moderate handful of unleached ashes in
each hill. He did so until he run short of ashes. I planted
about three-quarters of an acre with ashes, and about one-quar-
ter without ashes. The potatoes had no manure other than the
ashes. There was a very marked difference in favor of the

OBSTACLES TO PROGRESS. 61

ashes. I think it would have paid to give seventy-five cents a
bushel for the ashes, if I could have bought them, for the rest
of the field.

Mr. FooTE. I made but one experiment, and that was in con-
nection with plaster. The ashes gave an increased vigor to the
vines, but the yield of tubers was less than where ashes were
not used.

Mr. Briggs. I would inquire as to the use of ashes from
lime kilns.

The President. I have used those ashes myself. I do not
think that lime on the soil in my vicinity does very much good,
because it is a magnesium and limestone soil. I should prefer
ashes without any lime in them. I have never failed to see a
benefit from ashes on any soil, but I do not think that lime does
much good on our soil.

Adjourned to evening, at 7|- o'clock.

Evening Session.
The Board met at 7| o'clock to listen to a lecture on

THE OBSTACLES TO THE PROGRESS OF SCIENTIFIC AGRI-
CULTURE.

BY HON. P. A. CHADBOURNE,

President of the University of Wisconsin.

It is fashionable to clamor for science. And to be considered
" scientific," is the ambition of many who neither know what
science is nor what constitutes a scientific man.

Science, — and I speak now only of that which relates to mat-
ter,— science is Nature interpreted, but not interpreted in de-
tached portions, as one might learn the meaning of separate words
and sentences scattered here and there through an author. To
constitute science there must be such a reading of Nature in
some one of her chapters, that the thought in it shall be grasped.
And when, from the accumulation of facts by observation and ex-
periment, the searcher is able to read the thought and put that
thought into language as a general expression legitimately
derived from those facts, he is a scientific man, — that is, he has
scientific power, although he may have but little learning. And
that general expression or interpretation of the facts is science
itself. In other words, " science is knowledge classified with
respect to principles."

62 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

Science, then, is in a certain sense, the product of the human
mind. Science simply marks the progress of the great minds,
who have given a correct interpretation of Nature. We have
science, because men with scientific power are always able to
step beyond the boundaries of present knowledge into the re-
gions of the unknown, and there from signs unseen by other
eyes or unintelligible to other minds, they are constantly send-
ing back additional readings or corrected proof of the book of
nature.

There are men in the world who fancy themselves to be lin-
guists who can only read translations, and cannot stir an inch
beyond where their " ponies " carry them. So there are men
who claim to be scientific, simply from the knowledge they have
of what others have done without the least power to do for them-
selves. There are men who can give you the names of whole
cabinets of minerals and yet know nothing of the science of
mineralogy, though they are called mineralogists. So a man
may know the names of plants and animals and astonish his
friends with the extent of his knowledge in this respect, and yet
be entirely innocent of the science of botany or zoology. It
should be better understood than it is, that no amount of facts
of themselves constitutes science and that no amount of scientific
knowledge even, necessarily makes a scientific man. A man
may even be a good observer of certain phenomena, so that his
work may have great scientific value, and yet he may not be in
a true sense a scientific man but merely a skilful artisan.

If we accept these statements we shall see that we have but
a small body of scientific agriculture though we have a vast
amount of agricultural information that may be made the basis
or materials of science, when it can be separated from that
which is unreliable, and of merely local value. And we have
a smaller body of scientific agriculturists than is generally
supposed. Many of our observers and experimenters have not
been properly trained, and our best interpreters have not always
had reliable data for their conclusions. And others having
great power to observe and to collect facts make their generali-
zations correspond to some preconceived notion or hypothesis.
Their great learning often gives currency to their opinions, even
when entirely unsound, or at least of doubtful soundness, when
tried by their own facts. Thus Darwin has given us some books

PECULIAR DIFFICULTIES OF AGRICULTURE. 63

that as collections of facts are of great value to agriculturists.
But to the minds of many, his facts disprove his own theory,
while others accept the theory as legitimately drawn from the
facts, and many more accept it on account of its boldness and
the acknowledged learning of its author.

Science is of slow growth. And if at times there seems to
be a sudden advance, we shall find that materials had long been
preparing and at the right time the master mind appeared to
utilize those materials and by his brilliant results arouse other
minds to great activity in the same fields. Linnaeus and Cu-
vier are good examples of such great masters, not to mention,
some who are now living.

Every science has its own obstacles in the way of its advance.
The more complex the science, the greater the number of those
obstacles. The nearer a science comes to every day life, the
more prejudice does every new movement encounter, and the
greater becomes the difficulty of reaching truth amid the abun-
dant conflicting testimony. I need only mention the sciences
of medicine and political economy to remind my hearers what
diverse views are held by men of apparently equal ability and
with the same opportunities for observation.

■ Agriculture has its peculiar difficulties as well as such as are
common to all complex sciences. It is well for us to set those
difficulties distinctly before ourselves and the community, that
we may see how to attack them successfully, and have that aid
from the community which the work demands.

Agriculture as an art has in the past been sufficient for most of
the world, and the same is true to-day. The world is supplied
with food. The question to-day all through the great West is, not
so much how they can raise more , as it is where they shall find a
market for what they have. And right at this point we meet an
obstacle to the progress of scientific agriculture where many
people supposed it would have the most favorable conditions for
advance. The very richness and boundless extent of our soil is an
insuperable obstacle to the advance of scientific agriculture in
some parts of our country. Why talk to a man of scientific agri-
culture, when all the agricultural science in the world cannot pre-
pare such a soil for our great staples as he can buy for a dollar and
a quarter an acre — where the only question is how to get the seed
in, the grain harvested and carried to market ! You may talk to

64 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

such a man of steam-ploughs and reapers and threshers, and he
will listen to you. Anything that will enable him to rob the
soil, he will have at once and bless the maker. But you might
as well persuade a man in Massachusetts to bottle up water in
winter lest all the springs and wells should fail in summer, as to
induce men so situated to spend time and thought and money
on scientific agriculture. They say they cannot afford to do it ;
and they cannot — they cannot afford at the price they sell, to
do anything but rob the soil.

But I propose to narrow my discussion and consider the ob-
stacles in the way of those who really undertake the work as is
done by this Board and by many such bodies of men, and by
others who see the coming necessity for scientific agriculture and
believe in its possibilities. I propose to speak especially of

FACTS AND THEIR INTERPRETATION.

" Now what I want is Facts," said Mr. Gradgrind when lay-
ing down the principles of instruction. " In this life we want
nothing but facts, sir, nothing but facts." To the first proposi-
tion we agree fully, we want facts. To the second, that we
want nothing but facts, we object entirely. Facts are bricks or
blocks of stone, without which the building cannot be raised,
but their interpretation is the testing of every brick or stone and
the combining of it with others, so that it shall become of use as
part of a building rather than the part of a pile of rubbish of no
possible use in itself.

As agriculturists we want facts and their interpretation, even
if we must be indebted to others for both of them ; but more
than this, we want power to secure facts for ourselves, and to
interpret them wisely for daily application in the business of
life.

A fact in science is a thing established by observation or ex-
periment. It is a fact that all bodies are attracted by the
earth ; that some plants are killed by frost and others not in-
jured by it ; that water will not rise in a pump over thirty-six
feet, and that as you ascend a mountain water will boil at a
lower temperature than at its base. These are all facts, — things
not made or controlled by man, but learned by him.

Now a full interpretation of these facts, as I use the word in-
terpretation to-night, includes two things, — ^first, the giving of

WANT OF ESTABLISHED FACTS. 66

the reason why they are so, by referring them, if possible, to
more general principles, and secondly, the drawing of conclu-
sions from them for our guidance in practical life.

The last work seems to be the most immediately profitable,
but the human mind is so constituted that it always seeks for
the reason of a thing, and in doing this it often gains new views
that aid in securing either other facts or some general princi-
ple from those already known. This is illustrated many times
in the history of the inductive sciences.

If asked why bodies fall to the earth, we can only speak of
gravitation, which is simply giving name to a force of which the
fact of the falling of the body was the expression. If asked why
cucumbers are killed by frost and spruce trees are not, we can
only answer that such is the nature of the plants. We have
gone as far in our explanations as we can go.

If asked why water will rise only so many feet in a pump, we
reply that the water is forced up by the weight of the air. This
is such an explanation of the fact as will enable us to guide our
actions in other cases. For knowing that the weight of the col-
umn of water in the pump balances by its weight the column
of air, we infer that a heavier fluid cannot be raised so high, and
that a pump upon a lofty mountain will not raise water as high
as the same pump would in the valley.

By knowing the cause of these phenomena then, we gain an
advantage because we modify results by changing the conditions
under which the cause acts, and may thus be said to have power
over the causes.

In regard to other phenomena we cannot affect the causes
or their conditions of action at all, but we can do much in mod-
ifying their results. We cannot control the movements of the
sun in the heavens, but we can learn to protect our plants from
his scorching heat in summer, and from the intense cold of win-
ter. We cannot control the falling of the barometer, but we can
do something to protect ourselves and property from the storm
which it indicates. It is wonderful what power, offensive and
defensive, in securing the good things of life, a knowledge of the
facts of nature and their interpretation will give us.

As agriculturists then, I say, we ivant certain facts established.
We want those facts traced back to their producing cause in every

9

66 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

case in which it can be done, and we want the facts made the
basis of sound induction for our use.

It is in this way alone that every science advances ; and un-
less agriculture can advance in this way, it can lay no claim to
be regarded as a science ; while it is compelled to rest upon
isolated facts alone, it is bald empiricism. And while its sup-
posed facts are many of them errors, or at most of only local
value, there must be constant blundering even when dealing in
facts alone, and any induction from erroneous data must be use-
less or worse.

Certain agricultural facts are of no use to science. It may be
a fact that a certain hillside produces excellent grapes, but that
fact alone is of no value except to the owner or future purchaser
of the place. But now give us the composition of the soil and
the other conditions which produced the crop, and you have given
us something which will guide us in our attempts to secure a
grape crop in other places. But you say the conditions are com-
plex, and to analyze them and give the composition of soil, the
influence of climate and peculiar cultivation, is a difficult thing
to do. Exactly so. And this leads me to observe that as we
come into the kingdom of life, we find every fact depending upon
so many conditions, and these so intricate in their nature, that,
while the fact may be accepted by all, it may be as useless in
science as the fact that my neighbor has a vineyard where grapes
grow well, while neither he nor any other person can give any
reason why they should grow there at all. Almost everything
connected with practical agriculture has much of this com-
plexity. Certain facts of a general nature are known to all in
regard to plant growth and the propagation and care of animals.
But when a question of interest arises, put that question into an
agricultural paper and then cut out and paste side by side the
answers you obtain. Do this with every question that arises
connected with the management of any farm, and you will have
a common-place book that will be amusing if not instructive. In
one point it could not fail of being highly instructive, however ;
it would show the number of questions settled — that the num-
ber of facts that can be relied upon in practice on the farm or
as an aid to induction is much smaller than is generally sup-
posed ; while the questions yet undecided are literally without
number.

RIDICULOUS MISTAKES. 67

Professor Agassiz said four years ago, that a scientific man
could ask more questions in ten minutes than all the Agricul-
tural Colleges could answer in a generation ; I think he said, in
a century.

If the Agricultural Colleges with their improved methods and
appliances have such a work before them to settle these ques-
tions, it will not seem strange to us that such complex questions
have not been settled by the occasional imperfect experiments
and observations that have from necessity been made. Fortu-
nate has been the man who has observed and learned how to
manage his own grounds. But in many cases such fortunate
ones have made others unfortunate by inducing them to under-
take the same thing, when difference of locality or some other
unknown quantity, changed the result.

I -wish to call your attention especially to the great difficulty
we have in securing reliable data from those not trained to ob-
serve. Persons may be intelligent, and learned even in some
directions, and yet if they have not been trained to scientific
processes of observation and experiment, they are very likely to be
imposed upon or at least to leave out some important element
essential to be considered in drawing sound conclusions. Every
scientific man sees accounts of certain experiments or observa-
tions relating to his own department of study, in which the error
of the experimenter or observer is perfectly apparent to him.
Some of these mistakes are made as regularly every year as the
leaves come out or the crops ripen.

Almost every year we see accounts in the papers that sulphur
has fallen in a thunder shower. Where lightning strikes there is
a strong odor, very much like the smell from the burning of gun-
powder. Thomson poetically represents the thunder cloud as
charged with bitumen and sulphur. Putting all these things
together, there is a notion on the part of many that sulphur is
in some way connected with thunder and lightning. And when
after a powerful thunder storm they find a fine, yellow powder
around the edges of the pools, it is not strange that they should
suspect it to be sulphur. But the strange thing is that this yel-
low powder, which is simply the pollen of plants, should be mis-
taken for sulphur every year, when the simplest test, that of
burning it, would show it to be as unlike sulphur in its proper-
ties as any substance well could be that would burn at all. A

68 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

few years since a bag of this yellow powder was sent to me by
some good people in Ohio. They stated that it fell in a thunder
shower, which was true — that it looked like sulphur, which was
also true — that it burned like sulphur and smelt like sulphur^
both of which statements were utterly false. It burned like fine
sawdust and smelt like sawdust. But these good people, bar-
ing a theory to sustain, cheated themselves as to the burning
and odor. I suspect to this day they think I do not know sul-
phur ! Now a great number of so-called facts that men rely
upon and dispute about, have no more claim to truth than that
pine-tree pollen had to be called sulphur.

But when we come to the work of those who profess to ob-
serve accurately, whose observations have been tabulated, and
from which conclusions are daily drawn, we often find most im-
portant mistakes. Those who have experimented with great
care, after a time often discover that there was some element
not taken into account, which entirely vitiated the result. The
experimenters in our agricultural colleges are finding these mis-
takes so common in the experiments which they are repeating,
and so frequently detect errors in their own experiments, and
so often have results that they cannot account for, — oftentimes
apparently contradictory results, — that they now draw their con-
clusions with the greatest caution, demanding a large number
of experiments for several successive years to establish any re-
sult. And then they understand that in many cases these
results, established with care, are of use only in a limited
locality. It ought to be said, without fear or favor, that the
isolated experiments which are reported in our papers, though
fairly stated, are oftentimes worthless — that they often do more
harm than good by inducing others to attempt the same thing,
while some important conditions that rendered the first experi-
ment a success, are wanting.

The Agricultural College of Michigan has been in successful
operation longer than any other in this country, and has carried
on more extensive experiments than any other, under men com-
petent to conduct the experiments, and with every appliance
which could be desired for securing the best results. And
what is the first result of these experiments ? Why, to throw
distrust upon a large proportion of the experiments that have been
recorded and tabulated for use. Professor Miles told me that

CONDITIONS OF AN EXPERIMENT. 69

he found almost all sets of experiments worthless except those
of Lawes and Gilbert in England. Of course he did not mean
to say that no accurate experiments have been made ; but that
they have been so intermingled with defective experiments, and
vitiated by conditions not reported, that they are almost worth-
less as data for general conclusions.

As an illustration of the extreme difficulty of eliminating
disturbing causes so as to reach sound conclusions, I give a few
of his experiments and their results as found in the Report of
Michigan Board of Agriculture for 1868.

Two acres of land were selected, with soil of friable loam
" of apparently uniform character." From that plat ten small
plats were taken, so as to represent fairly every portion of the
two acres. All the work except the ploughing on all the pieces
was done on the same day. In other words, these ten plats of
ground, to all appearance alike in the beginning, were cultivated
and treated exactly alike. This uniformity in soil and culture
might have been expected to give uniform results at harvest.
But we find among these plats a very great diversity of yield.
One yielded, of shelled corn, at the rate of 51.28 bushels to the
acre. Another 76.14 bushels, an amount more than one-third
greater than the former. Of stalks, one yielded 1.28 tons to
the acre ; another 2.40 ton, or nearly twice as much as the
other. On the other plats of the two acres which were manured
exactly alike and treated in the same manner, there was a like
variation in the crops.

Now when we have conditions that apparently ought to give
the same results, and which in ordinary experimenting would
be assumed as giving the same results — when we find such con-
ditions giving us a variation of more than 50 per cent. — the
difference between fortune and bankruptcy — we see what care-
ful experiments we must have to secure the conditions of ex-
periments that can be relied upon in practical agriculture.

Another field was selected and divided into twenty-four plats
(two by four rods each). With a single unimportant exception,
he says, " it ivould he difficult to find a piece of ground presenting
a greater uniformity in the appearance of its subdivisions. ''"' The
plats were all treated in the same way, the same amount of
work was spent on each, the corn was all cut the same day,
husked the same day, and weighed the same day. One plat

70 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

yielded 27.35 bushels; while another yielded 63.85 bushels, or
more than twice as much as the first. The yield of stalks on
different plats varied one-half. It is not strange that Professor
Miles closes his account by saying : " From the wide range of
variation of these plats, all treated in the same way, it will be
seen that the results of a single field experiment in the appli-
cation of manure cannot be relied upon to establish any rule of
practice." " Improvements in agriculture can only be made by
means of a systematic series of experiments, so conducted as to
guard against all sources of fallacy, and then carefully repeated
under a variety of circumstances."

I might add that similar results have been reached on our
experimental farm connected with the University of Wisconsin.
In experiments on potatoes cultivated exactly alike, results ap-
parently widely at variance with each other have been reached.
Like conflicting results have been reached at Lansing in experi-
ments in the feeding of animals, especially swine and sheep.
The same feeding would cause one animal to gain and another
to lose, when no assignable cause for the difference could be dis-
covered. Among the sheep there was a loss of weight in all
the pens one week, for which the Professor adds, " The only
cause that could be assigned was the change of management of
other sheep in the same building." The sheep not under ex-
periment were turned out by day and returned to the barn at
night, and this so disturbed the experimental sheep that there
was a general loss of weight among them, although the ration
of food was increased.

We give the Professor's conclusion in his own language, which
we consider well established by all these experiments as well as
by the many others that have misled those that trusted to them.
" It is exceedingly difficult to conduct any kind of experiment
in practical agriculture in a satisfactory manner, from the great
variety of circumstances that tend to modify results ; but when
the subtle principle of life as exhibited in animated beings is
involved in the line of investigation, the difficulties in the way
of exact determination seem almost insuperable." Is experi-
menting, then, in agriculture, a hopeless undertaking ? By no
means. The facts already cited only show the great difficulty
of the work, or rather the careful training the experimenter
must have to make his work of any value. Time and care will

LAYER OF PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE. 71

reach the truth, though a single experiment may lead to entirely
erroneous results.

But these experiments ought to convince us that much of
what we now rely upon as agricultural experiments made to
establish special points as to manures, seeding, and feeding of
stock, is of little worth, because tinctured with error, and be-
cause the records of the experiments are so defective that the
shrewdest interpreter of facts can seldom find means for detect-
ing and eliminating the errors.

These results also show us that it is only by a series of ex-
periments of the same kind repeated year after year, at the
same place and by the same trained observers, that we can hope
to secure data for trustworthy generalizations in agricultural
science.

It would seem that common sense would teach any man that
it would be the best and cheapest method, if not one absolutely
essential, for reaching correct results, to have some place in
every State where such experimenting can bo done in the best
manner. This is just the want which our Agricultural Colleges
are fitted to supply. They can do this work for every State.
They can send forth men trained to observe, and with knowledge
enough of the difficulties in the way to save themselves and
their neighbors from the necessity of making experiments as
useless from their want of relation to others, as it would be to
test the temperature of Pittsfield in January, to learn whether
Indian corn would ripen there in September.

There is in agriculture a sound layer of practical knowledge,
the common property of those best acquainted with the subject,
and on many points where the conditions are few, much advance
has been made within a few years. But the advance has been
more in horticulture than in agriculture, and in both of them
the advance has been more in improving kinds by selection than
in any other way. This principle of selection is now well
understood, and in the hands of skilful florists, pomologists and
breeders, it has accomplished great results in securing improved
forms of fruits and animals. Advance has been made in particu-
lar localities in regard to certain crops, and in those places men
believe that certain principles are established, and so they are
for them. But let them go to Wisconsin, or New Mexico, or
California, and perchance these same men will utterly fail in

72 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

producing the same crops until they learn the influence of new
conditions, and learn, perhaps, to change, if not to reverse, their
New England agricultural customs. After we have gathered
up all that can be relied upon in the common experience of
farmers, and in the special advances that have been made in
certain localities, and in the general cultivation of certain crops,
there still remains a vast number of questions of the highest
importance in successful farming which our best agriculturists
cannot answer, or if answers are given, there is good authority
on both sides.

On every side we see evidence that the progress of scientific
agriculture demands observers and interpreters of observations.
To secure these should be the first aim of our Agricultural Col-
leges. I know of no field of observation more difficult, and
calling for higher training, than that of the scientific farmer,
who is to observe every condition of soil, of climate, of vege-
table growth and animal life. He must be prepared to throw
aside much that has been done as rubbish. And when experi-
ments are offered for his consideration, he must have the ability
to judge of their truthfulness by the best tests, and then he
must also be able to judge of their applicability to every given
case. Every farm offers some peculiar conditions, and the
scientific farmer must not expect to work by any rule except
the one he forms for himself in the study of the land he is
called upon to cultivate. I mean by this that almost every rule
in agriculture depends upon conditions, which may vary greatly
even in the same field. The knowledge must be in the farmer
and not in books. And the knowledge in him must not hQfrom
books alone. He must have knowledge, but with it such power
of observation as will make him master of every situation.

There is a sense then, in which we join the cry against " book
farmers." It is undoubtedly true that those who farm by books
without practical knowledge to judge of the applicability of the
experiments or directions recorded to the case in hand, or per-
chance following some grand experiment which in its omissions,
is like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out — it is undoubt-
edly true that such farmers come to grief, or would come to it,
were it not for some good salary as editor, lawyer or minister,
which enables them to call themselves farmers. The name of
farmer is an honorable one, and many men in high positions

DUTY OF AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 73

pay roundly for the name, and for the pleasures which the farm
affords.

Clearly, one of the greatest obstacles to the progress of scien-
tific agriculture has in time past been, that we have had no
adequate provision for raising up competent observers in this
industrial pursuit ; and secondly, that we had no permanent sys-
tem of experimenting, no places in different parts of the country
where men could act in unison, and with means to carry on ex-
periments from year to year, until reliable results were reached.
Now all this ought to be changed, since every State has the
means from Congress of establishing schools for the express
purpose of conducting experiments under the best possible con-
ditions, and of educating competent observers.

Now, however, new obstacles arise. In the first place, there
is danger that the colleges will mistake their true work ; and in
the second place, that there will be on the part of the com-
munity an impatience to see results at once which can only be
reached as the fruit of years of patient labor. On the first of
these points, the mistakes of the colleges in the nature of their
work, it becomes us to speak with great caution. But we hold
some things to be self-evident in this matter.

First, it is the duty of these colleges to increase the sum of
scientific knowledge in agriculture, and not merely to be re-
tailers of the imperfect materials already at hand. It is their
first business then, to enter upon a system of accurate experi-
ments not only to establish results for their respective States or
localities, but to do this in such concert with each other that
the same experiments may be repeated for a series of years in
each one of them, that we may learn what are the best con-
ditions of growth for every important plant as well as the dis-
turbing agencies in each locality.

To do this work properly, the first requisite would seem to be
an experimental farm for each college. For it is on the farm
that the final work is to be done. We may reach certain results
in the laboratory, and some experiments in horticulture can be
carried on even in a city garden ; but those experiments in agri-
culture will alone be worthy of our confidence that have been
brought to the test of farm work for the production of bread
and meat.

10

74 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

Among the obstacles in the way of that progress which we
ought to make, will be the failure of many colleges to enter
vigorously upon these farm experiments, and the failure of those
who do experiment to act in concert with others in carrying on
the same series of experiments. Although the law of vegetable
growth must be the same in all places, very few are aware of
the different treatment which the same plant demands in dif-
ferent parts of our country, to insure its greatest perfection.
And oftentimes the treatment which a plant demands in one
place is taken as a rule for that plant wherever it will grow at
all. A series of experiments conducted in the same way on the
same plants in Massachusetts, in Michigan, in Wisconsin, in
California, in Texas, Kansas and Georgia, would give us a new
revelation of the work before us, to secure the means for prog-
ress in general knowledge for the world at large, while we
learn the best methods of cultivation for our separate localities.

What measures can be taken to secure such unity of action,
that every experiment may have its greatest value by being
brought into comparison with the greatest number of similar
experiments bearing upon the solutibn of the same problem ?

Another difficulty will arise from the unwillingness of young
men to take that long and vigorous course of study in natural
history, mathematics and logic which shall make them compe-
tent observers and safe interpreters of facts. They will not
believe that so plain a business as farming can call for such long
continued and accurate study. Their friends will not believe
it because they cannot understand the difficulties to be encoun-
tered. The community at large call for the " practical." And
by the " practical " is often meant learning only what is well es-
tablished. But that region where science is growing is called
the land of theory and nonsense. Such practical men would
leave the world forever where it is now. And it is almost im-
possible to get young men beyond their influence into a healthy
scientific atmosphere. And when you have caught a few and
prepared them for their work, another trouble meets you at once.
These men are in such demand in other pursuits, that few of
them will give themselves at once to farming. Now the colleges
which are our hope for scientific progress in agriculture will have
such obstacles in their way. And the danger is that before they
show their real worth, they will be underrated and cramped for

PAYS TO APPLY SCIENCE. 75

means, and thus fail of success, because they lack the conditions
of success. But the work is before us and enough has been
done to greatly encourage us. Seeing these obstacles in our
way, we are not to hesitate, but only to meet them wisely. It
is the business of all who believe in scientific agriculture to
secure in their own State the best conditions for its progress, and
to labor especially to convince the young men of our time of
the study they must give to this subject, if they would become
worthy of the name of scientific farmers. I hope to see the day
when some of the best scientific observers, the best educated
men in all respects in Massachusetts and Wisconsin, will be
found on farms.

And now, gentlemen of the Board of Agriculture, I can but
congratulate you that you have done so much to promote the
progress of agriculture in the past. Some of you have gained
a wide renown for the improvements you have secured. You
know well the time, the thought, the care such improvements
cost. You know how futile it is for a man without training
and without the means and time at his command to enter upon
any course of experiments with any hope of reaching results
that can be relied upon. We have too many carelessly conduct-
ed experiments recorded already. Knowing all this and having
in my opinion better conditions for securing the rapid progress
of scientific agriculture than any other body of men in this
country, it is my hope and expectation that the Massachusetts
Board of Agriculture and the Massachusetts Agricultural Col-
lege will overcome every obstacle in their way and go on with
renewed energy in the good work in which they are engaged.

Massachusetts cannot produce such fields of wheat and corn
as are found in the great West, of which we all boast ; but the
soil of Massachusetts gives a generous return for good cultivation,
and the high prices which her products command at home en-
courage the farmer to seek for every improvement. It pays for
him to apply science to the farm. Let Massachusetts then hold
the same proud position among those who are now engaging in
this onward movement in agricultural science tliat she ever has
held in all that relates to learning and the best interests of the
human family.

76 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

SEC OND DAY.

The Board met at 10 o'clock, and Col. Stone, of Dedham,
was elected President for the day.

A lecture was delivered by the Secretary of the Board on
" Dairy Farming," with especial reference to the secretory
and reproductive organs of the cow. The lecture was illus-
trated by carefully prepared diagrams, and apparently gave very
great and general satisfaction.

The discussion of " Dairy Stock" was then opened by

Dr. LoRiNG. Mr. President and Gentlemen, — I find it an-
nounced on the programme, unfortunately for me, that the dis-
cussion on Dairy Stock is to be opened this morning by me, at
the close of Mr. Flint's lecture. I have listened to this lecture
with great pleasure and profit, as you have, and only regret
that I am standing in his place.

I am glad that the subject is announced as it is — not a dis-
cussion upon Cattle Husbandry, but upon Dairy Stock. It is
a bad thing to give the human mind a wrench, a sudden twist ;
it hurts the audience ; it hurts the speaker. He is engaged in
bad business. I had a friend once who had but one story,
which was about a gun, and wherever he went, he was bound to
tell his story. Whether it was a tea-party, a sewing-circle or a
conference meeting, it made no difference ; the gun story must
come in, somehow or other ; he had nothing else to say. Let
there come the slightest lull in the conversation, and out he
would break : " Hark ! 1 thought I heard a gun. By the way,
speaking of guns, reminds me of a story ; " and then the com-
pany got it. The difficulty with my friend's story was, that he
never introduced it in the right place. He always wrenched
the audience — gave them a sudden twist — and they wished my
friend and his story were out of the way. I am fortunate in
being able, under the programme, to follow in the train of
argument pursued by Mr. Flint.

Dairy stock ! I suspect the mind of every man in this audi-
ence is filled with ideas of dairy stock by this time — the pla-
centa, the uterus, the ovaries, the udder, the teats, and the way
to get the teats open when they are too tight — and all that ; we
are saturated with the fundamental principles of dairy stock.
So I can keep right on in that channel with perfect propriety,

DAIRY STOCK. 77

and make that the foundation of the business of discussing
cattle husbandry.

Now, my friends, it is not only the tendency of Mr. Flint's
lecture that should satisfy the minds of us all of the importance
of dairy stock, but it is the actual condition of dairy stock in
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the relations that it
holds to the agriculture of this State. Among the animals of
this Commonwealth, cows predominate largely. We have
90,000 horses, worth, it is said, nine millions of dollars ; we
have 50,000 oxen and steers ; we have 175,000 cows and heif-
ers ; indicating that the business of cattle husbandry in the
State of Massachusetts is dairy stock and dairy farming. I wish
I could tell a better story with regard to the condition of dairy
farming here. I do not know why it is, but, notwithstanding
the fact that at last butter and cheese have entered into the ex-
ports of this country, and are engaged, with all other agricul-
tural products — cotton, corn, beef, pork and lard — in establish-
ing the balance of trade abroad, largely to the advantage of the
financial condition of this country ultimately ; notwithstanding
we exported from this country $303,305 worth of butter in the
nine months ending July 31, 1869, and 13,000,000 worth of
cheese ; notwithstanding all that, and notwithstanding the fact
that nearly two million dollars' worth of milk are sold in the State
of Massachusetts every year, and vast quantities of butter and
cheese are manufactured and sold here, and it has become man-
ifest that in some way or other the production of milk lies at
the foundation of the great agricultural interest in a vast section
of this country, cows do not materially increase in number.
In 1855, how many thousand cows do you suppose we had ?
We had, according to the returns, 149,000 cows, and 28,000
or 30,000 heifers. We had in 1865, how many ? I told you
175,000 cows and heifers, and out of that number only 150,000
were cows. While the demand for butter and cheese and milk
is increasing, while the consumption of milk increases, with a
manifest interest to have cows increase, they do not increase.
There is some difficulty here. The channels of trade always
run where profits are to be made. That there is a profit in
butter farming, tliere cannot be the slightest doubt. I told you
that while the demand for milk and the consumption of milk
increase, the cows do not increase. Somehow and in some way

78 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

the supply of milk in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is
got from some other source than cows. It is found much more
profitable, my friends, to run something else than a cow.

Why this is, it is difficult for me to tell. We have a good
dairy section here ; we have plenty of good pastures, and ought
to have an abundance of food ; but I am satisfied that the
trouble lies in the fact that we do not understand yet th^ most
systematic and economical way of producing milk, butter and
cheese. We are laboring under a difficulty still. We have
done a great deal, I agree ; we have progressed vastly in the
business of cattle husbandry. Cattle breeding — the bringing
of an animal up to the wants and necessities of man — consti-
tutes one of the most interesting chapters in agricultural history.
The ingenuity of men like the Ceilings and others in England,
in bringing a cow up to the wants and necessities of man, is one
of the most remarkable exhibitions of agricultural care and
skill. That plan by which the Shorthorn was produced ; that
plan by which the Merino sheep was produced ; that plan by
which the Devon has been brought forth, and by which man is
enabled to bring about a condition of the animal economy
suited to the most economical production of beef or milk, is
really a great triumph of human skill in the business of agri-
culture.

Now we want to apply that skill to our dairy farming. We
have gone on very rapidly in this business, but not rapidly
enough ; and we do not understand it sufficiently, I am satis-
fied, here in this country to make a practical application of it.
We have created, as I have said, beef animals. I suppose that
a pound of beef can be made out of a well-bred, systematically
produced Shorthorn steer more cheaply than by any other ani-
mal in the world. I have no doubt, my friends, that a quart of
milk can be better produced by a systematically arranged cow, of
proper proportions, of a proper physical constitution, than by
any other animal on the face of the earth ; and when I tell you
that by the skill of dairy farmers in 'the operation of breeding —
that ill-shaped udder has been transformed into something so
fair, so symmetrical, that the eye of an artist would be glad to
look at it, and that cluster of teats — two long ones in front and
two short ones behind — has been discarded, and that great
hanging udder, dragging on the ground, has been tucked up

FEEDING AT A LOSS. 79

where it should be, and all the apparatus for producing milk
has been so arranged in this animal that all that flabby texture
that comes with ill-bred animal structure is replaced by some-
thing that stays where you leave it — when I give you to under-
stand that, you will see that in this business of manufacturing
milk human skill has also met with a triumph.

We are not increasing our cows, as I told you, as we should,
for the reason, I think, that we have not yet found out what is
the most economical cow, and too many of us are feeding cows
at a loss. Is there any doubt about it ? I suppose that more
food is wasted in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts annually
— not thrown under the feet of cattle, not thr5wn in the manure
heap, not burned up or thrown away, but wasted in improvident
feeding — than is annually used profitably and systematically in
good feeding. Am I wrong in saying that more food is put
into the mouths of inappropriate animals than is put into ap-
propriate animals' mouths, and that more than three-quarters
of the cattle of Massachusetts are fed at a loss, because they are
not adapted to the purposes for which they are fed ? I believe
every farmer will agree with me. Hence our disappointment.
Our cattle come out in the spring not in such a condition as we
anticipated, because they are not adapted for what we intended
them. We do not properly select our cows. We feed cows too
large or too small for the purpose for which we intend them.
What we want is a fair, medium-sized cow for the dairy. We
do not want too large a one. We want a medium-sized cow —
a cow that will thrive when she is dry, and which does not re-
quire a mouthful of grain until she comes to do service again.
You cannot afford to raise grain for dry cows ; you cannot
afford to buy it. What we want is a cow which, when she dries
up, is in a good condition, has not been exhausted in the process
of milking, and when you give her a little rest in the barn, will
begin to improve and come up again, well and strong, to this
great business of parturition and giving milk. That is what we
demand.' So we need in this climate a medium-sized cow; not
too large ; not too coarse ; not too thin nor too fine ; compact ;
firmly set upon her legs ; lively countenance ; a good straight
back. Mr. Flint said well, when he said, you do not want a
drooping rump. It is not good for the cow, it is not good for
the owner when he milks her, and it is not good for the man

80 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

who eats the steaks that come out of her ; it is bad all round.
The best animal to feed is one with a clean, well-shaped head, a
luxurious mouth, loose shoulder, straight quarter, broad back
and great depth of carcase. The tail should be long and the
rump level.

Now go with me to one of the best dairy regions in the Com-
monwealth of Massachusetts — one of the best, so far as skill is
concerned, in this country. I think, with all due respect to the
gentlemen who are at work in that section, that the cattle they
are feeding are too large and heavy. There is a little too much
bone about them ; they are too coarse ; and so, as I have had
the pleasure of going through their stables several times, I
found that those stately cows, in March, looked as if the winter
had not exactly agreed with them. They are too large for cold
weather. Strength of constitution does not always go with size.
There is too much bone about them. Muscle should always
preponderate. In northern latitudes a man wants a little more
cellular tissue and muscle than bone in order to keep warm.
So it is with cows. These large animals, notwithstanding they
had had a little meal, or perhaps a good deal, to help them
along, did not look exactly as they sliould ; they were not quite
satisfactory. But among these animals would be a medium-
sized cow, that had got through the winter pretty well, and did
not require any meal to keep her going. Give her a little
meadow hay at night, and a good quantity of English hay in the
daytime, and she would carry herself along pretty well. So I
argue, from that observation, that the best way for us is to bring
cattle within the limits of our soil and climate and the feed
that has been provided for us. We know perfectly well that a
pound of meal put into the mouth of one animal will do more
to improve that animal than a pound of meal will do for another ;
and knowing this, we can judge for ourselves what it is best for
us to do in regard to this whole system of feeding.

I have told you that we ought to engage in the business not
only of feeding dairy stock but of raising them. We ought to
have an annual increase of the number of cows as well as of
the amount of milk. We ought to have 300,000 cows in Mas-
sachusetts to-day. There is profit enough in the business, and
if we had 300,000 cows we should have just twice the amount
of manure we have. I think the fields would smile a little.

MANUFACTURE OF MILK. 81

The old French proverb, " No cattle, no farming ; few cattle,
poor farming ; many cattle, good farming," applies here. Wo
need to increase the number of our cows, and find out how we
can best produce milk to a profit, in order that farmers may
derive the largest profit from their farms.

We want not only to increase our cows, but to learn how to
feed them in their youth and maturity. That is a very im-
portant part of the whole business. Mr. Flint has shown you,
with a great deal of skill and a great deal of exactness, what a
delicate and intricate process the manufacture of milk is. I
was very glad to hear it put in so elaborate a form, because I
have so often alluded to it that I have thought sometimes my
agricultural friends might think it was a hobby of mine, and
that it was just as easy for a cow to make milk as for a steer to
take on fat ; but it is not. The business of making beef is an
easy thing. It arises from the inheritance of physical qualities
which are crude and rough when compared with this delicate
mechanism which the cow has for making milk. So, from the
beginning of calfhood, you must be careful how you feed the
animal, or before she has half arrived at the condition of giving
milk she may be utterly ruined.

Now, then, what would you do with a calf that you intended
to rear as a heifer ? If you have got a Shorthorn calf you
would keep it on the cow ; let it have all the milk that a Short-
horn cow would give; that won't hurt any calf! Keep it
round ; keep it fat ; keep it looking well. I am talking now
about the modern improved Shorthorn, meant for beef. The
old-fashioned Durham stock I have a good deal of respect for.
They were good square-hipped profitable old cows. But keep
the modern Shorthorn growing. If his leg is a little large below
the knee, it does him no harm. If his carcase is overloaded
with fat, it is all the better ; he takes the more premiums. If
he looks rugged and strong, it is what you want. He is made
for beef; he is a beef calf, and the larger he is the better. You
may give him oil-cake before he leaves his mother, and after he
leaves her you may put him into a clover field up to his eyes,
and keep him growing, and your object is accomplished.

But if you have a heifer calf to rear, and you keep her with
her mother until she is three months old, you will find that you
have developed every conceivable quality opposed to the produc-
11

82 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

tion of milk. You will make the bone too large, the carcase
too round. You will contract the abdomen of the cow, in
which all tliose organs are laid that go to fill its udder with
milk. You will make her too delicate, too dependent upon
nice food ; and, more than all that, you may create in the calf
a tendency to inflammation of the glands connected with this
intricate and delicate system which you have heard described.
I have no doubt that the seeds of garget and inflammation of
the udder are sown for the cow during her period of calfhood.
So I would take the heifer calf from the cow early ; bring it up
by hand ; put it into the shape of a little cow as early as possi-
ble ; do not let it look pinched at all, but keep it thriving.
Feed it on grass cut for the purpose ; give it turnips and oat-
meal. The best thing in the world to make bone is Swedish
turnips. Get your calf, I repeat, into the shape of a miniature
cow as early as possible, and keep it along in that line, and you
are developing the qualities that will make a cow when it shall
have arrived at its full growth. There is no danger of its hav-
ing derived, from feeding, those diseases of .the udder that will
make it utterly useless, nor any danger that it has developed
any other animal organ except those which you want for your
purpose when you get your cow.

When the calf is grown, what then ? Why, the same rule of
feeding adopted when it was a calf, adopt when it is a cow.
I have heard a great many say, " You can feed cows on corn-
meal and cotton-seed meal and oil-cake with impunity ; feed
them heavily ; it won't hurt them ; they can stand it." It is an
entire mistake. The dairy cow is a delicate animal. You
must remember that a good cow matures slowly. It is not at
two years old, nor three years old, nor four years old, that a
good cow comes to perfection, any more than it is at three or
four years old that a good horse comes to perfection. The de-
velopment of a dairy cow and a horse are identical. It is a slow
process, and you must keep your cow gradually growing up to
that point where she arrives at her perfection ; and, in order to
do that, you must feed her as I have suggested in regard to the
calf.

I always insist upon it, that the natural food of cows, in the
first place, is grass. You may talk about soiling cows. They
will get along on grass and grain and clover and green fodder,

WINTER FEED OF COWS. 83

green corn, the meanest and cheapest of all things that a farmer
ever raised to feed to a cow ; but the farmer who is making
milk, and undertaking to bring up his cows upon anything but
pasture, is constantly working up hill.

Now in winter we want something as near pasture grass as
we can find. Early cut hay, or rowen hay, with a supply of
mangel-wurzel if she is giving milk, or Swedish turnips if
she is dry, to keep her in good condition. It is an economical
way to feed. If you must give her any grain, give her shorts,
or even a little oat-meal, but do not resort to corn-meal, or cot-
ton-seed meal, or oil-cake, for dairy cows. There has been a
little controversy about this matter. But I have learned from
experience that the feeding of oleaginous matters to dairy cows
is injurious to them. Four or five years ago I undertook to
feed forty or fifty cows that were in milk, in the winter season,
upon two quarts of cotton-seed meal a day and two quarts of
shorts. They had what hay they wanted, and about a peck and
a half of mangel-wurzel. I thought it was good food for them.
Three years of that kind of feeding destroyed thirty of those
fifty cows.

Question. What kind were they ?

Dr. LoRiNG. Good cows.

Question. I mean what breed ?

Dr. LoRiNG. They were -Ayrshires. You cannot use an
Ayrshire up easily. They will stand pretty much anything.
Their udders are made, you know, for work, and they are not
to be broken down by a trifle. But I found the udders of those
cows had all got out of condition. One teat would go, then
another, and at last I had cows with two teats, cows with one
teat, and the value of my herd was gone. I could not do much
with them. They lost their appetites, and it was evident
enough that those animals had been fed upon something that
did not agree with them, and that their lacteal system had been
ruined. This little delicate organism had been inflamed, was
broken up, and was good for nothing. I supposed it was the
cotton-seed meal. I took it for granted it was, and said so. I
was told that I was mistaken. Three years ago I purchased in
the autumn six cows from Vermont, and put them on cotton-
seed meal for a purpose. The cows had calved in the autumn.
They were put into the barn, intended to be run for milk until

84 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

spring, and then sold for beef. They went on very well, and
looked well when spring came. They answered for cheap beef
well enough. One I thought I would keep. She had given
seventeen quarts a day on this feed. She was a great strong
Vermont native cow. I turned her into the pasture in the lat-
ter part of June when she went dry. She did not improve at
all. She looked sorry, disheartened. She looked as if the
grass did not agree with her. I put her into another pasture,
and that did not seem to do her any good. Then I undertook
to soil her, but to no purpose. She came in again in the fall,
but instead of giving seventeen quarts a day, she gave seven,
and it was evident that her whole constitution had been de-
stroyed by a single season of feeding on cotton-seed meal. That
has proved to my mind that I was right when I inferred that I
lost twenty-five or thirty cows when I fed cotton-seed meal ; and
I laid down this rule — that the nearer you can get to pasture
grass for feeding dairy cows, the better. Good water, good
light, early-cut hay, roots and shorts, are sufficient for any cow.
It is the cheapest food you can get. I do not wonder that the
State of Massachusetts, feeding corn-meal to her cows, does not
increase their number. There is no reason why farmers should
increase them, if they have either got to raise corn on these
hills or buy it in the market. I do not wonder that the dairy
business of the State of Massachusetts does not increase, when
so many men will not learn that the feeding of corn-meal to
dry cows or dairy cows is an unprofitable business, and that
cotton-seed is destructive.

Now I desire to say one or two words with regard to the
feeding of cows in the autumn, between the time of pasture-
grass and winter. Everybody knows that is a difficult spot to
get over. The best farmers know it — the best feeders know it.
From the middle of September until the middle of November,
how are you going to feed your cows ? It is a difficult thing to
do. Your pastures are dry. You cannot profitably begin to
feed hay in the middle of September. What are you going to
do between the middle of September and the middle of Novem-
ber ? You cannot raise green crops in those two months with
any profit. Suppose you have a lot of beef cattle that you have
not turned yet. You must carry them through those two
months, and how are you going to do it ? Will you feed them

LATE IN THE FALL. 85

on corn-fodder and cabbage-leaves ? Will you turn them into
fall feed ? Will you put them on mowing lands ? Will you
feed them in the fields, or will you not ? This, my friends, is a
pretty important question. I will acknowledge that it is an
open question — this question of fall feed for dairy or any other
stock. I am going to tell my own experience again, and any
other man may tell his. I suppose many of you are situated
just exactly as I am. I have a large farm, — about five hundred
acres of land, — and I desire to make it as profitable as possible.
Now, from the middle of September until the middle of Novem-
ber, I have forty cows generally at work, producing one of the
great staples of the farm. What can I do ? I have a cabbage
field, from which I sold, during the summer months, perhaps a
few thousand heads, and the leaves are left. Would you de-
pend upon them ? I think not, if there is any fall work to do.
You cannot feed them on Swedish turnips then. It is not good
economy to use your hay-mow in the middle of September.
What will you do ? There is a field covered with rowen — half
a ton of grass, or maybe less. There is a good chance for your
cows. Forty-five cows ought to earn, anywhere near a good
milk market, from fifteen to twenty dollars a day, if they are in
good condition. It is undoubtedly profitable to feed your mow-
ing lands in this state of affairs. I^agree that the crop next
year will be reduced, unless you cultivate your grass land. It
must be laid down as a rule, that the cultivation of grass is like
the cultivation of potatoes, or rye, or barley, or any other crop.
After having cropped to their utmost capacity the mowing lands,
cultivate those lands, as you do corn and grain lands. That is
the rule which I have adopted, and I cannot afford to adopt any
other ; and, my friends, I have begun to think that the whole-
sale statement that cattle should never be fed upon mowing
lands is simply an encouragement to second-rate farming. I
may be mistaken ; I may be wrong about it ; but I desire gen-
tlemen to think of it one moment, and consider whether they
had not better adopt this method of feeding their cattle, with
the expectation that they have got to cultivate so much more
land, always remembering that it is no use to feed a profitless
animal, whether in the pasture, in the barn or in the hay field.
That is my theory in regard to feeding grass lands, and I
think it is as much a part of the management and carrying on

86 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

of dairy stock as any other part of the business of feeding that
is known to the farmer. I offer these suggestions, in a hasty
way, with the most entire confidence in your good judgment,
and with a desire to learn of you. I only state these things for
your discussion. I was called upon to open the debate ; I have
endeavored to do so ; and now I trust there is some one ready
to controvert the statements I have made, if there is really any
reason for their being controverted.

The President. I have been requested to call upon Mr. T.
S. Gold, the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture of Con-
necticut.

Mr. Gold. No one could be more surprised than myself that
I should be called upon at this time to address this audience ;
but the subject of dairy farming, and the vast interests con-
nected with it, have been so strongly impressed upon my mind,
that, even without any premeditation or thought at all that I
should be called upon here, I cannot fail to embrace this oppor-
tunity to say a few words at this time.

I most heartily concur in many of the points which Dr. Lor-
ing has made upon the subject of the class of cattle that we
need for dairy purposes. I believe, with him, that there are
families of the Durham or Shorthorn stock that are admirably
adapted to the needs of tke dairy. We have the fullest evidence
before us that in the valley of the Connecticut, and some other
sections of our country, there are strains of blood of this class
of cattle that are unsurpassed for dairy stock. We have farm-
ers there of the greatest sagacity and skill in breeding, who
claim, and we believe with justice, that they can make more
milk out of that class of stock than any other upon their rich
and abundant pastures. But, on the other hand, we have other
sections of Connecticut an4 Massachusetts where our hilly lands
and more scanty pastures demand a different class of stock.
We have men who have thoroughly examined this subject, who
have tried the different classes of cattle, and who have come to
the conclusion, as the result of their experience, that a smaller
animal is better adapted to their wants. I heartily concur in
the points made by Dr. Loring in that particular.

In regard to the last point upon which he spoke, whether we
shall turn the cattle into our meadows in the autumn, I will
say, that in the section where I belong we are decidedly in favor,

FEEDING THE AFTER-MATH. 87

from our experience, of the system of feeding our meadows.
If the meadow is kept in good heart by suitable top-dressing,
we consider that a fair degree of pasturing in the autumn im-
proves the chances of a good crop the next year. It is almost
the universal practice with us to pasture ; and wherever, in
exceptional cases, we have neglected to do so, or have removed
only a portion of the rowen crop, we have failed to observe any
advantage the next season. In two orchards of young trees I
mowed a strip between the trees with my mowing-machine,
leaving six or eight feet unmowed and unpastured, except by a
small flock of sheep. There was a large growth of after-math
upon it. The succeeding season I watched closely to see if
there was any difference where the mowing-machine had run in
taking off the after-math. One of the fields was orchard grass
and clover principally ; the other was old turf of the finer
grasses. I was unable to discover, in either case, any advantage
in favor of the part on which the rowen was left. So I have
left some fields without feeding entirely, and the smothering of
the grass from the fine grass left upon the surface has led me to
the conclusion that it is not a wrong principle, in our section, to
feed our meadows during the months of September and
November.

Mr. Goodman. I rise, gentlemen, because I could not help
rising after hearing my friend Dr. Loring. The doctor's gun
always goes off so easily, that I feel a good deal as the man did
out West, who, on entering a town, heard half a dozen bullets
whistling around his head. He turned round, and the man
who was firing at him, recognizing his face, said : " I beg par-
don ; I thought it was another man." When I am in company
with my friends Dr. Loring and Mr. Birnie, and these other
Ayrshire men around me, I feel that I am in danger of being
annihilated ; and their doctrines come so near the truth, that
unless a man is very radical he is in danger of being converted ;
and I do not know but a great many people would be better off
to be converted to the Ayrshire doctrine, than to continue in the
belief of the doctrines they now cherish. But I am engaged in
a very different business from that of breeding Ayrshires. I
am engaged in the breeding of Shorthorns and Jerseys. When
I look around upon the dairy stock of the country, as a mere
matter of profit, I do not see any better class of cows than the

88 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

ordinary native cows of New England ; and if I were to-day
getting up a herd of cows merely for the purpose of producing
butter or milk, calculating the cost of those animals, and what
they would give the year round, I apprehend I might go further
and fare a great deal worse than to select fine animals from our
native stock. But, gentlemen, the great difficulty about our
native stock is that there is no confidence to be placed in their
ofispring. You can have no certainty that the children of these
dams will equal in any respect the dams themselves ; and there-
fore, in a few years, if that system should be kept up, we should
run out of good animals. We cannot continue to have good
animals in the country unless we replace them by cows from
imported stock.

In this section of the State, our habits, following our inter-
ests, are a little different from those of farmers in the other
parts of the State, where the doctor and our other friends are
living. We have not, until lately, bred cows for the purpose
only of producing milk. That is a business into which only a
portion of the inhabitants of Berkshire have entered. The
milk that goes down the Housatonic Railroad to New York is
received with as much favor as the milk from any other part of
the country, if not more ; and our farmers, from Lanesborough
all down the Housatonic Valley, are finding it one of the most
profitable employments in which they can engage ; and farmers
who want to engage in that branch of business cannot do better
than have the class of cows to which my friend Loring referred.
I apprehend there is no better class of cows than those that
have an infusion of Ayrshire blood in them for producing milk.
But some of us are so situated, either from the condition of our
farms, or from being occupied with business outside the matter
of farming, that we want to carry it on so as not to be driven
to the necessity of transporting our milk to the depot every day.
Therefore we are engaged in the production of butter and beef ;
and I apprehend, with all due deference to these gentlemen,
that we cannot get from Ayrshire cows as good quality of but-
ter as from half-breed Durhams, or as we can from our Jerseys ;
and therefore we find upon the hills of Berkshire that the most
profitable animals we can breed are the Shorthorns, or their
progeny, or other half-breeds, the progeny of native cows, mated
with a thoroughbred Durham bull. We find this profitable,

COTTON-SEED MEAL. 89

because, in the first place, they give us a good quality of but-
ter ; and, in the next place, they fat easily, and we have no
sharp creatures to turn off every two or three years, when it is
necessary to eliminate them from our herds.

Now as to this question of feeding. It is very difficult to
controvert the statements of my friend the doctor, especially
when he alludes to his experiments ; but he was not here last
evening to hear the remarks of Prof. Chadbourne upon the
worthlessness of experiments unless conducted on a large scale
and with great accuracy. It is very difficult to arrive at a cor-
rect conclusion, when we have the testimony of Dr. Loring on one
side, and on the other the testimony of farmers all up and down
the Connecticut Yalley, who feed cotton-seed meal all through
the winter. "We have got to take these opinions and experi-
ment for ourselves, and judge accordingly. I have fed cotton-
seed meal to a considerable extent, and in one or two instances
I thought my heifers were injured by it, and that may have
been the case ; but I have fed it very extensively to Durham
bulls, and I have not found that tliey have been injured by it
in any way. It may be, as the doctor says, that the delicate
glands of the female are easily affected by rich oleaginous food
like cotton-seed meal, whereas the system of the male, being
more hardy, would not be injuriously affected. Therefore you
want to use this feed with extreme caution.

Now as to this question of feeding. Those of us who are
living among the hills of Berkshire find the remarks of the doc-
tor diametrically opposed to the conclusions at which we have
arrived. The idea of telling us that we cannot feed corn-fodder
or corn-meal is like taking the very ground from under our
feet. We are almost as much wedded to our corn-fields as we
are to our wives, and when you undertake to tell us that we are
not to give our animals the food which we consider a necessary
part of their daily subsistence, it is pretty difficult to point out
wliat we shall take in its place. We have thought that the
greatest injury we can do to our mowing lands is to feed them
off in the fall. All the best farmers have been trying to indoc-
trinate the agricultural community with the idea that we are
ruinuig our farms by feeding off all this grassy matter in the
fall, and leaving almost the bare ground to be exposed to the
cold of winter. We have become satisfied, many of us, by

12

90 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

actual experiment, that that has been ruinous to our hay crop.
But, after all, there is a maxim, in medio tiitissimus ibis, — in
the middle course there is more safety than in extremes, — and
it may be that our fields would suffer no injury if fed off dur-
ing a certain portion of the year, and the cattle not kept on
them until the snow comes, so that they are gnawing down to
the very roots of the grass. The difficulty is for the farmer to
exercise the judgment in this mode of feeding that the occa-
sion may require. When once he has got his cattle on the
meadow, his indolence, and the desire to save his hay, combine
to induce him to leave them there until they are driven by the
bleak winds into the barn ; and the result is, that the timothy
grass is gnawed down to the very roots, so that there is no vi-
tality left in it the next spring to produce the hay crop which
our meadows ought to yield. It may be possible, by an abun-
dance of manure and very careful cultivation, to bring up our
grass fields so that they will afford proper nourishment in the
fall to our cattle ; but it does seem almost impossible to carry
out that theory of feeding by which, for two months after the
grass in our pastures is substantially gone, we are to feed our
cattle on our meadows, and yet expect the next year to get a
good crop of hay from those same meadows.

But, gentlemen, my experience has been, and I apprehend it
has been the experience of a great many farmers, that there is
a great deal of reliance to be placed on this corn-fodder which
my friend the doctor so thoroughly anathematizes. The better
class of our farmers about here have been raising this corn-fod-
der for several years, and I have never heard anything said
against it until this season by Mr. Nicholson and Dr. Loring.
Mr. Nicholson says that this corn-fodder, being grown so close
and deprived of light and air, does not contain so much nour-
ishment by half as ordinary corn ; and he seems to come to the
same conclusion as Dr. Loring — that this corn-fodder is not
worth raising. There you have an illustration of Prof. Chad-
bourne's doctrine again. These gentlemen have been experi-
menting ; but we have been experimenting here, and we find
that for two months of the year there is nothing better to carry
our cows through than this corn-fodder. Our way is to sow it
broadcast, and just before the frost comes cut it down and let
it dry for three or four days, as you do your hay ; then put it

CORN-FODDER FOR COWS. 91

lip in small cocks, throw our hay-caps over it, and we can keep
it there and feed it day by day, until winter drives the cattle
into the barn. And that appears to me to be the real succe-
daneum, if any method could keep our cattle through the fall
season ; because, when we have got to house our cattle from
October until nearly the first of June, it takes capacious barns,
large farms and an immense deal of labor to procure hay
enough for those animals ; but by the use of corn-fodder, — feed-
ing it out from the time it arrives at a proper growth, say the
8th of July, until the frosts are about falUng, and then partially
curing it in the manner I have described, — you have something
by which your hay is saved ; and my experience as a butter-
maker is that I get better butter in the fall from that fodder
than any other thing, except the earliest grass. But there is no
doubt that the principle the doctor lays down is the true one —
that grass is the natural food of the cow, and the nearer we can
approach to this grass the better. The farmers are arriving at
that conclusion, because they are arriving at this one point —
that if they can commence cutting their hay the middle of June,
and get it into the barn before tlie first of August, they are get-
ting the hay that will best carry their cattle through the winter,
and give them the best butter and milk. Therefore the great
principle in our cattle breeding is to get the best crops of hay
we can ; and as we cannot continue our pasturing through the
year, we want the best substitute we can get for that before we
put them on hay.

Now in regard to these small animals the doctor speaks about,
although he did not allude to them by name. My theory is
somewhat different from his. I claim, with all due deference,
that we have a perfect right to indulge in the luxury of raising
Shorthorns, if we can afford to do it ; and we want to engage
in the luxury of raising Jerseys, because, as a mere butter ma^-
cliine, you cannot find anything equal to that cow upon the face
of the earth ; and, differing from the other animals, — the Ayr-
shire or Shorthorn, — the progeny of the Jersey is almost inva-
riably as good as the dam. She is a great butter machine — a
cow that will make a pound of butter to five quarts of milk ;
and we are getting cows in this country that will give now from
fourteen to sixteen and twenty quarts of milk a day. These are
going to be our great butter-makers ; and when you can get an

92 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

infusion of that blood into our native stock, you will find that
the progeny of these two are going to make something superior
to anything we now have.

I apprehend, gentlemen, that there is no great difficulty in
the way of our indulging in the luxury of raising Shorthorns
upon our hills, or in any part of this State, because, in the first
place, we are arriving at certain knowledge, in agriculture,
which assists us in bringing our farms into better condition than
ever before. All we have got to do is to recollect that we have
got noble animals that are worth raising, and that we can afford
to feed them. The best way to feed them is by enriching our
farms, and getting them up to such a condition that they will
support those animals. We do not want any farms round in
Berkshire County — we have not got many — that will only sup-
port small animals. We have excellent soil for grass, and we
can do nothing more profitable than to turn our cattle, our im-
proved Shorthorns, in summer and in autumn, upon our pas-
tures, even if those pastures are substantially meadows ; and
when they are eaten off, in two or three years, so that they would
not cut more than a ton or a ton and a half to the acre, turn
them up and reseed them, and keep them as you would mead-
ows ; then you will find that you are raising cattle profitably,
because these improved Shorthorns, at two years old, are just as
good, just as fit for the butcher, and bring a larger price than
ordinary cows at four years old. That is the experience of
England. A century ago, in England, the average age of steers
brought to the market was four years. It took four years to
grow them to a point at which they were fit to be brought to
the shambles. Now, by the use of Shorthorn bulls, they bring
an animal to the butcher at .two years old, equal in every respect
to those animals at four years old. You can calculate in one
moment, considering the saving of two years' hay and meal, the
great profit that that affords. That is what we want here. We
want it for our dairies and all the purposes of the farm. If a
man is running a dairy, let him get animals of this class, take
them from good milking families, and when he wants to change,
he can turn them over to the butcher in good condition in two
or three years, and get others of the same class. I apprehend,
if we set our minds upon getting these animals, or any other
class of animals, it is not necessary to pay any attention to our

THE VILLAGE COW. 03

pastures, if we have got sufficient land out of wliich to make
good pastures, by turning it into meadows.

Dr. Todd. I would like to ask a practical question. How
can people who live in a village like this — and Massachusetts is
full of them — keep cows ? We want milk, and yet we have no
pastures. We drive our cows a mile and a half or two miles to
find a pasture, and then there are five cows on one pasture,
however small. Is there any way in which people in a village
of this size can keep a cow or two cows, and feed them through
the summer, without destroying the animals, and have good
milk ?

Mr. Goodman. I suppose these substitutes for grass are not
grass itself. You can't keep a cow in a city lot, of not more
than a third of an acre, unless you have something to feed her
upon.

Dr. Todd. Is there any substitute for grass ?

Mr. Goodman. I don't suppose there is, but a cow will give
milk of a good quality with ordinary hay and ordinary keeping.
Cows are kept so in the city of New York on high rents, and
there is no complaint of the quality of the milk, but the quan-
tity is not so great.

Dr. Todd. Does not the animal suffer?

Mr. Goodman. I do not think the animal suffers. I had
milk for a long time from a cow kept in a stable. She had her
hay every day, and every morning or night, bran in warm water,
and occasionally a little corn-meal. I don't suppose she would
know what grass was, after having been there so long as she had
been. But a much cheaper way in our villages would be to
have a man bring milk round and sell it to your families, if you
can find men honest enough not to water it too much.

Question. Have you any such men in Lenox ?

Mr. Thompson. I will say tliat I have followed Dr. Loring's
opinions for many years in regard to feeding dairy stock ; I
have drawn very many good conclusions from them, and adopted
his suggestions in a great many ways. In regard to the profit
or necessity of feeding cattle upon our mowed lands during the
latter part of the season, I must say exactly as he does, that no
farmer of small means on a small area of grass land can carry
on his farming profitably without pasturing his mowed lauds.

94 BOxlRD OF AGRICULTURE.

I will say, in answer to a question that was suggested some
time ago, that I mowed my land this year, over peat bottoms,
about the 20th of June, and I was very desirous of getting
another crop, but my pastures failed, and after a good crop of
rowen had grown, I considered the matter very carefully, in
order to determine whether it would be more profitable to cut
that grass or pasture it, and so retain a full flow of milk from
my cows. I concluded to do the latter, and turned my cattle
on to about ten acres that had been mowed as fast as we could
gather the crop after the 30th of June. I pastured nine cows
upon those ten acres up to the time that I was obliged to feed
them from the mow, about the 20th of November, and they did
not have a mouthful of grain from April until the time they
went into tlie barn. My practice is to induce a flow of milk,
after they leave the grass, with some sort of feed that will be as
cheap as anything I can possibly feed them with. You can then
begin to feed carrots and some shorts, for the grass is of very
little use to make milk after the frost has struck it. My inten-
tion is to recover those fields by pasturing them, the coming
year, all through the season ; that is, to put the cows on as soon
as the season gets well forward. I cannot plough those mea-
dows that were mowed, because the soil underneath is too cold,
with a peat bottom. I can pasture those lands two or three
years, and bring other grasses into the mowing lands that I have
been pasturing before. That gives the natural grasses an oppor-
tunity to come in, and if we do not pasture hard, they will
come in better than they will if mown every year right through.
Then, at the expiration of two years, I will manure those lands
again, and bring the grass into mowing, with three tons to the
acre, and so alternate, every two or three years. One acre of
such pasture land will carry a cow right straight through up to
the time she can gather the new grass grown on meadows that
are mowed in June. A neighbor of mine has pastured twelve
cows on eight acres adjoining mine and four acres in another
locality, equally valuable, but not fit to cultivate with ploughed
crops. He has pastured his cows up the middle of August, and
then he has put them on three or four acres of land that was
mowed about the 20th of June, until the pastures on those low
meadows recovered, and then he has pastured upon them, alter-
nating every two weeks or so. He pastures his cows in this

CULTURE AND PRESERVATION OF FRUIT. 95

way through the whole season without any extra feed. He has
never raised a hill of corn to feed to his stock since I have
known him. He does not feed any meal or anything through
the season until his roots are ready in the fall. Farmers with
us must pasture their mowed lands, or they can never make
farming a profitable business.
Adjourned to 2 o'clock.

Afternoon Session.
The Board met at the hour appointed, and took up the
subject of

FRUIT CULTURE.

The President. I have the pleasure of introducing to you
the champion of Pomology in this country, the Hon. Marshall
P. Wilder, who will give you a lecture on Fruits and their
Cultivation.

Ladies and Gentlemen, — The culture of fruits, or in modern
language, the science of pomology, occupies so broad a field of
research, that anything like a thorough discussion would require
more time than can be allotted to me on this occasion ; but I
am most happy to render any service that may be required of
me by this Board.

The grain and vegetables of the earth may be considered as
the substantial of life, but the fruits of the garden and the
orchard I have ever viewed as the overflowings of God's bounty.
Whether as a luxury, contributing to health and the gratifica-
tion of the" appetite, or as a profitable crop for the farmer, the
subject, even here in Massachusetts, from whence primarily
emanated the great interest in fruit culture which now has
spread over so wide an extent of our country, does not receive
the careful attention it demands. Great as is the fame of
Massachusetts as the pioneer of American pomology, extensive
as has been her influence in exciting a spirit of emulation in this
branch of industry, splendid indeed as have been her acquisi-
tions and exhibitions of fruit, yet it must be acknowledged that
her soil and climate are not naturally the most propitious for
the cultivation of fruits ; but the energy, enterprise and indom-
itable perseverance of her sons, have surmounted many of the

96 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

natural obstacles, and she still maintains her high rank in this
department of culture. But while we make these acknowledg-
ments, we rejoice in the fact that no country, on the whole, is
more favorable for fruit culture than our own. The fame of
our apples in European markets is proverbial, and the day is not
distant when with our California and the "Western fruits, we
shall, in addition to the enormous consumption at home, furnish
large supplies not only to Europe, but to China and Japan, of
the finest apples and pears in the world.

Formerly the cultivation of the finer fruits was confined to
the gardens of the opulent, but the multiplied facilities for
intercourse, and the emulation excited by exhibitions and con-
ventions, has awakened an enterprise from the Lakes to the
Gulf, from Alaska to Arizona. On both sides of the Rocky
Mountains, orchards, gardens and vineyards are planted on
the most extensive scale, and no sooner does the hardy pioneer
open the way for the emigrant than these spring up as by
magic, and the cry comes from one end of our land to the other.
How shall we produce the most valuable fruits ? What are the
best methods of cultivation ? What the most approved system
for ripening and preserving our fruits ? To gather up the les-
sons of the past, and to answer these inquiries, with especial
reference to our own instruction, will be the object of my
remarks.

One of the prevailing errors of the past has been that fruit,
like forest trees, would take care of themselves ; and it is this
neglect which has entailed on us so many old, unproductive
trees.

Most of the old orchards of New England have been planted
without sufficient regard to location and proper preparation of
the soil. Many of them are in grass, and the exhaustive process
of gathering grass and apples from the same field, has, in a
measure, depleted both. There is no such thing as inexhaust-
ible fertility. Even the fertile soils of California, rivalling in
the size, beauty and productiveness of her fruits those of any
other part of the globe, will, in time, yield to the inexorable
demand for restoration of the fertilizing ingredients which they
are now so triumphan'tly bearing off in these beautiful produc-
tions of Pomona.

DIFFICULTIES TO CONTEND AGAINST. 97

In our climate, fruit-trees require especial attention. They
will not take care of themselves, and the cultivator must realize
that without constant diligence he cannot expect success. Dif-
ferent varieties require different soils and different treatment.
We must therefore study the constitution and character of each,
if we would secure perfection.

The different ability of varieties to resist heat and cold and
other meteorological agencies, reveals a most wonderful analogy
between the vegetable and animal kingdoms ; for while certain
animals find their natural home in the frigid zones, others in
the temperate, and still others in the torrid, there are some that
are cosmopolitans. So with our fruits. Some are suited to one
locality, some to another, and a very few to a great variety of
latitudes. Upon the observation and study of these depends
much of the success in fruit culture. Our soil and climate in
Massachusetts is not naturally very propitious for the cultiva-
tion of the pear, yet there are numerous varieties which prosper
as well as our forest-trees, and are as sure of a crop of fruit as
the former are of nuts. Tlie Bartlett pear-trees, originally
brought from England more than sixty years since, still survive
in Dorchester, (now Boston,) and have never failed to produce
fruit annually. For more than twenty years the Beurr^ d'Anjou,
Doyennd Boussock and Vicar of Winkfield pears have scarcely
ever failed of giving a crop. Certain varieties are adapted to a
wide extent of territory. Tlie Red Astrachan apple and the
Bartlett pear succeed throughout our country.

But we have special difficulty to contend with in our bleak
winds of New England. In the early settlement of Massachu-
setts, and in most of our Eastern States, delicate fruits, such as
the peach, apricot and plum, bore and ripened their fruit freely.
Then these fruits were planted in gardens or sheltered locations,
and in the openings or by the side of the woods, by which, im-
mediately or at no remote distance, they were protected from
the extremes of our climate, and the fierce dry winds to which
they are now exposed. When, by degrees, this natural protec-
tion had been removed, the peach and some of our more deli-
cate varieties of the apple, pear and other fruits, began to
decline, and are no longer to be relied on ; and yet these same
fruits, in the middle and Southern States, succeed most perfect-
ly ; and so, in some of our new Western States and Territories,
13

98 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

these varieties prosper as well as when grown under glass. We
have, however, some compensating advantages for this loss of
forest protection in the ameliorating influences of climate ex-
erted by the ocean or large bodies of water, like those of our
Western lakes and rivers, which soften the temperature ; and
to this, in a great measure, perhaps, may be attributed the
great success of grape culture in the West.

The non-adaptation of varieties and their deterioration are
among the difficulties which we have to contend with. We
should therefore resort to the production of new native sorts,
upon which we may rely with more confidence ; for, as a gen-
eral law, it may be assumed that where nature has planted any
of our wild species, whether fruit, forest-tree or vine, other and
improved sorts may be raised by hybridization, either natural
or artificial, which will be equally as well adapted to that terri-
tory. The grape, for instance, grows spontaneously throughout
our territory, extending over twenty-five degrees of latitude,
and in longitude from ocean to ocean ; and from the process of
cross-fertilization we are adding every year new and valuable
sorts, either adapted to particular locations or to general culti-
vation.

There are, however, disappointments and vicissitudes. There
are, indeed, mysteries which we do not at present understand,
yet, far from abating, they should actually increase our ardor in
the pursuit of knowledge, nor should we be blinded by the
dreamy speculations and doubtful theories of those who always
see a lion in the way. We are too often discouraged by the in-
constancy of the seasons, but these are incident to all of our
crops, and they will probably continue to exist. Cycles of
favorable and unfavorable years have always existed both in
this and other lands. While one section or country suffers with
drought, another is almost submerged in water. Such was the
case in 1867 and 1868, between the West and East, — the former
parched with drought, the latter drenched with rain, thirteen
and a half inches having fallen in September of the last year,
against three and a half inches, the average amount per month
for fifteen years ; and this year the West is suffering with too
much moisture, while New England has been blessed with a
most propitious season, until the late terrific hurricane which
swept the fruit from the trees on its eastern borders. Great

THINNING OF FRUITS. 99

allowances should therefore be made for this fickleness of the
seasons.

One word in regard to the importance of

THINNING OF PEUITS.

There is no branch of fruit culture which has been so much
neglected as the proper thinning of the crop. Experience has
taught us as one of the most important lessons in good cultiva-
tion, the necessity of thinning our fruits, in order to produce
those of first quality, and that where trees are allowed to over-
bear, exhaustion and barrenness will certainly ensue.

The thinning of fruits, especially the apple, pear, peach, plum
and grape, is indispensable for the production of large, fair and
valuable fruits. The capability of all created things has a limit.
If a tree or vine bear beyond its strength, its fruit will be in-
jured, its growth retarded, its life shortened. Fruits that are
properly thinned will command a much higher price and a more
ready sale than those that are not thinned. One of our farmers,
near Boston, always thins his fruit — another, adjoining his orch-
ard, neglects it. The location and treatment of these two orch-
ards in other respects are much the same, but the former realizes
for his crop of Baldwin apples about four and a half dollars per
barrel, while the latter, standing by his side in the market,
receives less than three and a half dollars per barrel for his.

And so with the pear ; while those properly thinned and
cared for will command $4 per bushel, those of the common
run will not command more than $2.50 ; and this rule applies
not only to fruits, but to all vegetable productions. All have
observed that the overbearing of a fruit-tree one year is likely
to produce barrenness the next. Hence the necessity of thin-
ning our fruits, so as to avoid exhaustion of the tree, and to»
keep up a regular succession of good fruit. Even our Baldwin
apple, which from its great productiveness, bears only on alter-
nate years, we think might, by thinning, be made to bear annual
crops.

Where fruits are crowded, they are not only deprived of light,
air and heat, but actually of room, so that the adjacent sides of
two fruits are compressed and not fully developed. Not only
the form, but the color is improved by thhming, and where
fruits are crowded in clusters, they are more likely to be at-

100 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE.

tacked by insects and mildew ; therefore the necessity, if we wish
for perfect specimens, of removing a part, so that no fruit
should touch another.

PRESERVATION AND RIPENING OP FRUITS.

In regard to the preservation and ripening of fruits, I can
only allude to general principles, and confirm opinions expressed
on former occasions.

The condition of the fruit, when gathered, is of the utmost con-
sequence, and it is in vain to expect fruit which has been injured
in picking to be preserved in good order. Whoever does expect
bruised fruit to keep, will certainly be disappointed. As has
been well stated by Mr. Manning, " The fruit must be carefully
gathered perfectly dry, and must not be bruised nor chafed.
The waxy secretion found on fruits, is a natural provision for
the protection of the skin from the effects of moisture and air,
and should not be removed even by wiping," for when the skin
is deprived of this protection or is broken by pressure, the
oxygen of the air comes in contact with the juices of the fruit,
and fermentation and decay ensue.

Summer and early fall pears should be harvested as soon as
they commence ripening on the tree, and should be placed in a
dark, cool room until ready for use. This process serves to
elaborate the juice and sugar, but if left on the tree until
mature, most kinds will become mealy and fibrous. Not so with
early apples ; a contrary practice should be adopted with them ;
for instance, the early apples should be allowed to become per-
fectly ripe before being gathered. So well convinced of this
fact are our best cultivators near Boston, that they mulch the
ground under the trees with hay or straw, and allow such early
varieties as the Early Harvest, Sweet Bougli, Red Astrachan,
Williams Favorite, and even Gravenstein to drop from the trees,
and gather them daily.

With late varieties, both of the apple and pear, it is best to
allow them to remain on the trees as long as possible without
injury from frost and gales ; but when the foliage has fallen, or
is destroyed by frost, the functions of the tree are arrested and
no further advantage to the fruit can be derived.

As the flavor of fruits is so very delicate, it is absolutely in-
dispensable to keep it from all decaying substances, either its

FRUIT-HOUSES. 101

own or other matter. The aroma of fruit, upon which depends
so much of its relish and excellence, is extremely volatile, and
the fruit should therefore be excluded from the air as much as
possible, only admitting what may be necessary to preserve pro-
per temperature, and the preven-tion of too much moisture. No
imperfect specimen should therefore be admitted into the room,
and all decaying fruit should be removed immediately. The
practice of spreading out fruits on shelves, as formerly recom-
mended in this country, and still practised in Europe, requires
too much room and waste, and even in pretty close apartments
they lose much of their flavor, and without extraordinary care
will become dry and shrivelled. The better course, therefore,
is to pack in boxes or barrels ; and to avoid the necessity of
handling, to pack them immediately from the tree.

One of the greatest obstacles to the preservation of late fruits
is the warm weather of October and early November. When
the apple and pear can be carried through these months without
starting the ripening process, there is very little labor in keep-
ing, especially the late sorts, through the winter, if stored in
a proper temperature and suitable houses or cellars.

If fruits are to be kept for a long time, the temperature
must be so low as to prevent fermentation of the juices ; but it
is possible to keep this so low, and so long, as to destroy the vi-
tality of the fruit, producing a change analogous to the petri-
fying process. We have seen such instances with pears kept in
modern fruit-houses controlled with ice, that could not be made
to resume the ripening process. In these houses the tempera-
ture is regulated by ice.

Several different structures on this principle have been
erected, and are now in operation in cities of the United States,
for the preservation and ripening of fruits. These are of un-
doubted value for the fruiterers in large cities, who devote per-
sonal care to their management, but for the great mass of culti-
vators they are too expensive.

The fruit-houses of Prof. Nyce, one of which is located near
Boston, are on the principle, discovered nearly a hundred years
since by Dr. Henry, of keeping the fruit in an atmosphere of
carbonic acid gas. This house is kept close, without ventila-
tion, and has preserved delicate fruits, like the pear and grape,
through the winter season in perfection. But while we admit

102 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE.

the principle to be correct, we fear that the constant and untir-
ing watchfuhiess necessary for its success will so seldom be
given, as to prevent their general use. Other houses, controlled
by ice, for the preservation of fruits, are in successful operation
in Philadelphia, but these arp subject to ventilation, reliance
being had on a proper supply of cool, pure air. We tasted
specimens from these of the Northern Spy and other apples of
the growth of 1868, in September last, in most excellent pres-
ervation, both as it regarded beauty and flavor. One of the
Philadelphia houses preserves a working temperature of about
35° of Fahrenheit, the other 40° ; but both are operated with-
out any artificial dryer or absorbent, while Mr. Nyce's house is
kept at 34°, and involves the use of chloride of calcium, to ab-
sorb any superfluous moisture from the air. In regard to the
temperature, the object is to hold the ripening process in equi-
librium, at a point neither much above nor much beloiv, for, with
an increased temperature, maturation would take place, and,
with too low a rate for considerable time, the fruit would be-
come materially affected in its quality. A temperature of 40°
will hold the ripening process in suspense ; but when tlie fruit
is wanted for use it should be removed to a temperature of 55°
or 60°, and ripening will succeed.

Various substances have been used for the packing of fruit,
such as sand, charcoal, sawdust, chaff", &c., &c. None of these
will preserve it for any considerable length of time, unless the
temperature of the apartment is at the right point ; but when
this is attained superfluous substances are unnecessary, and are
frequently positively injurious. In regard to temperature, dif-
ferent varieties require different degrees of heat, according to
the firmness of the skin and the texture of the flesh.

Farmers understand pretty well how to keep their apples
during the winter season by storing them in cool northern cel-
lars ; but the preservation of the pear and other delicate fruits
is more difficult. For instance, the pear is a better conductor
of heat than the apple, as may be seen by tasting specimens
kept in the same temperature, the pear appearing the coldest to
the taste. Owing to this better conducting power, it is more
quickly affected by changes of temperature, and hence more
difficult to keep.

TEMPERATURE OF FRUIT-HOUSES. 103

Fruits are perishable commodities at best. Wliat we want
are houses so constructed as to avoid as much as possible the
frequent adjustment of temperature, thereby preserving our
fruits in a quiescent state until 'they are wanted for use, and
thus avoiding the great loss which always occurs by the frequent
handling of them.

The construction and management of the fruit-house demands
science, skill and constant attention, with the power to con-
trol temperature, moisture and light.

After years of observation and experience, we have come to
the conclusion that greater simplicity and cheapness are neces-
sary, /or jg-e«er«/ use, than can be found in these modern patent
fruit-houses.

The location of a house for the preservation of fruits should
be perfectly drained and dry. If it have a cellar, the walls
must be laid and the bottom covered with cement. Whether
built of wood or other material, there should be an inner
wall. The space between the walls may be from dx to
nine inches, and should be filled with some non-conducting
material, such as charcoal-dust, tan or sawdust. The doors and
windows should be double, with a convenient space for opening
them, and have a northerly aspect, so as to admit the cool air
when wanted. In temperate weather air should only be given
on a cool dry day or night, and when a warm spell occurs, as it
often does in the autumn, the house should be kept closed until
the return of cooler weather. The rooms should not be opened
in damp or rainy weather, for it is better to suffer with the
moisture within, rather than to admit more from without. To
provide against an excess of moisture, a ventilating tube of
four inches in diameter, rising through the roof of the building,
with a regulating damper, has been found very serviceable. A
box of chloride of calcium, or even unslacked lime, in the fruit
room, will absorb superfluous humidity.

In regard to the materials for the finish of the rooms or
boxes, we would recommend some kind of inodorous wood to
those of a resinous character, as the latter is apt to impart its
flavor to the fruit. In a word, the fruit-room should be as
sweet and clean as that of the dairy.

To maintain a perfect equilibrium of temperature and moist-
ure is the great desideratum. Too much moisture will cause

104 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

decay. Too much air will cause shrivelling. Too much heat
will cause premature ripening of the fruit. But when winter
approaches there is but little difficulty in the management of a
fruit-house, if it is sufficiently protected from frost.

Those who expect to keep their fruits in good preservation,
without special care in gathering, storing and watching, will
most assuredly be disappointed. We therefore lay down the
following rules as indispensable to success : —

Sound and perfect fruit.

Cool, pure air and exclusion of light.

Control of temperature and moisture.

Constant and careful supervision.

METHODS FOR PRODUCING NEW NATIVE FRUITS.

And now let me call your attention to what are the best
methods for producing new and valuable native fruits. The
great loss and disappointment which cultivators have experi-
enced in the importation of European fruits, not adapted to our
country, suggests the importance of producing new and valuable
American varieties from seed. Another reason for producing
new seedling fruits, is to replace those which may be lost by the
deterioration of varieties.

However we may theorize in regard to this matter, it must be
admitted, from the practical point of view, that some fruits have
so declined as to render it absolutely necessary to replace them
with new varieties. And what has been true in the past will be
so in the future. Witness certain kinds of pears in our own
day, — the St. Germain, Crassane, Brown Beurrd, White Doyenn^,
and others, — once so excellent : where are they now ? Some of
these are occasionally to be seen on the virgin soils of the West
and South ; yet for the great majority of locations they will con-
tinue to be worthless. And even on these new soils, where they
now flourish in their pristine excellence, we have reason, judg-
ing of the future from the past, to anticipate that no long time
will elapse before this decline will reach these now favored re-
gions. Within less than a generation, the pears alluded to
flourished throughout Western New York, as well as, in their
early history, on the propitious soils of France. And even
among the more modern pears we notice — as, for instance, in
the Beurrd Diel and Flemish Beauty — signs of decadence.

NEW VARIETIES. 105

And so with the grape. Where the Catawba and Isabella
grapes once succeeded perfectly, they seem now to be failing
and are no more to be relied on. Even the Concord now so
popular, indicates that in time it may follow in the same degen-
erate strain. While we indulge in these forebodings, we cannot
but express the deep regret we feel for the loss of such fine
fruits. Other fine fruits are following in the same course. This
should not discourage us, but rather increase our enterprise for
the production of new sorts, to keep up with the deterioration
which seems incident to cultivation.

Already we have ascertained that some kinds flourish through-
out a wide range of territory ; for instance, the Red Astrachan
apple and Bartlett pear seem to prosper everywhere.

We therefore give a hearty welcome to the efforts and enter-
prise of all who are laboring in this praiseworthy cause. Nor
can we too highly appreciate the lives and services of those
pioneers in pomology, by whose intelligence and zeal most of our
fine fruits have been originated or disseminated, — of Van Mens
and Esperin of Belgium, of Duhamel and Poiteau of France,
of Knight and Lindley of England, of Cox, Prince, Dearborn,
Lowell, Manning and Downing of the United States, and of
others now living, whose praise is in the mouths of all. What
millions have rejoiced in the fruitage of the Summer Bon
Chretien and Autumn Bergamot pear, coeval in history with the
Roman Empire ; the Newtown pippin and Baldwin apple, the
Doyenne and Bartlett pear, the Isabella, Catawba, Concord and
Scuppernong grape in our own time !

The advantage of raising from seed new varieties of fruits,
is shown in the fact, that the native productions of a country
are generally better adapted to its soil and cHmate than those
brought from other climes. More than this, we often find that
fruits originating in a given section of country, are especially
suited to tbat region.

As illustrations of the hardiness and adaptation to the soil
from which they sprang, we may point to the original trees of
Seckel, Buffum, and Doyenne Boussock and Onondaga pears, of
which we have accountsof their vigor and productiveness. The
case is still stronger with the apple, it being a more local fruit ;
even the Baldwin, the most popular of all our New England

14

106 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

varieties, has proved not adapted to regions no further west than
the State of Ohio.

Still another reason for producing new varieties, is to obtain
kinds superior to those we now possess, for notwithstanding the
number of fine fruits we now have, there is no reason to sup-
pose that the possibilities in nature are exhausted. We want
also to fill up the blanks in the seasons. In raising new varie-
ties an object of special importance is to extend the season of
fine fruit, by producing varieties, ripening at the beginning and
end, of greater excellence than we now possess. How desirable
to produce a pear as handsome and good as the Bartlett, ripen-
ing as late, and with the certainty of the Beurrt^ d' Anjou !

What a prize to the cultivator, and what a boon to New Eng-
land, would a grape be, the quality of the Delaware ripening
the middle of August, like our wild grape of the woods, and
possessing the hardiness and productiveness of the Concord !

It may be that nature has set limits to our achievements ; it
may be that time is requisite to produce size in fruits, so that
we cannot expect our earliest varieties to be as large as our later
ones ; still, we may make some approach toward it ; but he is a
bold man, who, in view of what has already been attained, and
this wonderful age of discovery, invention and enterprise in
which we live, shall attempt to fix bounds to the acquisitions of
the pomologist.

I have thus stated my reasons for attempting the production
of new varieties of fruits, because it is often asked, why we
should desire to add to the already long catalogue of fine sorts.
When we consider the numerous valuable American varieties
which have been obtained during the last twenty-five years ;
when we consider the great number of cultivators now turning
their attention to this most interesting department of pomology,
the multitude of seedlings now in growth from accidental
sources, and the thousands of hybrids produced by artificial
impregnation, our most sanguine hopes are awakened of richer
and more abundant acquisitions in the future.

Our native fruits are fast supplanting foreign sorts. All of
our grapes in cultivation, and nearly all of our strawberries,
are of American origin ; and the time is fast approaching when
we shall claim for our apples and pears the same honorable ex-

METHODS OF OBTAINING NEW VARIETIES. 107

traction, thus confirming the prediction made many years since,
that " our best fruits will be derived from our own seedlings."

In regard to the best methods of obtaining new varieties
from seed, my views have often been expressed, viz. : to plant
the most mature and perfect seeds of the most hardy, vigorous
and valuable sorts ; and, as a shorter process, insuring more
certain and happy results, to cross or hybridize our best varieties.

The process of amelioration by sowing the seeds of successive
generations, on the theory of Dr. Van Mons, if founded in
truth, is so long and tedious as scarcely to be worthy of trial.
But we cannot define the exact truth of the theory, for we can-
not estimate the disturbing influence of natural fertilization ;
and the impossibility of preventing this, where several varieties
exist in the same ground, is apparent to all scientific cultivators.
Under such circumstances, we could no more prevent an orchard
of pears of different sorts from fertilization by the air and in-
sects, than we could prevent a field of corn or a patch of melons,
of different sorts, from mixing by the same process.

While most of our fruits have been produced by this process
of accidental crossing, the number of finer sorts has been com-
paratively few and far between. We would not, however, dis-
courage the planting of seeds of our best fruits, trusting to
natural fertilization ; but, to secure more rapid progress and
better results, we must rely on the more certain and expedi-
tious art of hybridization. By this means, we may, in a few
years, produce such novel and desirable combinations as ages
might not give us by accidental fertilization, or sowing seeds at
random. In employing this agency, we only imitate nature ;
for, though the artificial process is but of recent origin, natural
hybridization must have existed from the creation, and un-
doubtedly gave the first hint to man of the power within his
reach. Nor can we doubt that the knowledge of this process is
confided to man, by the Almighty Creator, that it may be de-
veloped to its utmost extent, or that, in pursuing it, we are
doing his will and working with him. Here " the master-mould
of Nature's heavenly hand " is placed within our own, so that
the judicious and skilful operator may raise new and fine varie-
ties of fruits with as much success as the farmer can produce
improved animals by the crossing of his favorite herds.

108 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

What wonders this art has already accomplished in the pro-
duction of new and improved varieties in the vegetable king-
dom ! How much it has done for the potato, the turnip and
other vegetables, producing varieties of great excellence.

We have not yet fixed the exact limits within which hybrid-
ization may be effected, but we have learned some of the laws
which control the process. Others yet remain to be discovered,
and which bring to the pursuit a zest more fascinating than the
games of chance, and with infinitely better results. But let us
continue to sow the seeds of their best fruits, whether fertilized
by themselves or by the hand of man. The former often pro-
duce good fruits, and with those which have been impregnated
by the wind or insects, the ^chance for variation is much in-
creased ; but the union, by cross-fertilization, of the properties
of two good parents, doubles the chance of obtaining a superior
variety.

It is not necessary to be the possessor of a large garden to
produce many new varieties of fruit. Some of the most suc-
cessful experiments of this kind have been made in city gardens
and grounds of small extent, as in the case of Dr. Brinckle's
raspberries. Dr. Kirtland's cherries and Dr. Wylie's grapes.
How often do we hear of seeds, sown by the delicate hand of
woman in her flower-pot, which have vegetated and produced a
fruit that has caused after-generations to rise up and call her
blessed. Neither is the time that must elapse before the produc-
tion of a new seedling fruit so long, as has been generally sup-
posed. In some soils and climates, like that of California, seed-
ling fruits often come into bearing in five or seven years ; and
even here in New England the period of fruiting may be greatly
accelerated by grafting into dwarf stock or the limbs of bearing
trees ; and we have known the grape, in one year, from the
seed, produce fruit, by inarching the baby seedling on a strong
vine.

The doctrine that scions taken from seedling stocks and
grafted into trees, however strong and healthy, will not yield
fruit earlier than the mother plant, although held by so emi-
inent a savan as Mr. Knight, President of the London Horti-
cultural Society, has been proved to be fallacious ; and numer-
ous instances have occurred under our own observation where
seedling pears have been grafted on bearing trees, and have

NATURAL FERTILIZATION. 109

come into fruit while the original seedling had only attained the
height of four feet.

The originator of new fruits should, however, fix clearly and
distinctly in his mind the precise object which he wishes to gain.
He should then select such varieties as possess in the highest
degree the properties which he wishes to obtain. The most
perfect seeds of these varieties should then be sown and so cul-
tivated as to insure their most perfect development. In our
experiments we may meet with disappointments, but let nothing
discourage us in this delightful employment. By careful watch-
ing and experience, we may achieve triumphs of which we have
now no anticipation.

Nor would I discourage the planting of seeds of choice kinds
of fruit relying upon natural fertilization. By this process
most of our best varieties have been produced, from which
we are constantly receiving valuable acquisitions to our fruits.
Think of the blessing conferred on posterity by the introduction
of the Baldwin, Rhode Island Greening, Roxbury Russet, apples,
Hovey's Seedling strawberry and the Concord grape, and what
greater blessings can we confer on posterity than the production
of a fine fruit which shall contribute to the health, wealth and
gratification of millions long after we shall have passed from
the scenes of life. Let me encourage every cultivator of fruits
to sow annually the seed of all choice kinds in the hopes of
transmitting to posterity some memorial of his interest in this
most hopeful pursuit : —

" Try all methods, hope great results ;
Who knows what meed thy labors may await,
What glorious fruits thy conquests may create."

Mr. Morton. What time of the year is the best for thinning
fruit ?

Mr. Wilder. Just as soon as you can see which the best
specimens are. The earlier you commence after you have ascer-
tained which the best specimens are, the better.

Question. What is the best time to prune the apple ?

Mr. Wilder. Just after the frosts of winter have passed.
Never begin to prune until after the frosts of winter have passed,
and commence as early as you can before the sap begins to flow ;
or you can prune in midsummer, after the wood is formed.

110 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE.

Dr. Reed, of Pittsfield. We have for a few years past been
troubled with a new worm, which has destroyed our finest
sweet apples. It appears to be entirely different from the worm
which has so infested the apple, and is about half the size of
that worm. While other insects lay the egg in the blow, this
worm eats inward and goes where he pleases, to the complete
destruction of the apple. I can give you nothing of its history,
but I hope some one may be able to tell us what the insect is,
what time it deposits its eggs, and some way by which we can
destroy him. Its ravages are entirely confined to the sweet
apple and the milder kinds of the sour apple. I think the time
has passed by in which they do most of their mischief. They
commence with the Newtown Sweet, and destroy that apple
almost entirely, in many instances. They then attack the later
sweet apples. So far as I know, there are but few of them in
the late apples.

The President. This whole question of fruit culture is now
open for discussion. There are many gentlemen here competent
to discuss it, and I hope some one of them will take the floor
and set the ball in motion.

Mr. FooTE, being called on to lead the discussion on that sub-
ject, said that twenty-one years ago some day in October last,
surrounded by a goodly company of gentlemen gathered from
nearly every State in the Union, — gentlemen the lineaments of
whose features and the tone of whose voices (many of them now
silent in death,) his memorable friend would readily recall at
the mention of such names as Goodale, of Maine, Manning,
Hovey and Walker, of Massachusetts, Barry, Thomas, Wilson,
Robert Parsons, Samuel C. Parsons, Charles Downing, and the
master-spirit in that movement, the lamented A. J. Downing, of
New York, Reid and Hancock, of New Jersey, Brinkle and
Hare, of Pennsylvania, Elliot, of Ohio, Phoenix, of Illinois,
Allen, of Missouri, Taylor, of Virginia, and others, — he had
the privilege to be present at the birth, and to assist at the
christening of the American Pomological Society ; and not only
that, but to unite his voice in the unbroken harmony of all the
voices present in declaring the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder its first
president, an honor with which he had been reinvested, with no
less unanimity, at each successive meeting of the society since,
and that gentleman stood before them to-day, and before the

ORIGINATING VARIETIES. Ill

world, as the authorized expounder of American pomology ; and
anything with which he might be able to follow up a carefully
elaborated and exhaustive lecture on the subject from such an
individual, could only sound like the harmless prattle of an in-
fant at its father's knee ; for though, during many years, he had
devoted such scraps of time as he could steal from the severer
labors of the farm to the science of pomology, he felt that he
had barely passed its threshold, and was scarcely worthy to be
numbered with the initiated. Indeed, so grudgingly did nature
part with her secrets in the domain of vegetable life and de-
velopment, that the days of the years of one mortal life were
hardly sufficient to enable one to master the A B C of her
mysteries. This one truth, however, he believed he had surely
learned, of whatever others he might remain ignorant, that the
man who proudly boasted of his ability to conquer and to control
nature, simply raved like a madman or babbled like a fool;
while he who humbly submitted his judgment and his will to
the clear dictations of nature, and made her well-developed
principles and operations the guide of his efforts, would seldom
fail to reap a satisfactory reward for his labors.

The partiality of old acquaintanceship had led the lecturer to
allude to him in terms quite too complimentary, when on com-
ing to the topic of " originating new varieties of fruit," he had
said that " he would touch lightly on that subject, as he saw in
the audience a gentleman familiar with its details, &c." He
had, indeed, made some experiments in that line, for a number
of years past, beginning, he believed, in 1852 ; and, if desirable,
would try to give briefly the details of his practice. His
system then, if such it might be called, was, first, in order to
procure seeds of promise for his experiments, to select two
valuable sorts (as for instance a Bartlett and a Flemish Beauty
pear, or a Yellow Bellflower and a Fall Pippin apple,) and with
a view to securing a cross between them, bring them into immedi-
ate juxtaposition, by grafting the one into a tree of the other.
Second, to select from the product of such grafts the finest
specimens only, and to plant their perfect seeds in well-prepared
seed-beds in autumn. Third, as soon as the seedling plants
were old enough to develop their peculiar characteristics, to
select only such as exhibited some marked peculiarity, — taking
it for granted, (whether right or wrong,) that only such would

112 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

be apt to produce fruits of a marked character. Fourth, to
graft these selected seedlhigs upon strong, healthy stocks, or
into the upper branches of vigorous bearing trees, and wait for
them to show fruit. If the specimens from any particular graft
failed to give any indications of excellence, that graft was at
once removed to give place for another candidate. He must
acknowledge that his experiments thus far had resulted much
more in favor of pleasure than of profit, the number of failures
in his seedlings greatly preponderating over his successes. Yet
he had never for a moment been tempted to yield to this dis-
couragement. On the contrary, he had constantly felt his ardor
in the pursuit increasing instead of diminishing. The produc-
tion of a few choice varieties of the plum, apple and pear, par-
ticularly of the latter, had not only served to keep him from
despairing, but furnished ample stimulus for perseverance. The
pursuit of this branch of horticulture, viewed in some of its
aspects, might not inaptly be compared with that of the angler ;
who finding ordinarily but little to animate him, yet gets occor
sionally " a glorious nibble " that serves to keep his circulation
from flagging, and once in a great while bags a magnificent
specimen, that quite electrifies his blood, and sends him pacing
along up the stream with new enthusiasm, quite forgetful of his
past ill-fortunes, and dreaming of new successes.

Consider that to constitute a fruit of the finest quality and of
the highest value, (taking the tree as well as the fruit into the es-
timate,) not only the form, size, color, texture, flavor and keep-
ing qualities of the fruit itself must all be right ; but the vigor,
hardiness and productiveness of the tree assured also, and we
need no longer be surprised that in the drawing of a single prize
so many a blank is turned up. Not least among the sources of
pleasure to be found in the growing of new seedling fruits, was
that curious and unaccountable sporting of varieties with which
nature was constantly surprising and amusing us. He had, in the
course of his experiments, produced but a single fruit (a Green
Gage plum,) which he could regard as a perfect reproduction.
He had raised a Seckel pear, and Pound Sweet apple, which, to
an uneducated eye or palate, might appear identical with the
originals ; but a connoisseur would readily detect certain shades
of difference in the form, texture and flavor of either of them.
On the other hand, the great majority of his seedlings would as

EXPERIMENTS WITH SEEDLINGS. 113

soon be referred for their origin to any other fruits in their own
class as to their real parents ; and in regard to numbers of
them, the incredulity of the knowing ones themselves would be
excited by the disclosure of their true parentage. He would
give a few examples of these singular variations. [Which he
did, in part, by specimens exhibited to the audience.]

Of two seedling Green Gages, one — described in Downing's
new edition of " Fruits and Fruit-Trees of America " as Foote's
Golden Gage — was nearly twice as large as the parent, of a
clear golden-yellow color, vinous in flavor, and a clingstone ;
the other but about one-half as large as the parent, of a dark
blue color, and a freestone. An Imperial Gage seedling, much
resembling its parent in form and size, was of a dark purple
color, not of vinous flavor. A Northern Spy (apple) seedling,
only half as large as the original, greatly resembled, externally,
the old Russet Pearmain of some of our ancient orchards, was
very dense in texture, and promised to be a good keeper, and a
very rich fruit. A seedling Williams' Red, nearly as large as
the parent, darker in color, softer in texture and as mild in
flavor, would keep all winter. Of two Yellow Bellflower seed-
lings, one was three-fourths as large as the parent, resembling
it in form and in its ground color, but having uniformly a bril-
liant crimson cheek, kept as well, was more productive, and of
even higher flavor ; the other would be sufficiently described by
calling it a mere Yellow Crab, which it resembled in all its
characteristics. A Twenty Ounce seedling much resembled its
parent in form, size and color, but was sweet. Of two Mother
seedlings, one, larger than the parent and more beautiful in its
(similar) form and color, was a siveet apple, keeping till spring ;
the other very small, pure white, was a sweet apple also, and a
late keeper. Of three Porter seedlings, one greatly resembled
the parent externally, except in a brilliant crimson cheek, but
rotted badly on the tree ; the other two, smaller than the parent,
and without any attractions of form, color or flavor, were both
sweet. A Winter Golden sweet seedling was larger than the
parent, Bellflower shaped, of the purest white, fine-grained, ex-
ceedingly tender, mildly sub-acid, and ripened in October. A
Bartlett (pear) seedling resembled not a little, externally, the
Merriam, and was well-flavored, but rotted quickly at the core.
A Bleeker's Meadow seedling, very much resembling the parent

15

114 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

fruit in form and size, and a true " chip of the old block" in
texture, was as beautifully colored as a bright " red rose." A.
Marie Louise seedling, not very unlike a medium Virgalien in
form, sice and color, was a pleasant sweet pear and remarkably
productive, its bearing branches hanging like those of a weeping
willow, quite down to the ground ; apt to rot at the core. A
Dix seedling retained much of the form and size of the parent,
but took on a yellow color at maturity and was wanting in
flavor. A Summer Franc Real seedling much resembled the
Dearborn in form, size and color, (except that it was specked
with red as beautifully as any trout,) and had a distinct Bartlett
flavor. A Washington seedling had nearly the form and size of
the Bartlett, with a dull bronze-yellow skin, and by its flavor
reminded one of Stoughton's bitters or some kindred article.
A Beurre d'Anjou seedling, by its form and size, reminded one
of the old English " bull's eye " watch, and, by its texture, of
India rubber, and kept so well that it never got ripe. Of two
Onondaga seedlings, one resembled Urbaniste in form, size and
color, and ripened in October ; the other was of a peculiar oval
form, a uniform dark-bronze russet color, and a winter fruit —
quality not yet tested. Of several Virgalien seedlings, all vary-
ing widely from each other, the most noticeable was a light-rus-
set pear, about the size and shape of Rostiezer, an excellent
keeper, of good flavor, and promising to be of value. Of sev-
eral Seckel seedlings, most of which bore a nearer or more re-
mote resemblance to the parent, the only one of particular
promise was that described in Downing as Foote's Seckel — a
pear somewhat larger than the parent, shaped much like a
Gansel's Bergamot, more handsomely colored than the original,
and somewhat more vinous in its flavor, which, in the opinion
of some, gives it a superior value. This and a Beurrd
d' Aremberg seedling of much promise, were regarded as his
greatest successes.

In regard to the general subject of fruit-culture, information
was so abundant and so accessible at the present day, concerning
all its important details, that he did not deem it necessary to
add much, if anything, in that direction. He would, however,
avail himself of the occasion to enter his protest against the
utter recklessness with which many, he might perhaps say most
men, rush into the business of setting out pear and apple orch-

REQUISITES FOR SUCCESS. 115

ards, as if a piece of ground of certain dimensions, and a given
number of trees stuck into it, without any particular regard to
the quality or condition of either, would, by the grace of nature
alone, be amply sufficient to insure success. Experience was a
dear schoolmaster, but many were receiving his teachings on
this subject now-a-days with great seriousness, and he hoped that
knowledge and wisdom would be increased thereby, though to
many, he feared the acquisition would come too late to admin-
ister much of either profit or comfort. For himself, were he
about to begin the business of orcharding anew, he would be
far more particular in selecting soils and locations, varieties of
fruits and styles of trees ; prepare his grounds much more
thoroughly and expensively ; plant fewer trees and plant them
more carefully, and then bestow on every ten the attention he
had heretofore divided among a hundred. This his own experi-
ence and observation had satisfied him was the only proper way
of growing fruit at this day, whether for profit or for pleasure.
He would add but two things more : first, that in preparing for
the planting of pear-trees, he would trench the soil — not dig a
ivell and fill it up again; but loosen the ivhole surface of the
soil, and enrich it with a variety of animal and mineral ma-
nures, to tivice the depth ordinarily reached in these processes ;*
and then, having the soil well fitted and the trees carefully
selected, his advice would be to throw the latter into the fire
sooner than set them, if either the surface be found habitually
wet, or the subsoil very retentive of moisture. It would be
better economy to purchase the fruit desired by devoting the
land to more profitable purposes. Second, in these days of
multitudinous and midtitudifying insect depredations, he would
by no means fail so to locate an apple orchard that he could
conveniently occupy it, whenever he chose, as a hog-pasture.
This he fully believed to be the very best possible mode of
ridding an orchard of and keeping it free from its insect ene-
mies, and realizing again such crops as our fathers did before

* He had followed the tap-root of a common red clover plant downward
to the perpendicular depth of nearly five feet ; and the pear root extending
itself naturally in the same direction, he could not think it safe to disre-
gard this indication of nature in preparing the soil to receive it. The most
successful instance of pear-culture that had come to his knowledge was on
grounds that had been carefully trenched and manured to the depth of
six feet.

116 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

the extermination of the forests had filled our orchards with
these modern pests. When Dr. Loring, in discussing " rota-
tion of crops," had discouraged the raising of carrots for horses,
and highly recommended turnips instead, saying that his horses
liked them much and throve on them finely, Mr. P. remarked
that the human animal could be educated to eat tobacco, and he
had no doubt that horses could be educated to eat turnips. But
somehow or other he never could persuade his horses to think
them very good, and whenever he offered them a mess, they
seemed to say to him, " Good master, do take away these dis-
agreeable things, and give us a small mess of carrots instead, if
you please."

Prof. Chadbouene. I would like to ask one question. I
understand, that in order to produce the pears from which you
take the seed, you graft one variety into another. Why do you
do that ?

Mr. PooTE. My object is to bring the two varieties into jux-
taposition, so that there shall be a cross-relation between them.

Prof. Chadbourne. I want to know whether you suppose
that the effect comes from the passage of the pollen from one
part of the tree to the other, -or rely somewhat upon the stock
you graft perfecting the character of the fruit ?

Mr. Foote. I am not enough of a vegetable physiologist to
answer a question of that sort with much intelligence. I have
supposed that in that case, the fruit might partake more of the
character of one sort or more of the other ; but I really do not
know how that is.

Prof. Chadbourne. You hold that the stock into which you
graft really affects the fruit to such an extent that it will have
an influence upon the seed ?

Mr. Foote. No, sir, I have no such idea as that. In improv-
ing domestic animals, the great maxim relied upon, is that like
produces like. That theory my specimens would seem to refute,
so far as the growing of seedling fruits is concerned.

Col. Wilder. Those varieties, perhaps, are crossed by the
wind.

Mr. Foote. Probably that might be a disturbing cause. I
would like to ask a question or two of Col. Wilder. I suppose
that if I a take a pear-seed and plant it, the result will depend
entirely upon the organization or composition of that seed, and

PRODUCTION OF NEW VARIETIES. 117

therefore that the success of any experiment in planting seeds
for growing seedling trees depends entirely upon the selection
you make of your seeds. By what rule can we be governed in
making that selection ?

Col. Wilder. I believe I have already expressed my views
on that very point — that it is necessary to select the best and
most perfect seed. The system of grafting two varieties into
one tree, that they may be fertilized by the wind, is another
process of uniting the kinds ; and when the seed has been pro-
cured, after the one has been fertilized by the other, a variation
will be produced, but it is impossible to say what it will be.
But the great law of having strong parents, or even strong
parent seed, I suppose holds good throughout all creation.

Mr. FooTE. What is the best system for the production of
new varieties ? Do you prefer artificial cross-fertilization to any
other mode ?

Col. Wilder. That is a delicate operation, but the success is
more sure and the progress more rapid ; we get a great many
more fruits. There is no better illustration of what may be
done by sowing seeds than the fruits Mr. Foote has shown.
Those are American fruits ; they are sure to succeed here.
They have got the elements that are necessary to make them
successful. What their precise qualities are must be ascertained
hereafter, but many of them have beauty and size. If Mr.
Foote, in his long and industrious life, should only produce one
good variety, adapted to our soil and climate, he would be a
public benefactor. Think of the number of persons in this
country engaged in the cultivation of fruit ! Should each one
produce as many varieties as Mr. Foote has produced, we should
have enough to last for centuries, of varieties adapted to every
soil and location in our country.

Mr. Slade. I understood Col. WiLder to remark, that in
order that fruit may retain its preserving qualities, it should be
put up moist and not even wiped. That is contrary to my ex-
perience. I have always succeeded best in preserving fruit by
wiping it dry.

Mr. Foote. I intended to have added to what I said in rela-
tion to these seedlings, that I have produced three or four Seckel
seedlings, one of which has the very decided approbation of Mr.
Downing, who has repeatedly pronounced it superior, to his

118 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

taste, to the old Seckel. It is somewhat larger in form and
handsomer in appearance, and the tree is vigorous.

Col. Wilder. That is a very fine fruit, and bears the name
of " Foote's Seckel." It is recorded now in Mr. Downing's
book, which is an encjclopasdia of pomology. It is a remarkably
fine pear.

In answer to Mr. Slade's inquiry, I will remark, that I meant
to say, and believe I did say, that nature has furnished a waxy
secretion for the protection of fruit, and if it is robbed of this,
it tends, in my opinion, to injure it.

Mr. Slade. I had an idea ^that by wiping, this waxy sub-
stance was more equally distributed over the skin of the fruit,
and the air more effectually excluded.

Col. Wilder. In what season do you wipe it ?

Mr. Slade. When I pick it in the fall.

Col. Wilder. The best system I have found with pears is to
pack them immediately into boxes, being very careful not to
have the stems bruise the fruit. These boxes are carried into
a cool cellar and piled up, with a strip of wood between them,
and there they remain until sent to market. I packed my
Beurrd d'Anjous in that way. I do not want them touched after
they are picked from the trees until they are carried to market.
Apples can be managed very differently from pears.

Mr. Gold. Dr. Reed exhibits a specimen here, and asks
something with regard to the character of the worm which has
done the mischief. I believe it is what is called the apple mag-
got. I know very little of its history, but a great deal of its
ravages. My attention was called to it some four or five years
ago, in the valley of the Connecticut, as infesting their sweet
apples. The apples appeared perfectly sound, but when cut,
they were proved to be perfectly worthless. [A specimen was
exhibited.] When the apple was gathered from the tree, it was
apparently perfectly sound, but^the maggot was at work in the
interior, and in a month or two, it was completely riddled or
honeycombed, and good for nothing. My attention was called
to it first from the vicinity of Middletown, Conn., where I was
told that it had entirely destroyed some varieties of sweet apple,
so that they were utterly useless for all other purposes, except
to feed to animals. We saw them at lona, at the sale of Dr.
Grant's grape-vines, about a year ago. Some of us gathered

CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES. 119

specimens from under his trees, and found the maggot in the
fruit — showing that they are there also. In the place where I
reside, West Cornwall, Litchfield County, I have found a very
few apples affected, and Dr. Reed tells me that from Canaan,
another town in Litchfield County, he has had fruit sent to him
that was affected in this way ; so that the ravages of this worm
would seem to be quite wide-spread. Mr. Foote was right in
his remark, that it infects mostly sweet apples, yet it sometimes
infects sour apples, in a milder form. My attention was also
called to it in the vicinity of Providence, R. I., as having de-
stroyed some varieties of sweet apples. I have nothing to sug-
gest in regard to its prevention or cure.

Mr. Goodman. This [the Beurr6 Clairgeau] is one of the
favorite pears in Pittsfield, owing to its fine flavor as well as its
color; and down in Lenox, most of the pears that we consider
hardy and well growing will do remarkably well on our lime-
stone soil. My own nursery of dwarf pears has been a great
success. The only great loss has been owing to pear blight. I
find no difficulty in raising as fine pears as I have seen any-
where else.

Mr. Foote. • I might have made the same remark in regard
to another quite celebrated pear — the Duchesse d' Angouleme.
1 have had that in cultivation for twenty years, and it has not
been worth as many cents. Mr. Downing of Newberg, has
informed me that it is of very poor quality over clay.

Mr. Goodman. "With me, that is one of the finest eating
pears I have.

Question. What kind of manure do you use ?

Mr. Goodman. I have used ashes and the animal manures.

Dr. LoRiNG. I want to say a word at this stage of the dis-
cussion, partly in self-defence, and partly for the sake of my
own edification and education. I have claimed for a long time,
and I have been confirmed in my theory this afternoon by what
has been said by the two experienced gentlemen who have ad-
dressed us, that the matter of fruit growing is a matter of hor-
ticulture. That means, Mr. Chairman, careful cultivation ; the
skill of the gardener, exercised upon something that will not
grow by the rough-handed skill of the farmer. I am satisfied
that the wholesale and general growing of apples that was in
vogue in this country, and successfully in vogue twenty-five or

120 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

thirty years ago, can no longer be pursued to a profit ; that the
business of raising fruit, both pears and apples, has become an
intricate, careful and elaborate business, and requires a more
thorough understanding of the nature of the soil and climate
than almost any other branch of horticulture that can possibly
be named. I have recommended, therefore, in various parts of
this State, the destruction of old orchards, and I desire to give
my reasons here, because I have recently been criticized some-
what severely for having advised the farmers of Worcester
County to remove their old apple-trees from their farms as ex-
crescences and nuisances. The reasons I give are these : that
owing either to a change of climate, or a change of soil, or both
combined, and the incursions of the canker-worm, the cater-
pillar, the core-worm, and the burrowing maggot, to which Mr.
Gold has alluded, the contest has become an unequal one, and
we cannot carry on the cultivation in the old way. I would
have apple-trees planted in the first places upon soil adapted to
them. Let horticulturists find out what that is ; probably no
two kinds ever could or will flourish equally well upon the same
soil. The Baldwin apple of Berkshire and the Baldwin apple
of Essex are two different things, not only in texture, but flavor,
owing, unquestionably, to the difference in the soils upon which
they grow. Let the horticulturists teach us what soil is adapted
to the growing of particular kinds of apples and pears. My
impression is, that those soils that are deficient in mineral
matter are the least adapted to the growing of apples. I know
that in our own section, apple-trees grow best upon decayed and
decaying ledges ; upon hill-sides that are filled with decaying
rocks, where there is an abundance of mineral manure, and an
absence of those vegetable, nitrogenous manures which sim-
ply stimulate the trees into the growth of wood, but will not
produce fruit. The smoothest and best orchards I have ever
seen anywhere are those grown on lands rich in mineral
manures ; they are the orchards which first come into fruitage
and retain their capacity to bear longest.

Now, with regard to planting trees in such land. The best
orchard that I know of (and I would like to have this contro-
verted, if possible,) is planted so that the trees protect and
nurse each other. I think our trees have become so delicate
that the effect of the winds upon them is more sensibly felt than

ABOUT PLANTING ORCHARDS. 121

it was years ago, when they had a better soil, and grew more
vigorously. 1 know an orchard in the State of Vermont, ex-
posed to all the north-west winds that blow from the Adirondack
Mountains across Lake Champlain. The trees are planted upon
land that has been thoroughly drained, and filled with an abun-
dance of various kinds of mineral manure, and they are so
close together that I doubt if the sun ever penetrates those
branches; and yet, the best fruit I ever saw in the State of
Vermont grows on that orchard. So I say it is proper selection
of soil and careful cultivation of the trees that will enable us to
raise fruit properly and profitably.

I say this, because I agree with Col. Wilder, that the cultiva-
tion of fruit is one of the most interesting, most profitable and
most useful branches of culture known among gardeners and
horticulturists ; and more than all that, because I desire in
every way possible to avoid the odium which is gradually coming
upon the business of planting orchards. There is no question
that in the eastern part of this State the farmers have become
tired of the business, and they are removing their old trees
without planting new ones. And that feeling is increasing.
One of the best farmers in the southern section of this State,
near the Connecticut River, came to see me in regard to planting
a large orchard of a thousand apple-trees, and when we had got
through discussing the matter, he said : " I know this seems
like boy's play ; I know it looks as if there was no money in it.
I shall have an orchard of a thousand trees, and nothing will
come of it for twenty years." He was going to do it as a matter
of custom, and yet he knew he was defying wind and weather.
It is on this account that I so strongly urge the abandonment of
the wholesale planting of orchards, the removal of old trees,
and the putting of new ones in soil particularly adapted to them,
avoiding the excessive use of barnyard and nitrogenous ma-
nures, which increase the growth of wood without stimulating
the production of fruit, and of devoting ourselves to the growth
of apples and pears in the best way that can possibly be con-
ceived of, as a matter of horticulture, and not of agriculture.
I am glad that the remarks which have been made sustain me in
that position, and I make this public statement here because I
desire that those members of the Board of Agriculture who may
possibly have seen the reflections cast upon my statement here-

16

122 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

tofore made, may understand precisely the attitude which I have
assumed, in which I have been confirmed by the experience of
those who have spoken before me.

Mr. Beebb. I own a large amount of mountain land, and
apple-trees are scattered all over that territory, in the woods.
Three or four years ago there was a very dry season, and there
were hardly any apples in this country, but wherever I found
one of these wild trees near live water, that tree was full of
apples, in many instances bent to the ground ; but wherever a
tree stood on dry loam or in the woods, entirely sheltered, and
no water visible, there were no apples. I infer from that, that
lire water may be a good thing in the production of apples.

Mr. Moore. I would like to ask the Doctor if he would ad-
vise us to pull up all the apple-trees where the prohibitory law
is at work ? That law has made cider apples worth two dollars
a barrel in my place. That will never do. What are you going
to do without cider ?

Dr. LoRiNG. You may not get as much cider cultivating
trees in the way I have suggested, but you will get a great
many more apples.

Mr. Moore. I do not care anything about cider, because I
drink but little of it ; but I have raised good crops of apples
right straight along, and I do not know why the rest of you
cannot. I do not believe at all in the theory that orchards
exposed to the wind will not bear anything.

Dr. LoRiNG. There is no theory about it ; it is a fact.

Mr. Moore. I have a row of five or six apple-trees, standing
in a field so situated that, if the wind blows anywhere, it blows
like a hurricane there. Yet I got from those trees, this year,
some twenty barrels of apples, that brought $6 a barrel. Last
year I got a lighter crop, and the year before twenty-five barrels.
There have been no crops grown under them. If I can raise
apples, I do not know why you cannot. I do not believe that
doctrine.

Then, while I respect and admire Col. Wilder, and believe in
about all he says, I do not believe in his theory about peach-
trees. I admit that I have lost almost all my peach-trees.
Twenty years ago I raised peaches so abundantly that I dumped
large quantities of them into the pig-pen. Previous to that
time, the disease called the yellows started down in Delaware,

TRUST IN PROYIDENCE. 123

and destroyed the orchards, travelling north and following the
seacoast at the rate of about twenty-five miles a year, until it
got up into Massachusetts, and destroyed nearly all our trees.
In Delaware, the peach-trees are now bearing good crops, and
they are raising peaches as well as they did twenty-five years
ago. I believe that peaches are going to be raised here as they
used to be. Last year I planted three hundred and fifty trees,
selecting what I thought to be the best soil — that is, a high,
dry and light soil. The trees I planted were one year old from
the bud, with the side branches all topped oif. Those trees are
now eight feet high, and almost every one of them bore peaches
this year, and they are looking finely now. I am willing to put
my trust in Providence, after doing what I can. I am not like
the old gentleman down in Rhode Island, who got discouraged
in consequence of the failure of his crops, and complained to
his clergyman that he couldn't raise anything. " Put your
trust in Providence," said the minister. Said he : " I have
tried that market a long time, and I would ten times rather
have Boston." Now, while I will put my trust in Providence,
I can tell you Providence is not going to do anything for you
unless you do something for yourselves. You have got to take
care of your trees — do what is right by them — and then put
your trust in Providence, and you will raise your fruit yet.

Now in regard to grapes. I have no difficulty in raising
grapes. Two years ago last spring I planted seven hundred
grape-vines, and this year I have taken two tons of grapes off
those vines, for which I got about $500, and had the money in
my pocket. That does not look as though we could not raise
grapes in Eastern Massachusetts. I have sold some eight tons
of grapes the present year. I have some four acres of vines,
and those vines have been growing without any drain on the
rest of the farm for manure. There is another thing. Those
vines were planted on an old worn-out rye field, without a par-
ticle of manure for some five years, except that it was planted
two years with squashes and melons, manured in the hills, eight
feet apart. There was no other application of manure, of any
kind, except what I will tell you now. The vines were planted
ten feet one way and seven feet the other, with rows of straw-
berries planted between ; and those rows of strawberries were
manured with the ashes of some old stumps taken from the

124 * BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

same lot. Those strawberries, which were planted on perhaps
five-eighths of an acre, and of course did not cover that, be-
cause the vines occupied half of the ground, produced $400 ;
and fruit from these vines took the first premium for the six
best varieties in the Massachusetts Horticultural Show. Fifteen
years ago that land would not have brought ten dollars an acre.
What is the use of saying you cannot raise fruit ? You can
raise it without any trouble. You have only to go to work and
do it.

Col. Wilder. My friend Capt. Moore and myself believe in
good cultivation, but I am afraid this audience will draw the
conclusion, from his remarks, that the poorer the soil, and the
less they manure, the better the crop will grow.

Mr. Moore. I would not be understood that way. I should
have said, in regard to growing grapes, that the wood that pro-
duces good fruit is medium-sized, short-jointed and well-ripened.
That you cannot get, where you put on a great quantity of
manure, with the strong growing kinds.

Col. Stone. I should think that land that would grow straw-
berries would grow grapes.

Col. Wilder. The remarks of Dr. Loriug and Capt. Moore
both go to show that nothing can succeed permanently without
care and attention. The members of the Board who know
Capt. Moore, know him to be one of the best cultivators in the
State. He has been remarkably successful with his Concord
vines on his hill pasture, where scarcely anything else, according
to his own account, (and I have no doubt he is correct,) would
grow. That is an instance showing what the vigor and hardi-
ness of a seedling grape, raised on our own soil, has done and
can do. I wish that every gentleman in this assembly who has
ever cultivated any fruit, or ever intends to, had the same feel-
ing in reference to the matter as Capt. Moore, and would say,
" We can have peaches, and will have them." But I will say
that I have drawn my conclusion that the time for peach culture
in Massachusetts has passed forever, from the experience of the
last forty years. Almost every year I have planted some
peaches, believing that now and then I should have a good crop,
but I have not got a crop six years out of the forty. I think it
arises from the fact that our forests are cleared off. The peach
will not stand this cold, bleak climate, these fierce, dry winds,

HOW ABOUT TAP-ROOTS ? 125

these sudden changes of temperature, which it did not have to
endure when it succeeded here. It succeeded here once, just
as well as our forest trees, but then it was sheltered everywhere ;
and now, if we see any peaches, we find them in sheltered lo-
cations and in gardens. Why do we see them there ? Because
they are protected from the high winds and excessive cold to
which I have referred. I want every man to plant some peach-
trees every year, but I believe the time has gone by forever for
their general cultivation. I believe that the disease to which
Capt. Moore has alluded is caused by the inclemency of the
weatlier, the changes of temperature, &c., to which I have re-
ferred, and it may well be perpetuated if those trees are used
for grafting and budding. But still I intend to plant .peach-
trees, although I believe they never can be cultivated again, and
never will succeed again in New England, except in very shel-
tered places.

In confirmation of that theory, that fruits need protection, I
will mention that we get, in our Boston gardens, as handsome
white Doyennes, — the old Yirgaliens, — as we ever got in the
world. That pear used to succeed like our apples, and was
piled up in our orchards and barrelled there. It is just the
same at the West. I once saw in the grounds of Barry & Ell-
wanger, at Rochester, on five-eighths of an acre, forty barrels of
the old Virgaliens, or St. Michaels, as handsome fruit as any-
one could wish to see. They cannot grow them at all now.
But a few years ago the Flemish Beauty was a great pear. We
cannot grow it now, and have abandoned it. This decadence
has extended as far as Rochester. But there came to the
National Pomological Society, from Kansas, such specimens as I
had never seen before. The secret is to be found in the fact,
that they were grown on new soil, and the trees protected by
forests.

Mr. FooTE. I would like to know Col. Wilder's experience
in regard to deep cultivation for the pear.

Col. Wilder. I approve of deep and thorough cultivation
and thorough draining, but no spading or ploughing among the
trees after they get into bearing condition.

Mr, FooTE, I have a single fact in my mind in regard to
tap-roots, which I would like to state. Some years ago I came
across a clover root which I traced to the depth of over five

126 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

feet. I think we are not aware, usually, of the depth to which
our roots run. I have also seen a tomato root nine feet long.

Col. Wilder. I once trenched a piece of strawberries, and
very barely manured it ; and I traced a strawberry root four
feet deep.

Dr. Reed. How has the Flemish Beauty succeeded this year ?
Col. Wilder. This has been one of the favored seasons.
Two years ago we had continual wet weather, while the West
had the most beautiful dry season you could imagine. We have
had one of these fine seasons this year, and they have had too
much moisture ; their grapes have rotted and mildewed. My
impression is that the Flemish Beauty, and, I am sorry to say,
the Beurrd Diel, are coming to the same decadence, like the old
Virgaliens. But we shall have exceptional seasons, perhaps.

Dr. LoRiNG. I agree with Col. Wilder in his compliments to
Mr. Moore's cultivation, when he states how successful he has
been in growing peaches. I have not the slightest doubt of it
in the world. He knows how to plant a peach-tree. And when
he tells how well he has cultivated strawberries, or how success-
ful he has been in raising apples, in and around Concord, I do
not doubt it at all. It is simply a proof of what I have said,
that certain soils are adapted to apples and certain soils not.
Every word he said confirmed my statement, that it is careful
cultivation and proper soils, and the application of manures
adapted to trees, and not adapted to field crops, that make a
man a successful fruit-grower. I do not want the farmers of
Berkshire to suppose for a moment that I would advise them to
cover their grass or strong grain and root lands with orchards,
because I do not think it is a kind of farming to which they can
devote themselves to a profit. I have said over and over again,
and it never has been controverted, that a judicious selection of
soils, (not soils devoted to heavy growing crops) a proper ap-
plication of mineral manures, phosphates and bones, and above
all, protection to the trees, will enable the New England farmer
to contend against the evils to which Col. Wilder has alluded.
We have more and more insects attacking our trees, and how
we are to avoid them, nobody yet knows. Man cannot do it,
birds cannot do it ; and as a last resort, there are those of us
who are experimenting with the utmost care to determine if it
is not in the power of man to let loose parasites to destroy them.

AGASSIZ ON FISH BREEDING. 127

That parasites do destroy the canker-worm and the caterpillar
is well known ; the only question is, how man can control these
parasites and let them loose upon these destructive insects at
pleasure. Providence has fixed a limitation to artificial life,
and the more artificial a fruit is, the sooner it reaches its limi-
tation by some extraordinary law ; that law which has driven
the St. Michael's pear out of New England, which has brought
some varieties of the potato to an end, which has crushed down
all the buttonwood trees, and which seems to apply to all forms
of vegetable life on which man has laid his hands. These are
the difficulties against which we have to contend. How ?
Simply, as Col. Wilder and Mr. Moore have told you, by the
application of the best laws of horticulture in the selection of
lands, in the selection of trees, and the application of fertilizers.
It seems to me that is perfectly apparent.
Adjourned to evening, at 7| o'clock.

Evening Session.

The Board met at the hour assigned, and was called to order
by Col. Stone, who said : —

Ladies and Gentlemen, — Owing to an engagement of our
honored friend, the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, to-day, I occu-
pied the position that I now hold. He has kindly consented to
assume the responsibilities of this position this evening, and
I have the pleasure of introducing the Hon. Marshall P.
Wilder.

Col. Wilder. Ladies and Gentlemen, — It affords the Board
of Agriculture great gratification to witness this large and
highly respectable assembly. But it is not the presence of the
Board of Agriculture that has called you together. It is the an-
nouncement of a name which not only commands universal
respect, but universal honor and gratitude. I beg to introduce
as the lecturer of this evening. Prof. Louis Agassiz, a member
of the Board.

FISH BREEDING.

BY PROF. LOUIS AGASSIZ.

Ladies and Gentlemen, — The subject selected for this even-
ings address is that of Fish Breeding. It is a subject which has
of late years attracted considerable attention everywhere, on

128 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

account of its importance as another means of supplying
crowded communities with food ; and the kind of food which is
derived from fish is one of peculiar value. Although it is not
everywhere estimated at its full importance, there can be no
doubt that as an article of food fish has a physiological signifi-
cance which cannot be overrated. All living beings grow and
supply their waste by appropriating from outside, in various
ways, the means of sustenance ; and that food is the food
adapted to their nature. Cattle feed on grass, and they have
been so organized, that out of grass they build that frame which
has so many valuable uses for ourselves. They make meat out
of grass ; they make milk out of grass ; they make hides out of
grass ; and if they can do that, it is owing to the fact that their
structure is adapted to the transformation of such kinds of food
as they eat into those substances which constitute their frame,
and those fluids which are secreted by their organs. Every
kind of animal has a peculiar kind of food, and knows how to
choose it by instinct, and all fare well in proportion as they find
a sufficient supply of that food which is best adapted to their
constitution and organization. Man lives in a manner similar
to these kindred living beings on earth, by appropriating food
also ; and he must take that food which will make him a full
man, if he would have all those attributes which characterize
mankind. All those individuals who, from fancy or for any
other reason, live exclusively on some particular article of food,
deteriorate their natures, deprive themselves of some of their
power ; and it is only when man finds and appropriates to him-
self that food which will secure his normal growth, and will
repair all the waste resulting from the exertion of his faculties,
that he maintains himself in the proper condition.

If there is any one thing which characterizes civilized man,
it is his intellectual activity. There is nothing which is taxed
so much in a civilized community as the brain, and the brain
must be fed ; and it requires a kind of food which is not to be
supplied by every article of diet. Chemists will tell you, that,
in order to the performance of the highest functions of the hu-
man brain, there should be a certain amount of phosphates
introduced into the system ; that the phosphates which you use
for manure, and as a means of improving your agricultural
products, in another form, are a necessary article of food for

FOOD FOR THE BRAIN. 129

man, if he would keep his brain in a proper condition. Now,
of all the substances which can be appropriated by man, digested
by the human organs, and made part of our system, there is
none which contains so large a quantity of these phosphates,
and in a form so easily appropriated, as fish. It is for that
reason that a fish diet is to be recommended. A community in
which there is a vast amount of intellectual activity — and I
know of none in which there is more than in this — ought to be
accustomed to a fish diet ; ought to take every means of in-
creasing that article of food, of making it easily accessible and
cheap, and of introducing it largely among the articles of daily
food. These facts have been ascertained so well, that I need
not dwell upon them more fully. And yet it is not long since
it has been known. It is only some thirty odd years since it
became known to what an extent a fish diet was adapted to re-
pair the losses and waste of our cerebral system. I need not,
therefore, say anything more as a recommendation of that new
industry which is attempted to be established among us. But I
would say a few words concerning the supply of food generally,
that it may be understood why fish must be raised artificially, if
we would have a sufficient supply.

In order to show it, I need only allude to the unquestionable
fact, that the whole population of the United States, amounting
now to forty millions, lives upon food which is for the greater
part foreign to this continent. That population could not be
sustained were it not that its food is artificially produced. Our
domestic animals, also, are kept on food which is foreign to this
continent. If we did not grow that food, we could not raise
those large herds ; we could not supply the farm with those
horses which are so indispensable for all agricultural purposes.
The whole is an artificial product, and civilization progresses in
proportion as the conditions are favorable to increasing and en-
larging this produce from the land. If you compare the savage
nations with civilized nations, you will at once understand, after
these remarks, why they are so sparsely scattered over the sur-
face of the earth. You will understand that the wild animals
do not multiply so as to increase in numbers. It is not only
because man hunts them down, but it is because they are de-
pendent for their living upon food which grows naturally, which
is nowhere multiplied for their increase, which they are inca-
17

130 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

pable of multiplying themselves, and therefore the limitation to
the increase of all animals which are in their natural condition.
The same thing applies to cultivated plants. We find nowhere
any kind of plants growing naturally in that crowded condition
in which we plant them in our fields ; and yet we are able to
raise such large crops because we feed the plants Avith manure,
we give them wherewith to live, and, by multiplying artificially
the food of the plant, we increase the means of sustaining the
larger animals ; and we are enabled ourselves to live in crowded
communities, because we live on food artificially raised, which
can be supplied almost without limit. Those wild tribes which
eat fish extensively, are yet sometimes famished because they
cannot get a sufficient supply of that food. They have not
learned how to multiply, as we have already learned to multi-
ply, some of the animals and some of the plants which are so
important to our prosperity.

Now fish-raising or fish-breeding ought to be conducted on
the same principles on which the growing of all these various
products which are cultivated on the farm is carried on. That
is, not to follow strictly the indications of nature, but, having
learned from nature what are the most favorable conditions for
the growth and reproduction of various kinds of fish, enlarge
the capacity of a breed, and in that way increase the number.

There is another feature which is very important in fish breed-
ing, and that is, that we can control their increase perhaps more
readily than we can that of other animals, on account of the
very large number of eggs which they lay. There are fishes a
single female of which lays many hundreds of thousands of eggs
at one time. If we could secure the conditions which would
prevent the largest proportion of these eggs from being wasted,
from becoming the prey of those animals which feed upon them,
from being carried by currents or tides, or the winds, into
places which are unfavorable for their growth ; if we could, in
fact, secure the perfect development of every one of those eggs,
you see at once how largely we might multiply animals which
apparently do not increase in number in their natural element,
and we have therefore to learn, in order to be successful in fish
breeding, first, what are the conditions which are most favorable
to the growth of the different kinds. And here we shall have
to learn a great deal which is not known, and which I am not

STUDY OUR OWN FISHES. 131

able to tell you. Fish breeding has been practised thus far, in
the old world, upon fishes no one of which do we find in our
waters. Therefore, whatever has been learned in fish breeding
abroad will avail us only in a measure, — to the extent to which
our fish resemble those fishes, — and not fully, because ours are
distinct and separate kinds, peculiar to our waters, and not
found elsewhere. It is true, if we should judge by the names,
we should at once infer that we have plenty of the same fishes.
We have the trout, we have the pickerel, we have the eel, we
have the white-fish, we have the bass ; in fact, all our fishes
have received names which apply to fishes in Europe ; but, for
all that, they are not the same. The first settlers of this coun-
try, when they met these fishes in these waters, gave them the
names of the fishes which they most resembled ; but they did
not recognize the slight differences, or, sometimes, the more
prominent differences which distinguish them. You have a
familiar example in some of our birds. Everyone knows that
the European robin is a small bird, not larger than a sparrow,
which is totally different from the bird which we call the robin,
but both have red breasts, and struck by the similarity to the
European robin in this respect, the first settlers, seeing a bird
approaching their houses as familiarly as the robin does in the
old world, gave it that name ; and yet it is a bird that does not
even belong to the same family among birds. So you see that
in order to be successful in carrying out this new business of
fish breeding, we must first study our own fishes ; we must
learn in what manner the trout of these waters differs from the
brook trout of the old world ; we must remember that even in
different parts of this country there are different kinds of brook
trout ; that the brook trout in the high north, beyond Lake
Superior, is another kind from our own brook trout ; and we
have to learn what are tlie differences in the habits of our lake
trout as compared with the lake trout of Europe ; we have got
to learn what are the differences in the ways of our pickerel, as
compared with the pickerel of Europe ; and so with every kind
of fish. Here is, therefore, one of the first difficulties which is
to be overcome ; and while following in a measure, the indica-
tions of those who have been succsssful in this business abroad,
we must remember that if we meet with failure, it may very

132 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

like be owing to the difference in the habits and constitution of
similar fishes in the two hemispheres.

Tliere is another point that is of great importance. Fishes
breed at very different seasons, and require, during the time
necessary for the eggs to hatch, very different conditions. There
is one entire family of fish, that of the Salmonoids, as naturalists
call them, including the Salmonidce, which all breed in the cold
season of the year. They require very cold water to be hatched.
Here we must accept ideas entirely different from those with
which we are familiar. When we would hatch the eggs of our
hens or of other birds, we know that we must submit those eggs
to an increased temperature. The hen sits in feverish heat
upon the egg, and by that heat she warms the yolk, the germ is
developed, the chick grows, and is finally hatched. If you were
to submit the eggs of the trout to a higher temperature than
that of the water in this cold season, your eggs would die at
once. It must be remembered that the temperature most favor-
able for the raising of trout's eggs, is about 40° Fahrenheit, and
rather below than above. They may stand a temperature down
to 32 ; they may even be surrounded by ice, frozen in, and yet
not die ; and if you expose them to any warmer temperature,
you are sure to kill your whole brood.

Here is an important point to remember, in connection with
the raising of that particular class of fishes ; and all the mem-
bers of this family are in the same predicament. To this family
belong, in the first place, the salmon, then lake trout, then brook
trout, and all the different kinds of brook trout. Moreover,
the white-fish of the great lakes belong to this family. It looks
very differently in its external appearance, and yet it has all the
organic or structural character of the trout ; and, like the trout,
it breeds in this late season of the year, and its young are
hatched under the influence of a cold temperature. I have
myself made experiments upon these white-fish ; not the kind
which we have in our lakes, but the kind which is quite common
in the lakes of Switzerland. Some thirty years ago and more,
for physiological purposes, I raised some of those fishes, and I
frequently, exposing them in a cold room, found them in the
morning frozen up in the wash-bowl in which I kept them ; and
yet they would stand that perfectly well, and if the temperature
was never raised above 40°, I was sure to carry those young

TROUT AND BLACK BASS. 133

safely through ; but whenever the temperature rose higher, they
invariably died.

Now there are other fishes which breed in the spring, and
which, to be hatched successfully, must have the warming influ-
ence of the sun ; and yet they, too, require a certain moderate
temperature. The water cannot be allowed to rise very high,
otherwise they, in their turn, die ; nor can it be allowed to fall
very low. The temperature best suited to these fishes which
breed in spring is between 60° and 65° or 70° Fahrenheit. I
have not experience enough to tell you now what would be the
most suitable temperature for^raising pickerel, for instance, or
black fish, or black bass, or striped bass, or any of these kind of
fishes ; but you can easily ascertain it by finding their breeding-
grounds and ascertaining the temperature of the water, and
then you must try to keep the temperature of your artificial
breeding-pond at that temperature at which you have found the
water in those places which they naturally select to lay their
eggs.

Let me say a few words upon the different kinds of fishes
which it may be worth while to introduce where they are not
native, and what are the different conditions under which these
different kinds are most likely to prosper.

In your mountain brooks, or in the little lakes into which
these brooks empty, you would succeed best with trout. Trout
is a fish which requires clear, cold water all the year round, and
which in summer is likely to fail if the temperature rises above
50°. The colder you can keep the water in which you raise
trout, the better will you succeed. In the waters of low regions,
such as the sand-flats of Cape Cod, you have an opportunity
for raising the black bass. That fish will stand a variety of ex-
posures, for it is found in the great Canadian lakes, as in Lake
Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, where the
water is much colder than even in our ponds during summer ;
and therefore that fish is capable of being brought up in a
greater variety of exposures than many others ; and as it is one
of the most delicious fishes, and grows rapidly, you have the
opportunity of producing here a valuable article, in a compara-
tively greater number of localities, than many others. I think
that that is one of the most valuable fishes which can be intro-

134 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE.

diiced into Massachusetts. It has already been introduced into
a great many localities, and it is prospering very finely.

Another point to be taken into consideration, in order to be
successful, is the selection of the breeding animals. Trout will
grow larger in large brooks, and they remain small in the
smallest brooks ; and in proportion as they are naturally large,
they will produce more rapidly an offspring which will grow
fast. I would therefore advise those who establish breeding
trout-ponds to secure trout from those brooks where they are
largest, in order to be very rapidly successful, and to introduce
into their ponds a breed which is of rapid and large growth.
These are just the same principles that you would follow in the
selection of your cattle. If you were to breed for beef, you
would select such breeds as grow large. If you have another
object, you will of course be guided by your intention ; and so,
in breeding fish, you must look to the objects you have in view.
Here, for the present, you can hardly have another object than
a large production and rapid increase ; and, in order to secure
that, you must provide for additional food. Your breeding-
ponds will not naturally produce a sufficient amount of food to
secure the rapid growth of your fish. You must feed them just
as you feed your cattle. You must feed them regularly, and
you must give them a variety of food. Tliey get tired of the
same food ; they like a variety, just as much as we do ; and if
you do give them plenty of a variety, you are sure to secure a
satisfactory result ; but if you do not provide for a supply of
this additional food, you will be disappointed. I saw, last
spring, to what extent the difference may go. Trout which had
been bred from the same spawn were put in two different places,
and in one locality left to shift for themselves, without much
care, while in the other they were fed plentifully, and with a
variety of food. In six months there was a difference which
was astonishing. The one set of trout had not grown to more
than two and a lialf inches in length, and weighed hardly an
ounce ; the other had grown seven inches in length, and weighed
over six ounces. We have here an evidence of the beneficial
result arising from proper care.

As I cannot enter into all the trivial details, where the ques-
tion is to guide your first steps in a new enterprise, I would say
that the intestines of sheep or any other animal killed at our

FOOD FOR FISHES. 135

slaughter-houses will be particularly welcome to trout, and can
be obtained at a trifling expense. You need not be very nice.
A piece of liver or any of those organs which are not fit for the
table, if hacked to pieces, will be a delicate morsel for your fish.
Adding to that, sheep dung, you will have a variety of feeding
materials which will secure the rapid growth of your fish.

There is another point which ought to be taken into consider-
ation. It is, that some fishes are inimical to one another ; they
will not prosper if they are kept together in tlie same pond.
The pickerel is very voracious, and though it is a fish which in
certain circumstances would be very desirable, and which grows
very rapidly, if you introduce it into your trout pond, you are
sure to see your trout diminish in number rapidly, and perhaps
be entirely destroyed. The black bass is also a voracious fish,
but not so much so as the pickerel. It might be brought up in
the same pond with trout, provided you supplied tlie pond with
a sufficient amount of food, and that of a kind which shall be
preferable to the eggs or the young fish. Then you must take
care that what is not eaten up does not remain to infect the
water. You take good care to keep your stables clean ; you do
not allow your cattle to remain crowded in dirty places ; you
give them a fresh bed as often as is required. So should you
see that the bottom of your trout pond is kept nice. And as
you cannot do that well yourselves, it would be best to intro-
duce into such ponds fishes which will feed on this offal ; for
instance, suckers. They are the best helpmeets you can secure
for that purpose, for they will feed on that which is not taken
up by your trout. The trout feeds always upon food which is
suspended in the water. It does not go to the bottom and does
not search for food by turning up stones and looking at every
object which is at the bottom ; it darts at its food as it comes
down in the water ; and therefore, when you feed, you ought
to feed slowly, and you ought to feed over a large surface, so
that the trout shall have room to come up to their food and
snatch it up before it reaches the bottom. When it has gone
to the bottom, the trout will no longer make use of it, or only
to a very limited extent, but you may introduce a small kind of
suckers, which may themselves become an article of food for
the larger fish, and in tliat way secure the useful result of keep-
your pond clean and furnishing a proper supply of food for all.

136 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

There are a few animals against which you must guard.
Wherever muskrats are common, you should not build artificial
breeding ponds, or you should at least begin bj exterminating
them, so that the eggs of your breeding fish shall not be de-
stroyed. Muskrats are very large feeders, and they relish par-
ticularly the eggs of fishes, so that they are one of the most
dreaded inmates of our fish ponds. Frogs, also, must be
hunted down, if you would be successful in fish breeding.
These are the thorns and thistles of our field, and we must
weed them out, if we would have a clean field and make a good
crop. All these particulars will be suggested by the different
localities.

Then another point. The same water can be used over and
over again. Because your neighbor has a successful pond upon
his farm, do not think you cannot have one equally successful,
a few rods lower down. That same water will turn your fish
mill just as the water power will turn your grist or saw mill,
and that of your neighbor above or below. Therefore, there is
no end to the extent to which you can introduce this artificial
breeding of fish.

I think these are the most general principles upon which you
may establish fish breeding. The manner in which this is best
to be done will depend upon the kind of fish you propose breed-
ing, upon the exposure of your sheet of water, upon your
surroundings, upon your opportunities, and it would be tedious
were I to attempt to describe more fully these particulars.
There are already a number of publications in which the results
of the efforts thus far made are described, and I would recom-
mend to all those who are interested in the subject the reports
of the State Commissioners on Fisheries, written by Col. Theo-
dore Lyman, in which there is a vast amount of valuable infor-
mation on that subject.

Now, let me say a few words concerning the growth of the
fish themselves, and some of the circumstances which accom-
pany their growth.

The first condition for successful breeding is to secure ripe
eggs, and they are known to be ripe when, on taking the fish
out of the water, it lets the eggs go in a stream. Taking such
eggs, you are sure to have them in the condition favorable for
breeding. They ought to be placed at once in localities where

TROUT BREEDING. 137

tliey will be secure from all those circumstances which might
injure them. They must at once be supplied, if they are trout
eggs, with a stream of water which will be constantly renewed,
and constantly maintain a low temperature. And you must, if
possible, avoid one great source of loss among these eggs,
which is found in a minute little plant, known as water-silk,
which consists of threadlike growth, of about the thickness of
the finest silk thread, of a greenish color, and which multiplies
very rapidly in some waters. In localities where that vegetation
is abundant, there is little chance of being successful, because
the seeds of the water-silk, which are exceedingly minute, float-
ing in the water, will adhere to the eggs, root in them, and very
soon kill the germ of the fish. There is only one way to obvi-
ate this difficulty, where it is in a measure inevitable. It is to
place the eggs in such a position that the water which flows
upon them will keep them revolving, and not allow them to re-
main stationary upon the bottom. That is one very important
point — to have the water flowing over the eggs in such a man-
ner that they are more or less kept in motion. The flow of
water should be sufficiently strong to disturb the eggs from their
position, and make them rise and fall. If they are raised too
much, they may be carried along ; but if they are only raised
slightly, they will then just be in a position to avoid the deposit
of the seeds of this vegetation upon them, which destroys them
so rapidly.

The covering of the eggs with the milt is of course an indis-
pensable condition for the fecundation of the eggs, and when
they have once been fecundated, the process of growing goes on
gradually and steadily. At that time, the eggs are perfectly
transparent. The moment you see an egg turn opaque, you
may be sure it is dead, and the sooner you remove it the better,
for it will decay and become the cause of infection, and there-
fore ought to be removed. As long as the egg is alive, it re-
mains transparent. Even after the young fish is formed, and
when it has reached a considerable stage of progress, it is still
transparent, or it has such a lively color that it shows by its
very tint that it is alive.

[The Professor proceeded to show, by the use of the black-
board, the process of the formation of the fish in the egg, repre-
senting its appearance in the various stages of development.

18

138 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

The curious in such matters will find the whole process very
fully detailed in Prof. Agassiz's work on the Salmonidcs .\

The salmon egg requires from seventy to eighty days before
the young is hatched. Our trout take a few days less, perhaps
seventy-two or seventy-four, according to circumstances. You
will find that some trout are hatched sooner than others, vary-
ing perhaps by a week, but over two months is always required
for these fishes to be hatched ; and yet there are others, such as
our bream, which will hatch in four days. There are other
fishes whose eggs require even a shorter period of incubation ;
so you see at once how important it is that you should make
different arrangements for each particular kind of fish. I do
not know how long the pickerel takes here. In Europe it takes
about three weeks ; the perch, about twelve days. I have no
doubt that it will be found that each of our different kinds of
fish has a peculiar period of incubation, so that for each, we
shall have to provide food for the young in due time, for they
are particularly greedy after they have absorbed the yolk.

I have some young trout so far advanced that you can see
their eyes by the use of a magnifying lens. They are objects
of great interest and curiosity. I think these things ought to
be taught to everybody. We have introduced into our schools
lessons in physiology. What do they consist in ? In commit-
ing to memory what the text-book says upon the subject. In-
stead of that, why should not the teacher, since we can raise
fishes without number, show to the school-boys and school-girls,
with a small lens, which can be bought for two or three shil-
lings, these processes of growth ? They would then know how
they grow themselves, for we grow in exactly the same manner.
There would be a lesson in physiology worth having, because it
would not be words, it would be living images of the living
being, resembling our own form, at that age, in a manner
which is astonishing. That is what I would recommend, that
the community should grow up to an understanding of what
may now be expected from teachers, and demand such teachers
as can explain these things to every one. There is no difficulty
in it. The means of exhibiting the growth of fishes, for in-
stance, are not so expensive as the apparatus now in use in our
schools, and that would, as I say, be the best preparation for
the proper cotfduct of life, as far as the regulation of our diet

MR. COLT'S ADDRESS. 139

is concerned. We should know how we are made, and should
be able to appreciate for ourselves what are the conditions of
life ; and these may best be learned from a living creature.

The President. I know I do but express the feelings of this
assembly, when I say that the lecture to which we have just
listened has afforded delight and satisfaction to every one
present.

Thomas Colt, of Pittsfield. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen
of the Board of Agriculture^ — The farmers of Berkshire and
the citizens of Pittsfield have listened with the greatest pleasure
and satisfaction to the addresses and discussions that have
taken place during the last two days. In their behalf and in
their name, I tender you, sir, and the gentlemen present, mem-
bers of the Board, their heartiest thanks. It is about sixty
years since the farmers of Berkshire became alive to the neces-
sity of improvements in agriculture. It was in this county and
in this town that they first formed themselves into an associa-
tion by which they hoped to improve agriculture by exhibitions
and competitive premiums. That society has gone on increas-
ing, from that day to the present, in strength and in success.
Every successive year has been its best, and at no time during
its existence has it been more prosperous, or more successful,
or more efficient in accomplishing its purpose, than at the pres-
ent time. The president of that society called them together
here to meet the Board on this occasion ; they have been pres-
ent, and have testified, by their attention to the lectures, by
their interest and participation in the debates, how much they
value the meetings of this Board. I have no doubt, sir, that
they will carry home with them what they have heard here, and
that the precious seed which you have so liberally scattered
will bring forth its fruit through the whole county.

I regret, sir, that the Board has come here at a season of the
year unfavorable, somewhat, for getting a good opinion of the
county. I know that, by the rules of the Board, they meet
only in the winter ; but I desire such gentlemen as have not
been here before to know that under this blanket of snow lie
fertile fields, rich hillsides, fruitful mountain-tops, even ; and if
they could go through the barns of our farmers, they would
have evidence that the whole county is a fruitful garden ; not

140 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

so fruitful, perhaps, as the richer counties of the eastern end of
the State ; and yet, if the Board could see what the farmers of
Berkshire have wrung from these hillsides, naturally barren,
they would believe that they have good farms and know how to
till them. They would see in these barns heaps of grain, tons
of hay, fat cattle, and every evidence of successful farming.

I thank the Board for coming so far, and I thank them for
coming so universally. Especially do I thank the chairman of
this meeting, whose name, in connection with the branch of
horticulture on which he has spoken to-day, is known all over
the world. None more celebrated than he ; none more success-
ful than he ; none more capable of teaching than he ; and it is
owing to his efforts, in a great measure, perhaps as much, if not
more, than to those of any other man, that the gardens all
around us are filled with fruit-trees, that every man enjoys
what used to be a luxury, and that fruit, once so rarely found
except on the tables of the rich, can now be seen in nearly
every shop, and sold at a comparatively moderate price.

I thank the distinguished gentleman who has spoken to us to-
night ; a gentleman who put aside the brilliant offers of a court
which rewards the scientific men who come into its precincts
with the highest honors, to remain here, that he might teach us,
as he has done to-night, how to cheapen food. I thank him for
coming here to teach us this thing.

In behalf of the farmers of this county I return these thanks,
and in behalf of the manufacturers I return these thanks ; for
manufacturing is no small item in Berkshire County. I thank
the Board of Agriculture that they are teaching the. farmers of
Berkshire how to increase the products of their fields. Increase
of production means cheap food ; increase of fishes means
cheap food ; and not only cheap food, but good health. I thank
the professor for teaching us how to cheapen food ; for cheap
food means cheap labor, cheap labor means greater production,
greater production means cheaper articles of consumption, and
greater profits to the manufacturer.

Gentlemen, — I can only add to my thanks the ardent wish
that we may have the pleasure of again seeing these gentlemen
here, and listening again to those teachings which we have
heard with so much pleasure and so much profit.

The President. It is not my province, ladies and gentlemen,

CONGRATULATORY. 141

to answer for the Board of Agriculture, but I happen to occupy
the chair this evening, and I cannot allow the kind words
which have been uttered by my friend to pass unnoticed. In a
word, I will return to him, in behalf of the Massachusetts Board
of Agriculture, our sincere thanks for his kind expressions.
We hope sincerely that all his wishes may be realized, and that
we may again meet on these hills of Berkshire, which, as he
has truly said, are clothed with verdure to the top.
Adjourned to Thursday, at 10 o'clock.

THIRD DAY.

Thursday, December 9, 1869.

The Board was called to order at 10 o'clock, by Col.
Wilder.

Dr. DuRFEE, of Fall River, was elected president for the day,
and Col. Wilder, in introducing him, said : —

Dr. Durfee is well known to you and throughout the State as
one of the most faithful and enterprising members of the Board.
He is the treasurer of the Agricultural College, and not only
that, but he holds a treasure-bag of pretty large capacity in his
own right.

Dr. Durfee. I cannot but say, gentlemen, that I am very
happy to meet you on the hills of Berkshire. I have taken
some pains to come this distance, because I knew I should be
well paid if I did come here. I know something about the
agricultural spirit prevalent in this section of our State, and by
coming here I wanted to let you know that we have an interest
in this great subject in the southern and eastern part of the
State. I have had a very delightful time since I have been
here, and have not been disappointed in my anticipations.

I have known, as I said, something of the interest manifested
in agriculture in this section of the Commonwealth in years
past. I was once here as a delegate of the Board of Agricul-
ture, and I had then a fine opportunity of seeing what you were
doing and what you were disposed to do. This subject is one
in which we all, through every part of the Commonwealth,
ought to be interested. My friend has alluded to my position
as treasurer of the Agricultural College. I do hold that
position, and I am looking with extreme anxiety about these

142 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

days to have some of you come and fill that treasury up. I
assure you, it is pretty much exhausted at the present time.

The good old State of Massachusetts saw fit, in her wisdom,
to give us fifty thousand dollars last winter, and I hope you will
all feel interested enough in the college to do what you can to
induce the coming legislature to give us another fifty thousand
dollars, which I think justly belongs to us. This Common-
wealth has adopted the college as her own, and certainly I
should be ashamed to adopt anything of so much importance
and then leave it to take care of itself.

Col. Stone. It is not an adopted child ; it is a legitimate
child. It is the only child Massachusetts ever had.

Dr. DuRFEE. Yes, sir, and she is solemnly bound to provide
for it, according to her own laws.

But I will not detain this audience this morning with any
protracted remarks. I ])elieve the first business this morning
is a lecture from our good friend Prof. Stockbridge, who is, I
can say, a fair representative of the Massachusetts Agricultural
College, and I want you to receive him as such. I therefore
take the liberty of introducing to you Prof. Stockbridge.

THE ROTATION OF CROPS.

BY PROF. LEVI STOCKBRIDGE.

The great effort of a majority of the cultivators of the soil,
in all countries and in all ages of the world, has been, appar-
ently, to grow large crops perpetually without returning to the
land the elements of plant-growth carried away. In all coun-
tries, and under all circumstances, the result has in the end
been a failure. The soil and its owners have alike come to
poverty, and migration to new and unspoiled fields, to secure
the means of sustenance a necessity. With this fact written
indelil)ly on the page of history, men have not in this regard
become wise. The generation of the present, instead of profit-
ing by the experience of its predecessors, has followed in their
identical footsteps, repeated their blunders and with identical
results. By failure of crops, by deterioration and poverty of
soil, they have not learned that large crops deplete the soil
more rapidly than small ones, that he who sells his crops, sells
his land, as surely as he who conveys it by deed of warranty.

PROGRESSIVE EXHAUSTION. 143

And more than this, that while the measured acres remain the
same and tax him as a part of the property of the nation, the
elements of plant-food which alone gave it value are gone, and
the land incapable of making return for its maintenance. It
is not the ages of long ago and the old world alone, that this
vain attempt has cursed and ravaged. But with the first set-
tlers the experiment was renewed on the fertile virgin soil of
the new world, and in due course of time with the same inevi-
table result. The rich lands of all the Atlantic States, which to
the early settlers yielded the most bountiful harvest, even under
imperfect cultivation, succumbed to the process, and do not now
yield food sufficient to feed their people. The plague has
already reached the prairie and alluvial farms of the near West,
and its ravages are distinctly marked in the rapid decreased pro-
duction of all the cereals ; and I fear is destined to spread, and
speed onward, until it shall meet its kindred wave sweeping
inward from the Pacific shores to the summit of the Sierra
Nevada. .It is not that intelligent men have not known that
this process was going one, that its progress has not been
stayed. The Hebrew, the Grecian and the Roman in their day
saw it clearly, deplored it, and endeavored to devise methods
by which its results could be averted. The German, the French-
man, the Englishman, and the Anglo-Saxon on American soil,
have combated the destructive practice ; but the great wave of
the majority has pursued its course, but little hindered by the
warning voice raised against it. The wealth and prosperity of
the nation is measured by its annual crops* and the question,
how shall this devastating tide be stayed, becomes one of
supreme national importance, equalling, if not overtopping, those
of tariff, internal improvement and currency ; and should re-
ceive the serious attention, the anxious thought of the states-
man and patriot. The great question for us to solve is : can
our American soil be made to retain its fertility, its power of
producing crops, the food of our own people, and of the millions
who are crowding to our shores from every quarter of the globe,
unless its annual crops are returned to it, to preserve its capac-
ity of production ? The question, though one of national
import and importance, addresses itself with peculiar force to
every individual man who guides a plough or harvests a crop.
Drops make the ocean no more than our individual crops, and

144 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

the power to produce them perpetually, make the mighty
aggregate of the nation's present and prospective income.

The great object of cultivating the soil is to produce plants.
But plants are not produced by a mysterious power from noth-
ing. They are formed in accordance with natural law out of
materials previously created and deposited in the soil and in
the air. Plants, animals and soil are of one and the same ma-
terial, simply changed in form, composed alike of the organic
substances, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, and of the
inorganic substances, potash, lime, soda, magnesia, oxide of
iron, oxide of manganese, phosphoric acid, sulphuric acid and
chlorine. It is a mistaken notion that this great earth, with its
thousands of square miles of soil of unknown depth, is one
great reservoir of plant-food, on which they may grow to per-
fection, be removed, and the supply remain exhaustless. Not
one thousandth, or one ten-thousandth, of this great mass of
earth is in a condition to feed plants or to be transformed into
animal structures ; and that small portion has been made so by
the most slow and obscure of chemical and mechanical processes.
In this view, this soil which we tread so carelessly beneath our
feet, and which to the unthinking millions is simply so much
dirt, becomes one of the most wonderful and mysterious com-
pounds ; and the changes through which it passes, in its trans-
formation from the rough, raw earth to plants and animals, and
the laws which govern, which accelerate or retard, at any point
of the process, shyuld, if possible, be understood by the tiller
of the soil. Pulverized granite and sawdust, mingled, would
contain all the elements of plant-food — would be soil made up
in due proportions of organic and inorganic matter — but it
would not nourish plants, for the elements are not in an assim-
ilable condition. And this is precisely the original state of the
soil we cultivate — the state to which we can again reduce it by
removing the solvent portion. It is necessary that the sawdust
should be reduced to carbonaceous matter to give to this soil
color, absorbing and retaining power, to give it porosity, and
some portion of organic plant-food. It is necessary that the
pulverized granite should be taken to pieces ; its lime, its
potash, soda and phosphates should be released from the affin-
ities which hold them bound, and by chemical influences, be
brought to such a condition as to be solvent in water. Then,

NATURAL SOURCES OF FERTILITY. 145

and only then, does this soil contain plant-food, or possess the
capacity to nourish and grow plants to perfection.

It is so with the soil of our fields. Incapable of producing
plants when brought out of chaos, great powers, forces and
principles were started into activity to make the necessary
change. Silently and unseen, but surely and incessantly, are
these agents accomplishing their appointed work. The frost of
winter, with its crushing, disintegrating power, is reducing the
rock-particles to powder to prepare them for the more efficient
action of its co-working agents. The heat of summer is de-
composing the organic ingredients, and giving to the soil
gases and acids for their secondary work. The air is perme-
ating it with its oxygen to form acids, and corrode and take to
pieces its metallic elements ; with its carbonic acid and am-
monia to unite with other acids or alkalies in the soil, forming
new and needed compounds. The moisture of the atmosphere
is condensed to rain, and, descending to the earth, carries into
the soil its gases for plant-food, and dissolves the material pre-
pared by the other agencies. Year after year, in an unceasing
round, these influences work on, fitting the crude earth for plant-
food ; and when under the hand of nature alone, laying up great
accumulations of it for future use.

Nature's processes are enriching, but never exhausting ; and
the plants which nature causes to spring up are simply agents
in the good work. They send their rootlets through the soil,
gathering its mineral elements when made solvent, and storing
them up within themselves ; their leaves into the fertilizing at-
mosphere, and gathering from it its carbonic acid and nitrogen ;
and when all are gathered, and the functions of plant-life
cease, carry back all they took from the soil, with the addition
of what they derived from the air. Crop after crop, in annual
succession, repeats the process. When decomposition takes
place, the carbonaceous matter seizes and holds securely all
these materials from being washed out by the falling rains, or
carried away by the searching air, until the plant shall seize
and appropriate them to itself. Thus plant-food, under the
hand of nature, is produced and stored up ; produced faster
than is needed, and laid away for a future emergency. That
emergency comes when the soil passes under the hand of man,
and is made to produce food-yielding plants, which are removed
19

146 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

to support animal life. So far as the planWood accumulations
of the soil are concerned, the circumstances are now all
changed. True, nature is not dead or idle. All her forces
work perpetually, and are doing their appropriate work ; but
the power of the plant to consume is greater than the power of
production, and it not only consumes in a single year all the
food produced in the year, but a portion of that which the soil
had accumulated, and, when removed, depletes it thus much of
its store. In a new soil, where this store is large, the process
may go on year after year ; in rare cases, may continue a quarter
of a century, with no diminution of the crop. But sooner or
later the end will surely come ; the store will be exhausted, the
crops cease to pay the cost of cultivation, and the land to such
a cultivator is worthless. Leave this destroyed soil to the care
of nature, and it will in due time be again made fertile by the
original process. This is the method pointed out by the great
Hebrew law-giver : " Ye shall not deprive your land of its Sab-
bath's " — rest, that it may recuperate. The English fallow, in
all its forms, is but an imitation of this great divine law ; but,
in the changed circumstances of the world and its population,
will not meet our wants. The unceasing calls for food of a
dense population require a process quicker and more efficient.
We therefore resort to expedients to accelerate and make na-
ture's methods more powerful, by cultivating and stirring the
soil, changing its mechanical texture, and opening it to the per-
fect action and influence of natural law. But while the crop-
ping process goes on, this is inefficient, for the plant carries
away faster than the powers of production can develop.

We now resort to an interchange or rotation of crops to
secure or aid us in securing the desired result. There are sev-
eral natural laws which seem to indicate that this process may
be effectual whatever may be the teachings of experience in the
matter. And first, nature seems to adopt a system of rotation
in her forest growth, where the elements of plant-food taken
away are not all returned again until after scores of years, or
perhaps for centuries. The pines or fir trees on immense tracts
in Northern Europe, in Switzerland, and along the Rhine, have
died out, and a hardwood forest, luxuriant and strong-growing,
has taken their place. In our own country large sections can
be found where the hardwood trees seem to have become pre-

ROTATION OP CROPS. 14T

maturely old, have gone to decay, fallen to the earth, and their
places supplied by the pine. A ripe forest of either kind re-
moved by clearing, and the soil left to nature's working, will in
due time be replaced by one different from that which first occu-
pied the ground. This fact is not the result of chance, neither
is it because the soil is worn out and destitute of plant-food ;
for the second growth is strong and rapid, indicating that it is
well supplied with nourishment, Ijut it points to our second
great law for rotation. Plants of different kinds and species do
not require for their perfect development the same kind or
quantity of food material. We have potash-plants, plants
which, though they partake sparingly of nearly all the other
mineral and of the organic elements in the soil, will not grow
and mature satisfactorily unless they are well supplied with pot-
ash in a soluble form. So, too, nature has provided tlie lime-
plant, the soda-plant, plants that delight in phosphoric and
sulphuric acids and their salts, and plants that do and that do
not require the stimulating, forcing influence of abundant nitro-
gen. Therefore, it is that on a soil which is new or has a large
accumulation of plant-food, we may grow a potash-plant year
after year until the leading element of its nature becomes defi-
cient, and its yield depreciates, and then follow it with a lime-
plant, which may flourish as if the soil had never been cropped.
That, with a plant requiring some other as a leading element,
and so on, the entire round of plant-food, and the whole round
give us paying crops. Or we take any plant we choose at
regular periods, and rely on the processes of nature that are
perpetually at work in the soil, to develop a sufficient supply of
its predominating element during the interval of its absence,
to give it a luxuriant growth when it shall be returned to the
soil.

But again, leaving out of sight all the pros and cons of the
disputants over the excrementitious theory ; the theory, that
plants can make no choice in their food, but must, and do, take
up in their sap everything in the soil that is soluble, and retain-
ing only such in their growth as is agreeable, but returning to
it as excrements the remainder, and after a time poisoning it,
or rendering it unfit to nourish that class of plant — though
after decomposition some other plant would thrive on the dis-
carded material — it is certain that observing, practical men,

148 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

especially those who are accustomed to observe plants in house
and pot-culture, recognize in nature something akin to it in a
large number of plants, and can secure the highest success in
their vocation only by a change of soil periodically, or a change
of crop when the plants shall indicate that deleterious influ-
ences are at work. Nature is as regardful also of the physical,
as of the chemical condition of the soil, and the two influ-
ences are in her working intimately united. Chemical in-
fluences are ineffective unless the physical state is such as to
bring it fully under their power. Plants growing on the soil
have great influence in this regard, but some much more than
others. Some give the soil shade and protection from the in-
fluence of the sun and wind, retarding decomposition, aiding
carbonization and preserving its moisture. Some send their
feeble rootlets to but little depth, and only in the friable earth,
while others penetrate, and by their expansive power open the
soil to great distances, bring up the fertilizing material from
below, fill the whole soil with their fibrous network, and then
by decay give to it large quantities of organic material to impart
color, absorbing and retaining power to the whole mass. A
change of plants enables us to secure these different influences
as the soil shall require them to assist the chemical forces in
the more rapid development of plant-food.

I have thus endeavored to indicate some of the natural laws
which point to crop rotation as one of the aids of which we
may avail ourselves, to preserve or improve the producing power
of the soil when the crops are removed for animal sustenance.
But science and practice both completely demonstrate that
they are only aids. No system of rotation has ever yet been
discovered, and I have grave doubts if it ever will be, that will
enable us to remove annual crops from the soil without deplet-
ing it. We may grow a potash-plant until it will grow no
longer, and the soil is specially exhausted, for that class of
plants. Then we may take the lime-plant and so through the
entire list of special feeders, and at the conclusion of the
round we shall find a soil suffering either from general exhaus-
tion, or so deteriorated as to scarcely pay the cost of cultivation.
English farmers, amateur and practical, have tried crop rotation
as a cvu'e for sterility a whole generation with the most unsatis-
factory results and with an endless diversity of opinion as to

PRACTICAL QUESTION FOR US. 149

what the rotation shall be and what its results. White-root
and leguminous crops have all had their place and advocates.
They have tried it on the two years, three years, four years and
.up to the eleven years rotation, with clean fallow and without,
with turnip fallow, fed from the land and without, and the result
is, no rotation is successful in preserving the capacity of the soil,
unless at short intervals in the course it be well supplied with
manure. Where the circumstances of nearness to markets
and good supplies of manure favor, the true position of the far-
mer is, to consider himself a manufacturer, with the land as
his machine, and his manures as the raw material which he is
to manufacture into such plants as his market requires. To
such a man a fixed system of rotation is of little account. His
only care is, to so abundantly supply the raw material as not to
work up his machine (that is the soil) into his manufactured
product, thus destroying its power of producing the largest
quantity and of superior quality. Under other circumstances,
as where the farm is removed from markets, and the sources of
manurial supply ; where it is necessary that its producing power
should be sustained from its own resources and those of its cul-
tivator, a well settled intelligent system of rotation, a working
together with the elements and principles of nature to sustain
the fertility of the soil, is necessary. But what can crop rotation
do for the farmers of Massachusetts, and what shall that rota-
tion be, are the practical questions which it is needful for us to
solve.

I answer, first, rotation can aid, and only aid, those farms
which circumstances require shall be self-supporting so far
as preserved fertility are concerned. No system of rotation
can be devised, as the best for all the circumstances of soil,
climate and market ; but a system must be adopted to comport
with all these varying circumstances, with the tastes of the
individual, and the home wants of the farmer's family.

The circumstances of the country are such at the present
time, and probably will be so in the long future, that the three
great leading agricultural pursuits of our people should be, the
growing of vegetables, small fruits and garden products for a
home market ; the growing of dairy stock, and the production
of all dairy products, and the cultivation of tobacco. A large
portion of the farms of Eastern Massachusetts, as well as those

150 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

in other parts of the State that have quick, cheap transportation
to our cities and populous centres, can be profitably used in the
production of small fruits and vagetables ; and but little rota-
tion is allowable, except in some of the more distant sections,
where manure is costly or not easily obtained. In such sections
the crops more commonly produced are early potatoes, cabbage,
pease and turnips, and the soil should be a warm, sandy loam,
with a small per cent, of clay. Now these crops are enormous
feeders, and take from the land its mineral and nitrogenous
elements with great rapidity, and require large returns of the
best manure. A crop of twenty tons of cabbage would carry
off seven hundred pounds of soluble mineral matter and a
large portion of nitrogen. A crop of turnips of seven hundred
bushels would take off four hundred and ninety pounds of min-
eral matter. A crop of two hundred and fifty bushels of pota-
toes to the acre would consume five hundred and thirteen
pounds. This is a rapid drain of the land, and nature's forces
can do but little towards supplying the loss. Now wheat, with
a crop of twenty-five bushels per acre, carries away but twenty-
eight pounds of mineral food, and its needed nitrogen if the
straw is left ; and barley, with a crop of forty bushels, removes
but thirty-six pounds. Red clover, with a crop of two tons per
acre, carries off but fifty-seven pounds. And while the former
crops take up in their mineral matter an enormous per cent, of
potash, the leading special ingredient of the latter is lime and
the salts of lime.

A rotation, by which these crops could be grown successfully
without a constant supply of barnyard manure, would be, first,
potatoes, a potash plant, treated with a mixture of wood-ashes
and plaster. Second, wheat, a lime plant, or Indian corn or
barley, which would take nearly the same ingredients as wheat.
Third, turnips, a potash plant, with yard manure. Fourth,
cabbage, treated with phosphate and sulphate of lime, and some
compound of nitrogen. Fifth, clover, the second crop of which
should be ploughed in, to prepare the land for the succeeding
potato crop. This change of crop will change the want in the
predominating element of plant-food, will make but one draft
on the barnyard, supply three vegetable market crops, and two
much needed crops for home consumption.

Many a farmer in our eastern counties, with a majority of

A JUDICIOUS ROTATION. 151

those on the hills of Worcester, on the slopes of the Connecti-
cut Valley, and on the mountains and vales of Berkshire
County, must produce dairy animals and products. The effect
.of this branch of farming on the soil is to carry off rapidly the
salts of lime, together with other mineral and nitrogenous ele-
ments, in the carcases of the animals and in the milk, cheese
and butter sent to market. The latter product, butter, is the
least hurtful of all, as it carries away little but carbon, which
can be easily and cheaply supplied. A butter-producing farm
can be kept in high tilth, with less expense of thought, care,
cultivation and manure, than any other ; but milk, cheese and
cattle-selling farms must have the constant drain supplied, or
they will soon deteriorate. The crops necessary or desirable to
be grown in such husbandry are the grasses, grains and roots,
and require a strong and retentive soil. Hay is the staple crop
as food of the cattle, (though when we take into account its
nutritive equivalent and market price in most of the towns of
the State, it is not so cheap feed as roots or Indian meal,) and
it must be grown largely for that purpose. It is also one of the
best ameliorating crops for the soil ; therefore it should occupy
the first place in the rotation. Roots are important as a change
of food, to give to the animal system a healthy tone and vigor,
and they give a large amount of nutrition from a small space of
ground. Grain, especially Indian corn, has great sustaining
power ; serves to strengthen and support the animal, and by its
oily richness contributes much to the rich quality of the dairy
products.

Taking into account all these facts, as well as the wants of
the farmer's family, the following seems theoretically, as it is
known to be practically, a judicious rotation. The first year
Indian corn, treated with ashes and sulphate of lime. This
plant will take from the soil largely of its potash, a small per
cent, of its lime, sulphur, magnesia and organic products, but
will leave of nitrogen, the phosphates and other alkalies enough
for the succeeding crop. It will act mechanically on the soil,
as a pulverizer, to break it up and bring it into a fine, friable
condition. The next crop should be wheat, rye or roots, ac-
cording as the wants of the farmer require ; but for the land,
either of the two first are preferable, and it should be treated to
bone phosphate of lime and seeded to clover. The following

152 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

year the clover and the stubble, which is strong in potash, should
be ploughed in, the land heavily manured, and sown to man-
golds or Swedish turnips ; to mangolds, and treated with five
bushels of salt per acre, if designed for milch cows ; and tur-
nips, if for horses or young, growing stock. These plants will
feed more largely on potash than any other mineral, and will
deplete the soil of much of that material, and should therefore
be followed by a crop taking some other as its leading element.
Clover is a lime plant ; as a forage plant, also, it is second to
none we cultivate. Whether as a pasture plant or fed in the
form of hay, it is charged with the fatty, oily materials neces-
sary to make rich milk, to cause the animal to lay on fat, with
albumen to administer to the healthy vigor of the muscular tis-
sues. Its influence on the soil is highly beneficial. It sends
its strong network of roots deep into and all through it, search-
ing out and bringing up plant-food from the subsoil, which other
plants could never reach ; sending out its numberless leaves to
gather and appropriate the fertilizing elements of the atmos-
phere, and when its life is ended, leaves the soil open and
porous and filled with the richest of organic and mineral mate-
rial in its roots. Clover, then, should be the crop the fourth
year, and it may be either pastured or mown from the field ; and
according to the circumstances of the farmer and the physical
condition of the soil, as to whether it is light loam or strong
and retentive, it may be continued in clover and grass one, two
or three years, when the rotation can be commenced again with
Indian corn. In case it is designed that the land shall remain
in grass three years, other grass seeds should be mixed with
the clover at the time of sowing ; and if the rotation is to be
recommenced after one or two years of clover, the second crop
should be ploughed in. This rotation and mode of management
will give us at least four good and profitable crops, with but one
heavy draft on the barnyard ; but the soil is much strengthened
by the minerals applied and the organic substances ploughed in,
and will in time be found to increase in productiveness.

The next great agricultural pursuit of our people is tobacco
culture. Right or wrong it is a fixed fact that more than five
thousand acres of the best land in the State are devoted to this
crop, and they produce an annual value greater by far than all
its market gardens, and nearly equal to that of all its dairies.

TOBACCO, WHEAT, CLOVER. 153

I can hardly in this regard endorse the sentiment of him who
said, " Whatever is, is right ; " but the fact is here, and I have
to deal with it now only as an agricultural question. The
tobacco-plant is an enormous feeder of all the elements of plant-
food, but especially of potash, the various salts of potash, and
the organic element of nitrogen. It also requires a fair supply
of lime, and a soil of fine physical texture, open, retentive by
the power of its organic matter, rather than by that of its clay.
Tobacco being the product ultimately sought as the market prod-
uct, its cultivator needs only hay and grain as adjuncts to its
cultivation, to supply the needed fertilizing material and a few
products for home family consumption. A tobacco farm cannot
well produce this crop, and large quantities of grain, especially
of the coarser kinds. These must therefore be purchased of
those who are bound to sell them at the West, but the hay must
be produced at home. Science fully demonstrates, from the
feeding nature of the two plants, (and practice has over and
over again verified the demonstration) that tobacco and wheat
are the plants which should follow each other on the same soil.
Wheat thrives hardly so well anywhere else.

The rotation in this culture, taking into account all the cir-
cumstances surrounding it, should be tobacco, wheat and clover.
First, tobacco not less nor more than two years and treated to
barnyard manure and s^me form of potash. Two years, because
one year is not sufficient to bring the soil into that fine tilth
essential for the best quality of the crop. Not more than two
years, that each part of the farm may have in season its due
portion of the yard manure. Second, wheat, and the land seed-
ed to a variety of grass-seed, but clover predominating. The
third year, clover, treated with sulphate of lime. Fourth year,
clover and herdsgrass, after which the rotation can be recom-
menced. This rotation gives us five crops, the three last of
which, at least, are highly important and useful crops, and the
first will giv^e a greater clear profit than any other crop which
can be as extensively grown in the Commonwealth, and has
made but two drafts on the manure heap ; the land also is kept
in good tilth and its producing power preserved.

Gentlemen of the Board of Agriculture : I have endeavored
to discharge the duty assigned me by pointing out what, in my
judgment, rotation of crops can do for the farmers of Massachu-

20

154 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

setts, and the manner in which it should be done. Although I
have spoken of but three branches of our pursuit, those which
it seems to me will for years to come be our leading pursuits, I
am well aware that there are many other branches of important
and of somewhat extensive culture, for which a judicious rota-
tion might be an important aid, but to make definite rules for
them all would be a herculean task, and probably an utter
impossibility. A few leading principles should be clearly un-
derstood, and the intelligence a;nd common sense of each indi-
vidual must direct to the true course. The principles are : first,
use all the manure you can make or get, and use manure which
contains all the elements of plant-food. Second, rotate your
crops to aid in preserving the fertility of your fields, and follow
your present crop with one composed of dilFerent, or of differ-
ent proportions of the elements of plant-food, organic and inor-
ganic. Third, follow the present crop with one which shall
change the physical condition of the soil, or have an amelio-
rating influence upon it.

These principles steadily and persistently adhered to, will
lead us by a broad, open highway to success. Success in the
preserved fertility and producing power of the soil, and success
in the pocket of the owner.

The President. Gentlemen, you hare a very broad subject
before you this morning ; perhaps the most interesting subject
that can come before a Board of Agriculture. The subject is
now open for remarks by any gentleman present. I hope you
will occupy the time.

Dr. Reed, of Pittsfield. I want to express the pleasure with
which I have listened to Prof. Stockbridge's lecture. I think we
have had laid before us the true principles of farming. It is but
a few years since a kind of vague impression prevailed among
the people that plants grew by something that they derived, by
some inherent power, from the elements. They knew a crea-
ture must be fed, or it could not grow, but a plant grew, and
there was an end of the matter. And it is but a few years since
the idea was, that rocks grew as well as plants. But those days
have gone by. I was pleased with the lecture, because it ap-
pears to me that the true principles upon which we are to make
improvements have been laid before us. I have no confidence

CONTRADICTORY RESULTS. 155

in the experiments whicli are made, one here and another there,
because so many circumstances which are essential to test the
validity of an experiment are left out that we can learn nothing
from them. Look at the experiments which were made a few
years ago all through the Commonwealth, to ascertain the best
method of applying manure. They were a bundle of contra-
dictions. In one place, manure ploughed in deep gave the best
crop ; in another, the best result was produced by spreading the
manure on the surface of the land. This was iindoubtedly so,
and the difference in the result was owing to the difference in
the land or in its situation, or in the atmosphere of the place,
which vitiated the experiment, and rendered a comparison use-
less. I think we may find here an explanation of what seems
to us so marvellous in the experiments detailed by Pr»f. Chad-
bourne.

The speaker is right in the statement that the decomposition
of the earth is still going on. It has been going on for ages,
not merely by the agency of air and water, but a great grinding
machine of ice has passed over our rocks, it has ground them
down, and the water has rolled over them and scattered and
mixed the soil thus ground to pieces, and thus given us the ele-
ments of vegetation. We know that this process has been going
on ; we know that the ice has passed over our hills, for it has
left its footprints plainly engraven upon our rocks, and there
they are visible to-day, to any person who will look for them.

Sir, when we take principles, and make those principles
familiar to all, we can apply them and carry them out. I have
alluded to the unsatisfactory character of experiments, where a
piece of land, apparently of the same character, divided into a
number of lots, gave results entirely dissimilar. What is the
reason ? Undoubtedly, this great current of water which has
mixed up the soil, has deposited in one place a little more lime,
and in another place a little more potash. There is a difference
in the soil, so minute, it may be, that no chemist could distin-
guish it. There is a reason for all these contradictory results ;
the difficulty is, our analyses are not sufficiently minute to show
us these reasons ; but if we will take the facts and principles
that lie at the root of this whole matter, we shall be able to un-
derstand and appreciate the results.

Mr. Hubbard, of Brimfield. I have listened with a great

156 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

deal of interest to the address of Prof. Stockbridge, and also to
the remarks of the gentleman last up. It is a fact, that when
we take the experiments of different individuals, in different
sections of the State, we find there is often a strange conflict
between them ; and it seems to me that in nothing is so much
judgment required as in agricultural experiments. If a me-
chanic is going to perform a certain piece of work, he ascertains
almost to a dollar what it can be done for, and in what time he
can do it ; but when we come to the farm, and want to know
what it will cost to produce a certain number of bushels of
corn, or so many pounds of butter or cheese, we cannot make
our calculations with any exactness, because there are so many
conflicting things that come in to disturb our estimates. If we
can instil into the minds of the farming community this idea —
that if we would take from the soil certain crops, we must sup-
ply the waste that is occasioned by the operation — we shall do
something that will be a benefit to the farmer. The idea that
we can be continually taking from the soil without returning
anything to it, is almost the same as if a man, possessing a
certain amount of property, should suppose that he could spend
that property all the time and still not exhaust it. It will be
exhausted ; an end will come to it.

I have never been so struck with the difference in cultivation
as I was when I visited the society at Greenfield, and went to
Shelburne Falls and saw Mr. Anderson's farm there, and the
manner in which the farms adjacent to it were cultivated. In
the one case the soil was very productive ; in the other it pro-
duced very little indeed. The reason was, that in one case it
was highly cultivated and fed ; in the other case it was neg-
lected and starved. It brings to my mind the anecdote of the
man who, when asked how he got such good crops from his
fields, replied : " I hire my fields to produce." How can we
expect our fields to produce if we do not do something for them,
instead of constantly taking away from them ?

The idea advanced in the lecture, that grass is an unprofitable
crop, or that it is an expensive crop, did not seem to me to be
true ; at least, in certain sections of the State. In the section
of the State that I represent, — in Worcester County and Hamp-
den County, — the grass crop is the great crop, and it is the crop
that we must rely upon to feed our stock for dairy purposes.

CONSIDER THE MARKET VALUE. 15T

We cannot afford to raise corn as well as we can afford to raise
grass. We can give our attention in that direction with greater
profit than we can give our attention to the raising of corn for
our stock. And it seems to me, also, that it conflicts with the
remarks of Dr. Loring, yesterday, that we needed something
different from corn for feeding our dairy stock. It is a fact well
attested by those who keep dairy stock for the purpose of pro-
ducing milk, that we do not want so heavy feed as oil-cake or
corn-meal ; and it seems to me that the great thing we must
look out for in our farming operations in dairy sections is to
make our farms as productive of grass as possible. As was
said yesterday, grass, or something analogous to it, is the most
natural food we can have for cattle.

But I hope we shall hear, on this subject, from a great many
present, and therefore I will not occupy any more time.

Mr. Gold. Prof. Stockbridge has spoken very happily upon
this subject of the rotation of crops, but there are other points
necessary to be taken into account in this matter, which should
control us, which he has omitted to notice. One is, the market
value of the different crops which he proposes to introduce in
this connection. He has brought out, prominently, wheat. It
is a very serious question with us here in New England, whether
it is a profitable crop for us to raise ; whether, in fact, it is not
one of the most unprofitable crops ; because the West will raise
it and will send it here below the cost of production even.
They are determined to do that, as they are doing it now ; and
when they are determined to do it, is it worth while for us to
attempt to compete with them in that line ? It is not always
so with wheat, but it is more so with wheat than with any other
prominent crop. Therefore, in selecting our crops for rotation,
we ought to take into account the general market value and the
demand for these crops, as well as their effect upon the land
and the power of our land to produce them. That is one point
I would make, and it might be very extensively illustrated by
a comparison of wheat with other crops.

The professor also referred to the exhaustion of the soil of
its mineral elements by the growth of different crops. This
exhaustion of the soil is not shown by an analysis of the crops
after they are removed. The chemist shows that so many tons
of wheat straw take so many pounds of mineral matter from

158 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

the soil ; but the practical farmer has found out that there is
some disagreement between this analysis of the chemist and his
own practical results. He finds that wheat exhausts his soil
more than the analysis indicates, while his cabbages, turnips
and some other things which he raises are not so exhausting as
the chemist represents them to be. He cannot reconcile these
facts. The vegetable physiologist comes forward and explains
in this manner : That these plants, during their period of
growth, are large consumers — exhausters, so to speak — not of
the mineral elements of the soil, (the chemist is correct, so far
as the exhaustion of the mineral elements is concerned,) but
they are large consumers of the nitrogenous elements which
are demanded by vegetable growth, which they do not show in
their matured product, and wheat is considered at the head of
that list. The other grains produce the same results, in a cer-
tain degree, but wheat is deemed the highest form of food for
man which we raise from the ground ; the most perfect one,
and we find it, in that respect, the most exhaustive. Therefore,
in reasoning upon this subject of the rotation of crops, we must
take into account not only the exhaustion of the mineral ele-
ments of the soil, resulting from the entire produce of the
land, but also the exhaustive effect upon the land in using up
the nitrogenous elements of fertility.

Still another point. The physical condition in which a crop
leaves the land is an important consideration. Some lands are
benefited by being left in a more compact form ; some lands are
benefited by being left in a lighter form. Some crops have a
tendency to make the land light, others to make it more heavy.
Then, again, some crops so affect other crops that it was sup-
posed by vegetable physiologists, for a long time, that they ex-
creted some particular element that did not allow the other
crops to follow with success after them. This has been noticed
by practical men, and it is an element which must be taken into
account. The fact is, that the proper rotation of crops is a
matter which, like a great many others that we thought we had
settled a few years ago, has been brought into a great deal of
doubt by the recent discoveries of science.

Prof. Chadbourne. I can hardly speak too highly of the very
able address of Prof. Stockbridge ; but I wish to say to the gen-
tleman who has just sat down, that, so far from the West being

THE MODEL COMMONWEALTH. 159

determined to raise wheat and sell it here for less than the cost
of production, they are determined to do no such thing. They
are compelled just now, the same as any man who has a stock
on hand vastly more than there is any demand for, to sell it be-
low cost. Every man knows how that is. They are carrying
on a very improper system of agriculture, I grant you ; but I
tell you that at this very time, when wheat in the best parts of
Wisconsin and Iowa is worth upon the average only fifty cents
a bushel where it lies, it is the determination of that people, so
far as I can understand, to build up manufacturing establish-
ments in every place they can and consume their wheat at
home. So I tell you now, although I am a New Englander, and
claim to be a Massachusetts man, that Massachusetts is able to
take care of herself, and has got to take care of herself, so far
as that is concerned, for the people of the West are determined
to manufacture many of the articles that are now manufactured
in Massachusetts, and to eat up the grain that they now send
here so cheap. That is what they will do, and that is their true
course, I say, much as I believe in Massachusetts. It is the
secret of the power and strength and wealth of Massachusetts
to-day that she has so many diversified forms of agriculture and
so many forms of manufacturing industry. It is that which
makes her the model Commonwealth of this earth. There is
no doubt about it. Western men understand that, and while
they sneer at Massachusetts, they copy her in every possible
respect they can. It is curious to hear men tell how they do
things Down East. They have lived at the West ten or fifteen
years, and they have a notion that the West has gone on, while
the East has stopped ; but let them come on and see. They
will be, as one of my friends was, perfectly astonished. He
said : " They are not asleep, but they have got so much money
they cannot do anything." I tell you the West are determined
to do no such thing ; and if you find you can raise wheat here,
and can use it as a crop in rotation, I advise you to do it.
Learn to raise it as cheaply as you can. The time will come,
in my opinion, when you will be glad to have learned that
lesson.

In regard to the carbonaceous elements in the soil, it seems
to me Prof. Stockbridge provided for that in what he said with
regard to clover. We do not understand the great value of

160 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

clover as a fertilizer. The professor brought it forward very
beautifully and happily. It is plain that it grows plentifully ;
but if I should tell you the length of some roots of clover that
I have seen, you would think I was drawing a long bow, so I
will only say that they were very long. It is a rapid growing
plant, and throws its roots down into the subsoil to take up the
mineral elements there, while the long, broad leaves are swept
across by every wind that blows. They are opening the soil
and making it just what it ought to be to supply the carbona-
ceous matter needed by the plants. That is why he recom-
mended clover — to supply the organic matter in the soil, which
is taken from the minerals below and from the gas of the air.

It is true, one thing should be borne in mind, and the pro-
fessor brought it out pretty well, that this rotation of crops
actually robs the soil in a certain sense ; but while you are tak-
ing one material, nature is at work storing up another from the
decomposition of the rocks. I noticed one point which seemed
likely to create a wrong impression, when he spoke of mowing
meadows in the fall of the year. I confess I think it very likely
that the conditions here are such that that is the most profitable
thing you can do. I am not going to controvert that at all ; I
wish simply to call attention to a point which seemed likely to
lead to incorrect conclusions. It was said that in a certain field
a swath was mowed close in the fall of the year, and another
patch right by the side of it was left unmowed, and the next
year no perceptible difference was seen. I thought the infer-
ence likely to be drawn was, that therefore no harm was done
by taking off that grass at that time. Now my friend Dr.
Durfee was introduced as a man who not only holds the money-
bag of the Agricultural College, but has a pretty deep one of
his own. If he should send a check to the bank to-day for a
thousand dollars, it would be honored ; and if he should send
another to-morrow, it would be honored ; and if he should send
a third the next day, that, too, would be honored ; but, deep as
his money-bag is, he could send his checks so often, that by
and by they would not be honored. Now, sir, this grass that
comes up in the fall of the year has two purposes to perform.
The first is, to take the nutriment from the air and the earth
and store it up in the roots of the grass, laying it up in the form
of sugar and starch and other materials, to send up life in the

FEEDING THE AFTER-MATH. 161

spring and produce flower and fruit. That is what happens to
every one of our plants. The other purpose is, to act as a
mulch or covering for the land. Now if, after it has done its
work of storing up sugar and starch in the roots of the plant,
you mow it all ofif, and those grass roots are protected during
the winter by the snow, you will have just as much grass the
next spring as if you had not mowed it. But if you take that
grass ofif, and do not leave it there to decompose, you have taken
away just so much material — you have sent one check to the
bank — and your ground will not last so many years as it would
if you left the grass there, any more than my friend's bank ac-
count will last him as many years, if he draws a thousand dol-
lars a day, as it will if he makes no drafts upon the bank.
When you have proved the contrary, you have proved perpetual
motion ; you have proved that you can take away a thing and
have it at the same time. That dope uot prove at all that it is
not the best and cheapest thing to do. If that were so, it hav-
ing been proved that you exhaust the soil by taking off a crop,
you might say you must never take ofif one. Oh, no. My
friend Dr. Loring would agree that it takes ofif some of the ma-
terial, but he would say that the best thing you can do is to
take it off. I do not have any controversy with him at all on
that point ; but I say, you can only do that when you have your
farm in a high state of cultivation. Many of our fields need
every single particle of the after-math to protect the roots of
the grass during the winter, and if you put your cattle in there
you are doing immense harm. But if you keep up your farms
as you ought, and as Dr. Loring and Prof. Stockbridge would
say that you ought, so that there comes up a very abundant
after-math, then you may take it off with profit, because there
may be so much as to smother the grass the next spring if it is
allowed to remain.

I believe fully that we have very much to learn, and all these
discussions show me how much I have got to learn. But 1
want to repeat once more, that the West is not determined to
sell your breadstufifs without being paid for them.

Dr. LoEiNG. I suppose there is nothing more gratifying than

to find one's opinions endorsed. There are three points that

have been brought up here this morning to which I desire to

allude in a slight way, and they are points upon which I have

21

162 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

dwelt so much, and sometimes alone, that I am gratified to find
somebody with me.

The first point is in respect to growing wheat in Massachusetts.
Two years ago, I occupied the time of the New England Agricul-
tural Society at its annual meeting, in recommending to the far-
mers of New England the growing of small patches of wheat on
their farms as a mode of providing themselves with good flour, in-
stead of purchasing from the West. I stated at the time, that I
had no doubt there was a process of wheat culture that would
succeed here. I have no doubt of it. Wheat growing fell into
disrepute here from two causes. One was, that the crop, to a
considerable extent, failed ; and the other was, that the supply
from the West was abundant. Now, gentlemen, it failed here
on account of a want of proper cultivation ; there is no doubt
about that at all. I am satisfied that if the farmers of New
England will devote themselves to discovering the proper way
of growing wheat, they can raise from twenty-five to thirty
bushels to the acre, and raise it to a profit, so far as their own
consumption is concerned. I think I see gentlemen in this hall
who will agree with me on that point, that wheat has been
raised and can be raised in Massachusetts to a profit.

With regard to wheat growing in the West, it is one of the
best illustrations of the results of loose and careless farming
that we have had in this country. Prof. Chadbourne tells you
that the West proposes to emulate the East in manufactures,
and I am not at all surprised that, after their mode of culti-
vating the different crops, they are turning round to ascertain, if
possible, some means by which they can manufacture ; but I
want them to understand, that if they make woollen goods upon
the same plan on which they have been cultivating their land,
they will wish all their nianufacturing establishments were
somewhere in Berkshire County before they get half way through
with them. It is a well-known fact, established by the most
careful investigations, that owing to the careless, loose cultiva-
tion of the West, the lands are becoming exhaus'ted and worn
out, and, more than all th'91;, are becoming so overrun with
weeds, that the growing of a large wheat crop upon old wheat
lands is an utter impossibility.

Taking these two things into consideration, I say, let us turn
our attention to the growing, not of great masses of wheat, but

HOW TO GROW TURNIPS. 163

of small patches on each farm, for the consumption of the farm-
er's own family, at least, and the supply of neighboring families
with such surplus as he may have. I know there are sections
where it can be grown well ; the process I will not undertake
to recite. The books will tell you what is right, or, if you can-
not find it out in books, go to the Agricultural College, and
they will tell you how to do it there.

There is another point. Prof. Stockbridge alluded to the
growing of root crops. I know there are some here who do not
want to hear any more from me about root crops. The intro-
duction of the turnip into England was one of the great strug-
gles of English agriculture. It was misunderstood there and
resisted there, just as it is here. One of the earlist advocates
of the root crop. Lord Townsend, won for himself the name of
"Turnip Townsend," in derision, simply because he was so
ardent an advocate of the introduction of the turnip crop into
England ; and now, my friends, from the testimony of the most
distinguished farmer down to the experience of the humblest,
and according to the testimony of Mr. Webster, when he visited
England, the turnip crop has become the sheet-anchor of liglit
soil cultivation throughout that whole kingdom ; and I have no
doubt (and he had none,) that the increase of the supply of
meat in that kingdom was owing mainly to the growth of the
turnip by the farmers of the realm.

Now, I want to say a few words as to the process by which
turnips are to be raised. I am very much afraid that Prof.
Stockbridge may have left a wrong impression upon your minds,
as he did a little upon mine, with regard to this matter of raising
turnips. In his statement with reference to manuring the land,
he spal?:e of manuring it highly, and then planting either tur-
nips or mangolds, as if they were one crop. Now, there is a
discrimination to be made between the two crops. The turnip,
however large a feeder it may be, detests and abhors nitrogen-
ous manures ; it will not grow well in them at all ; I' mean, so
far as the bulb or root is concerned. You can make a turnip
top as long as your arm, if you like ; and you can throw all the
nutriment of the soil into the neck and into the leaf, if you
please, by using a large mass of barn manure. So you can
select a soil that will give you a great turnip top and great
length of neck, and no bulb. Take a piece of heavy clay land,

164 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

upon which you would raise a great mangold crop, and under-
take to devote it to turnips, and you will fail ; it cannot be done.
But take a warm piece of light soil, which has been in grass for
some time ; — I make this point now, because the turnip is a
little impatient, also, of previous cultivation ; it enjoys a mono-
poly of what it undertakes to feed upon ; it does not very well
follow any other great feeding crop ; it needs a light soil, which
has been left in grass for years, until the grass crop has to a
certain extent run out ; — take a piece of light land of that
description, I say, (and we all know there is enough of it in
Massachusetts ; there is down our way, at any rate,) light,
somewhat sandy warm land, on which water never stands any
length of time, plough it from the 15th to the 20th of June,
put on a very little well decomposed barnyard manure, — manure
in which the mineral salts have been created by decomposition
before going into the soil, and out of which the nitrogenous ele-
ments have to a certain extent departed by decomposition ;
harrow it in ; put the land in good condition, as far as you can,
with the harrow ; and then with a marker, make your rows
twenty-seven or twenty-eight inches apart, and sow in those
rows a little good superphosphate.
Question. Where do you get it ?

Dr. LoEiNG. I won't undertake to say. Get it wherever you
can find it. I have no doubt you can find it somewhere —
A Voice. Make it yourself.

Dr. LoEiNG. Well, make it yourself, if you like, or get some-
body else to make it for you ; but get it. It will take three
hundred and fifty or four hundred pounds to the acre, sown by
the hand, in these little rows. That is just about as much as
you want, and it is not an expensive manure ; and, remem-
ber, I am for economy in farming. Put in the superphosphate,
and then sow your seed. I am particular about the season of
the year. Do not put it in any earlier, unless you want the
louse or the fly to destroy your plants. Sow your turnip seed
in those rows, and, more than all, be sure to use a seed-sower
that will cover your seed well. If you cannot find a seed-sower
that will do that, put on a good solid iron roller and roll them
in, and then you will be likely to get a good crop. When the
plants come up, they will need a little thinning out with the
hoe. They are very hardy, and you can knock them about con-

HOW TO GROW MANGOLDS. 165

siderably without hurting them much ; and in the fall of the
year, from the middle of September to the first of October,
(when your crop should be harvested,) it is astonishing how
these roots will increase in size and weight.

That is the process by which Swedish turnips can be raised.
I know there is no difficulty about it. I did not want the im-
pression to be left here, (and I know Prof. Stockbridge did not
intend to leave that impression,) that turnips could be raised
upon heavy clay lands, and with large quantities of nitrogenous
manures.

Mangolds demand a different soil, and will have it. You
could not raise a mangold as big as a pigeon's egg in the way I
have advised you to raise Swedish turnips. It would be utterly
impossible. In the first place, you have got to sow it in a dif-
ferent time of the year. In the next place, you must supply a
different kind of food. Now a few words about raising man-
golds. Take a piece of good, strong, firm, well-cultivated clay
land, that will retain the manure well ; land that, if you put it
into grass, would raise three tons to the acre, and supply your
cattle with fall feed, and retain its fertility well ; land on which
you could raise the Marblehead cabbage at the rate of from forty
to seventy tons to the acre. You can find such land in almost
every valley. Plough that land early — not sod land, but land pre-
viously cultivated. Put it in as good tilth as you possibly can,
and as early as you can, and plough in seven or eight cords to the
acre of good barnyard manure ; not diluted manure ; not manure
full of sand or muck or straw or loam ; but good solid manure,
that has got compost enough in it to hold the liquids, and no
more. Put into your manure what will absorb the liquids, and
no more. Let the soil do the rest. There is compost material
enough in the soil itself, if you will only believe it — matter
which you are not obliged to transport. Plough in your ma-
nure once, and mix it up by another ploughing. Have that
piece of land well harrowed, and then drill it with a small
plough, and put into those drills a good supply of salt. You
had a lecture here, I understand, on salt. I wish I had heard
it. I believe in salt for certain crops, implicitly. Prof. Stock-
bridge talks about five bushels to the acre. I have put thirty
bushels to the acre for a crop of mangolds, and never got a bet-
ter crop in my life. Any farmer will tell you that the mangold

166 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

is a great feeder on salt, or else the salt produces such an effect
upon the manure that it enables the mangold to take it up. Put
into those drills well decomposed manure, provided with a cer-
tain supply of salt — the refuse of the beef-packers or salt-fish
dealers ; any kind of salt will answer the purpose. We used to
buy it for six or seven cents a bushel ; you cannot get it as
cheap now ; but get it as cheap as you can, and put it in. Then
have those drills smoothed a little on the top, and sow your
seed as early as you can. Be sure and have it well covered.
It is one of the most difficult seeds to germinate, and will not
germinate unless the earth is so close about it as to retain a
uniform temperature and moisture. It needs that very much
indeed. Your mangolds, if treated in this way, will come well.
You can get a crop of from ten to twelve hundred bushels to
the acre. Much larger crops have been raised.

A Voice. I have raised nineteen hundred bushels.

Dr. . LoRiNG. On Deer Island, they report that they raise
eighty tons to the acre, an enormous crop. That is the process
of raising mangel-wurzel. And these two crops, properly
handled, and properly used, are two of the most valuable crops
to the dairyman and cattle-feeder that can possibly be raised in
Massachusetts.

There is one other point. Prof. Chadbourne alluded to this
matter of feeding the after-math. I agree with every word he
said. " You cannot eat your pudding and have it too." No-
body doubts that. Even the treasurer of the Agricultural
College cannot draw his check, and have his money at the same
time. But, my friends, I said distinctly, that it involved the
necessity for the cultivation of grass, just as you would culti-
vate any other crop. I say it is cheaper for a man, if he has
got a good herd of cattle and a profitable herd, — and no man
ought to have a poor one or an unprofitable one, — to feed them
upon his grass land in the fall of the year, than it is to under-
take to carry them over from the 15th of September to the
middle of November without green feed. It is more profitable
for him to do that, and cultivate his grass in proportion. Prof.
Chadbourne said that it required good farming and high culti-
vation, and I think he said, perhaps higher than you can afford
to cultivate here in this end of Massachusetts. Tliat is not so.
You can afford to cultivate just as well in Berkshire as we can

TO MANAGE GRASS LAND. 167

in Middlesex or Essex ; the only difficulty is, that you under-
take to raise grass on too much land. You can raise more
grass on one acre than two, if you desire, and then you have
got your land in as good condition as it would have been if you
had grass on the two acres. There are two ways of managing
grass land. One is, after having fed your grass land in the
autumn so long that the grass crop begins to fail, give it that
rotation of crops which Prof. Stockbridge has talked about this
morning. Plough it and give it a potato crop the first year, if
you like, but give it a corn crop the year before you put it into
grass again. Grass will follow a corn crop better than any other
crop in the world, partly on account of that mechanical man-
ipulation of the soil to which Prof. Stockbridge alludes, and
partly on account of the fact that it does not deprive the soil of
those fertilizers which the grass itself requires. You cannot
follow mangel-wurzel or turnips well with grass ; corn is the
crop that should precede the seeding down to grass. So far as
my experience and observation in Massachusetts go, you can
restore your grass land in that way, by a rotation of crops.
Plough your land in the spring, and seed down, when you do
seed down, not with wheat, oats or rye, but with barley. You
will get a better sod, and of course a better crop. That is one
way.

But grass lands are heavy, or apt to have a great deal of clay.
That kind of land, if manipulated in hot weather, sometimes
becomes baked. At any rate, there is a great deal of valuable
grass land in Massachusetts in which you do not want a rotation
of crops, as a mere matter of expense. Plough those lands in
the middle of August, give them a good top-dressing, harrow in
your manure, and seed them with herdsgrass and redtop, and
the next spring add a little sprinkling of clover, and you can
raise a grass crop just as well as any other crop. This is a
good way ; and although the land may be heavy, the grass
comes in at a time when it is dry and easily managed.

You must rotate upon the turnip crop, upon the mangel-
wurzel crop, upon the carrot crop, upon the potato crop, upoli
the cabbage crop ; — must you upon the corn crop ? How many
years do you suppose a field would remain fertile in corn ? A
good many years, give it barnyard manure enough.

Mr. Slade. How is it with the onion crop ?

168 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

Dr. LoEiNG. The onion crop does not want any rotation. I
suppose the onion, like some animals, gets accustomed to its
own hole and likes it. At any rate, an old onion field is the
best place to raise onions in ; there is no doubt about that ; and
after two, three or four years, you can get an onion field so free
from weeds and in such a state of fertilization, that an onion
crop will almost grow there spontaneously. That is an excep-
tion to the rule. I have no doubt there are other crops that
are somewhat like it.

I have made these statements because I was rather gratified
at various expressions with regard to the raising of wheat and
root crops. The other remarks I have thrown in incidentally.

Col. Wilder. I am very glad to hear this discussion in rela-
tion to the root crop, and I rise particularly to bring to mind a
record made twenty-one years ago last September, by Mr.
Webster, at the inauguration of the Norfolk County Agricul-
tural Society, where he advocated the growing of root crops,
and especially of turnips, as very important to the farmer. And
whatever may have been said of Mr. Webster, in relation to his
farming politics, those who knew him will stand by me in attest-
ing that he was not only a good farmer, but in principle he was
a great farmer. At that meeting, Mr. Webster made a speech
which has been handed down to posterity as his Turnip speech,
and he said, " Whatever may be said of England in relation to
her manufactures, whatever may be said of her in relation to
her success in the cultivation of crops, I take the responsibility
of asserting, that without the turnip crop, England could not
pay the interest on her national debt."

I did not intend to say much on this subject, but I think Dr.
Loring did not mean to say that the carrot crop would not
rotate well. Doctor, did I misunderstand you ?

Dr. Loring. I did not allude to the carrot crop, for two
reasons. In the first place, I do not believe in it much. I do
not think it is a good crop for the farmer to raise. The turnip
answers every purpose for cattle and horses, and is cheaper.
The carrot crop, I think, needs rotation. I don't think a field
will run carrots year after year.

Question. Do your horses eat turnips ?

Dr. Loring. Yes, sir. I feed all my young horses and driv-
ing horses with turnips.

CARROTS OR NO CARROTS. 169

Mr. . I have made it a rule to raise vegetables

for my stock for ten years. I have found carrots to do about as
well on the same land, year after year, as the onion does. I
have raised a good crop of carrots for eight years in succession
on the same land. I have great deference for the gentleman
who has addressed you, but we differ in opinion.

Col. Wilder. The experience of the last speaker has been
mine. I could not do without carrots for my horses. I find
them a very economical article. My method of feeding is to
give my horses a peck of carrots four times a week, at night,
and it saves me half a peck of oats. Whether or not the car-
rots have an equal pecuniary value, I will not undertake to say ;
but I have found them very beneficial. I have never been able
to make my horses eat turnips. The doctor has a faculty of
doing almost everything he attempts to do, and I have no doubt,
from what he says, that his horses do eat turnips.

Mr. FooTE. The human animal can be educated to eat to-
bacco, and I have no doubt a horse can be educated to eat tur-
nips ; but I do not believe he would do it naturally.

Dr. LoRiNG. I do not mean to go into the turnip question
again, but I want to say a word in behalf of my horses. I have
turned my attention a good deal to the breeding of horses. I
like a good horse. I have got some good ones, and I mean to
have, as long as I can raise them or find them in the market.
Comparing the carrot and turnip crop, I learned by experience,
in the first place, that the carrot crop was an expensive, trouble-
some crop to raise. I believe, my friends, in perpendicular
agriculture ; I do not believe in any more horizontal agricul-
ture than you must have ; you must have a little. That is, I
believe in cultivating the soil standing bolt upright, and not
upon your hands and knees. The carrot crop is one of those
things that keep a man's nose as near to the ground as he
can get it. It is an expensive crop ; it needs a great deal of
manure ; it needs good soil and a monstrous amount of faith ;
and, above all, hard work. If you will insist on raising carrots,
I trust and hope that some ingenious mechanic will invent a
macliine which will not only clean out the weeds, but fork the
land over and clean out the roots for you.

Then another thing. When I came to feed carrots to my
cows, I did not find any more benefit than I do — you will ex-

22

170 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

cuse me for saying it — from feeding green corn ; not at all. It
did not make any milk. It made the butter yellow ; but I did
not want yellow butter ; I was making milk. It did not seem
to be any help in putting on fat. Then I thought it was a
grand root for horses. I began to feed it to my horses, as
everybody said it was a good thing ; but I found I had got to
stop it. The hair did not look right, and yet there was the
natural gloss upon it. Their legs began to look rough. It was
manifest this root was affecting their kidneys badly. The dis-
charge of urine was excessive. Then I noticed that when I un-
dertook to drive a carrot-fed horse, I might just as well have
undertaken to drive a wash-tub, and a leaky one at that. There
was no satisfaction in it. A couple of miles would produce a
mass of foam in front of him that was not half as pleasant as a
good lathering in a barber's shop ; and I made up my mind
that carrots, with the exception of certain medicinal qualities
that they might have to restore a horse that had been worn out
with grain, were worth nothing.

Then I read in some agricultural book that the farmers in
Ireland, when they began to plough in the spring, fed their
horses with turnips ; and I thought, " If an Irish horse will eat
turnips, a Yankee horse will ; " and I began to feed my horses
with turnips. When I get home, I always like to take a good
long drive ; and if it is too stormy for that, I like to go into a
stable and look a good honest horse in the face. Four years
ago I began to feed my horses on turnips, taking the hint from
the book of which I have spoken, and I found no great difficulty.
I did have one mare, that was brought up in Vermont, and had
not gone through the process of civilization on a Massachusetts
farm, that objected to] them ; but the rest of my horses took
hold of them readily. I soon found that my horses that were
out of condition began to look bright ; instead of their legs
being storked, they would be clean and fine ; their eyes grew
brighter ; their appetites returned. I believe there are some
gentlemen in this room who have put their hands on some of
these turnip-fed horses, and I would like to have them say
whether they are in good condition or not. I know some of
them have been kind enough to say that they drive well.

That has been my experience in regard to feeding turnips to
horses. There is nothing that will make bone so rapidly, or

TURNIPS FOE HORSES. 171

keep the muscle in so good condition, as Swedish turnips. For
young cattle, yearlings and two-year-olds, they are inestimable.
If I had a yoke of oxen that weighed 4,500 or 5,000 pounds, I
should give them a few turnips to make them weigh 6,000, and
a little grain now and then. But for young cattle they are
admirable.

Question. How much do you give them ?

Dr. LoEiNG. A little short of a peck a day. Now you do
not want to grain your colts ; you cannot grain them to any
advantage. Every man who knows anything about a horse
knows if you begin to feed him with oats at one year old, you
have lost just so much when you put him into the harness and
expect him to be strong and energetic. But you can feed him
with turnips and give him good hard muscle. I do not mean the
English fiat turnip. I mean the prince of all the roots, " Skir-
ving's King of the Swedes." The handsomest root that grows,
and the root that, if I were a young cow or colt, I should ask
my master to give me freely.

Mr. FoOTE. Have you had any experience in feeding turnips
to milch cows ?

Dr. LoRiNG. I feed turnips as soon as my mangolds are all
gone. I am a little considerate of my milk customers,^ and so I
feed mangolds as long as they last. I have not heard much
complaint. Now and then a customer will say, " You are feed-
ing turnips." You cannot feed turnips and use the milk for the
manufacture of butter. It is a singular fact, that the flavor
will appear in the butter when it will not appear in the milk. I
think you can feed Swedish turnips with some degree of safety,
if you are not going to use the milk yourself.

Mr. Plunkett, of Pittsfield. Will Dr. Loring inform us
about what per cent, of nutriment the Swedish turnip has, by
analysis ?

Dr. Loring. I do not remember. I have had myself a table
giving the comparative amounts of nutriment in given weights
of food, but I have not carried the figures in my mind so tliat I
can state them. We are told, I know, that the turnip has
ninety per cent, of water in its composition ; but I want gentle-
men to take from their tables the best piece of beef they ever
had there, and press it down to a solid, and then see how much
it will weigh. The amount of water that is found in nourishing

1T2 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

food is enormous, but precisely how much per cent, of nutri-
ment there is in the turnip, I don't remember. The solid part
is about ten per cent.

Since the meeting at Pittsfield, I have turned to the follow-
ing statement made by me in 1861 : — " The practical values as
obtained by experiments in feeding are : of hay, one hundred
pounds are equivalent to three hundred pounds of Swedish
turnips, four hundred pounds of mangel-wurzel, two hundred
and fifty pounds of carrots or fifty-two pounds of corn."

Mr. Plunkett. I believe the best authorities give the Swed-
ish turnip about eight per cent. Then a bushel of them,
weighing sixty pounds, would give about five pounds of nutri-
ment. A hundred pounds of meal gives you about seventy-five
pounds of nutriment. If you pay $2.25 a bushel, you are
paying three cents a pound for nutriment. Swedish turnips,
then, are worth about fifteen cents a bushel for feed. Can the
farmers of Massachusetts afford to raise them, store them, and
feed them out at the value of fifteen cents a bushel ? For it is
a money question, after all. The question is, not whether cattle
and horses take it, but can you afford it ? We want to know
how to make money. We can buy grain in different forms.
We can buy it by making cotton cloths and yarns and woollen
goods. We can produce grain and meat in other forms besides
raising them ; but what we want to know is, how we can pro-
duce them with the least possible cost to ourselves. No doubt,
we can raise great crops, but will it pay to raise them ? We
talk about raising carrots, but to make it profitable to raise
carrots is another thing. If the Swedish turnip is not worth
more than fifteen cents a bushel as food, can we afford to raise
it?

I venture to say, that no practical farmer, who works himself
and lives by his farm — not a man who runs a farm for the sup-
port of his farmer and to pay the taxes, — I say, no practical
farmer can afford to raise these crops. We want something
that a man can afford to raise — something that he can raise to a
profit, and earn from his farm enough to pay for it. He must
make money, and that which makes money will commend itself
to the Yankee mind. Down on the Connecticut River, where
they are all Puritans, you might suppose they would not do
anything immoral, and yet the money argument has carried

WHAT SHALL WE DO ? 173

them into tobacco. They arc sacrificing all the rest of the
crops to the tobacco crop. It is because there is money in it.
Why should they not raise it ? Somebody is going to raise it.

Now the question with Massachusetts farmers is, what shall we
do to make money ? Can we, with labor that costs us two dol-
lars a day in summer, raise turnips at fifteen cents a bushel ?
Can we do it profitably ? Mr. Webster, it is true, made his
great turnip speech, as Col. Wilder says, but Mr. Webster was
not a practical farmer. He could talk like an oracle on farm-
ing, he could talk like an oracle on finance, but what was the
result of his financiering and his farming ? Did he earn-a great
farm ? He left no farm at all that was not encumbered by a
mortgage. He spoke about turnips, and saw turnip culture in
England. It is a wonderful thing there. But did he take into
account the difference between labor in England and here, and
the difference between the climate of England and our climate ?
The English farmer does not have to harvest his turnip crop and
carry it into his cellar, to protect it against frost, and the cost
of cutting it up and feeding it to his cattle is very much less
than with us. He does it in a climate where the turnip is twice
as long growing as in ours, and it contains fifteen or twenty per
cent, of nourishment, while ours contains but eight per cent.
And after it is grown, what then ? Why, the turnip is fed to
the cattle mainly on the ground where it is raised. They put
what are called " hurdles " round their fields, and the cattle
and sheep harvest it themselves, on the very ground where it is
grown. Here is labor that costs not more than a third as much
as ours, a turnip that contains twice as much nourishment, and
not half as much labor required in handling it as here. There-
fore, the turnip crop is more important in English agriculture
than any other crop. But I say that here in New England,
with our severe climate, our scarcity of labor, and the difficulty
of getting educated labor, or any labor but that which you must
go and stand by if you expect to have a day's work done and
done right, no experienced farmer, who ever expects to pay for
his farm by what he produces upon it, will ever follow the
raising of turnips more than two years. I have noticed it for
forty years, and I have never known a hardworking farmer to
continue the raising of root crops.
But you say you must have, some turnips to feed to cattle ;

174 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

that it is their natural food. I say it is not their natural food.
I say that God has so formed the animals of any country that
they are adapted to the climate in which they are grown. You
feed on dry hay in winter, and you say you want roots. Why ?
Did you ever know a cow or a steer or a yearling whose bowels
were not in just as good condition in winter as in the summer ?
Why do you want to fill them up with roots, and make them
just like Dr. Loring's washtub, and leaky at that ? The quan-
tity of water drank by the animal in the winter with his dry
hay, is exactly equal to the quantity taken by him in the sum-
mer with his grass, less the perspiration given off in summer.
The animal adapts himself to the new state of things. So
that, whatever an amateur farmer may say about raising turnips
for his stock, I say that any practical farmer who has got to pay
off a mortgage on his farm, if he is a wise man, will not con-
tinue the turnip culture for more than two or three years.

Dr. LoRiNG. I have but one word to say in reply to the in-
genious argument of Mr. Plunkett. His point upon the labor
question will apply as well to hay as to turnips. It costs a
great deal of money to make a yard of cloth or a ton of hay or
a ton of turnips. That is a privilege we enjoy here. The
labor argument, therefore, does not apply to the culture of tur-
nips any more than to any other crop.

In regard to the nutritive qualities of the turnip, as I said
before, I cannot give the figures, but I will refer you to them in
that valuable volume know as " Flint's Agriculture of Massa-
chusetts,"— a book for the printing and publication of which Mr.
Plunkett has voted an appropriation. It is law and gospel on
farming in the State of Massachusetts. I do not know that the
turnip is more nutritive in England than here ; I will take it
for granted that it is, if he says so. I agree that we must get
them into the barn and feed them in the barn. I agree to all
that ; but still, experience is better, after all, than chemical
tests in regard to the importance and value of the food you take
into your own stomachs or give to your cattle. Experience is
the best teacher in all these matters ; and when Mr. Plunkett
says you never knew an animal to get costive when fed upon
dry hay, I would like to ask him if he never heard the old
adage — " As tight as a yearling bull in the month of January ? "
That is all there is about it. A good many farmers who have

FARMER AND THE COLLEGE. 175

fed dry hay, and even a little corn-meal thrown in, have come
to me and said that their neighbors who fed roots had a little
the smoothest looking cattle. That is the testimony of a good
many young, active farmers who are paying for their own farms
and raising turnips too.
Adjourned to 2 o'clock, P. M.

Afternoon Session.

The Board met at 2 o'clock. Dr. Durfee in the Chair.

The President stated that President Clark, of the Agricul-
tural College, who had been announced as the lecturer this
afternoon, was unavoidably detained at home, and his place
would be supplied by Dr. Loring.

THE FARMER AND THE COLLEGE.

BY DR. GEO. B. LORING,

Mr. President and Gentlemen, — I am under the necessity of
occupying more time than seems to be my share at this session,
on account, in the first place, of the amount of duty that has
been assigned me by the committee of arrangements for the
meeting, and, in the second place, on account of the request
which I have received from the President of the Agricultural
College that I would take his place in speaking upon the sub-
ject of The Farmer and the College. I suppose by " the farm-
er," is meant the Massachusetts farmer ; and by " the college,"
is meant the Massachusetts Agricultural College. At any rate,
I propose to confine myself to those two points, and to consider
with you the relations which the farmer of Massachusetts should
hold to the College, and the benefits which I conceive may arise
from the union of these two forces, the practical and educa-
tional, here in Massachusetts, in the business of cultivating our
soil.

This Agricultural College, located at Amherst, has been, as
you all know, from its very outset, a topic of lively and some-
what sharp discussion in every part of this Commonwealth.
Notwithstanding the fact that Massachusetts has devoted so
much of her time and her money to the business of educating
her people in every conceivable branch of learning, for their
benefit and for the advancement of her own interests, the mo-
ment that the subject of the establishment of an agricultural

176 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

college was broached here, the debate began. It was somewhat
astonishing, that notwithstanding Massachusetts had spent upon
Harvard College, from its inception and infancy, almost down
to this very hour, hundreds of thousands of dollars from her
own treasury, and from the private pockets of her citizens as
much more ; notwithstanding she had endowed every scientific
institution within her limits ; had bestowed upon Williams Col-
lege her bounty ; upon Amherst College her bounty ; upon
Tufts College her bounty ; and upon almost every female
academy, upon the School of Technology, and upon the Museum
of Natural History, a liberal share of her wealth ; the instant
an institution was put into her own hands for her own govern-
ment and her own development, she not only began to pause
herself, but her most enterprising and liberal citizens began to
pause also. It is difficult, my friends, to account for this. An
institution which is the only one, as you were told this morning,
that Massachusetts can claim as her own — an institution which
is intended for the development of the foundation of all her in-
terests— an institution which is bound to develop that knowl-
edge upon which the best practical farming of this State can
rest — an institution which, if fully developed, will redound to
her honor and her wealth as much as any other institution
within her own limits, and which, by accepting the bounty of
the United States and the bounty of the town of Amherst, she
has bound herself to support until it arrives at its entire and
full completion — is met by the most formidable opposition.

This, gentlemen, is the Agricultural College of Massachusetts
- — a school in which, as we believe, the farmers of this Com-
monwealth can arrive at what might be called a practice-scien-
tific knowledge of the business of agriculture. I am not, how-
ever, surprised at the opposition which this institution has met
with. The farming of Massachusetts has not been unsuccess-
ful in all time past, by any manner of means. The rules that
have been laid down here for successful farming have been
wrung by intelligent and skilful farmers out of the very soil
upon which the population of Massachusetts now treads. The
best crops that have been grown here in times past are due to
their intelligence and their industry. The whole development
of the wealth of this Commonwealth, seventy-five years ago,
was in the hands of the farmers. I doubt if at that time Berk-

GOOD OLD TIMES. 17T

shire County was in possession of a single woollen or cotton
mill. There may have been, at the time that Elkanah Watson
gathered his little band together here on this village green for
the purpose of holding an agricultural exhibition, a single
woollen mill somewhere in this county, to which he proposed to
carry his small Merino fleeces for the purpose of having them
manufactured into cloth. But the business of manufacturing,
in this county and in this whole State, was in the hands of pri-
vate individuals. You can go to-day into the secluded spots of
this town and others, and find the old implements with which
your mothers manufactured the cloth which, colored with splen-
did and beautiful hues, adorned your fathers on their way to
church or town meeting. That is the way manufacturing was
carried on here. It was agriculture that lay at the foundation
of the whole business ; and so profitable and prosperous was it,
that in my own county, I am happy to say, the record gives us
one hundred seventeen and one-half bushels of corn to the acre
— almost vieing with Berkshire County ; eight hundred bushels
of Swedes ; one thousand bushels of mangolds ; three and one-
half tons of hay ; six or seven hundred bushels of triumphant
potatoes. What times for farming those were ! And so suc-
cessful was the farming industry of this Commonwealth and the
rest of the States of this Union, that when our country emerged
from the Revolutionary war, with a great war debt resting upon
it, it was out of large agriculture, scattered up and down the
Atlantic coast, and small commerce, bringing its wealth into a
few little ports in Essex County, almost alone — I say it was out
of large agriculture and small commerce that the patriotic
fathers drew that wealth with which they paid a large propor-
tion of the Revolutionary war debt before a quarter of a century
had passed away.

So I say it is not because the farming of this State has not
been successful that we are establishing an agricultural college
here ; it is not because the farmers of this State are ignorant of
certain principles of agriculture upon which, heretofore, they
have been successful, that this college has been established ; but
it is because, under the trials of modern agriculture, the best
education is necessary in order to enable the farmers of the
State to carry on their business profitably and successfully. It

23

178 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

is the application of definite rules to the business of agriculture
that we are striving for.

Now, my friends, I have been more struck since I came to
this meeting than I ever was before with the victory which pos-
itive science has achieved over the knowledge which we farmers
— for I say I have brought it myself — bring to our debates.
There have been but two things that have been unquestioned
here. One was, the demonstration of the physical economy of
the cow, as the source from which your dairy products were
drawn, — the natural history of the cow, demonstrated here be-
fore you upon scientific principles, under scientific ^rules ; and
the other was, the lecture to which we listened last night upon
the breeding of fishes, and the introduction, once more, of fishes
into our streams. No man here could deny the statements of
those two gentlemen, who planted themselves upon definite
science. Nobody undertook to deny those diagrams, that I
have heard of. Nobody undertook to debate the fact stated by
Prof. Agassiz, that when the young trout came out of his egg,
he had a bag hanging on his lower side which he must be rid
of before he could come to perfection — a bag of sins, perhaps,
like that which Christian cast away before he reached the top
of the Celestial Mountains. Nobody questioned that ; there
was no doubt raised about it. Nobody doubted for a moment
that what we were told litre of the great lacteal organization of
the cow was true ; it was demonstrated to us. But the instant
a speculating, inexperienced but perhaps thoughtful farmer got
up here and undertook to say that you must not feed a cow
upon corn-meal, what an uproar it made ! And when he told
you that it would not do to feed green corn, sown in rows, to
your cows, for the purpose of raising milk, there was another
row. And what an excitement it created when my distin-
guished friend said you must not let your orchards go to grass
land ! These questions that relate to practical agriculture are
the only questions that we have found open to debate here ; but
we have been obliged to surrender, in spite of ourselves, to the
positive and definite demonstrations and declarations of scientific
men alone.

Now, gentlemen, the business of agricultural education is to
stop this debate, if we can ; to give us some definite rules by
which we can carry on our business. The great questions of

OWNER OF THE SOIL. 179

cultivation are just as much open to-day as they were when the
first cattle-show was held in this village ; there are just the
same doubts raised as to the best way of selecting animals and
the best mode of feeding them. These questions are all open,
and if you examine the agricultural literature of this Common-
wealth, you will find that precisely the same questions that were
debated here half a century ago are debated now, and that we,
who think ourselves so much wiser than our fathers, have come
no nearer to any definite conclusion than they did. I believe
that this should not be so. I think there are definite rules
which can be laid down for the guidance of the farmer, just as
much as there are definite rules that can be laid down for the
guidance of scientific men in the studio or in the laboratory.
I have not the least doubt of it, and it is for that reason that we
who believe in agricultural education, and in education of all
sorts, as applied to the practical forces of life, are continually
urging the support of the Agricultural College on the people of
this Commonwealth.

I think we ought to remember that upon nothing but the best
intelligence and the best education can we arrive at any satis-
factory conclusions. As free and independent citizens of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we may enjoy the privilege of
groping in the dark as much as we please, but we do not arrive
at any definite ends. We may gather together a mass of figures
of one sort and another, but if they tell no definite story, we
are none the wiser for it. It is because we have our own in-
terests in our own hands, and can confine ourselves to them,
that we are compelled to exercise the best knowledge we can
possibly obtain in all the great business of life. So the farmer
here needs education. He needs it for two reasons. In the
first place, that he may maintain his social and civil position
with dignity and propriety ; and in the next place, in order that
he may carry on the business of farming successfully and pros-
perously.

Now, what is the social position of the farmer in Massachu-
setts ? What is the difference between the farmer here and in
Europe ? The difference is, that the farmer here is the owner
of his own soil, be his acres many or few, and it is for him in
his own wisdom to settle how that little spot of land known as
his farm shall be cultivated, for his benefit and the benefit of his

180 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

family. There have been certain curious and remarkable ques-
tions raised on the other side of the water within the last two
or three months, that will illustrate this. Every man who is
interested in the great political movements of the world knows
that under the leadership of the great English statesman, Mr.
Gladstone, the Irish Church has been disestablished, and at last
the question comes up, how the lands shall be disposed of, that
the Irish farmers may carry them on at a profit. As one of the
consequences of the debates and liberal legislation of that king-
dom, attempts have been made to ascertain what were the rela-
tions between landlord and tenant here.

In an interview which I had with Mr. Murray, who came here
as a friend of John Bright, last autumn, this interesting ques-
tion arose ; and all the answer I could give him was that such a
relation, as understood in his own country, did not exist here.
Rented farms are rarely seen. The lands are cultivated by the
owners generally, the harvests are reaped by them. They are
the " laboring class " upon the land. Other than such as these
we have no " laboring class," that portion of society in which
Mr. Bright is especially interested. Labor is the business of all
men. Every man works, more or less. The farmer works, the
clergynien works, the judge works, or thinks he does, and we
all work. In the shop, or in the mill, or on the land, or in the
pulpit, we are all engaged in doing some business here. If a
man cannot get a living in one way, he will try to do it in an-
other. That is the way we labor here. " Well," said he, " how
does the laborer live ? " " Go with me to the window and select
the best house you can see ; in such they live." " What is the
internal condition of their houses ? " " Just as good inside as
outside." " They are represented here by intelligent, active,
vigorous men, appreciating entirely their condition in society ;
and when they return home, three-quarters of these men will
settle down into the exact condition which you call the condition
of the working class ; that is, they will go to work either with
their hands or brains to earn their daily bread. They are the
mechanics, the manufacturers and the farmers of Massachusetts,
and in this way they live."

Not long ago, an English gentleman brought me a list of
questions relating to the rotation of crops, the general manage-
ment of the farm, the amount of barley and wheat and corn

CIYIL AND SOCIAL POSITION. 181

raised to the acre ; and he too desired to know the relation be-
tween the landlord and the tenant. To him I presented the
same view, with the assurance that the success of American
agriculture depended on the absolute ownership of the land,
by him who expected to obtain a subsistence from his acres.
No where in the world is the value of this system of small
ownership understood as it is here.

That is the civil and social position to which I allude when I
say that every man is responsible for the mode in which he con-
ducts his agriculture. So with the whole business of farming.
The laboring man upon a farm is a prosperous man. You all
know it. A man who can get $25 or |!30 a month, for eight
months in the year, and his living, is getting as good a share of
the whole profits of the farm, and of the income of the farm, as
the owner himself. As a general thing, those persons who
labor upon the land are the prosperous laborers.

Now mark the distinction between the class of people labor-
ing here, among an intelligent community of farmers, and those
who labor in Europe in the same position. I have just read
with the greatest interest a report of Mr. Howard, who was sent
to France by the Farmer's Club of London, a portion of whom
belong to the Royal Agricultural Society, for the purpose of
examining the crops, and ascertaining the modes of labor there.
He reports upon the raising of beet-root sugar and other crops,
and that the laborer there was getting from four and a half to
ten pence, — that is, from nine to twenty cents, — a day for his
labor.

After setting forth the impossibility of labor subsisting on
such wages, and contrasting the amount of service performed
in France and in his own country, per day, on all public and
private works, he declares that the system of small farms exist-
ing in France is inapplicable to the state of society there. He
urges the management of large estates by subordinate labor,
and the control of land by capitalists, as the only system that
can be profitable in a country like that.

This is the difference between society, labor and capital here
and in Europe ; and it is because of the social position and con-
dition here both of the farmers themselves and their labor, that
the responsibility rests so heavily upon us to see to it that our

182 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

farms are intelligently managed, and more than all that, that
our labor is well paid.

You may say that all this can be done, and that agricultural
education can be obtained without a college ; that a man does
not need to be able to decline a Latin noun and conjugate a
Greek verb, scan a line in Homer, and break his neck over an-
other one in Horace, in order to be a good farmer. I agree that
that is not necessary ; but it is necessary that a man in this
world, in order to maintain his position as a farmer, a mechanic,
a merchant, or a lawyer, should know as much as he can know.
It is astonishing, my friends, how we respect an intelligent man
who can give good reasons for the mode in which he transacts
his business. How we all admire to listen to the great results
of mental labor and investigation. How we sat in silent admi-
ration last evening, and heard the greatest naturalist of the
world discuss in his inimitable style the simplest questions,
merely because we bow to his knowledge and believe in it.
Hence it is that the education of a college elevates a man in
his own power for good, and more than all that, elevates him
in the estimation of his neighbors, if he employs his knowledge
in a useful pursuit. With us, moreover, the whole business of
farming is a special business. It is not a wholesale, ill-arranged
affair ; it is the application of the highest intelligence to the nicest
cultivation of the farm. The time when the wholesale business of
farming in Massachusetts was as profitable as I told you it once
was, has long since passed away. I doubt if there is a man in
Massachusetts, the owner of large lands, who could possibly
adopt the agricultural system of his fathers and succeed as a
farmer. Then, it was a little hay to sell ; it was a few cattle
fattened upon these luxuriant hill-sides ; it was a few bushels of
corn ; it was a little grain ; it was a few potatoes ; it was simple
habits of home ; it was low taxation ; it was cheap labor. That
is a true picture of the old times, is it not ? But now the time
has come when every man who proposes to get an income from
the land must apply himself to some special business, and apply
to that business the best rules that can possibly be taught him
by the most skilful practical farmers, and the best science you
can obtain from the Agricultural College. It is the cultivation,
for instance, of great root crops, — onions, mangolds, turnips, —
economically, successfully, profitably, that makes the farmers of

ONE HAS DONE, ANOTHER MAY. 183

Danvers and Marbleliead prosperous and independent. That is
special agriculture. It is the cranberry crop of Cape Cod,
where the intelligent and careful cultivator has turned the most
useless bogs into profitable acres. It is tobacco in the Connec-
ticut River Yalley. What an astonishing product ! — equal as
the Professor of Agriculture told us this morning, to almost all
the rest of the agriculture of the State ; superior to the dairy,
superior to gardening, and equal to almost all the other branches
of agricultural industry in this Commonwealth. That is a
specialty. It is breeding and feeding the choicest herds of
cattle. It is the careful breeding of Shorthorns, Devons,
Jerseys and Ayrshires. It is careful attention to the most
economical mode of feeding animals that makes our farmers
rich and prosperous. Go where you will, it is the adoption of
some specialty which has made the farmers of Massachusetts
able to sustain themselves.

I have in my mind — and it is always before me when I am
speaking of the agricultural prosperity of Massachusetts — that
instance of a farmer in the town of Arlington, (I know some
of you have heard it before, but it is worth repeating over and
over again,) who, in 1835, purchased thirty-six acres of land
for $6,000, mortgaged the farm for the payment of one-half of
it, and was thought by his neighbors to be a madman. From
that time to this he has gone on devoting himself to the special
crops of that section, until he is worth to-day, with his accumu-
lations and his interest, $250,000, which he has wrung out of
that soil. Not quite as good as a Berkshire woollen mill, but it
will come up pretty nearly alongside of it. Every month in
the year he has a green crop — out of doors in summer, under
glass in winter — supplying the markets of New York and Bos-
ton with the choicest vegetables.

Now, gentlemen, the business that has been done there by
that farmer can be done elsewhere, and has been done else-
where, perhaps to a less degree. It is by devotion to these
special crops, to which the markets are adapted, — to small
fruits, to market gardening, to tobacco, to onions, to cranber-
ries, to the breeding and feeding of the cattle best adapted to
the production of beef in beef regions, and of milk in dairy
regions, — that the farmers of Massachusetts are able to get
their living.

184 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

Now, my friends, it is to put this business of farming beyond
debate that we have faith in the Agricultural College. I have
not the slightest doubt that definite rules for agriculture may
be laid down there, and will be, so that we shall all understand
them, appreciate them, accept them, and be governed by them,
as our guides in this great business.

I know perfectly well that you will turn about and say, some
of you, that the knowledge you will get there is no better than
the knowledge you have got heretofore from your practice on
the farm, and from the records that have gone into your Trans-
actions. But suppose, my friends, that this college had been
planted there' fifty years ago ; suppose that the agricultural lit-
erature which had been printed in this Commonwealth, instead
of having been disseminated broadcast by the societies them-
selves, or printed in the crude forms in which it comes from
us, — I say from us, because it is a matter of experiment and
investigation with us still, — had been sent to an agricultural
board of scientific investigators, who would have analyzed it,
and tabulated it, and experimented upon it, and drawn rules
from it, and then sent it out ; suppose, I say, that this had been
done, should we not have been better off to-day ? Would you
not be a little wiser in regard to the best methods of culture ?
Do you not think we should have known a little more than we
now pretend to know about the best mode of feeding cattle and
the best modes of breeding them ? And do you not think that
somehow or other we should have been able to come together
here, and instead of disputing, have added to the amount of
each other's knowledge ? It does seem to me so. And when
I learned that an agricultural college was to be established here,
my first thought was, " Let the agricultural literature of this
Commonwealth flow into that college first, and then flow out
again for the enriching of the people." I tell you, my friends,
that that institution should be the centre of the agricultural in-
formation of this State ; and if a man has made a good experi-
ment in cultivation, or in the breeding of cattle, if he has
learned a new law with regard to fruit-trees, if he has by ob-
servation learned a new fact with regard to insects destructive
to vegetation, let him send it there for analysis and investiga-
tion, and before he knows it, some intelligent professor will have
drawn a law from it which will guide him in his future business

SCIENCE LIBERALIZES THE MIND. 185

of farming. It seems to me that is one of the most practical
and most useful points in which that college can serve the cause
of agriculture in Massachusetts.

Now, for this purpose, we have bound, (I say " we," because,
little as I have had to do in an official way with this college, I
am grateful that I have had the power given me to do it some
good,) we have bound every farmer in this Commonwealth, di-
rectly or indirectly, with that institution. The Board of Agri-
culture, which represents the agricultural industry of this
Commonwealth, is constituted by law a board of overseers
there. Every farmer who is a member of this Board represents
a certain section of farmers, and knows, or ought to know, what
the local interests which he represents are. He is intimately
acquainted with the farmers who send him there, and so it is
that that college to-day is brought into immediate and intimate
relations with all the practical farmers in this Commonwealth.
So, if you have raised a good crop, let them know it there. If
you can give them any information, carry it there ; and be sure
that, in the long run, when the information which you have
carried there has been tested, it will come back to you as a rich
legacy from that institution which you are bound and proud to
support. It is in that way that the farmers of the Common-
wealth are bound to the college ; and I assure you, my friends,
that there is no man engaged in the cultivation of fruit, no
man engaged in the production of grass or corn or grain or
cattle, in this State, who, if he will only believe in the Agricul-
tural College, may not draw information from it which will
enable him to carry on these branches of business to greater
profit than he has heretofore done.

But you may tell me that science does not lay down any law ;
that a man can demonstrate the anatomy of the cow, or tell you
how a fish is hatched, which fin grows first, and what his tail
looks like ; but that does you no good. But it does. In the
first place, it liberalizes your mind — one of the best things that
can be done for you. There is nothing in the world like keep-
ing a man's mind open, receptive ; the instant it closes up, there
is an end of him. Keep his mind open, free, liberal, ready to
investigate, ready to listen, and if he will only believe in careful
investigation, it will open a way by which he can overcome all
his obstacles and difficulties. It will teach him what lands to

24

186 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE.

drain and what not to drain ; it will teach him how to carry on
his war against insects ; it will teach him what kind of food is
best for his animals ; it will teach him how he can prepare his
fertilizers, and put them in the most economical way into his
soil, and so arrange them that from that soil he can draw the
largest crops.

I think, therefore, we ought to listen to the rules laid down
by these teachers, and believe in them ; we ought, in our own
operations, to contribute our share ; we ought to encourage the
Commonwealth in sustaining this institution ; we ought to be-
lieve in science, in this great scientific age of the world. And
when we are told that no other branch of biTsiness in the com-
munity asks for education, — that the mechanic runs his shop,
the manufacturer runs his mill, the merchant runs his counting-
room, all without the aid of science and without education, and
therefore the farmer should transact his business without edu-
cation,— let us remind these gentlemen that every conceivable
branch of business in this world has its teachers except the
farmer. Why, sir, how many scientific engineers were educated
in this Commonwealth before you could dam up the Connecticut
River and the Merrimack River, for the establishment of
Holyoke and Chicopee and Lawrence and Lowell ? Was it ig-
norance which accomplished that work ? No ; it was the appli-
cation of the best rules of science that prepared the way for the
manufacturer to build his mill upon those streams — mills in-
volving the nicest principles of the best science and best me-
chanics of the age. That is what education has done for man-
ufactures. It has taken the business of manufacturing out of
our kitchens and garrets, and placed it into palaces. Has it
done nothing for mechanics ? It has developed all those indus-
tries which make mechanics prosperous. Has it done nothing
for our taste ? Were not your architects and landscape-gar-
deners educated ? Why, every book-keeper, every clerk, every
lawyer and clergyman and physician, every manufacturer, has
an opportunity to avail himself of knowledge which is specially
adapted to his purpose. Why, then, should not the farmer,
who is engaged in a vastly more intricate and difficult business,
have his education also ? Is there any reason ? You all know
one man of the last century, who was a distinguished lawyer,
a great statesman, a great writer, a great orator ; he left an im-

REQUIREMENTS OF THE FARMER. 187

mortal name in history, and made his mark in the British Par-
liament as one of the great lights of that kingdom. He knew
what it was to succeed on every field except his farm at Bea-
consfield ; and after he had exhausted his wisdom in literature,
in scientific investigation and in statesmanship, Edmund Burke
went to the farm to learn that to be a good farmer required, as
he said, more common-sense, observation, judgment and wisdom
than all the other work which he had endeavored to accomplish
in life.

Will you tell me, now, that knowledge is unnecessary to the
farmer ? He should know all he possibly can know ; and the
first and best knowledge he can have is that which will protect
him against false theories and false assumptions of any kind.

I am sure our boys can be well taught in this college. If
they apply their knowledge to the land, so much the better ; if
to other pursuits, even then their education will not have been
in vain. A knowledge of land-management is useful to all
men — to all who would be practically useful in their day and
generation — to all who would enjoy the refinements of rural
life. I would send a boy to the Agricultural College, even if
he was destined to a professional life. Our young men enter
upon their classical career often too early in life, before they
have acquired a taste or physical strength for. their work. No
man, who has not experienced it, can estimate the exhaustion
of an academic career, or understand fully the physical trials
of young men, who, striving for high position in a college, are
bleached out in those cloisters, where the ambitious boys trim
their midnight lamps. So I say I would give a boy practical
sense, good muscle and strength, if nothing more, at the Agri-
cultural College, if I intended afterwards to send him to a
classical college for the purpose of giving him a professional
education.

Do not, then, despair ; and if some of these young men do
come out ministers, lawyers, engineers or surveyors, it will harm
no man and no State. But they will not all come out in that
way. There is an astonishing attraction about the soil. We
all have, or should have, our rural tastes ; and when a man has
once acquired a taste for the land, it never dies, until he passes
away from earth. A boy goes from this county into the city,
and begins at once to make his fortune, guided by tlie good

188 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

principles that were taught him by his mother, and the skill,
ingenuity and tact which he inherited, and the first thing he
desires is a little farm, and the animals that go with it, to re-
mind him of the valley in which he was born, and bring him
back once more to the farm of his fathers. There is no taste
which adheres to us so persistently as love of the land, and
there is none in which there is more happiness or more enjoy-
ment. Will it injure our boys, therefore, if they get this taste
for the land, and if, in after life, they should return to their
homes and embellish those lands their fathers have left them,
deserted perhaps too soon ? If you could find, moreover, an
intelligent foreman — one who had brought from the Agricultu-
ral College the means of carrying on your lands in a way that
would be profitable to you — it would fill for you a place not
easily filled. If you had a bright, substantial, broad-shouldered
boy, that you loved and desired to keep at home — one who, you
believe, would make a good farmer and good citizen, perhaps a
good selectman or town clerk, or, possibly, a senator in after
life — if you had such a boy as that, would you object to having
him educated in such a school, more especially if the love of
the land which he might acquire there should keep him on his
paternal acres ? I do not believe you would. Send your boys
to the Agricultural College, then, if you can spare them a year
or more in their early education. I tell you it will not destroy
the virtue, the industry or the good order of the Commonwealth,
to educate thus our boys in the practical service of life, what-
ever may be the path which they are destined to tread.

I have spoken about the education of the boys, and now I
have a word to say about the education of the girls — a branch
of the Agricultural College which has not yet been discussed.
I believe, my friends, and so do you, in female education. I
believe in woman having just as good an education for the
practical affairs of life as man has. There is no reason why she
should not have it — not the slightest. I do not believe it will
disappoint a man, if, when he is attending the social circles that
gather together in the villages and towns, and is looking about
to find a partner to take him by the hand and go along with
him through life, he should find a comely woman, who knew
how to discuss something besides ribbons and satins and the last
gossip of the village ; who had a substantial education, and

EDUCATION OF GIRLS. 189

knew how to talk with him about his own affairs, the policy of
this Commonwealth and country, of which we all are proud.
I do not believe a man ever made anything by insisting upon it
that his wife should not know as much as he does ; and I am
sure there is no man in this hall who will say that his wife does
not know as much as he does. Whatever you may say of oth-
ers, you will not say that your own wife or daughter is less in-
telligent than yourself. So I say you all believe in female edu-
cation. Give, then, to the women of this Commonwealth that
kind of practical education which will give them a fair chance
in life. You educate your boys for every conceivable service ;
you educate your girls for no special object. You can name no
trade or branch of business for which you educate them. They
sometimes educate themselves in various business pursuits, but
not through the aid of any system provided for them. They
marry, and try to keep house, when, too often, they know noth-
ing of housekeeping. Ask one of them to manage your dairy,
a healthful and useful employment, and she will stare at you as
if you had asked her to fight a battle or storm a battery.

We want female education in this Commonwealth ; and I ap-
peal to the trustees of the Agricultural College not to allow
the Cornell University to outstrip this old Commonwealth, that
you heard so eulogized this morning. Prof. Chadbourne told
us that Massachusetts was ahead in everything. The Cornell
University is getting ahead of your Board, sir. There is no
reason why it should be so. Let the Agricultural College have
a department for the young women of this Commonwealth who
desire to make horticulturists of themselves ; who desire to
learn how to furnish their houses tastefully when they have
them, how to take care of our green-houses, and how to perform
profitably and well all those details which the hand of woman
can always do so much better than the hand of man. There
are branches of education, in which the females of Massachusetts
can be educated in that college, which will be of service not
only to themselves, but to every one who takes an interest in
that education which is to elevate all the people of the State up
to a proper standard.

Mr. President, I have made a long argument in behalf of the
Agricultural College ; but I have, in doing it, endeavored
simply to discharge a duty which the president of that college

190 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

imposed upon me, and which he himself could have discharged
so much better than I have done it. I have simply endeavored
to speak for that college, which so many of us believe in, and
which is the child of this Commonwealth ; and I trust that in
after years there will be classes of young men sent out from
those halls to the hills of Berkshire, who can hold an agricul-
tural meeting here, in this town, from which only exact knowl-
edge and the best science will flow, for the developing and
beautifying of a prosperous agriculture.

Dr. DuRFEE. I want to make a single remark in regard to
one department of the Agricultural College, and that is the bo-
tanic. I think that all I have ever done for the Massachusetts
Agricultural College has been repaid a thousand fold. At the
close of the term last year, while I was visiting Amherst, there
was an examination of the herbariums of the students, that
were brought into the president's office, and one student pre-
sented four hundred varieties of the plants of Massachusetts,
all attached to his herbarium, and all in perfect order. Now I
say, Mr. President, that this one fact coming to my knowledge,
was abundant compensation to me for all that I have ever done
for the college.

Col. Wilder. I believe all will agree with me, that we have
enjoyed a profitable season while we have been assembled in this
hall ; that the sessions have been most useful and interesting,
and that for the major part of the success of this meeting we are
indebted to the Berkshire Agricultural Society and the good
citizens of Pittsfield. I therefore desire to present this Resolu-
tion : —

Resolved, That the thanks of the Massachusetts Board of Ag-
riculture are due and are hereby tendered to the Berkshire
Agricultural Society and to the good people of Pittsfield for the
ample and excellent accommodations provided for the sessions
of the Board, and for the courtesy and attention extended to its
members.

Carried unanimously.

Col. Wilder. I desire also to say, in reply to the remark of
the Hon. Mr. Colt, that he hoped we should again visit this

DR. TODD ON FARMING. 191

region, at some more genial season, that whatever may be the
grandeur and beauty of the Berkshire hills, whatever may be
the fertility and verdure of her vales, whatever may be the ex-
cellence and purity of her stock, whatever her agricultural pro-
ducts may have been, we have had the evidence that her best
crop is her worthy men, who have honored these meetings with
their presence. It has given me great pleasure to see present
on this occasion our venerable friend. Dr. Todd, whose peculiar
province is the care and cultivation of the soul, but who has man-
ifested during our meetings in this hall so lively an interest in
the cultivation of the soil, that I desire to ask him if he will
favor us with an address.

Rev. Dr. Todd. We Berkshire people live so far one side of
Massachusetts, that we do not often have the honor of a visit
from the people of the eastern or middle part of the State. If
the good old mother builds a hospital, or an insane asylum, or
a college, or any State institution, she stops before she gets here ;
and when the folks come up from New York to see our hills and
breathe this air, and find that this is Massachusetts, they some-
times look around and wonder where the institutions of Massa-
chusetts are ! The time may come when our good mother will
feel that it may be best to plant something here, and when it
does, we promise to take good care of the child t/iat she sends
here.

I claim to be a farmer myself, because, by the kindness of my
friend, Mr. Plunkett, I once bought a farm for $1,550, and it
will give you an exalted idea of the powers of that man to know
that he actually got the pay for it ! I ran that farm until I
found my salary would not support it, making all manner of
experiments, to my own satisfaction ; and when I sold the farm
I took ample revenge, for I have been eating it up ever since.

J desire, in behalf of the Pittsfield people and the Berkshire
people, to thank the Board for coming here. I am glad that
they have come and have had a good meeting, and are satisfied.
If they are satisfied with Pittsfield, I have only to say that Pitts-
field is perfectly delighted with the Board. We shall remember
this meeting, and hope the time is not far distant when it will
be repeated.

Dr. LoRiNG. The endeavors that have been made at this
meeting to report the proceedings in the public press have been

192 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

creditable to the press and extremely gratifying to the Board.
I therefore offer this Resolution : —

Resolved, That the thanks of the Board of Agriculture of
Massachusetts are hereby tendered to the " New York Trib-
une," "Springfield Republican," "Massachusetts Ploughman,"
" Homestead," " Hearth and Home," and the local papers for
their reports of the proceedings of this session of the Board.

The Resolution was adopted, and the Board adjourned sine
die.

ANNUAL MEETING.

The Board met at the office of the Secretary, in Boston, on
Thursday, January 27th, 1870.

Present : Messrs. Baker, Bassett, Birnie, Blair, Boise, Brad-
ford, Brown, Clement, Ellsworth, Fearing, Hubbard, Jas. P. C.
Hyde, Johnson, Knowlton, Loring, Moore, Morton, Porter,
Saltonstall, Slade, Stone, Thatcher, Thompson, Ward and Wil-
der.

Col. Wilder was requested to preside, and accordingly took
the chair.

A committee on the order of business was appointed, con-
sisting of Messrs. Saltonstall, Birnie and Thatcher.

While the committee was out, the Secretary laid before the
Board a communication from Mr. Hebron Vincent of Edgar-
town, in relation to the organization of Farmers' Institutes, as
follows : —

Edgartown, Mass., January 20, 1870.

Mt Dear Sir : — I intended sooner to have given you a sketch
of the plan which has suggested itself to my mind, and upon which
we exchanged views when last I saw you at your office. The sub-
ject of Agricultural Institutes, to be held in the several agricultural
districts of the State, is one which has commended itself to my own
mind for the last two or three years. I have conversed freely upon
the subject with many of our friends, and find, so far, a very gen-
eral concurrence with my views.

My plan, in substance, is, to hold meetings, at proper intervals,
in some convenient part of each section of the State comprising the
limits of an agricultural society, somewhat after the style of the

FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 193

State Teachers' Institutes. As there are about thirty societies, per-
haps ten a year would be sufficient, which would give to each society
an institute once in three years. Of course I would not suggest all
the details usual at a Teachers' Institute, nor anything like the num-
ber of lecturers. I would say, let the Secretary of the State Board
plan the arrangements for such meeting, and have the charge ; or,
in case he could not attend, appoint a substitute. Perhaps one or
two lecturers besides the Secretary, or other person having the
charge, would be all-sufficient. Have all the farmers of the district
who can, come together, and let the sessions be for two, three, or
four days, as should be judged best. Let the lectures be on prac-
tical topics connected with agriculture and horticulture, but mainly
the former ; and following each lecture, let there be the most perfect
freedom given to the audience to propose questions to the speaker,
and to enter into discussion on the matters presented. To give still
greater variety and interest, a part of the sessions might be occupied
in discussions upon subjects previously assigned, speakers from
among the citizens having been appointed, and others, with the
professors, freely participating. Covering the time in these vari-
ous ways, sj^iced, occasionally, with music, and graced by the pres-
ence of the ladies, if they please to attend, it is believed the farmers
would feel a great interest in such gatherings, and could but be
greatly profited. All the teaching should be plain as well as prac-
tical, the more so the better.

Our agricultural college is a noble institution, and should receive
every needful support and encouragement. It is doing, and will do
a good work. But at present, at least, the number of educated far-
mers it sends out must be small in comi^arison with the great masses
of the people who need light, and it probably can never siipply, fully,
that service to the masses which such gatherings as I propose would
render. Bringing instruction down to their door-stones, and so in-
timately connecting it with their interests, they would feel that the
Institute was their own institution, and would prize it all the more
for that fact.

The only objection of any weight to the plan may be the expense.
It may be ui-ged that we want to appropriate all we can to the col-
lege. Very well. But the expense for this would be trifling com-
pared with what we expend on the college. While fifty or a
hundred thousand is asked for at a time for the latter, some two,
three, or four thousand a year is all that under any circumstances
could be needed annually for the former ; while for the present, to say
the least, the institutes held as I have suggested, would be far more
25

194 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

wide-spread in diffusing knowledge, and sowing the seeds of truth
on agricultural subjects.

Trusting that the State Board of Agriculture will favorably con-
sider this subject, and that the legislature will pass an Act which
miay be recommended by the Board, providing for such a system of
diffusing knowledge on this important subject,

I remain yours, very respectfully,

Hebron Vincent.

Tills commuincation was laid on the table, when the Com-
mittee on the Order of Business submitted the following

E E P ORT .

1st. Reports of Delegates.
2d. Reports of Committees.

3d. All matters relating to the Agricultural College.
4tli. Miscellaneous business.

It is not intended to render it out of order for a delegate to
offer any matter of reference at any stage of the debates.

L. Saltonstall, Chairman.

The reports of delegates to the various agricultural societies
were then submitted, as follows : —

Col. Wilder reported upon the Essex, Mr. Boise upon the
Middlesex North, Mr. Clement upon the Worcester, Mr. Porter
upon the Worcester West, Mr. Birnie upon the Worcester
North, Mr. Stone upon the Worcester North- West, Mr. Morton
upon the Worcester South, Mr. Ellsworth upon the Worcester
South-East, Mr. Brown upon the Hampden, Mr. Ward upon
the Hampden East, Mr. Bassett upon the Union, Mr. Slade
upon the Housatonic, and Mr. Knowlton upon the Bristol
Central.

These reports, after discussion, were laid over under the rule.

The Committee appointed at the Pittsfield meeting, upon
Roads and Road Making, consisting of Messrs. Jas. F. C. Hyde,
N. S. Hubbard and A. P. Slade, having asked for instructions,
it was, after some discussion, —

Voted, To refer the whole matter to the committee to consider
and report the proper course to be adopted in regard to the
essays which had been submitted for their inspection.

Adjourned.

PREPARATION OF THE SOIL. 195

SECOND DAT.

The Board met at 10 o'clock, A. M., Hon. Marshall P.
Wilder in the Chair.

The reports of delegates being in order, Mr. Johnson submit-
ted a report upon the fair of the Hingham Society, Mr. Blair
upon the Marshfield, Mr. Hubbard upon the Martha's Vineyard,
Mr. Thompson upon the Highland, Mr. Johnson upon the Nor-
folk, and Mr. Plunkett upon the Hampshire, Franklin and
Hampden.

These reports were laid over under the rule, to take their
second reading in order.

Mr. John B. Moore, chairman, then submitted the following
Essay upon the

PREPAKATION OF THE SOIL AND PLANTING OF THE SEED.

Perhaps it is hardly necessary to say, that it is of the
utmost importance, in all attempts to produce crops, that we
proceed at the proper time, carefully and thoroughly, to make
such a preparation of the soil as shall insure, as nearly as pos-
sible, as full and perfect a crop of whatever grains, roots, vegeta-
bles or fruits we desire to produce.

I do not apprehend any dissent from this proposition, for the
advancement in agricultural knowledge, the more careful culti-
vation of the soil, the improved tools specially designed to do
better and more thorough work, the improved breeds of domes-
tic animals, and better varieties of all cultivated grains, fruits
and vegetables, prove that the intelligent cultivators of the soil
have accepted this proposition as true.

What we may have to say about the preparation of soils,
perhaps all will not accept as the best method. For ourselves,
we can only say that we have no theories that we desire to push,
and if we advance any wrong ideas, you will of course discuss
them and set us right ; for, after all, it is by the comparison,
discussion and trial of different methods that we arrive at cor-
rect conclusions.

Ploughing is the first thing to be done in preparing the soil
for the seed. This is a very important operation, and should
always be done with a good and suitable plough. The rule
should be to take a furrow narrow enough to thoroughly move
and break up the entire soil as deep as the plough runs ; and

196 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE.

nothing short of this should be permitted or can be called good
ploughing.

Any observing person must have noticed the difference in the
pulverization of the soil produced by ploughs of the various
patterns now in use, some of them, more particularly in plough-
ing sod ground, turning over and liardly cracking the inverted
furrow, leaving the ground hard and compact ; others, turning
the sod just as well, and, in addition, breaking and loosening
the whole mass, and leaving it in a light and friable condition.
Now the last is much the best condition to leave it in, and will
save a great deal of labor in harrowing, hoeing and after-culti-
vation of the crops. And therefore we say, that there is noth-
ing saved, but much lost, by slighting this the first operation in
the cultivation of the land. Bad ploughing cannot, by any
after-preparation, such as harrowing or hoeing, be entirely rem-
edied ; for if the land is not well ploughed, the entire soil is
not brought to that light and friable condition so essential to
perfect vegetation. There are left in the soil hard and unloos-
ened places, partially, if not wholly, impenetrable to the fine
rootlets of plants ; and therefore the area of ground which
should be occupied by the roots of the plants to be grown is
reduced to nearly the extent of the unstirred soil. And then
by using a plough that does not crack, break or crumble into
little particles the whole soil, the same result will be obtained
to some extent. That is, the hard lumps, covered so deep in
the ground as to be out of reach of the harrow, are partially or
entirely useless to the future crop ; and the cultivator that al-
lows such imperfect work to be done on his land, suffers from
it not only in the labor of after-cultivation but in the crops also.
And here the old adage, " that whatever is worth doing, is
worth doing well," applies as strongly as in any other farm
operation.

As to the time of ploughing, as a rule, no land should be
ploughed when very wet. It is injurious to all soils, but more
particularly to a clay or a very wet soil, which are left by such a
ploughing in a hard and lumpy condition, compacted in some
cases almost like mortar, and in an extremely unfavorable con-
dition for vegetation. After ploughing, the land should be har-
rowed for the purpose of breaking lumps, working the soil to a
fine tilth, and levelling any little inequalities of the surface. On

USE SHARES' HAEROW. 197

old ground, there is often a gain in the crop by ploughing and
harrowing more than once before seeding, particularly where
the land is to be sowed to roots, as the second ploughing not
only produces a more perfect pulverization but destroys a crop
of weeds just germinating.

For an inverted sod, one of your Committee has found
" Shares' Harrow " to be altogether the best and most perfect
instrument in use. It not only pulverizes the soil thoroughly
and deeply, but it does it without pulling up the sod. It is
also claimed that it puts in seed at a uniform depth, covering
the whole, and leaving none on the surface of the ground.

These are the usual mechanical operations practised in pre-
paring land to be planted with the various crops. But this
should be only a part of the preparation ; for, to produce good
crops, the plants must be supplied with nutriment adapted to
their sustenance, and in such quantities and in such a condition
as to be readily taken up and assimilated by the plant, to insure
a full crop. Now it is a well-settled fact that a perfect or a fat
animal cannot be produced upon poor, miserable keeping, that
two cans of milk a day cannot be got from a cow fed on coarse
sedge alone ; but it would be just as reasonable to expect such
a result as it would be to produce one hundred bushels of corn,
fifty bushels of wheat or five hundred bushels of potatoes on an
acre upon our worn soils, without supplying sufficient manure
adapted to their vigorous growth.

Therefore, while we would urge the great importance of
ploughing, harrowing and stirring the ground thoroughly, that
alone is not sufficient to produce crops on our soils. There
must be a good supply of manure, and it must be applied
in abundance, if we desire large crops. Barnyard manure is
and must continue to be the principal source of fertilization of
the land, combining as it does most of the ingredients required
for the growth of all plants. It not only furnishes food for
plants, but, when mixed with the soil, it acts as a divisor, and
in the process of decomposition generates gases which permeate
and loosen the soil, making it light and friable ; and it also dis-
solves or liberates mineral matters already in the soil, fit-
ting them for plant-food. Still there are certain elements re-
quired by the various kinds of plants cultivated that are not
furnished in sufiicient quantities for their full and perfect devel-

198 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

opment without applying that manure in very large quantities.
Now, instead of that, would it not be better to apply a good but
"more moderate quantity of such manure, and also if it does not
contain in itself everything necessary for the particular crop to
be grown, than to apply, in addition, a sufficient quantity of
such particular element or food to supply all such wants ?

It is perfectly clear to our minds, not so much by an analysis
of the plants themselves by chemists, — for no chemist can tell
the exact wants of plants by an analysis of the plant itself, or
how much of any particular manure to apply for any crop by
an analysis of the soil, — as by well authenticated experiments
and by our own experience, that certain varieties of plants do
require, as they are said, a certain food. Wheat and corn re-
quire nitrogen and potash ; turnips and cabbages, phosphates ;
potatoes, potash in large quantities. Now all these varieties of
plants require all the elements named, but each of them re-
quires the particular one assigned to it largely in excess of the
others. Therefore a heavy dressing of barnyard manure — say
one hundred loads to the acre — applied on good land for corn,
containing as it does a very large amount of nitrogen and pot-
ash, would produce a large and luxuriant crop of corn. The
same amount of manure applied for turnips or potatoes,
although the soil might contain everything needed for them, yet
perhaps they would be so overstimulated by the large amount
of nitrogen as to force them to tops, and thus lessen the crop.

As some may doubt this proposition, perhaps we can illustrate it
in this way : take a field upon which the manure has laid in a pile
the previous winter ; of course under the pile it is exceedingly
rich in ammonia and other matters which have washed and
soaked down from the heap above. If planted with corn it will
be the largest and most productive spot in the field, from the fact
of the great supply of this desirable food furnished it ; but what
is the result if planted with turnips or potatoes : why great tops,
poor turnips and small potatoes, from the great excess of nitrog-
enous substances, which are too stimulating.

Therefore, in preparing soils, while we would apply barn-
yard manure plentifully if we had it, we would also add to the
soil a quantity of such other particular substances as in our
judgment the crop might require ; this, with a thorough pulver-
ization of the soil, and an intimate mixture of the manure suit-

MUCK IN THE COMPOST. 199

able for the expected crop, ought, with a favorable season, to
produce good results.

We have not said anything about draining, an important
operation in preparing soils where too wet, as we understood the
subject to apply to soils otherwise suitable for crops. This thor-
ough preparation of the soil is of the greatest importance to
market gardeners, and to the growers of small fruits. Andrew
Fuller, in the Small Fruit Culturist, expresses his belief that there
is not one acre of strawberries in a thousand, cultivated in this
country, that yields one-half that it would if the ground was
properly prepared before planting. Your Committee are also
well satisfied that, in the preparation of soils, it is beneficial
to the crops to dress low or peaty soils composed of vegetable
matter to a large extent, either with sand directly, or with sand,
or sandy loam in the composts to be applied to such soils, as
they are usually deficient in silica, so necessary in the produc-
tion of grass or grain ; and that muck applied to a sandy soil,
when it can be procured within a reasonable distance, furnishes
such a soil with the vegetable matter that it is usually deficient
in. It also acts as an absorbent, retaining the water, and, to
some extent, preventing damage from a drought.

Perhaps the better way would be to use muck in the compost
heap ; there it retains the ammonia, absorbs the gases, and is
undoubtedly one of the best of deodorizers ; such a compost is
particularly adapted to fruit trees and small fruits, and is in fact
a good dressing for almost any crop, and by many thought to be
equal to manure, load for load, in value. We have also seen
excellent results from its application to clayey soils ; by mixing
with the clay it prevents such a soil from compacting and baking
in a dry time, as well as by furnishing plant food. Of course
the foregoing remarks about the use of muck are intended to
apply to a good article. We are well aware that there are beds
of muck, so charged with mineral or other matters as to be en-
tirely unfit for vegetation, or certainly until such noxious sub-
stances are neutralized by some proper preparation.

Before planting the seed, the first thing to be done is to pro-
cure a suitable variety to be grown, and no reasonable expense
should be spared to procure such a variety. Good seed may be
known by its weight, size, and plumpness. A poor, shrivelled
or imperfect seed may be capable of germination, and in many

200 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE.

instances grow, but will be likely to produce inferior plants and
seed, while with the same soil and cultivation the best and most
perfect seed will be sure to produce the largest and best crop.

The maxim " that like produces like " is certainly true in re-
gard to cultivated plants, as well as in the breeding of animals,
where the varieties of the same species are not exposed to mix-
ture by accidental hybridization.

In planting seeds, certain conditions of the same are necessary,
a certain degree of warmth, moisture, and some exposure to the
air, according to the wants of the different species of plants, are
necessary to produce vegetation. To produce this in its great-
est perfection, a seed must be buried in the soil only to a proper
depth ; small seeds are frequently destroyed by too deep plant-
ing ; the air, moisture and warmth act on the outer covering,
the whole seed swells, and some change takes place within the
seed, by which its substance is changed and prepared to nourish
the swelling germ. The first shoot which appears from a seed
is a small delicate root ; this always grows down, while a stalk
shoots up towards the surface, and bursts forth from the ground
and forms a plant.

These little roots which start first and penetrate downwards,
as we have before said, are very delicate and tender ; they have
gone in search of food for the young embryo plant, and to pro-
duce vigorous and healthy plants, must come in contact at once
in the soil with proper food for its nourishment. If this food is
not there, or in such a condition that the plant cannot feed upon
it, the plant will perish ; if there in insufficient quantities, it can.
only produce a half-starved plant ; and even if there in abun-
dance with the soil not thoroughly pulverized and still full of
hard lumps, the plants cannot arrive to perfection.

This again illustrates the necessity of thorough preparation of
the soil previous to planting.

It is undoubtedly better to plant the seed of all the grains,
and also the root crops in drills or hills, as it leaves them in a
more favorable condition to weed, hoe and cultivate than if sown
broadcast ; the English generally, and the Americans, to some
extent, drill-in their wheat, and also hoe and weed it where they
give it the highest cultivation ; by this process they save enough
seed to pay the extra expense of drilling machines, and also in-
crease their crop ; the grain stands better, the air circulates

CONDITIONS OF GROWTH. 201

through it better, every seed is covered perfectly and is about
sure to vegetate.

In planting the smaller seeds, as the carrot, parsnip, onion,
and the various grass seeds, care should be taken not to cover
too deep, as many of them start so feebly as not to have suffi-
cient strength to reach the surface of the ground with heavy
covering.

The distance apart that seed should be sown must be gov-
erned by the size to which the plant attains when mature.

All plants or trees, to become fully developed and to arrive
at their greatest perfection, must have sufficient room to grow.
They cannot become what they should be if cramped or con-
fined in any way. This is well illustrated in a thick growth of
wood, where there is from necessity a constant contest going on
between the neighboring trees for the food in the soil, and a
more perfect development of the top in the air, one tree trying
to overtop another, so that it may expand and spread its
branches and leaves more fully to the light and influences of
the atmosphere. If it succeeds in overtopping its weaker
neighbor, the latter will grow weaker and weaker, and at last
will have to give way to its more powerful competitor, which
will thus acquire the room necessary for its full development.

In planting our seeds, therefore, economy of seed and of cul-
ture and the perfection of the crop demand that we should
plant at the right distances and thin to the proper number of
plants to obtain a full crop, not leaving the plants to expend
their energies in overpowering and destroying the next plant,
instead of fully developing itself; or, as a rule, not to try to
grow two plants where there is only room for one.

After all, what is a seed that it should require from the cul-
tivator so careful a preparation of the soil and planting ? Wiiy,
it is a little embryo plant encased in a shell or husk ; an at-
tempt of a plant, or a provision made by which to reproduce
itself. Watch its course wiien planted, and see it develop into
a perfect plant, and you will find one of the most interesting
and wonderful things in nature. The first thing that takes
place is the swelling of the germ and the sprouting of the little
root ; we may call it the birth of the plant. This little root
strikes down into the soil. It seems to have the same instinct
that animals have at their birth ; the first thing it does is to
26

202 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

seek for food for its support. It sucks its food, composed of
mineral, earthy and other matters, from tlie soil through the
little mouths, at the extremities of the roots, just as effectively, if
not in precisely the same manner, as an animal ; and it absorbs
the carbon and other necessary food through its leaves from the
atmosphere. All its food is taken in a liquid state. It has the
power of selecting and depositing in their proper places all the
ingredients that make a perfect tree or plant, of perfecting our
grains and fruits, and of giving the beautiful colors to our flow-
ers. In fact, it has the power of growing from a little seed — an
acorn, for instance — by the processes named, laying on layer
upon layer of circles of wood through centuries, and thus form-
ing the noble and sturdy oak, simply by giving it the proper
food, ample space and a well-prepared soil.

John B. Moore.

Lewis H. Bradford.

John T. Ellsworth.

This Essay, after an animated discussion, was then laid over
under the rule ; when Mr. H. S. Porter, Chairman of the
Committee upon the subject, submitted the following Essay
upon the

BREEDING AND TRAINING OF HORSES.

The breeding of horses is a subject of great importance to
the farming interests of our country, and one that almost every
person is interested in, either for pleasure or profit. The man,
or woman either, who does not like a good horse, would be
as hard to find as one who does not like good music. But each
one has his own ideas of perfection. One wants a horse that
can get himself up in the best possible style ; another wants one
that can go a mile in 2.25 ; and still another one wants one
that he can hitch to his plough as well as his carriage. As it is
impossible for one horse to possess all these qualities, we must
admit the importance of breeding for some special purpose.
In order to produce the best style and action, without particular
reference to speed, the parents must be stylish. Where speed
is the object, the breeder should select animals whose build is
adapted to that purpose. There are among horses, as among
cattle, a great many distinct breeds, each having its own pecu-
liar merits. When a man has decided what kind or breed of

BREEDING OF HORSES. 203

horses he wants, either for himself or the market, the next
thing is to select a suitable dam. And here I would say that
not one in five of such as are called good horses are fit to breed
from. Hereditary diseases and even vicious habits, either nat-
ural or acquired, are almost certain to be transmitted to the
foal. The dam should be of good size, with strong, healthy
constitution and a mild disposition, which, by the way, is an im-
portant point, and one which can easily be ascertained by those
familiar with horses. If the eye is full and intelligent, the fore-
head broad, the head long and slim, with delicate, higli-pointed
ears, you have a kind, intelligent and active horse. On the
other hand, if he is thick-joled, with eyes small and deeply set,
head short and clumsy, with narrow forehead, and heavy, thick
ears, you have a dull, stupid horse. Add to this a full, round
face, and you have a vicious-tempered animal, as likely to go
back as forward, or kick and run away when the opportunity
presents itself. The dam should be the largest, and with her,
ease of movement is considered of greater importance than
smoothness of build.

The stallion, from whatever breed he is chosen, should be of
pure blood, with great muscular power ; not too large, but of
perfect symmetry, without blemish or fault. With such parents,
the breeder need not fear inferior progeny.

If the mother is not wanted, the best place is in the pasture
for the first four or five months after foaling. The colt should
then be weaned and given an allowance of milk for a fevr days
or weeks, according to convenience ; then good hay, with a
quart of oats daily, for the winter, with exercise in the open air
in pleasant weather. Grain should not be fed too freely while
the colt is growing, but give him plenty of good hay. Never
let him get poor ; it takes a long time to get back.

"When the colt is young, it should be handled and led with a
halter, but never harnessed until it is three years old. I know
this is not in accordance with the views of many, but my opin-
ion is that many colts are spoiled by being used too young.
And here I would say that I strongly disapprove of the practice
of trotting colts on our tracks before they come to maturity. I
have known many a fine colt spoiled by testing his speed beyond
his powers of endurance. Our agricultural societies should

204 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

never offer premiums, where speed governs, for horses less than
five years old.

When the colt is between three and four years old, let him
be harnessed very carefully by some one who knows how to
handle a colt — not by any boy that happens to think he knows
all about it. Let him stand with the harness on for an hour or
two ; the next time a little longer ; and so on, until he gets per-
fectly familiar with it. Then, if convenient, hitch him by the
side of an old horse to a sled or wagon, and use him very care-
fully— not too long the first time. Use him so a few times,
then hitch him to something alone. Be gentle and patient.
If he does not go the first time, be a little indulgent, and wait
his motion. Let him understand that you are not going to hurt
him. Never manifest any impatience, and on no account use
the whip. See that everything is right about the harness ;
sometimes a very little thing will irritate the colt and make him
refuse to go. If you are sure that nothing is wrong, and he
still refuses to go, unharness, take a small, stout cord, tie one
end to his under jaw, pass the cord over the neck back through
the noose at the mouth. Now take the cord in the hands firmly
and give it a sudden jerk, first on one side then on the other,
for a few minutes. The power is so great that you have perfect
control of him. If he is not inclined to follow you, put a sur-
cingle around him, bring the cord back under the surcingle,
then pull very gently, bring his head around towards his side.
Now tie a cord to one of his fore feet ; bring it up through the
surcingle over his back ; take up his foot, at the same time
draw on the cord over his back, so as to keep it off the ground.
Then pull the cord attached to his mouth, so as to bring tlie
head around close to his body. If he makes resistance, just
hold the cords firmly, and in a few minutes he will yield and be
inclined to lie down. Let him do so gently ; be careful to have
him fall so as not to bring his head under ; keep the cords tight,
and in two minutes you have the colt under the most perfect
control. You can now loosen the cords, handle the colt any-
where, do anything to him, and he is your most obedient ser-
vant. Do not keep him down but a short time. When he is
up, take the cord from his foot. He has now perfect confidence
in your ability to overpower him, and still, if you have been
careful, you have not irritated his temper. He will follow you

THE COLLEGE FARM. ' 205

anywhere. You can harness now, and I venture to say that
not one colt in twenty will ever trouble you again. The great
secret in breaking and handling horses, is to keep the mastery
both over the horse and your own temper.

The intelligence of the horse is wonderful. He remembers
every kindness, and, unless his disposition has been soured by
bad usage, he will return, by looks and actions, every token of
kindness offered him. Always let him know as plainly as pos-
sible what you want him to do, then endeavor to make him do
as you wish by gentle management. Never resort to the whip
until everything else has failed, and then only enough to bring
him to submission.

The Arabs, although a vicious and barbarous people, are
noted for their kind treatment of their horses. The Arabian
horse has been brought to the highest state of intelligence of
any breed known. I account for this in the way they are used.
The fondness which the horse manifests for his master can only
be created by kindness and care on the part of the master. I
see no reason why the same treatment would not produce the
same results if practised upon our own breeds of horses.

H. S. Porter.

John B. Moore.

John Johnson, Jr.

This Essay having been discussed and laid over to be taken
upon for its second reading, Mr. Slade, of the Visiting Com-
mittee of the Agricultural College, submitted the following

report:

In looking over the college farm, the following suggestions
occur to your Committee ; and they are offered, not in a spirit
of fault-finding, but for the benefit of an institution in which we
all have a common interest.

We submit then that the general management of the farm, so
far as relates to the production of crops and permanent improve-
ments, should not differ in the main from that which an enter-
prising and successful farmer would give to his own farm. The
farm should be properly stocked, and careful and constant atten-
tion should be given to the making of manure.

That this is the first step to be taken in the direction of sue-

206 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

cessful farming, is an axiom in agriculture that need not be
repeated.

We regret to say, that in this important particular a gross
negligence was too apparent. Although at the visit of your
Committee in December, some twenty two-year-olds had been
added to the stock, and all were kept in the barn, yet not a par-
ticle of bedding was to be seen, nor was there a single load of
loam, muck or sand used in the cellar for an absorbent, nor was
the bottom of the cellar cemented. This stock, we were told,
was purchased for tlie purpose of converting hay and grain into
manure.

A large portion of the farm is in a somewhat rough state, pre-
senting an uneven surface, and producing an indifferent crop of
grass, both as to quality and quantity. Some of the land has
been already underdrained, and more of it must be, before its
full value can be realized ; yet we would not advise an expendi-
ture in this direction, until those sections which do not require
draining have been brought into a higher state of cultivation.

The hoed crops which we examined in August were far from
looking luxuriant or promising ; they did not compare favorably
even with similar crops in fields adjoining tlie college farm.
The experiment of raising two good crops on the same ground
and at the same time had evidently been on trial, and had proved
a failure. Weeds had been allowed to make too rank a growth
before they were destroyed, and it was also apparent that they
increased about in the ratio as the distance from the paths and
travelled roads increased, the margin of the fields being compar-
atively clean. But in all the crops which we examined, none
were observed to be under the rigid rule of clean culture.

The vegetable garden, which was budding with so much prom-
ise in the spring, appeared in August to have had a fitful strug-
gle for existence during the summer, and was evidently suffering
from the inroads of noxious weeds and insects injurious to veg-
etation.

Our second visit was made on the 4th of August, and, by in-
vitation, we dined witli the students ; and it was a noticeable
and we might say a significant fact, that the only vegetable found
on the bill of fare or on the table was the potato. No fruit of
any kind.

Now these facts, taken in connection with the course of lee-

ACCURATE EXPERIMENTAL KNOWLEDGE. 207

tures which had just been delivered on Market-Gardening and
Small Fruit Culture, forced on your Committee the conviction
that the theory of agriculture without the practice, was like
faith without works.

The boarding-house is furnished with bedding, cooking uten-
sils and furniture by the trustees. A steward takes possession
of the house, and furnishes board at a certain rate per week.
This, in point of economy, we think is a bad arrangement. Let
a competent person take charge of the house, and under the di-
rection of the trustees purchase his stores at wholesale prices,
and supply his tables with dairy products from the farm, and
with vegetables from a " model vegetable garden," and with beef,
pork, mutton and poultry raised and fatted on the farm, and let
board be furnished the students at the lowest practicable rates.
This would at once create a home market for the products of the
farm ; and were the students required to become familiar with
the best methods by which these supplies are produced, they
would acquire lessons in agriculture of more practical value
than they could possibly learn in the laboratory or lecture-room.

A cultivated farm in connection with an agricultural college,
conveys to the public mind the idea of a model farm, or a farm
at least so far as relates to the cultivation of the soil or to hus-
bandry in general, where all is done under the light of science
and in the most approved manner, and whose operations in prac-
tical agriculture it would be both safe and desirable to follow.

Farmers throughout the Commonwealth are eagerly looking
to the college for that light which is to guide them to success in
their calling.

Success in agriculture depends to a great extent on an accur
rate experimental knoivledge. And we think a series of experi-
ments should be assigned to each class, and the results accurately
noted and published for the benefit of the community at large.
While we would not have less agricultural instruction in the
lecture-room, we would have more exemplified on the farm.

So far as it is possible to do so, let every theory taught in the
college be practically illustrated on the farm.

The foregoing suggestions are made with great deference to
the board of trustees who have these matters in charge, know-
ing as we do the many obstacles they have had to contend with,
and in the full belief that many extenuating circumstances

208 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

might by urged in favor of the somewhat unsettled policy which
seems to prevail ; yet we feel that much might be done to speed-
ily remedy many of the evils we have enumerated.

A. P. Slade.

T. D. Thatcher.

THIRD DAY.

The Board met at 10 o'clock, A. M.

Present: Messrs. Baker, Bassett, Blair, Boise, Brown, Clem-
ent, Ellsworth, Hubbard, Alexander Hyde, Johnson, Knowlton,
Loring, Moore, Morton, Porter, Plunkett, Thatcher, Tliompson,
Saltonstall, Slade, Stone, Ward and Wilder.

Mr. Thatcher, of Lee, in the chair.

After a discussion in regard to the powers and duties of the
Board as Overseers of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, •
it was

Voted, To take the paper upon Farmers' Institutes from the
table and refer it to a committee of three.

This committee was constituted by the appointment of Messrs.
Alexander Hyde, Thompson and Saltonstall.

The mode of feeding stock was then considered at consider-
able length, when the Board adjourned to Monday the 31st.

FOURTH DAY.

The Board met at 11 o'clock, A. M., Hon Albert Fearing, of
Hingham, in tlie chair.
It was

Voted, To appoint a committee to report a list of subjects for
investigation, and to nominate committees on essays.

Messrs. Clark, Birnie and Stone were constituted the com-
mittee.

Voted, To appoint a committee to consider and report upon
the time and place of holding the country meeting.

Messrs. Bradford, Johnson and Thompson.

CLOVER AS A MANURE. 209

Mr. Thatcher then submitted the following Report upon

CLOVER AS A FERTILIZER.

In considering the subject of clover as a fertilizer, I do not
propose to make a lengthy paper upon the subject, but to throw
out such thoughts and views as have been suggested by my own
experience and in my limited observation among other farmers.
I should have let the matter pass without offering any thoughts
upon the subject, feeling that I should have been in the fashion,
to some extent, of the members of this body, were it not a prin-
ciple of my own, long since settled upon, to endeavor, in what-
ever position I am placed, to do the best I can to promote the
object of our association and employment as agriculturists. If
I may draw out or provoke a discussion by what I shall here
offer, the object for which these subjects are assigned to their
several committees will in some measure have been attained.

Clover will grow on pretty much all soils that have been laid
dry by draining or that are naturally dry. It is the basis of good
farming on all lands susceptible of alternate husbandry. Its
benefits are threefold at least. It breaks, pulverizes and ameli-
orates the soil by its tap-roots, and it furnishes a cheap food for
plants as well as animals. A good clover lay I believe to be
worth to a crop as much as five cords of good manure to the
acre. To insure a good lay, at least ten or twelve pounds of
seed must be sown to the acre, and the ground well prepared
for the reception of that seed ; and after the seed has been sown
I would recommend the rolling of the ground and such other
methods of smoothing as different farmers may suggest or adopt
as their own. Its value as food for plants depends as much, if
not more, upon the quantity of roots as upon the luxuriance of
the stems, though the abundance of the latter depends in a
great measure upon the number of the former.

To obtain the full value of this plant, we must cultivate it as
food for our crops as well as for cattle, and to use it successfully
for our crops, we must use it the first or second year, before it
has run out. Where the soil is adapted to the cultivation of
clover, there is economy in sowing it with small grains, even
though it should be ploughed-in the same or the next season.
Ten pounds of seed cost, upon an average, say $1.50 ; the
labor of sowing is comparatively nothing. Its value to the

27

210 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

next crop cannot be less than quadruple that sum, to say noth-
ing of the feed it may afford or its mechanical amelioration of
the soil. My practice has been — and I thinly many other farm-
ers adopt the same — to mow the clover only one year for
cattle-food, and then to turn it under as food for the crops,
especially where wheat is to be sown, thus insuring a return to
the soil of a mass of rich vegetable matter. Clover is a bien-
nial plant, and of course cannot be depended upon after the
second year for hay.

The clover not only imparts fertility when ploughed under,
but its roots divide and break the soil while growing, and ren-
der it pulverous as they decay. The thicker the plants, the
finer and better the herbage ; the more abundant the roots, the
greater the benefit to the soil, both as regards pulverization and
fertility.

In ploughing-in clover or any other green crop whatever, the
soil is prepared to produce well without any other manures, since
by this process all the soil has produced is returned to it : with
the additions resulting from the decomposed principles of air and
water which are contained in the plants. I would here say that
I think the advantage in ploughing-in a green crop as soon as it
is fit for cutting for hay, over the same crop after it has formed
its seed and become dry and hard, is very great. In order to
understand fully my meaning and the belief I have expressed,
that greater results follow the ploughing-in of a well-grown crop
at maturity, than the same crop after it has formed its seed ; it
is necessary to consider the successive changes which take place
in plants during this growth ; first they produce green leaves,
which by coming in contact with the air receive from it the
principles of which I have spoken, or in other words carbon,
oxygen and hydrogen ; afterwards the stalks increase in size and
number, and are covered with numerous leaves which absorb
from the atmosphere a degree of nourislmient suited to the in-
creasing wants of the plants, the strength and fulness of the
leaves and stalks depending very much upon the richness of the
soil.

This state continues till after the period of flowering, when a
change takes place, the roots dry up, the stalks wither and
change their color, and when the seeds are formed fully both

THE USE OF MUCK. 211

roots and stalks become nearly useless for the purpose of nour-
ishing animals or of manuring earth.

During this process what becomes of the juices contained in
the roots and stalks ? They have been consumed by the forma-
tion of the seeds. Thus we see that those plants that form seeds
exhaust the soil most, because for all they receive they return
nothing but their dry roots and stalks, whilst those that have
been cut or ploughed under while green, give back with their
roots and stalks what they have drawn from the earth and at-
mosphere.

I am aware that some farmers do not agree with me in the
conclusions I have arrived at, but we must all remember that
difference of soils and of localities makes a difference in results,
and in very many instances the season has to do with the same.
As to the kinds of lands or soils best adapted for the use of
clover, I think that where clover will not grow luxuriantly,
which will be in low, wet lands, or in very light sandy soils, the
endeavor to make clover a profitable fertilizer, and sufficient to
redeem such lands and place them in a good state for corn or
wheat or even for pasturing, would be lost labor as well as
money. I think wherever gypsum or plaster can be used sue-?
cessfully, there we may be assured that good results will follow
the sowing of this plant. If plaster should be sowed upon a
piece of clover that is to be ploughed under, immediately before
you commence ploughing, better results would follow than are
usually acknowledged.

With these few random thoughts I will close.
Respectfully submitted for the Committee,

T. D. Thatcher.

This Essay having been read and laid over, Mr. Saltonstall
submitted an Essay, as follows, upon

THE USE OF MUCK.

The term muck signifies in England the heap of manure which
has accumulated in the straw-yard, consisting of refuse hay and
straw, chaff, grass and the dung of animals which are fed in the
sheds and stables of the yard. In this country the term is con-
fined by custom to the peaty soil of swamps and to the bottom
deposit of ponds. Here these two kinds of muck are very differ-

212 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

ent in the elements of their composition, — the first, meadow-
muck, consisting of a mass of semi-decayed trees, leaves, grasses,
mosses, and plants, geine or humus ; while the latter shows by
analysis that far its largest component part is salts and silicates.
So that they bear to each other not much stronger a resemblance
than sand to black mould.

It is intended here to confine our remarks to the use of
meadow muck or peat.

It is no easy matter to bring forward anything new upon this
subject after the learned and exhaustive treatises by Dr. Dana
and others, nor can any fixed or exact rules for its use be laid
down for observance upon all soils and for all crops ; and it is
with the greatest diffidence that we attempt to make any state-
ments upon a subject concerning which there exist so diverse
opinions. Feeling convinced, however, that these rich deposits,
like the coal for fuel, have been stored away by a wise Creator
for enriching the farm and producing food for man and beast,
and that their agricultural value — ignored until a recent pe-
riod— is not now appreciated by the greater number of farmers,
we will here offer our testimony in a few general remarks to
the truth of most which has been written of its value as a fertil-
izer,— though to present more than a very few hints within the
narrow limits of this paper would be absolutely impossible.

All experiments in the analysis and application of muck prove
that it should never be used as an absorbent or a fertilizer in its
fresh, crude state. It should be taken from its cold bed of ages,
reeking as it is with stagnant water and sour gases, exposed to
the frost of at least one winter and opened to the sun of one
summer, before it is fit for any purpose. Whether for use in the
compost heap, the pig-pen or the barnyard, the dryer it is the
better its condition. Let it be dug in August, if possible, and
deposited near the pit in a heap not more than three feet in
thickness, remembering that it will shrink perhaps one-third in
measurement and more than one-half in weight. By doing this,
instead of at once carting it to the barnyard, expense in digging
and in carting will be saved. Let it remain one year, if possi-
ble, before removing it, and turn it with the fork inside out
after the frost leaves it, breaking up the large lumps. It is then
fit to be carried to the place where it is to be used.

In digging, we have found the greatest economy in delivering

MUCK AS AN ABSORBENT. 213

it by wheelbarrows on planks from the pit to the upland, keep-
ing one set of hands digging, another wheeling.

It is as an absorbent that mvick is found to be most useful,
and in that quality a perfect deodorizer. Remembering that it
is the manure which makes the farm profitable, and that all
other things being equal, he who can spread the most good ma-
nure will prosper the best ; and that the urine of cattle is un-
questionably equal in its fertilizing effect to their solid excre-
ment, every effort ought to be made to save it. It is truly a pain-
ful thing to see a farmer paying good dollars for very question-
able fertilizers, while he avails himself not of the resources of his
own farm. We know and are quite ready to acknowledge how
great is the improvement in this respect of late years. Where
all the wash of our barns and houses was once turned into the
gutters and got rid of as a nuisance in the cheapest possible
way, it is now, on most farms, where any degree of intelligence
is brought to bear upon their management, in some measure
preserved. But, alas ! how imperfectly. We yet see outside
the barn windows the heaps of dung, and in the yards the pu-
trid pools of liquid manure, offending the eye and poisoning the
sweet air of spring. If the owner bestirs himself to cart a few
loads of crude muck, sour and dripping, to the yard, making a
mire for his cattle to wallow in, and not much else, he thinks
he has quite done his work, and retires for the winter, to won-
der, at the next harvest, what all this talk about muck signifies.
To him it has proved worthless. Now the rain, wind and sun
are damaging to the liquid as to the solid, though in greater de-
gree, urine, the most delicate of manures, being more easily
deprived of all that renders it useful than solid dung. Those,
then, who do not rejoice in the possession of cemented barn-cel-
lars, where the liquid can be saved with the dung, we would
urge to make a deposit of dry, well-seasoned muck, near at
hand, under cover, if possible, but, if not, piled high and well
covered with leaves and refuse litter to protect it from frost and
rain. We say well-seasoned, for in its crude state it is not an
absorbent, but, like a soaked sponge, can hold no more than
the water already in it. Let this be used as the occasion and
general plan of barn management require. If the wash be col-
lected in a cesspool, throw in muck, as much and as often as
there is anything to be absorbed, remembering it is here, espec-

214 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

ially, if the wash from the house is conveyed hither, that the
best manure of the land — the true source of nitrogenous food
for his crops — is made. If the cesspool has to be frequently
cleaned out, its contents can be at once availed of, or can be
conveyed to the compost heap ; and when delivered load for
load with dung from the cellar or the pen, will form a mass to
please and convince the most skeptical.

Should there be no such method of carrying off the wash,
cast muck, morning and evening, behind the cattle, and as often
throw that which has absorbed the urine upon the dung, of
course under cover. Thus not one drop is lost, and the satis-
faction of knowing it is great.

It is argued by some, that it is better to cart the dung into
the field mixed with the urine, and. the muck, if used at all, by
itself, thereby saving double carting. In rare cases, where
sufficient care and judgment are used, this may be so ; but we
doubt it, and should always advise the other course. The solid
excrement contains the woody fibre and the insoluble animal
matter and salts, and the urine the more soluble salts and sub-
stances rich in nitrogen. Now, if the greatest care be not
taken of the urine, it soon putrifies, its nitrogen flies off in the
shape of ammonia, its soluble salts are carried away by every
shower of rain ; and although a portion of them may be saved
by their mixture with the dung, yet the greater part of its vol-
atile contents is evaporated by the action of the atmosphere.
If it be allowed to drain into a tank or cesspool, it there also
rapidly undergoes putrefaction ; and if this be not checked, a
considerable part of the ammonia produced will escape with the
sulphur and phosphorus resulting from the decomposition of
the salts composing those substances, occasioning the intolerable
stench observed in such cases.

Now the ammonia and the alkalhie and earthy salts are far
the most valuable part of manure, and the former is more val-
uable when the cattle are fed with grains, oil-cake and other
rich food. Without ammonia, if there be any truth in chem-
istry, no seed could be produced ; and without alkaline and
earthy salts neither seed nor plants could exist. How needful
it is, then, that we should take good care of all the manure
which is made upon our own farms, which certainly contains all
elements of plants, and upon which we most safely may rely.

THE PEAT COMPOST. 215

It is not, then, safe to trust tliese nimble workers of good —
these volatile agents ; but we must seize them as soon as born,
and bind them to our service by the help of those coarser ele-
ments for which they have so great an affinity, before they have
flitted to their kindred air.

The second method of using muck is in the compost heap.
It often happens that all the dung iipon a farm cannot be used
at the most fitting season, and must be kept for a future occa-
sion ; that our barn-cellars or manure-sheds are insufficient to
contain what is made during the season. Much care is there-
fore required to prevent its being wasted by fermentation or
from the effect of water. Composting with muck is a most
effectual mode of preserving the manure, and of adding to its
most valuable fertilizing principle.

The following method of making peat compost is given in a
treatise on peat earth, as inserted in a valuable work on Scotch
husbandry : —

" Tiie peat and dung must be thrown up in alternate strata
into a heap about four feet and a half high, and in the following
proportions : — peat six inches, dung ten inches ; peat six inches,
dung four inches ; peat six inches, and then a thin bed of dung,
and cover the whole with peat. The heap should be put loosely
together, and then made smooth on the outside. The compost,
after it is made, gets into a general heat, sooner or later, ac-
cording to the weather and the condition of the dung ; in sum-
mer in ten days or sooner, in winter not perhaps for many
weeks, if the cold be severe. It always, however, has been
found to come on at last ; and in summer it sometimes rises so
high as to be mischievous by producing what is called fire-fann-
ing. In that season a stick should be kept in it in different
parts, to pull out and feel now and then ; for if it approaches to
blood heat, it should be watered or turned over ; and on such
occasions advantage may be taken to mix with it a little fresh
peat.

" The compost may then be allowed to remain untouched
until within three weeks of using, when it should be turned
over, upside down and inside out, and all the lumps broken ;
then it comes into a second heat, but soon cools and is taken out
for use."

In this state the whole, except bits of decayed wood, appears

216 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

a black, free mass, and spreads like garden mould. Use it weight
for weight like farm-yard dung, and it will be found to stand
the comparison. Let it be observed, that the object of making
up the compost is to form as large a hot-bed as the quantity of
dung employed admits of, and then to surround it on all sides,
so as to have the whole benefit of the heat and effluvia. Peat,
nearly as dry as garden mould in seed time, may be mixed with
the dung, so as to double the volume and more, and nearly
triple the weight, and instead of hurting the peat, prolong it.
One who has used this compost for seven years, considers it to
be of immense importance. He would rather bring peat for two
or three miles than want it for his compost heaps.

In this process of making compost, a large quantity of al-
most inert humus is broken down and rendered fit to yield
abundant nourishment to plants, both in the shape of carbonic
acid gas and also saline matter ; while the ammonia, produced
by the fermentation of dung, is absorbed and retained by the
humus.

In all cases where good muck can be obtained, experience
has shown there can be no question about the propriety and ad-
vantage of using it for that purpose. We have for ten years
used this compost with the very best effect for roots and grass.
As top-dressing on meadows it is better than pure dung, es-
pecially where the soil is light, leachy, or from other cause
quick to suffer in dry seasons.

When liorse manure is carted out in hot weather, the mode
of composting is varied by thoroughly mixing with it an equal
quantity of muck, instead of placing it in layers — the heap
being afterward well covered with muck. This to prevent fire-
fanging, which so quickly destroys it in our hot summer
weather. As a preventive against the same evil, it should be
liberally thrown upon the manure in the pit or pen during the
summer months.

Muck can be well decomposed in various ways, by compost-
ing with lime, plaster, ashes, salt, nitrate of soda, etc.

Besides the ordinary constitution of peat or muck, which
consists for the most part of inert vegetable matter, which from
causes beautifully explained by Liebig, has ceased to undergo
fartlier voluntary decomposition, it often contains sulphate of
iron, free phosphoric and sulphuric acids, all substances exceed-

TO IMITATE BARNYARD MANURE. 217

ingly injurious to vegetation, but nevertheless capable of being
neutralized and even converted into the food of plants by the
action of lime, — that is, into phosphate and sulphate of lime.

Dr. Dana, in his exhaustive treatise on its uses, gives, as the
simplest and cheapest compost, a cord of peat with one-third of
a bushel of salt and one-third of a cask of lime, equal to solid
cow dung ; the cost of the same being two dollars and ten cents.
And again, three cords of peat with sixty-one pounds sal ammo-
niac and one-quarter of a cask of lime will cost four dollars
ninety-eight cents per cord.

Dr. Nichols says : " Barn-yard manure may be imitated by
thoroughly composting with a cord of seasoned muck sixty-five
pounds of crude nitrate of soda, two bushels of wood ashes, one
peck of common salt, ten pounds of fine bone meal, two quarts
of plaster and ten pounds of epsom salt " at a cost of three dol-
lars fifty cents the cord, and " ought, other things being equal,
to serve as good a purpose in the field."

" By substituting nitrate of potassa, or saltpetre, for soda, the
compost is greatly improved, while its cost is enhanced. If the
salts are dissolved in water, (those that are soluble,) and the
bone in ley, and good muck is employed, a compost is formed
very nearly as valuable as seasoned excrement. Very nearly we
have said. Why is it not of equal value ? "

And again, as to the importance of composting or rotting bone
dust, " It should be layered with good muck or soil, and kept
moist until thorough decomposition results ; then it is fitted for
the field." *

Our honored associate, Mr. Alexander Hyde, in his admirable
essay on manures, gives the proportion, one bushel of unleached
or two bushels of leached ashes to five bushels of muck, and
says : " Lime also acts favorably on muck ; and one bushel
slaked with lime will sweeten and render fit for use ten bushels
of the vegetable matter."

Thus there are various rules for decomposing, or as Mr.
Hyde says, cooking' peat or muck ; to a very few only of which
we have referred ; — all are valuable.

The carcass of a dead horse or cow, which often is suffered to
pollute the air with its noxious eflluvia, when buried in muck

* Dr. Nichols' lecture before the Board, Report 186G, pp. 232-8.
28

218 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

with a little quicklime, is quickly converted into the most
enriching manure.

Can muck be used on land to advantage without being com-
posted ? This is a question frequently asked. We answer,
generally not. On sandy, light and porous soils it certainly
gives, by its quality of attracting and retaining moisture, a
better consistency to the soil, and renders stiff, clayey soils
looser and more friable. We have also noticed that it has a
strong tendency to bring in clover on grass lands.

It affords too the best possible mulch to trees, shrubs and
ornamental vines, though there is danger of forcing too great a
growth of wood, when used too freely around fruit trees. We
have long admired its effect upon trees, but were recently
astonished, on removing part of a large heap which was brought
from the basin of the new reservoirs at Chestnut Hill, and de-
posited two years since under some old apple-trees, to find new
and vigorous roots thrown out from their trunks and extending
through the heap in every direction.

Our muck swamps of varying quality and depth are then of
immense value to the agriculture of Massachusetts.

In our recent visit to the Island of Nantucket, as delegate
from this Board to that Society's exhibition, we were greatly
impressed with the vast deposits of peat on that island. There
seems to be no possibility of owning a farm, even the smallest,
without having within its bounds the muck for converting the
sandy soil into the finest of meadow. Farmers are there too
who appreciate its value, if one may judge from the great use
made of it by our associate, Mr. Thompson, though we fear
others (not all,) are slow to follow his excellent example. No
experiments within our knowledge have been better carried out,
and none in their results are more convincing as to the great
and wondrous transformation to be effected on sandy soil by
the free, judicious use of muck.

For ourselves, we should deem it about as wise to abandon
the labor-saving machines as to give up the use of muck.

Leverett Saltonstall, for the Committee.

This Essay was laid over under the rule, when it was
Voted^ That the time of holding the Fair of the Middlesex

CLIMATE AND SOIL. 219

Society be changed to Tuesday and Wednesday, October 4tli
and 5th.

Mr. Johnson then submitted an Essay upon the Time of
Cutting Grass for Hay.

After a lengthy discussion the Essay was recommitted, when
the Board adjourned.

FIFTH DAY.

The Board met at 9 o'clock, A. M., Mr. Birnie, of Springfield,
in the chair. Mr. Bassett was appointed a committee on the
credentials of newly elected members.

Voted, That the annual meeting of the Board be held at the
office in Boston, to commence on the Monday preceding the first
Wednesday of February, 1871.

Mr. Alexander Hyde then submitted the following Essay upon

CLIMATE AS AFFECTED BY SOIL AND LOCATION.

By climate is meant the air, as affected by light, heat, moist-
ure, and all the gaseous and solid matters which in more or less
constant proportion are ever diffused through it, as also the
changes to which the air is subject. Thus we say the atmos-
phere of Northern Italy is brilliant, because the air passing over
the Alps, has parted with its superfluous moisture and is clear,
so that the sun's rays penetrate it without obstruction. On the
other hand, the climate of England is proverbially moist, as the
wind, which is merely air in motion, for the most part blows
from the south-west and comes loaded with the moisture of the
Atlantic, and being warmed by the gulf-stream, its capacity for
moisture is very great, and as it comes in contact with the Eng-
lish hills, this moisture must be deposited. We speak of the
climate of the torrid zone as hot, because the sun's rays fall-
ing perpendicularly upon this portion of the earth are more
concentrated than when they fall obliquely, as they do in the
temperate zones. The same amount of rays which are concen-
trated on a square foot at the equator, are scattered over four
times this space in northern and southern latitudes, and conse-
quently impart to the equatorial soil fourfold the amount of

220 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

heat. The air is heated slightly if at all by the passage of the
sun's rays through it. The heat is conveyed to the upper re-
gions in two modes, radiation and connection. By the former
the heat passes from the earth in all directions like the spokes of
a wheel and moves in an opposite direction from the wind as
well as with it. Thus we feel the heat from a grate by radiation,
though the air is passing directly from us to the grate. The
most efficient mode of heating the great volume of air that sur-
rounds the earth is by connection, that is, the particles of air
coming in contact with the heated earth are expanded, become
lighter than the other particles and consequently rise, while
others take their place, and in their turn rise.

Besides the influence which light, heat and moisture exert
upon the climate of a country, the air also contains quite a frac-
tion, about one twenty-five hundredth part of its volume, of
carbonic acid, which is quite a constant proportion. Tiie quan-
tity of ammonia in the air is very variable, being the largest af-
ter a long, warm, dry time, and the smallest after a long con-
tinued rain, as this gas is very soluble in water, and comes down
with every shower to fertilize the earth. There are also various
other gas^s constantly rising from the surface of the earth and
mingling with the air, in which also float innumerable sporules
or seeds, and even minute particles of metals and other inor-
ganic matter, but in such small quantity as almost to escape the
tests of the chemist.

Climatology is a subject worthy of investigation, and has not
received that attention, either from farmers or scientific men,
which its importance demands. In the air, as wonderfully
made by our Creator, " we live, and move, and have our being."
We can live without food for many hours, and even days ; but
we cannot live without the air a single moment. All the infe-
rior animals and all plants are equally dependent with man
upon the atmosphere for their existence. A mouse, put under
the receiver of an air-pump, gasps and dies as the air is ex-
hausted, and not a seed germinates in the ground unless the air
has access to it and gives it vitality. Air is so common and
such an abundant blessing that we do not think sufficiently of
its value. Like water, it is so free that we forget to be grateful
for it ; and while it is so wisely contrived for our health and
comfort, the seeds of disease and death are often, by our igno-

SELECTION OF LOCATION. 221

ranee and carelessness, diffused through it, so that what is in-
tended as our greatest physical blessing becomes our greatest
curse. Next to the pollution of sin, there is nothing we should
more strive against than a polluted atmosphere. In selecting a
location for our farms, we are particular to select a good soil,
that may furnish food for our families and for our stock. Are
we as particular to select a site for our homes where the air may
be pure, so that we may enjoy health, without which other bless-
ings are little worth ? And when the site for this home is se-
lected, are we careful to keep the air around it salubrious ? Is
not the neighboring swamp too often left undrained, so that the
rank growth of vegetable matter, in its decay, sends forth
miasma and death ? Does not the effluvia from the barnyard
or the pig-pen sometimes become a stench in the nostrils of the
children, instead of being retained by some absorbent to fertilize
the farm ? We are confident the cellar is the hot-bed of much
disease in many houses. Cabbages and other vegetables are al-
lowed to decay, or some putrid meat is allowed to defile the air ;
or, worse still, the stench from the sink-drains, full of the seeds
of death, is scattered through the house. We look into the
home of the squatter, on some Western bottom land, and see
the children pale and shivering with bilious fever, and although
the pioneer may be surrounded with the deepest and richest soil,
we pity him. In the East we are fortunately pretty much ex-
empt from intermittent fever ; but we find many farm-houses
located in low, damp situations, where the evaporation keeps
the air constantly cool, or where the fog intercepts the sun's
rays till he has travelled far towards the zenith.

That the climate is affected by the soil, must be patent to the
most careless traveller over our hills and through our valleys.
As we ride or walk, especially in the evening, we notice differ-
ent currents of air — at one place dry and invigorating, and at
another damp and chilly. If we study these different currents,
we shall find the warm air comes over a soil naturally dry or
well drained, and the cold air from some boggy meadow. We
were struck with these different currents, as we, last August,
after the pleasant meeting of the Board at Amherst, where we
had sat sipping our tea on the piazza of President Clark, with-
out a thought of a chilly air, we rode down the Amherst hills
into the low lands of East Hadley. We felt that we had passed

222 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

into a different climate. The air of the valley was damp and
chilly, and in spite of the warming influence of the president's
tea, aided by a thick shawl, we could not avoid shivering.

It is a great mistake to suppose that altitude will necessarily
give us a pure atmosphere. There are as many marshes and
boggy meadows on the hills as in the valleys, and typhoid fevers
are the scourge of our mountain towns, as they are of the
borders of our lakes and stagnant waters at lower elevations.
We have encountered on the Berkshire hills the same chilly air
that we experienced last summer in the Hadley valley, and
have uniformly been able to trace it to some marshy or damp
locality near by.

The effect of soil and locality on the climate is further mani-
fest from the earlier approach of spring and the longer con-
tinuance of vegetation in the autumn in some localities than in
others of the same latitude and the same elevation. The word
climate signifies in the original, a declination ; and on the south
side of a hill, in our northern latitude, we find a much warmer
air and an earlier vegetation than on the north side, because
the southern slope receives the sun's rays more perpendicularly.
"We have no doubt that the southern slope is also most healthy,
as there is a vitality in the sun's rays aside from their heating
power. We are not prepared to go all lengths with modern
solar chemistry. We are not satisfied that sunshine is metallic,
and that in a sun-bath, we are enveloped with elementary iron,
sodium, magnesium, calcium, chromium, nickel, barium, copper
and zinc. But whether light consists of minute particles of
matter as we were taught in our childhood, or comes in waves
as does sound as we afterwards taught, or consists of a metallic
shower as some chemists now teach, we fully believe there is a
life-giving power in sunshine which no farmer can afford to lose
for himself, his family, his stock and his growing crops. Physi-
cians assure us that patients on the sunny side of hospitals
recover more rapidly than those on the north side, and a sun-
bath is now a frequent prescription. We all know how deli-
cately a potato vine grows in the cellar where the sunlight
sparingly penetrates, and that a young lady shut up in a
darkened parlor becomes about as colorless as the potato vine.
We see also the sunny side of an apple having not only a deeper
coloring but a higher flavor, proving that the peculiar chemical

NECESSITY OP SUNLIGHT. 223

effect of light is not confined to the surface. We therefore con-
sider it of great importance that a farmer, in selecting sites for
his house and barn, should choose a sunny place, and by no
means obstruct the sun's rays by shade trees. An open lawn
before the house, covered with a velvety turf, is just as orna-
mental as a forest, and far more healthful. Under the dense
shade of trees moisture lingers a livelong summer's day, and
the very shingles decay under its corrupting influence. Much
more do the wife and children suffer in their delicate organiza-
tions. The yard and stables for the stock should also be on the
sunny side of the barn, and the latter should be liberally
glazed. A high, dry, well ventilated and thoroughly sun-lighted
home should be one of the leading objects with every farmer.
We have seen this winter the homes of many of the prairie
farmers squatted in the mud, and are fully of the opinion that
it requires much good land to compensate for the want of a
gravelly knoll on which to locate one's house. The necessity of
sunlight for plants is, if possible, even more necessary than for
animals. The latter live upon the complicated chemical com-
pounds which the vegetable world furnishes, but the vegetables
must build up their various parts from the elementary constit-
uents. Without sunlight the leaves of plants cannot decompose
the carbonic acid of the air, assimilate the carbon and throw out
the oxygen, and therefore cannot grow. It is the force of the
sunbeam that tears asunder the carbon and oxygen, and
gives the former for vegetable and the latter for animal life.
Carbon and oxygen are therefore both the result of solar force,
and some chemists attribute all force to the sun. " What
moves this car ? " said George Stephenson to one of his travelling
companions. "The engine, of course," was the reply. "But
what moves the engine ? " " Steam — coal," said his companion.
" No," said Stephenson, " It is neither steam nor coal, but the
sun that made the coal, and is now working through it ! "

But if the sun is the source of life he is also the destroyer,
as his influence is constantly tending to effect change, through-
out creation, a constant revolution from death to life, and again .
from life to death, the ultimate particles of matter undergoing
no change except the change from one form of life to another.
Thus viewed, corruption, putrefication and decay are only the
transition state from one life to another. The sun is the great

224 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

agent in decay and in the new creation, and we do not know
which to admire the most, the analysis or the synthesis. The
elements of all matter are indestructible. The plants of to-day
are built up of the same atoms of which plants were composed
millions of years gone by. And the same is true of animals.
Every particle of matter in our organization has done service
over and over again, sometimes in the form of a mushroom,
sometimes in the waving grain, again in the stout frame of the
ox, and anon in the nobler form of a man. And all these
changes have been effected by sunlight. Surely we ought to
study the laws by which this great agent works, through which
life comes out of death. Certainly we ought to cherish this
agent in our homes, in our barns, and on our farms. Were the
world deprived of the sun for one hour, universal death would
be the consequence, past all hope of resuscitation. All the art-
ificial light and heat we enjoy are but the reproduction of sun-
light and sun-heat treasured up in some form of carbon ; but
how inadequate is this reproduction for heating and lighting
the earth.

Not only must a sunny spot be selected for a home, but the
soil must also be considered. This leads us to say that a sandy
loam will be from a week to a fortnight earlier than a stiff clay
loam in its vegetation. In the same latitude and elevation we
have seen in one place winter lingering in the lap of spring,
with large snow-drifts for her pillow, while in another a few
miles remote, the grass was green, the dust flying, and the boys
playing ball. We need not add that this difference of climate
was occasioned by the soil in the one place being of a cold clay,
and in the other of a warm sandy loam. Which is the preferable
soil for cultivation, and which is the preferable climate for health
and comfort, we leave for every farmer to decide.

We cannot, however, all live on the most easily tilled land
nor in the most favorable climate. The Creator in his infinite
wisdom has made every variety of soil, so that man's ingenuity
might be taxed to the utmost and his manhood thus developed ;
. and we propose, in order to make this essay as practical as pos-
sible, to notice the effect that drainage has on the temperature
of the soil, and consequently upon the climate of a country.
Experiments upon these points have not been as extensive or
accurate as we could wish, but some seven years since the Mar-

TEMPERATURE AFFECTED BY DRAINAGE. 225

quis of Tweeddale offered -$400 for the best experiments on the
difference of drained and iindrained land at different depths be-
low the surface. The temperature of the drained and undrained
lands was to be observed in pasture lands at the depth of ten
inches, and in arable lands at ten, twenty and thirty inches
below the surface, and in both cases to be compared with the
temperature of the air four feet above the soil. The drains were
to be two and one-half feet deep, and the drained and undrained
lands were to be as similar as possible both in chemical and me-
chanical composition. The results proved that the drained lands
at the depth of ten inches have an average temperature of two
to three degrees above those undrained. During a warm rain
the temperature of the undrained soil was the higher, as the
water does not percolate through the soil and pass off. At the
depth of twenty and thirty inches the effect of warm rain is not
felt and the temperature of the drained soil is uniformly higher,
and the great advantage of drainage becomes more strikingly
evident. In the winter and in periods of cold weather in the
spring and autumn, the drain serves a better purpose in elevat-
ing the temperature than during a long continued warm sea-
son. It may be worth while to remark that the ground is
heated in two modes : by the sun's heat from above, and the
external heat of the earth from below, and at some periods the
heat is increasing from the surface downwards, and at others is
passing from below upwards. Undrained land having the in-
terstices between its particles filled with water is less porous and
therefore a better conductor of heat to the outer air, and hence
its temperature falls rapidly when the air becomes cooler than
the land ; but on the other hand, when land is saturated with
moisture it is almost impossible to conduct the heat of the air
downwards, as fluids do not convey heat from particle to parti-
cle as do solids, but by a change of place, the heated particles
rising and the cold descending. Every house-wife knows that
she cannot boil her tea-kettle by placing the fire over it, and
every farmer should know that he cannot make moist land
warm by surface or sun heat.

Besides the impossibility of conducting heat downwards

through water, except in quantities so minute as to require nice

experiments to detect its descent, the evaporation going on has

a tendency to produce cold. Just as soon as a surface drop of

29

226 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

■water becomes so warm as to be converted into vapor it acquires
a vastly increased capacity for storing away latent heat which
it absorbs from all surrounding objects. For this reason the
hands of the washer-woman wet with warm water freeze so
quickly while hanging out her clothes, and for the same reason
the low wet places suffer from the first frosts of autumn. We
have noticed the crops on wet lands injured by the frosts of
September, while near by on well drained land they escaped all
damage.

On the wet places also the fogs make their first appearance
and continue the longest. However transparent the air it
always contains aqueous vapor, and the higher the temperature
of the air the greater the amount of vapor it is capable of con-
taining. When the air comes in contact with any body 40°
colder than itself its capacity for retaining the moisture is so re-
duced, that the vapor becomes instantly visible. Thus the mois-
ture of our breath is* instantly turned into vapor, as it leaves
our mouths of a cold winter's morning, and the vapor of a lo-
comotive in a cold day makes a beautiful cloud which lingers
long after the train has departed. For the same reason when
the air comes in contact with cold moist land, the vapor which
before was latent becomes visible and causes the dismal, shiver-
ing fog. This nebulous appearance when examined by a mi-
croscope or illumined by the sun with a dark back ground is
found to be composed of an infinity of minute watery vesicles.
They group themselves in the form of spherules and obey the
law of gravitation, being densest near the surface of the earth.
Fogs are often seen on a river in a cold winter morning, when
the water of the river being warmer than the air, the vapor
rising becomes visible. When the land is naturally dry and
porous or is made so by drainage fogs seldom intercept the sun's
rays and make the air damp and chilly. The warm air pene-
trates such a soil, giving life and breath to the plants and the
climate is equally healthy, for man and beast. The porous na-
ture of some of our Western prairies especially in Kansas,
makes the air delightfully clear and dry. After a rain the land
becomes speedily dry and the air pure. We recently asked an
aged but hale-looking friend how long he had lived in Kansas.
Ten years was his reply, and I am ten years younger than when
I came here. We cannot hope to make our soil as deep and

EFFECT OF PROTECTION. 227

granulated as that of the prairie, but he who drains it thoroughly
will do himself and the country great service.

The effect which trees have in protecting land from cold
winds, and influencing the humidity of the soil and the atmo-
sphere is another consideration well worthy of the attention of
farmers. It is well to know that the rivers of our country have
diminished in size as the forests have disappeared. Our mem-
ory runs back only half a century, but in this time the hills of
Berkshire have been stripped of their trees to furnish coal for
the furnaces and fuel for the locomotives and factories, and the
consequence is that where we plunged headlong into the Housa-
tonic while bathing in our boyhood, a frog is compelled to jump
obliquely, or he will strike his head against the stones. The
freshets are about the same as of old, but the water passes off
more rapidly from the land not being detained from evaporation
by the dense forests, nor from flowing into the streams by slow
percolation through the leaf mould. The drainage of our
swamps and moist lands has also aided the quick transit of the
rains and melted snows. The history of all nations proves that
with the destruction of the forests comes a less fall of rain and
often sterility. The land of Canaan, which in the days of the
patriarchs flowed with milk and honey, now shows but little
evidence of her ancient fertility. The valley of the Euphrates
was once famous for its exuberant vegetation, but the traveller
now looks in vain in this valley for the fertile soil, which form-
erly supported a teeming population. The coasts of Africa were
once green with forests, and in consequence of their destruction
we now see only barren sands. In France and other European
countries the same destruction of timber lands and consequent
barrenness can' be noticed. The wide wastes of Brittany and
the deserts of Champagne were, in the days of the invasion of
Gaul by Julius Csesar, covered with forests, and the conqueror
says they were among the most fertile lands.

This subject has engaged the attention of the French govern-
ment, and laws have been made against the destruction and in
encouragement of the planting of trees, but in spite of law it
is found that about 75,000 acres of forest are annually cut over
and only 25,000 acres planted. In the last 100 years France
has diminished her forest lands by five millions of acres, nearly
one-fourth of her wooded surface, and a more stringent law has

228 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

recently been enacted to preserve the forests. That the total
rain-fall and — what is of more consequence so far as the climate
and fertility of a country are concerned — the frequency of show-
ers, are greater on a well wooded tract, than on sandy soils des-
titute of trees, is well established, for an associate on this com-
mittee, Mr. Thompson of Nantucket, says he has often noticed the
showers falling on the wooded parts of that island while the de-
nuded sandy portions were left unrefreshed. If we could once
cover the desert of Sahara with forests or even with grass to cool
the air, we should expect the showers to descend there, bringing,
as they do everywhere, fertility to the soil. The foliage of
trees and grasses defends the soil from the sun's rays, and thus
prevents the ground from becoming heated, while a warm sandy
soil radiates its heat and thus hinders the condensation of the
moisture of the atmosphere and the descent of refreshing show-
ers. Not even dew is deposited on sandy soil, and the contrast
between Gideon's dewy fleece and the surrounding dry land was
not greater, than between such a soil and one covered with
green herbage on a cool night in August.

We therefore recommend to the farmers of Massachusetts to
spare the trees, if they wish to encourage the descent of the fer-
tilizing showers. On many of our old rocky pastures, where
the vegetable and saline matter has been slowly diminishing for
centuries, trees will grow spontaneously if cattle will allow them,
and no better treatment of these pastures can be recommended
than to let them grow up to forests. The soil will not only
thus be restored to its virgin fertility, but the climate will be
greatly ameliorated. In the western part of Massachusetts, we
find many of our old pastures growing up to white pines, and
we hail their growth as the dawn of a more healthy era. The
aroma of a pine forest is full of healing virtue to the lungs, and
we confidently expect that the form of consumption, which our
physicians call phthisis, will decrease as these pine forests in-
crease. There is no better tree than the white pine to plant
between the house and the barn-yard, to prevent the passage of
all effluvia, or on the north-west side of the house to keep off
the cold winds of winter, or on the west and north of the garden
and orchard, so that the vegetables and fruits may bask in the
sunshine undisturbed by the gales of summer.

We are conscious of not having done justice, in this short

ELECTION OF NEW MEMBERS. 229

essay, to the subject of climatology. We thought when the sub-
ject was given us for mvestigation, that we should say nothing
upon it, for the good reason that we knew nothing to say ; but
observation and study have magnified its importance, and we
commend it to the careful consideration of our farming commu-
nity and all others interested in the health of the climate and
the fertility of the soil.

Alexander Hyde, Chairman.

This Report was accepted, when Dr. Pierce presented a Re-
port upon Abortion in Cows. After full discussion, during
which many interesting facts were elicited, the Report was re-
committed to the Committee.

The Essays upon the Use of Muck, upon the Preparation of
Soils, and upon Clover as a Fertilizer, were then taken up, read
a second time, and accepted.

The Reports of Delegates were also read and accepted.

Adjourned.

SIXTH DAY.

The Board met at 9 o'clock, A. M.

Present: Messrs. Baker, Bassett, Bradford, Boise, I. K.
Brown, N. P. Brown, Bucklin, Clement, Ellsworth, Goodman,
Hubbard, Hyde, Johnson, Knowlton, Loring, Moore, Morton,
Peck, Pierce, Saltonstall, Slade, Stone, Thompson, Ward and
Wilder.

Mr. Hubbard, of the Worcester South Society, was requested
to preside, and accordingly took the chair.

Mr. Bassett, for the Committee on Credentials, submitted the
following

report:
The Committee on Credentials have attended to that duty,
and respectfully report that the following delegates are duly
elected for this year : —

By the Middlesex Society,

Worcester South-East,
Hampden, .
Hampden East, .
Berkshire, .

John B. Moore.
William Knowlton.
William Birnie.
H. Converse.
Andrew J. Bucklin.

23j0 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

By the Hoosac Yalley,
Housatonic,
Bristol Central,
Hingham, .
Marshfield,

Respectfully submitted.

Nahum p. Brown.
Richard Goodman.
Nathan Burpee .
Albert Fearing.
Geo. M. Baker.

C. C. Bassett.

Messrs. Goodman and Saltonstall were added to the com-
mittee appointed to consider and report a List of Subjects for
Essays.

Mr. Bradford, from the Committee appointed to consider and
report upon the time and place of holding the next country
meeting of the Board, reported that it was advisable to hold the
meeting at Framingham, beginning on the first Tuesday of De-
cember next.

The Report was accepted, and the place and time fixed
accordingly.

The Committee on Meetings was then constituted by the ap-
pointment of Messrs. Wilder,- Johnson, Stone, Moore and Slade.

The Visiting Committee of the Massachusetts Agricultural
College was constituted by the appointment of Messrs. Agassiz,
Goodman and Stone.

The delegates to attend the exhibitions of the various socie-
ties were appointed, as follows. To the

Essex, . Richard Goodman.

Middlesex, Albert Fearing.

Middlesex North, Nahum P. Brown.

Middlesex South, A. P. Slade.

Worcester, I. K. Brown.

Worcester West, E. Stone.

Worcester North, W. S. Clark.

Worcester North-West, L. H. Bradford.

Worcester South, L. Saltonstall.

Worcester South-East, A. P. Peck.

Hampshire, FranUin and Hampden, ... J. Johnson.

Hampshire, G. T. Plunkett.

Highland, G. M. Baker.

Hampden, M. P. Wilder.

Hampden East, A. Clement.

Union, J. Pierce.

Franklin, T. W. Ward.

SUBJECTS FOR INVESTIGATION. 231

BerksJiire, W. Knowlton.

Housatonic, G. B. Loring.

Hoosac Valley, G. A. King.

Norfolk, J. T. Ellsworth.

Bristol, C. C. Bassett.

Bristol Central, A. J. Bucklin.

Plymouth, W. BiRNiE,

Hingham, N. S. Hubbard.

Marshfield, J. F. C. Hyde.

Barnstable, . O. Warner.

Nantucket, J. A. Morton.

Martha's Vineyard, ....... E. W. Boise.

Voted, To appoint a committee of three to appear before the
legislative Committee on Agriculture, to oppose the repeal of
the bird law of this State, so far as it relates to the smaller land
birds.

Messrs. Saltonstall, Hyde and Stone.

Voted, To appoint a Committee on Printing.

Messrs. King, Plunkett and Stone.

Mr. Saltonstall, from the Committee on Subjects, then sub-
mitted the following list of subjects, which were assigned to
committees, as follows : —

Breeding of Doineslic Animals. — Messrs. Agassiz, Plunkett
and Goodman.

Nature^s Mode of Distributing Plants. — Messrs. Clark, Wil-
der and Durfee.

Abortion in Cows. — Messrs. Pierce, Agassiz, I. K. Brown and
Ellsworth.

Time of Cutting and Curing Hay. — Messrs. Johnson, Salton-
stall and Ellsworth.

The Culture and Preservation of Fruit. — Messrs. Wilder,
Hyde, Clement and Knowlton.

Methods of Draining. — Messrs. Plunkett, Slade and Loring.

The Damages and the Good done by Birds. — Messrs. Clark,
Saltonstall and Bucklin.

The Use of Capital in Farming. — Messrs. Stone, Hubbard and
Clement.

Market Gardening. — Messrs. Moore, Slade and N. P. Brown.

232 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

On the Value of an Agricultural Training for Women. —
Messrs. Goodman, Wilder and Birnie.

The Best Mode of Preventing the Injuries to Vegetation from
Insects. — Messrs. J. F. C. Hyde, Saltonstall and Peck.

On the Value of a Regular System of Farm Accounts. —
Messrs. Bradford, Bassett and Ward.

This Report was accepted and adopted.

Voted.) That a Committee of three be appointed to report
upon the Necrology of the Board. Messrs. Bradford, Good-
man, and the Secretary.

Voted., That the Committee on Roads and. Road Making be
authorized to report directly to the legislature.

Mr. Saltonstall, for the Committee to which was referred the
paper relating to Farmers' Institutes, having submitted a Report
upon the merits of the proposition, and recommended its refer-
ence to a Committee to consider and report at the next annual
meeting, it was so

Voted., To refer the subject to a Committee of three, consist-
ing of Messrs. Loring, Pierce and Slade.

Voted, That all unfinished business be referred to the Com-
mittee on Printing with full powers.

Mr. Wilder, on behalf of the Committee, then submitted the
following Report on

FRUIT CULTURE.

The undersigned, concurring in the principles and practice
set forth in the lecture by Mr. Wilder, before the Board of Ag-
riculture, at their meeting in Pittsfield, would, however, call
attention to a few of those considerations, which are deemed
most necessary for the successful cultivation of fruits.

Among these, we would name as important, —

The thorough and perfect drainage of the land, either natural
or artificial.

The proper preparation of the soil, clean cultivation, and
constant care of orchards.

The necessity of excluding grass, grain and all other crops

LIST OF FRUITS. 233

from orchards, except, perhaps, a few vegetables, while the trees
are young.

The importance of regular manuring of fruit-trees, as well as
other crops, and of its application in the fall, on or near the
surface, so that the rain, snow and frost may prepare and con-
vey its elements to the roots.

The great advantages to be realized by the proper thinning of
fruit, thereby improving its excellence, increasing its value, and
prove 'ting the evil effects of overbearing, which always result
in injuring the constitution and shortening the life of the tree.

And lastly, your Committee would suggest that clean culture,
without destruction of the roots by deep ploughing or spading,
and that constant care and vigilance are the indispensable con-
ditions of success in fruit culture.

In conclusion, your Committee would recommend for culti-
vation the following select list of fruits, as adapted to seasons of
maturity and to most sections of our State : —

APPLES.
Summer.
Early Harvest. Requires a warm, rich soil.
Red Astrachan.
Williams Favorite.

Autum,n.
Foundling.
Porter.
Gravenstein.
Holden Pippin.
Mother.
Hubbardston Nonesuch.

Winter .
Rhode Island Greening. Requires a good soil.
Baldwin.
Roxbury Russet. Requires a deep, rich soil.

<i

PEAKS.
Standards on Pear Moots.
Clapp's Favorite. Large. Should be gathered by Aug. 2^.
Brandywine. Early and productive.
30

234 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

Bartlett. Succeeds throughout the country.

Doyenii^ Boussock. Prolific and profitable.

Belle Lucrative. Rich. Does not color as well as some.

Buffum. Very vigorous and productive.

Urbaniste. One of the best autumn.

Merriam. Golden russet. Fine market variety.

Onondaga. Good for market.

Lawrence. Popular winter sort.

Beurr^ d' Anjou. Early winter. The best acquisition of the
age.

Vicar of Winkfield. Hardy, fine tree ; superior for cooking,
and frequently good for the table.

Dwarfs on Pear or Quince Roots.
Louise Bonne de Jersey.
Duchesse d' Angoul^me.
Urbaniste.
Vicar of Winkfield.

GRAPES .
Delaware. Small, early, rich. Requires a warm, generous
soil.

Hartford Prolific. Early.

Massasoit. (^Rogers* No. 3.) Early.

Wilder. (^Rogers' No. 4.) Ripening about September 20.

Concord. Ripening about September 20.

Merrimac. (^Rogers' No. 19.) Ripening about Sept. 20.

All of which is submitted, by

Marshall P. Wilder.
Asa Clement.
John B. Moore.

This Report having been accepted, it was

Voted, To accept a paper upon Insects Injurious to Vegeta-
tion, prepared and submitted to the Board by Dr. A. S. Packard,
Jr., and that the thanks of the Board be presented to Mr.
Packard for this valuable contribution to the science of ento-
mology.

The Board then adjourned.

INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 235

NEW OR LITTLE KNOWN INJURIOUS INSECTS.

BY A. S. PACKARD, JR., M.D.

Some of the insects described below have been known for
some years to be dangerous pests in our orchards and gardens,
while others are described which are new to science, and have
only recently obtruded themselves on the notice of agricultu-
rists. Each year witnesses the inroads of new depredators on
our fruits and field crops, while entomologists are detecting
each year the presence of new insects which prey upon forest-
trees, unknown to farmers themselves. The present contribu-
tion to applied entomology is offered in the hope that farmers
and gardeners may give increased attention to the habits of
noxious insects, and that improved means of withstanding their
attacks may be devised, and a knowledge of practical, or econom-
ical, entomology be more widely disseminated. Most of the
specimens mentioned are contained in the Museum of the Pea-
body Academy of Science, Salem.

INSECTS INJURING THE APPLE.

Tlie Apple-Bud Moth. — The most injurious enemy of the
apple-tree, next to the canker-worm, that we have in this state,
is a small, reddish-brown larva, which, during the spring of the
present year, threatened, in some localities, the extinction of
our apple crop. It was described by Harris, in his " Treatise
on the Insects injurious to Vegetation," (third edition, p. 481,)
under the name of Penthina oculana, and should now be named
Grapholitha oculana. The caterpillar is a small, cylindrical,
naked worm, about a third of an inch in length, and of a uni-
form reddish-brown, with small warts, from which arise short,
fine hairs, while the head and upper side of the prothoracic
ring, or segment next the head, is black.

On the 15th of May, a partially grown larva was brought to
me by a gentleman in Salem, and afterwards, (May 17,) receiv-
ing others from Mr. W. C. Fish, of Sandwich, we published a
brief account of it in the " American Naturalist," a monthly
magazine of natural history, published by the Peabody Academy
of Science, at Salem. We at this time supposed it to be an un-
described species, until specimens of the moth, reared by Mr.

236 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

F. W. Putnam, who has studied the habits of this moth consid-
erably, were found to be Harris's species.

May IGth, I noticed this caterpillar on the apple, and also the
pear and cherry, perforating the half expanded leaf and flower-
buds. They were very abundant on these buds, and afterwards,
when the leaves had partially expanded, they had folded the
leaf. It seems to hatch out about the time that the canker-
worms and American tent caterpillars leave their eggs, that is,
about the first day of May, when the buds unfold. The last of
May and the first week of June they were swarming in orchards
throughout Essex County, many persons noticing their attacks ;
and it seems to be a common insect all over the State. When
fully grown, it crumples tlie leaves, disfiguring the whole tree,
and doing great damage to the fruit-buds and flowers, thus di-
rectly lessening the apple and pear crop. About the first of
June they cease eating, and make a loose, delicate silken cocoon
in the folded leaf. They remain several days — sometimes near-
ly two weeks — in this state, before assuming the chrysalis state,
which, as Mr. Putnam observed, occurred June 16, and the
moths are seen flying about and entering houses, attracted by
the light within, during the last week of June and the first of
July. The chrysalis is brown and of the usual shape, and, as
Harris states, has but a single row of teeth along the dorsal side
of each abdominal segment. After the moth has slipped out of
the pupa case, the empty shell remains attached by the tip of
the abdomen to the surface of the leaf.

The moth is closely allied to the Grapholitha cynosbatella,
(G. ocellana,^ of Europe. The body is dark ash color, the fore
wings being usually paler in the middle. The basal third of
the wing is dark ash mottled with paler scales, the outer edge
of the dark area being angulated just behind the middle of the
wing. The costa is marked with light and dark bands. On
the outer third the wing is nearly as dark as on the base ; near
the outer edge, and half way between the costa and hind edge,
are four well-marked longitudinal black spots, or short lines
running parallel with the costa, or front edge, of the wing ; the
one nearest the costa is simply an elongated dot, the second and
largest is an oblong spot and twice as wide as the third spot,
while the fourth again is much smaller. There are three sim-

ENEMIES OF THE APPLE. 237

ilar black marks situated on the inner edge at the outer third of
the wing. When the wings are folded over the back, these
black marks, collectively, make a rudely triangular figure.
The outer third of the wing is also variously banded and mot-
tled with leaden blue and tawny brown scales. The fringe is
brown and leaden blue. The hind wings are dark ash brown.
Beneath, the fore wings are not mottled, but uniformly dark
ash brown, and a shade lighter than the upper surface of the
hind wings. It expands about .55 of an inch.

It varies in the distribution of the black spots, and in the
degree of angularity of the outer edge of the basal dark portion
of the fore wings ; and in some specimens the middle of the
wing is concolorous with the other parts, and the peculiar lead-
en blue scales are scattered over the whole wing, with a black
patch on the inner third of the wing near the inner edge. In
some specimens there are more than four dots near the outer
edge of the wing, forming a transverse row.

As these worms attack the fruit and leaf-buds, it is difficult to
pick them off by the hand without injuring the buds ; nor is it
easy to apply whale-oil soap or a weak solution of carbolic acid.
Both of these remedies, however, should be tried, especially
showering the terminal branches of the tree with soap-suds or a
very weak solution of carbolic acid. A faithful application, for
one season, of these and other remedies, will materially lessen
the numbers of this formidable pest.

The Apple Micropteryx. — This minute moth has been very
abundant, mining the leaves of the apple in September and
October. It eats its way in the interior of the leaf between the
upper and under side, feeding upon the parenchyma. Its bur-
row is marked by a wavy broad dark line on the leaf, which
dilates at the end into a spatulate expansion, somewhat puffed
out, in which the larva rests when fully fed, and makes its exit
through a slit at the end, when it may often be seen hanging sus-
pended by a thread. The larva is a minute, deep green cater-
pillar; cylindrical, somewhat fl.attened, with the sutures between
the segments well marked ; the body is thickest in the middle
and is very soft. It is about one-tenth of an inch long. It may
be seen in abundance hanging from the leaves during Septem-
ber and early in October, when it matures, and in October spins
a peculiar flattened orbicular silken yellow cocoon about a tenth

238 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

of an inch in diameter on the bark of the branches and twigs.
In confinement it will make its cocoon on leaves, but in nature
it is careful to deposit them on the branches, where it remains
through the winter. The larva completes the cocoon, at least
all that is visible, within the space of one hour. The upper side
overlaps the under side, leaving an open slit between the top
and bottom. The under side is quite free from the top, and is
oval elliptical. The moth was found in considerable abundance
resting on the under side of apple-leaves the 19th of June.

Sometimes five or six larvae will mine a single leaf, thus de-
facing the tree. They have been abundant at Salem, and I
have seen their mines at Amherst. The habits of this genus are
not well known as yet so far as I am aware. This species is un-
described, and may bear the name of Micropteryz pomivorella.
It is closely allied to M. calthella of Europe, though not much
more than one-half as large. The fore wings are long ovate,
with a long silken fringe, while the hind wings are very narrow,
acute, and the fringe at the base of the wing half as long as the
wing itself; the body is very short and small, and the antennae
about one-half as long as the fore wings, and on the head is a
loose spreading tuft of uneven hairs. The body and wings are
of an uniform dark bronze hue with purple and metallic reflec-
tions ; the fringe is concolorous with the wings. On top of the
head is a conspicuous bushy tuft of bright reddish orange hairs.
The legs are of a leaden hue, the hairs yellowish, the hind
tibiae long and hairy, with four long, slender spurs ; the antennae
dark on the terminal three-fourths, pale orange at base. The
palpi are leaden gray, concolorous with the legs. The under
side of the wings are leaden gray. Length of the body .07, of
the body including folded wings, .10 of an inch.

INSECTS INJUEING THE CHERRY.

The V-marked Tortrix. — This is not an uncommon moth.
Mr. F. W. Putnam has raised it in abundance from the cherry,
and it has been detected at Portland, Maine, by Mr. E. S. Morse.
It enters our houses at night during July. Unfortunately noth-
ing is yet known of its early stages. It may be named Tortrix
V-signatana.

The head and thorax are tawny, with paler scales on the
hinder edge of the thorax, concolorous with the broad tuft at

THE CHERRY AND THE CRANBERRY. 239

the tip of the abdomen in the male. The fore wings are pale
tawny, mottled with reddish brown scales ; on the costa are two
pale, almost silvery spots, one on the inner third of the costa,
which is triangular, with one point resting on the costal edge,
and another pointing towards the base of the wing. Just be-
yond the middle of the wing is a prominent triangular silvery
spot with the base on the costa ; a Y-shaped brownish band
encloses this spot, the apex of the Y being prolonged towards
the inner angle of the wing. Within the Y-shaped spot is an
oblong brown spot lying across the wing, though not reaching
either the costal or inner edges. The outer edge of the wing
is more decidedly tawny, and paler on the edge. There is a sub-
apical obhque silvery band, and one parallel, but shorter, lying
next the apex of the wing. The fringe is paler than the wing.
The hind wings are dark ash, with the fringe paler. Beneath,
the wings are pale tawny, the fore wings being rather darker.
The body is .35 of an inch in length, and the wings expand .75
of an inch.

The Cherry Coleophora. — This is a new species of tliis genus
which I would propose to name Coleophora cerasivorella, The
wings are shorter and broader than others of the genus, and the
base of the antennae are smooth, being without the usual tuft of
scales. It is of an uniform dark stone gray. The antennge and
head are whitish gray, the former annulated with white ; they
reach to the outer third of the wing.. The head is smooth and
rounded above, the scales lying flat on the surface. The legs
pale gray ; the hind tibise very hairy, with four long spurs.
The wings have no markings, being dark gray with darker
scales. The hind wings are very narrow with a long fringe.
The body is .14 of an inch long, and the wings expand .42 inch.
It feeds on the leaves of the|cherry in Salem.

INSECTS INJURING THE CRANBERRY VINE.

The glistening Cranberry moth. — Of the extensive genus Tor-
trix three species have been found to prey on the cranberry.
The present species is said by Mr. P. G. Sanborn, to prey upon
cranberry vines. We have briefly described it in our " Guide
to the Study of Insects," under the name of Tortrix oxycoccana.

It was found flying, October 4th. The body is of a dark slate
color, and the palpi, which are large and project well beyond

240 BOARD OF AGEICULTURE.

the head, are of the same color, with a few bright reddish scales
at the end of the second joint. The tuft of hairs on the tip of
the abdomen are much paler than the rest of the body, and of
the same color as the legs and the hind wings, being of a glis-
tening gray color. The fore wings are of an uniform reddish
brown color, with a peculiar glistening, or greasy, hue ; the red
tint is due to scattered bright red scales ; there are no other
spots or markings on the wing, and the fringe is mottled with
red and gray scales as on the wings ; on the hind wings the
fringe is long, silky, glossy, grayish white. Beneath, the fore
wings are pale gray, the hind wings being paler than the fore
wings. Length of the body .25 ; expanse of the wings, .64 of
an inch.

It may be readily known by the peculiar shining, greasy look,
and by the brick red scales scattered over the plain, unadorned
fore wings. The habits of the caterpillar are not known.

Tlie red-banded Cranberry Tortrix. — This Tortrix, described
by Dr. Clemens under the name of Tortrix incertana, has been
sent to Mr. Sanborn by Miss Guild of Walpole, Massachusetts,
where its larva is called " the cranberry worm." According to
Mr. 0. T. Robinson it is found in Texas, and northward to Ohio
and Pennsylvania, as well as Massachusetts.

The body and fore wings are deep reddish brown. The palpi
are prominent, projecting farther than usual in front of the head.
The head and thorax are ochreous brown, with a large tuft of red
hairs on the hinder margin of the thorax. The fore wings are
reddish brown, and at the base clear light reddish brown bound-
ed behind by a curved broad dark brown band, which terminates
just below the median vein ; between this and the broad brown
red band and situated on the inner edge_of the wing is a dull
silvery equilaterally triangular spot. From the middle of the
costa runs to the outer angle of the wing a broad dull red band
one-half as wide as the wing, and suddenly narrowing on the
costa. Beyond, is a narrow hemispherical dark red costal spot.
Beyond the broad band the outer edge of the wing is clear
silvery, except an oval brown spot. The fringe is reddish, sil-
very on the inner margin. The hind wings are pale, smoky,
concolorous with the under side of the fore wings, while the un-
der side of the hind wings is whitish. It expands .70 to .80 of
an inch.

THE CRANBERRY WORM. 241

In the pupa the segments of the abdomen are divided by-
deep sutures, the edge being angulated, and with two dorsal
rows of unusually small spines. The tip is prolonged into a
long point, nearly twice as long as wide, and giving rise to three
pairs of curved minute filaments. Length .34 of an inch.

The yellow Cranberry worm.. — August 4th I received from
New Jersey, through Mr. S. H. Scudder, specimens of this in-
sect in all its stages, under the name of the " Cranberry worm."
It seems to be a common insect in the cranberry fields of New
Jersey, but has not yet been found in the New England States.
It is new to science and may be called the Tortrix vaccinii-
vorana.

The larva draws the leaves together with silken threads,
transforming into a pupa within the mass. A single larva seems
to select one twig, or branch, and eats the parenchyma from the
upper surface of the leaves, until every leaf or twig is injured,
and the plant nearly as much destroyed as if the leaves were
eaten up entirely. In this way each larva seems to eat the best
part of about twelve leaves, which usually remain on the stalk
affording a shelter to the pupa, which is naked, partly sticking
out of the leaves.

The larva is pale honey yellow, with a slight greenish tinge.
The head and prothoracic shield is pale honey yellow, and the
head is nearly as wide as the pro thorax. The body tapers grad-
ually to the tail, and is furnished with fine sparse pale hairs
arising from prominent tubercles, the hairs being one-half as
long as the body is wide ; the four dorsal tubercles are arranged
in a trapezoid, with a deep crease between the anterior and
posterior pair. The thoracic feet are tipped with black. On
each side of the base of the head is a lateral S-shaped blackish
brown linear band, the upper part of the S terminating on the
top of the occiput, the line being most distinct on the side of the
head. The ocelli are black. It is .27 of an inch in length.

The pupa is brown, rather slenderer than usual, with the ver-
tex of the head prolonged into a large tubercle, surmounted by
a round knob whicli is rough, while the tubercle below is
smooth ; there is an angular projection on eacli side of the base
of the tubercle, forming a shoulder to it. The wing-covers
reach to the end of the third abdominal ring, while the antennae
reach to the end of the second pair of feet, which are parallel to

31

242 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

the end of the second abdominal ring. There are two rows of
teeth on the upper side of the abdominal rings ; they are obso-
lete beneath, the posterior row being indicated by two remote
minute tubercles. Length .25 of an inch.

The moth is rather undersized, with yellow wings, without
any decided markings, but mottled with deep ochreous. It ex-
pands one-half of an inch.

The Cranberry Weevil. — (PL 1, fig. 10, enlarged ; 10a, larva,
enlarged.) Mr. W. C. Fish has found this insect preying on cran-
berry buds, and communicated to me an account of its habits.
It was identified by Dr. J. L. Leconte as Anthonomuis suturalis,
Lee, and I extract the following description of it from my
" Guide to the Study of Insects," p. 487 : " It is a minute red-
dish-brown beetle, with the beak one-half as long as the body,
just beyond the middle of which the antennae are inserted.
The head is darker than the rest of the body, being brown
black. The thorax is a little darker than the elytra, and cov-
ered very sparsely with short whitish hairs ; the scutellum is
whitish, and the elytra are shining reddish-brown, with the
striae deeply punctured, the interstices being smooth. It is .13
of an inch long, including the beak. Mr. W. C. Fish detected
this little weevil laying its eggs in the buds of the cranberry.
It selects a bud not quite ready to open, and clinging to it,
works its snout deep into the centre of the bud. An egg is then
deposited in the hole made, when the beetle climbs to the stem
and cuts it off near where it joins the bud, which drops to the
ground and there decays, the egg hatching and the grub going
through its transformations within. The larva is long and
rather slender, cylindrical, the body being of uniform thickness
and curved ; the head is pale honey yellow ; the jaws tipped
with black ; the segments of the body are very convex, espe-
cially the prothoracic one ; it is white, with a few fine, pale
hairs, and is .08 of an inch in length."

Mr. Fish, in an article on this insect, published in the " Yar-
mouth Register," states, in addition to what we have said above,
that the " egg, which may be found within the bud, is pale
honey yellow, and is very minute, measuring but .02 of an inch.
The egg hatching, a dull whitish grub will be found feeding
within the bud. Having attained its growth, it changes to a
pupa, and the perfect weevil eats its way out of the bud, leav-

THE CURRANT. 243

ing a round hole in the side. These beetles may be found upon
the vines some time after the blossoms have disappeared. I
have known them to eat into a cranberry, making a round hole
large enough to admit the insect ; but it is seldom that it does
this. It also eats a little upon the under leaves, but I have
never known it to deposit its eggs within the fruit, and I have
never found the grub elsewhere than in the bud. I have taken
this beetle upon the fruit of the blackberry, in company with
other species of Anthonomus.

" This insect is not numerous anywhere, but is more common
at Eastham than at any other locality that I have visited. As I
have never seen one upon a bog that had been flowed during
winter, I think that it will never become troublesome on such
bogs at least. The larvae are killed by a minute chalcis fly, as
I discovered the past season."

INJURING THE CURRANT.

The cross-lined Choerodes. — This is not an uncommon moth,
which I suspect feeds usually on the maple, but has been de-
tected by Mr. F. W. Putnam feeding on the currant, specimens
in the Museum of the Peabody Academy being thus labelled :
" Larva on the currant the last of July. Moth appeared August
6th." It makes a loose silken cocoon within a rolled up leaf.

It is the Choerodes Iransversata Walker, and is a large, fawn-
colored moth, expanding two inches, and the apex of the fore
wings is somewhat sickle-shaped, while both wings are angulated
in the middle of the outer edge.

The body and wings are uniformly fawn-colored, the costa of
the fore wing being a little lighter and crossed by small linear
dark brown spots. A slightly waved line crosses the fore wings
just before their middle, and is much curved outwards below the
costa, and at the outermost point of this angle is a minute black
dot, consisting of a few black scales. Another line, edged ex-
ternally with whitish scales, crosses the wing, beginning on the
outer third of the inner edge, running obliquely to near the
apex, when it makes an acute angle, and reaches the costa a
short distance from the apex, which is sharp. On the hind
wings is a similar straight line situated just within the middle.
The wing is angulated in the middle, and slightly hollowed out
beneath the angle. The head is whitish between the antennae,

244 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

which are whitish on the under side. Beneath, the wings are
gray fawn color, whitish on the apex, along the inner edge of
the fore wings, and along the outer edge of the hind wings.

Tlie Currant Halia. — For several years I have noticed the
Halia ivavaria Goedaet flying in our fields and gardens, and at
length succeeded in raising it from the caterpillar found on the
currant. It is a common European moth, and is likely to prove
destructive to the currant in this country. I neglected to de-
scribe the caterpillar, which is a span worm, like the common
currant caterpillar in its general form, and translate from
Guenee's work on moths the following description of it : —

" Caterpillar quite short, cylindrical, head globular, a little
flattened, of a pale green, with the back occupied by four waved
lines and marbled with yellowish white. The line near the stig-
mata is of a lively yellow, and widens in the middle of each
ring. From all the warts arise black hairs, the ventral warts
being well marked. The stigmata are black, and liable to be
confounded with the warts. Head green, punctured with black.
It lives, in May and June, on the Ribes grossularia^ the leaves of
which it destroys. The chrysalis lives in the earth."

The moth has triangular fore wings, with the apex rather ob-
tuse, and the outer edge entire, not being hollowed out just
below the apex, as in the allied genus Macaria. Along the cos-
tal, or front edge of the wing are four large brown spots, the
second one forming a line crossing the wing, in the middle of
which it is distinctly angulated ; near the apex is a squarish
patch ; the fore wings are pale ash, a little darker along the
outer edge, while the hind wings are paler, with the outer edge
rounded. It expands a little over an inch and a quarter.

INJURING THE RASPBERRY.

The Byturus unicolor Say, (PI. 1, fig. 12, enlarged,) is a lit-
tle sub cylindrical beetle about .15 of an inch long, and resem-
bles the death-tick, or Anobium, a pale, reddish-brown beetle
which is found in our houses. The whole body and limbs are
reddish-brown, and covered with dense, rather long, pale, tawny
hairs. The surface is thickly punctured. The scutellum is
paler than the rest of the body and very conspicuous. The
eyes are black, and the margin of the thorax is rather broad
and much depressed, the disc being high and convex. It is

THE OAK AND THE PINE. 245

also distinguished from the lardfer beetle QDermestes lardarius^')
to which it is closely allied, by its narrow body, while the man-
dibles have several teeth, and the claws are armed with a large
basal tooth. Mr. J. L. Russell, of Salem, has called my atten-
tion to its ravages on the leaves, buds and flowers of the rasp-
berry, having been abundant for three or four summers past.
It eats long strips in the leaves, but does the most injury to the
fruit-buds. It was common June 18, when the sexes coupled.
Hand picking proved to be the best remedy against its attacks.

INJURING THE OAK.

The many-toothed Priocycla. — This moth, which may be
called the Priocycla bilinearia, and is not uncommon in the
Northern States, though new to science, has been detected by
Mr. W. Saunders, of London, Canada, feeding in the larva state
on the oak. Unfortunately, the caterpillar was not described.
It went into the chrysalis state on the 4th of July, and on the
17th, or thirteen days after, emerged as a moth.

In its adult form it is a fawn-colored moth, with deeply in-
dented wings, the teeth being largest on the hind wings. The
wings grow lighter towards their base. Near the outer third of
the wing is a nearly straight brown line, with a single slight
bend just above the median vein ; beyond this line, the outer
edge is darker, with a slightly sinuate diffuse broad band, obso-
lete in the middle, leaving a dusky patch near the apex and
near the inner angle. On the apex is a broad, short, oblique,
paler band. The fringe between the tips of the teeth is silvery,
while the ends of the teeth are dark. On the hind wings are a
few dusky scales near the outer edge, but not so distinct as on
the fore wings.

The wings beneath are tawny yellow on the inner third of
both wings, and dusted with brown scales ; beyond, the wings
are yellowish-brown, with the same markings as on the upper
surface ; but the brown, threadlike line on the hind wings is
much more sinuate than above, and is double, inclosing a large,
irregularly oval space. It expands 1.30 of an inch.

INJURING THE PINE.

The Pine Paraphia. — This moth, which is not very common,
was raised by Mr. Saunders, of London, Canada, " from a brown

246 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

geometric larva on the pine, the imago appearing June 24." It
undoubtedly is an inhabitant of this State, and may, like the
other moths here enumerated, be ranked among the enemies of
our pines. It seems to be undescribed, and may be called the
Paraphia piniata.

It is of an uniform granite-gray or pepper-and-salt color,
being whitish, mottled with dark gray scales, and is rather paler
in the middle of the wings than on the outer edge. On the in-
ner third of the wing is a curved, blackish band, becoming
more distinct on the costa. There is an obscure small black
discal dot, and just beyond it an obscure, diffuse, nearly straight
line crosses the wing, becoming most prominent on the costa.
Just beyond, and on the outer third of the wing, is a sinuate
black line, slightly scalloped in places, and a little broader on
the costal and inner edge of the wing. Just beyond its termi-
nation on the costa is a dusky costal spot, and just below, an
irregular white spot, and another longer one near the inner
angle. The outer edge of the wing is distinctly scalloped, the
scallops being white, while the points between are dark brown.
The hind wings are paler at base than on the outer edge, and
are crossed by two black, nearly parallel lines situated near the
middle of the wing ; the inner is straight and broader than the
outer one, which is more decidedly scalloped than on the fore
wings ; the outer edge of the wing is deeply scalloped, the
middle tooth being considerably larger than the others. Be-
neath, the wings are uniformly pale gray, the lines being
slightly reproduced, though the discal dots are much more
prominent on both wings than above. The fringe is distinctly
checkered with brown and gray.

The body of this specimen (which is a female,) is concolorous
w;ith the wings ; along the abdomen are two rows of obscure,
diffuse, dusky spots. It expands 1.38 of an inch.

The Pine Zerene. — To Mr. Saunders I am indebted for the in-
formation that this interesting moth, Z. piniaria n. sp,, feeds on
the pine. "The larva is a geometer, and is striped with red." It
is a delicate white moth, with long fore wings, the outer edge
being long and very oblique, and the wings are clear white,
dusted witli dark scales, especially along the outer edge. The
fore wings are crossed by two zigzag rather broad and very
prominent black lines, which touch each other just below the

THE PINE MOTH. 247

middle of the wing. The inner line, situated on the inner third
of the wing, has three large acute bends, and is broadest on the
costa ; the outer line is divided into six acute bends. There is
a large round black discal dot. The fringe is white, black at
the end of the venules. The hind wings are white and dusted
with black scales near the outer edge, with the discal dot prom-
inent ; the outer waved line with acute scallops. The fringe is
as in the fore wings. The head is yellow between the antennae,
and the front is square and white. Beneath much as above, but
duller in hue. The wings expand 1.15 of an inch.

The pupa is rather thick, white, with a broad light brown
band along the back, becoming widest in the middle of the body.
There is also a narrow brown band along the side of the body,
and on the under side of the abdomen are four longitudinal
stripes of the same color. The wings are slashed with light
brown and the antennae and fore legs are concolorous, while the
middle and hind legs are white. It is .44 of an inch in length.

The Pine Parennomos. — This rare and beautiful moth which
is undescribed, and for which I would propose the name Paren-
nomos piniata, has been raised by Mr. Saunders of London,
Canada, from a larva found on the pine in the autumn of 1865,
the moth appearing the next May on the 20th.

It is an ochreous brown moth, with unusually opaque wings,
those of most of this beautiful family of moths (the Geometers,
or Phalgenidse), being more or less transparent. The head,
antennae and thorax are pale ochreous, the antennae of the
male being furnished with short thick pectinations ; the palpi
are short, not passing beyond the front of the head, with the
third joint short and minute. The fore wings are deep ochre-
ous and paler at base ; on the inner fourth is a white line form-
ing a single large and acute angle on the median vein, along
which it is prolonged beyond the basal third of the wing. There
is a* large irregular silvery white discal dot, and just beyond a
broad silvery line diffuse on the outside ; it curves inwards just
below the median vein, and curves slightly inwards opposite the
discal dot. Half-way between this line and the outer edge of
the wing is a row of irregular white spots from which run whit-
ish streaks to the fringe, which between the white spots is ochre-
ous brown. These markings show through faintly on the under
side. The hind wings are pale whitish ochreous above, beneath

248 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

washed with yellow ochreous upon and on each side of the ven-
ules. The costal area is yellowish. The legs are pale, concol-
orous with the upper side of the hind wings. The wings expand
1.35 of an inch.

It differs from any other native species of this family known
to me by the peculiar opaque deep ochreous fore wings, and the
large silvery discal dots and two silvery bands and slashes along
the venules. It is also found in Massachusetts.

The moth belongs to an undescribed genus, for which I would
propose the name Parennomos, in allusion to its resemblance in
the shape of the head and its appendages to the well-known ge-
nus Ennomos. It will be more fully described in a forthcoming
work on the PhalsenidBe, the family of Geometers, to which it
belongs.

z Saw-Fly larva on the Austrian Pine. —

.(Fig. 1, a, upper, and b, side view.) Late
in September of the last year Dr. William
Mack, of Salem, brought into the Museum
of the Peabody Academy some singular
false caterpillars which had assembled on
a single branch of an Austrian pine, on
his place, and had tied the needles to-
gether with a fine silken web filled with
castings, forming a mass of castings, about
six inches in diameter, with the needles
of the pine among them, the leaves being
^^^- •'• separated by the larvae from the branch.

This larva is a young Lyda, one of the saw-fly family, and
while doing little injury to the tree so far as known, yet merits
a short description. Dr. Ratzburg figures a similar species in
his work on forest insects, and states that the Lyda campestris
of Europe, to which our species seems closely allied, is sporadic
in its attacks on the pine, and never proves very destructive.

The body is cylindrical, a little flattened and thickest in the
middle, with small thoracic slender legs which are not used much
in walking, the larva wriggling along when placed on a smooth
surface. The head is pale reddish with a black spot between
the antennae ; the prothorax is black above and the body reddish
olive green, with a rather broad purplish line along the middle
of the back. There are no abdominal legs, and the end of the

PLATE I.

Tfftl'^

HONEYSUCKLE SAW-FLY. 249

body is somewhat flattened, with a black round spot on each
side of the anal plate ; beneath is a broad transverse incision.
Below and arising from each side is a long, corneous, three-joint-
ed, slender, outstretched appendage of the size and form of the
antennge. The under side of the body is mottled with greenish
and reddish as above, with a reddish median line. On the side
of the thorax are two rows of dots, and two rows along the mid-
dle on the ventral side of the three thoracic rings.

INSECTS AFFECTING ORNAMENTAL SHRUBS.

The Saiv-Fly of the Tartarean Honeysuckle.
Fig. 2.) One of our most beautiful ornament-
al shrubs, the Tartarean honeysuckle, is sub-
ject to the attacks of a false caterpillar, or saw-
fly larva, which often completely strips the
bushes of their leaves. These worms are the
young of the Ahia caprifolii of Norton, and
they seem to be abundant throughout the New
England States, extending west as far as
Chicago.

Early in June the female appears, and lays ^^®' ^'

her eggs probably on the twigs of the shrub, as the recently
hatched larvge may be found eating small, circular holes in the
leaves as soon as they are expanded. When fully grown, the
larva (fig. 2, taken from the " Guide to the Study of Insects,")
is of a peculiar pale bluish-green color, somewhat resembling the
peculiar glaucous green hue of the leaf on which it feeds. Along
the back, on the median line of the body, is a row of black, square
spots, with a small, transverse yellow spot on each side. The
body is transversely wrinkled, one wrinkle on each wing being the
largest, and on this ridge the prominent black spot is situated ;
on the smaller wrinkles are smaller black and yellow spots, ar-
ranged on the side of the body in three irregular rows. Like
the larva of Cimbex, to which it is closely allied, " it lies curled
up on the leaf, and when disturbed emits drops of a watery
fluid from the pores in the side of the body, and then falls to
the ground." (" Guide," p. 216.) Oar specimens spun their
pale, yellowish silken cocoons, about one-half an inch long, in
summer, but did not finish their transformations until the
spring, the single male which I raised appearing late in May or

32

250 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

early in June. The body of the female is short and thick, and
covered with dense hairs. The head is smaller than usual in
the saw-fly family, being smaller than in Cimbex, its near ally,
and is short and narrow. The palpi are white. The antennae
are club-shaped, 7-jointed, the terminal joint being bulbous,
though less swollen than in Cimbex ; the second joint is slen-
der, considerably larger than the others, and somewhat flattened
and angulated ; they are blackish, reddish-brown at the tip of
the terminal joint. The body is dark metallic olive green, and
the wings are a little clouded, with pale, reddish veins, while
the middle of the costa is a little darker. The second segment
of the abdomen is yellowish-white, and the legs are white, the
hind femora being dark beneath, while the terminal joints of all
the tarsi are dusky, especially those of the fore legs, those of
the hind pair being livid white. The under side of the abdo-
men is paler on the edge of the segments. The specimen de-
scribed is from the collection of Mr. James Angus, of West
Farms, N. Y. The body of the male, which has not been de-
scribed, and of which we reared a single specimen, is rather
slenderer and a little longer than that of the other sex, and it
difl"ers in having the second segment of the abdomen concolor-
ous with the rest of the body, and the wings are more distinctly
clouded. The abdomen is darker on the under side than in the
female. The latter is .35 of an inch in length, and the male
measures .40 of an inch.

The Lilac Botj/s. — A species of -^geria, the jE. syringce of
Harris, has been found by Mr. Angus to be quite destructive to
the lilacs about New York. He has found numbers of the cast
chrysalid skins projecting out of the limbs in which the borers
lived. I have detected, in a portion of a branch sent by him, a
new Botys, one of the snout moths. The moth appeared the
2d of June. Its larva had bored a passage about two inches in
length through the pith, and spun a cocoon of fine pith-chips
lined with silk on the inside. The long, slender, brown chrys-
alis lay in the middle of its burrow.

The moth, for which I would propose the name Botys syring-
icola, is peppery gray with bright yellow markings, while the
under side of the wings is pale yellow. The head and body
are pale gray, with a yellowish tinge, white on the under side
of the body and under side of the palpi. The antennae are pale

ENEMIES OF GARDEN VEGETABLES. 251

gray, like the body. The fore wings are gray, due to black
scales lying on a pale straw yellow ground. On the inner fourth
of the wing are two yellow spots, one just above, and the other
just below, the median vein. In the middle of the wing, just
below the costa, is a prominent square, bright straw yellow spot ;
on the outer fourth of the wing is a slightly curved yellow
band, with three scallops on the outer edge, and extending to a
large yellow patch in the middle of the wing, which is tridentate
on the outer edge ; it is bordered beyond with a black, zigzag
line, and a fine, stout, yellowish line beyond. A dusky streak
extends from the apex to the costal yellow band. There are two
broken dusky lines at the base of the fringe on both wings.
The hind wings are yellow, with four sharply zigzag dark gray
lines. The under side of the fore wings is paler than above,
with a yellowish tinge. The hind wings are pale yellow, with a
single, much curved line on the outer third of the wing ; and
there are two dots near the middle of the wing, and a row of
blackish dots at the base of the fringe. It expands one inch.

INSECTS INJURING GARDEN VEGETABLES, ETC.

The Bean Weevil. — (PI. 1, fig. 8. Bean perforated by the
larva ; 8 a, the pupa seen from beneath.) This very destruc-
tive weevil seems to have been introduced from Europe, and has
become established in the vicinity of New York, bidding fair to
become a most formidable pest to our bean crop. Mr. Angus
has been the first to detect its ravages, having found it to be
already very destructive at West Farms, New York. Several
years since he sent me specimens, and during the past autumn
wrote me more particularly about its ravages, as follows : — " I
also send you a sample of beans which I think will startle you if
you have not seen such before. I discovered this beetle in the
kidney or bush beans a few years ago, and they have been
greatly on the increase every year since. I might say much on
the gloomy prospect before us in the cultivation of this impor-
tant garden and farm product if the work of this insect is not
cut short by some means or other. The Pea Bruchus is bad
enough, but this is worse."

252 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

This insect is the Bruclms granarius of Lin-
naeus, and has long been known in Europe to be
injurious to stored beans. It closely resembles
the Pea Weevil (^Bruchus pisi, fig. 3,) of which
"an enlarged figure is introduced from our " Guide
to the Study of Insects," as it presents the gen-
FiG. 3. * eral outlines of the Bean Weevil. It is rather
smaller than the Pea Weevil, measuring .15 of an inch in length,
while the latter is .20 of an inch in length. Compared with
that insect it is lighter and more uniform in color, being of a
tawny gray, without the white spots so conspicuous in B. pisi.
The uniform tawny gray elytra are spotted with a few oblong
dark spots, situated between the strite ; the antennce also differ
in having the four basal joints more reddish than in B. pisi,
while the terminal joint is red, being blackish brown in B. pisi.
The fore legs are much redder, and the two hind pairs are red-
dish where they are dark brown in B. pisi. The spine on the
hind femora is smaller, but longer, and the antennas are flatter,
the joints being farther separated, and the whole body narrower
than in B. pisi.

The pupa, (pi. 1, fig. 8 a,) is white, and measures .17 of an
inch in length. The head is laid upon the breast, the red tip
of the mandibles reaching to the base of the tarsi of the first
pair of feet. The two front pair of legs are folded on the breast
at right angles to the body ; the tarsi of the second pair reach-
ing a little beyond the anterior third of the body, while the hind
pair are concealed beneath the wings. The elytra are laid along
the side of the body, directed obliquely downwards, and are
marked with deep longitudinal ribs ; the under or hind pair of
wings, which are much narrower than the elytra, project beyond
the elytra, nearly meeting on the median line of the body. The
eyes are dark and conspicuous, being red, horse-shoe like spots.
The antennae are laid upwards and backwards on the base of the
elytra and behind the legs. The tip of the abdomen is smooth
and unarmed. Length .17 of an inch.

The chrysalis lies in a cavity in the bean just large enough to
receive its body, there being as many as eight or twelve in a
single bean. (See pi. 1, fig. 8.) This cavity is indicated by a
round, sometimes oval semi-transparent spot .08 of an inch in
diameter ; the insect escaping through a thin orbicular almost

THE GRAIN WEEVIL. 253

transparent lid, previously gnawn by the larva, which falls off
when the beetle emerges. The chrysalis is surrounded by a
thin cocoon-like case, consisting of the castings of the larva,
(which are long, cylindrical when highly magnified) closely
packed together.

Though most of the pupee had, November 25, changed to bee-
tles, which had deserted the beans, many had not changed, and.
two or three out of the whole lot were in the semi-pupa state,
the head and posterior part of the body being unchanged. By
this we could determine that the larva closely resembled the
larva of the true weevils in form. It is a short, thick, fleshy,
cylindrical, footless white grub. The tip of its abdomen is
rather blunt. Its head is rather small, white, with a pale yel-
lowish clypeus, while the mandibles are flat, short and broad,
and red in color. The rudimentary antennae form a flattened
round area on each side of the clypeus. The segments of the
body are not convex, being rather flattened, but the sutures are
slightly impressed. The body is a little flattened beneath, and
very convex above, while the lateral, or pleural, region of the
body is well marked. Length .16 ; thickness, .07 of an inch.

Curtis (Farm Insects, p. 361) states that this insect has been
known in England to destroy half the pea and bean crop, often
abounding at the end of May and sometimes continuing as late
as August.

The best remedy against its attacks is to carefully examine
the beans in the autumn and before sowing time, when their
presence can be easily detected by the transparent spots made
by the larva. These should be burned, and such beans as are
apparently uninjured should be soaked for a minute in boiling
hot water, so that no beetles be overlooked.

The Corn Sphenophorus. — ( >S. ^eo? Walsh. PL 1, fig. 11.) In
the Practical Eiitomologist (vol. ii. p. 117, 1867,) the late Mr.
Walsh described this weevil, and gave an account of its ravages
in the Middle and Western States. Mr. Robert Howell, in
Tioga Co., New York, was among the first to detect it, and un-
der date of June 14, 1869, he writes me that " this is the fourth
year they have infested the newly planted corn in this vicinity.
The enclosed specimens were taken on the 11th instant. I
presume they have been in every hill of corn in my field. They
pierce the young corn in numerous places, so that each blade has

254 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

from one to six or eight holes of the size of a pin, or larger, and
I found a number last Friday about an inch under ground hang-
ing to young stalks with much tenacity. When very numerous
every stalk is killed. Some fields two or three years ago were
wholly destroyed by this insect."

It is a rather large black weevil, with a long narrow sub-cylin-
drical body, and with coarse gray punctures. The head is black,
finely punctured, with still more minute punctures on the beak.
At the base of the beak just between the eyes is a small oval pit.
The beak is nearly one-third as long as the body ; it is curved
downward, slightly compressed, with the tip seen from above
dilated slightly, and triangular. On the prothorax is a long
lozenge-shaped smooth black median area, with two smooth spots
on the side near the front ; these with two longer diverging spots
behind form an inverted Y on each side of the body. Behind
are coarse gray punctures. The wing covers are marked with
rows of coarse punctures along the stride much larger than those
of the thorax. On the smooth spaces between the striae is a row
of more or less crowded minute punctures. On the base of the
elytra near the outer edge is a low smooth tubercle, and a
larger one near the tip. On the extreme tip of the abdomen
beyond the elytra are two short diverging rows of fine stiff" tawny
hairs, which stand out straight from the end. The legs are
black, the tarsi reddish piceous. Beneath, the body is black
and thickly punctured. It measures .40 of an inch in length.

Until we know more of its habits, its mode of life in the larva
stage, and its native food-plant, we are at a loss to suggest rem-
edies against the attacks of this insect. When the corn is ob-
served to be suffering from their punctures, they should be
picked off" with the hand, and the young blades of corn carefully
watched. These weevils are so large as to be readily detected
after a little practice. I have detected this insect at Hyannis,
Mass., June 25 ; hence farmers in this State should be on the
watch for this formidable insect-pest.

Habits of an Asilus Fly. — During the preceding summer,
Messrs. F. W. Putnam and C. Cooke discovered the burrows of
Proctacanthus Philadelphicus, our largest species of robber-fly.
These flies, in the adult or winged state, prey on other insects,
and while usually beneficial, are sometimes, as in the case of
the " bee-killer," Trypanea apivora^ described by Dr. Fitch,

THE ROBBER-FLY. 255

is guilty of seizing and devouring honey-bees. The larvae had
made their burrows in the loose and shifting beach sand by the
seashore, in which grew scattered blades of a grass on the roots
of which the larv£e probably fed. The insects had all passed, at
the date they were observed, (July 18th,) either into the pupa
state, or were flying about the beach, having
undergone their transformations. The chrys-
alids (fig. 4, front and side view,) were observed
protruding about an eighth of an inch from the
edge of the hole.

The head and thorax are gathered into a
mass very distinct from the abdomen, which is
unusually slender, cylindric and rather long.
The head is short and small, and considerably " fig. 4.
narrower than the thorax. On the vertex are two large curved
spines, and on each side below is a large oblique tubercle, like a
deer's horn, and giving rise to three stout spines like those on
the vertex. Below, and on each side of the front, is a little pit.
The mouth-parts are well developed, the labrum being square
and nearly one-half as long as the mandibles, which are large
and reach nearly to the end of the labrum, which is broad and
rounded at the end. The legs are convex and not so much
merged in with the integument as usual ; the second pair are
partially overlapped by the wings, the ends of the third pair
projecting beyond the rather small wing-cases. The whole mass
of appendages is raised from the base of the abdomen, and
reaches to the front edge of the third abdominal segment. On
the side, near the base of the legs, is a tubercle, giving rise to
two spines of unequal length. Just above, and placed a little
anteriorly, is the large, round prothoracic spiracle. There are
seven pairs of abdominal spiracles. The abdomen is long, cylin-
drical, a little curved, gradually tapering to the blunt tip ; the
segments are rather convex, and the sutures wide and deeply
cut ; along the side is a large convex ridge on which the spir-
acles are situated. Near the hind edge of each segment is a
row of long, stout spines, of unequal length, surrounding the
body, many of them being one-half as long as the segment it-
self. At the base of the terminal joint is an impressed trian-
gular area, and at the tip two rather long, straight spines arising
from slender tubercles ; beneath, are two pairs of small tuber-

256 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

cles, tliose at the extreme tip being the smallest and placed
nearest together. It is 1.15 of an inch in length.

Habits of the Horse-Fly. — Common as the horse-fly is in
summer, little is known of the early stages of the numerous
species swarming m our marshes and over our roads. Westwood
remarks that " we are indebted to DeGeer for the knowledge
we possess of the transformations of this family. The larva of
Tabanus hovinus DeGeer is found in the earth, and is an elon-
gated, sub-cylindric form, attenuated at each end, especially in
front ; it is destitute of feet, 12-jointed, having the head dis-
tinct, narrow, elongated, horny, armed with two strong hooks,
antenn£e and palpi ; the fourth to the tenth segments have an
elevated dorsal papillose ridge used in progression ; the terminal
segment is minute and tuberculiform." Mr. B. D. Walsh has
found in IlHnois the larva of a species of this genus which is
aquatic, living under submerged objects. It is a greenish,
transparent worm, cylindrical, 12-jointed, the body being most
slender towards the head, which is small, truncate, conical, the
anterior part capable of extension, with short, fleshy antennse.
There are six pairs of dorsal, fleshy tubercles. On the under
side of the abdominal segments are six retractile false legs, and
a single and retractile proleg. It is, when disturbed, vigorous
and restless, swimming quickly, often elevating the anal slit, in
which the stigmata are probably placed, out of the water to
take in the air.

For the knowledge of another species, the Tabanus atratus
Fabr., I am indebted to Mr. James Angus, of West
Farms, N. Y., who found a pupa in garden soil, and
reared the fly from it. This chrysalis (fig. 5,) is 1.40
of an inch in length, and .30 of an inch in thickness.
It is long, cylindrical, and rather slender, and the tho-
rax is no thicker than the abdomen. The head is
nearly two-thirds as long as the thorax, and is large,
cylindrical, truncated in front, the end being convex,
while the whole surface of the head is smooth and
FIG. 5. shining. In the middle of the convex end are two
thick, flattened tubercles ; just below, is a transverse curved
ridge, divided into two portions by the median line of the body ;
on each side of this ridge is a low, flattened tubercle. On top
of the head, near the anterior end, is a pair of minute tubercles.

INSECTS IN THE PLANT-HOUSE. 257

The thorax is cylindrical and very long, being nearly half as
long as the abdomen, and very smooth. On the prothoracic seg-
ment is a large, long, narrow, curved spiracle, while the abdom-
inal spiracles, seven on each side of the body, are round and
raised on a low tubercle.

The abdomen is long, cylindrical ; the segments are not con-
vex, and the sutures between them are well defined. On the
posterior edge of each segment is a row of stiff hairs surround-
ing the body ; they are not so stiff and spinelike as in the Asilidas.
On the tip, which is rather blunt, are six short, stout spines.
The legs and wings are soldered to the body more closely than
in the pupee of the Asilidee, and are merged with the integument.
When the fly emerges from the chrysalis, the thorax splits open
along the back, the front of the head separates, falls forwards,
and the fly crawls out of the rent thus formed.

This species is larger than most of the species of Tabanus,
and seems to differ generically from them in the conical head,
the large eyes, while the mouth-parts are constructed more like
those of the common house-fly, the bladelike jaws and labrum
not being well developed, so that it is doubtful whether this
species bites like the well-known " green-head " horse-fly and
its allies. This species is nearly an inch in length, and is black
throughout, including the mouth-parts, legs, antennae and wings.

PLANT-HOUSE INSECTS.

By far the most injurious insect in our plant-houses is the
Aphis, of which I have noticed two species which have probably
been imported from Europe. One is entirely green, with a
broad, flattened abdomen. The wingless, asexual form, is fig-
ured on PL 1, fig. 1. I have not yet been able to identify the
species. The other is spotted with black on the abdomen, and
is abundant on various hot-house plants. The best means to
get rid of them is to smoke the plants with tobacco, or wash
them with soap-suds, and turn a stream on them from a hose.

The White Scale Bark-Louse. — The most troublesome bark-
louse in the Amherst and Cambridge plant-houses is the Aspi-
dioius bromeliae of Bouch^. (PI. 1, fig. 6, magnified ; 4, young,
magnified ; 4a, end of body still more enlarged.) It infests the
long, narrow leaves of the acacia, the small, white scales crowd-
ing upon one another, especially along the mid rib, scarcely a

23

258 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

leaf being free from them. To the naked eye these bark-lice
appear like scales of wax, and they are in most cases easily re-
moved from the leaves by washing them with strong soap-suds,
and removing them with the finger-nail.

When magnified, the scale (PI. 1, fig. 6,) is snow-white, len-
ticular, orbicular, being no longer than broad. The dead and
shrivelled body of the female is in the centre, and in form is
ovate, with a median dorsal slight ridge, the width of the body
being equal to that of the margin itself. It is of a yellowish
color, contrasting with the snow-white thin edge of the scale,
the surface of which is minutely granulated, as if frosted over.

The young, which have not, to our knowledge, been described,
differ from those of Lecanium plati/cerii in being more convex ;
the body being thicker, with the hinder edge regularly oval, and
the edge of the body, especially posteriorly, thicker than in the
before-mentioned species. The hind edge is not sinuated and
tuberculated, as in L. platijcerii, but rather agrees with Riley's
figure of the young of Aspidiolus conchiformis, also figured in
the " Guide," p. 529, and this is probably a character of generic
value. The body is also less convex along the middle, and the
segments are less distinctly marked than in L. plati/cerii, while
it also differs in having around the edge of the posterior third
of the body a series of minute tubercles, (fig. 4, a,) alternating
with the fine hairs fringing the edge. The 8-jointed antennae
end in three hairs, and the eyes are black and prominent.

It also occurred very abundantly on the leaves of the Olea
fragrans during the month of November, specimens having been
sent me by Mr. Charles Wright, of the Cambridge Botanical
Garden, where both the young and old occurred.

Some of the scales had a single large hole in them, made by
a minute ichneumon fly of the Chalcid family. One specimen
was observed walking over the surface of a leaf, but unfortu-
nately, owing to its minute size, was lost before a description or
drawing could be made of it. It was pale whitish yellow and
blackish in color, with a short, thick, rather broad body and a
rather large head. It must destroy a considerable number of
the bark-lice, as several scales were perforated by them. It may
prove to be a species of Coccophagus, a genus allied to Encyrtus,
and known in Europe, according to Westwood, to prey on bark-
lice.

ENEMIES OF THE ORANGE. 259

It was also abundant on the leaves of Guidia simplex and of
the ivy, which were white with their scales, while the young
•were also common in December.

The Orange Bark Louse. — Mr. James Angus has called my
attention to a species of Aspidiotus, which is very troublesome
in hot-houses about New- York, infesting the leaves of the orange
and lemon. He writes me that " during the course of a season,
if let alone, they will multiply so as to entirely cover the stem,
branches, leaves and fruit, and indeed every part of the tree. I
have to scrub every limb, leaf and fruit twice a year, or we
would not have a tree worth looking at. I have found them so
abundant at the end of the summer that it was folly to attempt
to clean the leaves and branches ; hence I was obliged to cut
back all the branches to the trunk, (which is more easily man-
aged than the leaves,) and bring them into new wood." I
have also found the same insect on the skin of oranges imported
into Salem, probably from the Mediterranean or the Azores, and
am inclined to consider it identical with my Aspidiotus Gloverii,
mentioned and figured on page 527 of the " Guide to the Study
of Insects." Unfortunately, we have not been able to obtain
either the male or female. The scales on the leaves received
from Mr. Angus were in most cases remarkably long and linear,
straight or curved, some specimens being .20 of an inch in
length and only .02 in breadth, while many were wider and
shorter, as represented in our figure, Qd (copied into the
" Gviide " from Mr. Glover's drawings of individuals observed
by him in Florida). They are of a pale reddish color, smooth
and shining, witli a yellowish oval scale at the pointed end, with
a raised median ridge, and smaller
transverse ridges. Some scales are
much shorter and broader, and re-
sembling the A. conchiformis of our (^^^^^^'^^^ '^^
apple-trees ; such I have found on
the skin of imported oranges. Fig.
Qa, represents the male ; b, the fe-
male ; d, a linear scale enlarged ; while c represents the female
of another species, also found on the orange.

The Fern-Bark Louse. — Another species, found in inconsid-
erable numbers on various ferns of the genus Pteris, etc.,
seems to be identical with the Lecanium of the ferns, the L.

260 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

filicum of Boisduval. (PL 1, fig. 7a, scale enlarged, seen from
above ; 7&, the same, seen from beneath, and showing the form
of the body surrounded by the broad, flat edge of the scale ;
7c, an antenna, enlarged ; Id, a leg, enlarged ; 7c, end of the
body, showing the flattened hairs fringing the edge.) It is reg-
ularly oval elliptical, both ends of the body being alike, though
the anterior end is a little narrower than the opposite, and is
much flattened. Along the middle of the body runs a promi-
nent ridge, considerably thickened in the middle, with a similar
transverse ridge just behind the anterior third of the body, and
another one on the posterior third of the body. On the edge of
many specimens are fine ridges, eight on each side, which radiate
outwards to the edge, which is fringed with minute hairs and is
very thin and broad. It is of a roseate tint, pale around the
edge of the body, and with a darker patch in the angles between
the median and transverse ridges. On the under side it is flesh-
colored, with traces of the minute dorsal ridges appearing be-
neath. The antennae and legs are very slender, the former
reaching one-fourth and the legs one-third of their length be-
yond the edge. The anterior legs are inserted twice as far from
the second pair as the second pair from the third. Length of a
mature female, .09 ; width, .06 of an inch. It moves very
slowly over the surface of the leaf. Boisduval's description is
so short as to be scarcely available in determining this species,
but as far as it goes it agrees with our insect.

The Plalycerium Bark Louse.— AnothGr of this genus was
found on the leaves of the Platycerimn alcicorne in the plant-
house. It may be called Lecanium platycerii. In form it is
regularly oval, flattened and slightly convex above, with a slight
ridge along the middle of the body. In dry specimens, espec-
ially the smaller ones, there are minute ridges radiating from the
middle to the outer edge. The body of an adult female, (PI. 1,
fig. 56,) after it has ceased moving about, and has apparently laid
its eggs, as several young were found hiding luider the body, is
entirely flat beneath, being neither concave nor convex, finely
granulated, and pale brown above. The antennse are obsolete,
and the region of the mouth dark and discolored, the mouth-
parts having probably been torn away and remaining in the sub-
stance of the leaf. The body, in the younger stages of this
genus, quite distinct from the expanded edge, was in this spec-

PLANT-HOUSE MEALY BUG. 261

imen merged with the edge ; the feet were very slender and
threadlike. Its length was .15, and its width .10 of an inch.

The young (PI. 1, fig. 5, magnified ; 5a, an antenna, enlarged,)
were discovered about the 15th of November, moving over the
surface of the leaves, or hiding under the bodies of the females
or the lifeless scales. They are thin and flat, scalelike, and of
a light reddish-brown color. The median region of the body is
raised, and on the large, broad head are two prominent eyes.
The pro thoracic (or second segment from the head,) is three
times as long as the succeeding one. There are eight abdom-
inal segments ; from the terminal one arise two long filaments,
being one-half as long as the body is wide, springing from two
rather large tubercles, with a deep sinus between. Situated
between these two tubercles is a circular, flattened tubercle,
from which arises a short, hairlike filament one-half as long as
the others. The antennas are 8-jointed, the terminal joint giv-
ing rise to three large hairs. The legs are rather long, equal-
ling the antennse in length, and also of about the same length as
the anal filaments.

The Plant-House Coccus. — (PL 1, fig. 3, magnified.) This
well-known pest is often called the " mealy bug." In form it
closely resembles the young of Aspidiotus and Lecanium, but
measures a tenth of an inch in length ; and reasoning from this
fact, it is evidently lower in the scale than either of those two
genera. It was described by Linnseus under the name of Coccus
adonidum, and has been introduced from Europe into our plant-
houses, where it is a great pest. The body is long, ovate, con-
sisting of fourteen well-marked segments, counting the head as
one ; the sutures are very distinct, especially on the sides. It
is covered with a mealy substance, white and cottony, with long,
cottony filaments on the edge of the body, the two terminal ones
being often half as long as the body, and sometimes still longer.
The young are not so wide as the adults, the latter becoming
broader and flatter with age. When about to lay its eggs, it
adheres by the long, slender beak to the surface of the leaf, and
secretes from the abdomen a large, cottony mass, which sur-
rounds and partially covers the end of the body, and encloses
the pale orange oval eggs.

It is found to be especially injurious to the camellia, hiding
about the buds, to the azalia, oranges, lemons and similar plants.

262 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

The best method of removing all the bark-lice, as well as the
Thrips, is to wash the plants thoroughly with strong soap-suds,
and give them frequent showerings with the hose.

The Plant-house Aleurodes. — (PI. 1, fig. 9, enlarged ; fig. 9a,
pupa, enlarged.) Mr. J. L. Russell has found this insect, which
belongs to the same family as the Coccus, in great abundance on
the tomato in his garden in Salem, and also on some of his
house-plants, especially Salvia splendens. I have also found it
on fuschias in February and March in all its stages. In this
genus the females are winged as well as the males, and the two
sexes are much alike ; the antennae are 6-jointed, with the
second joint lengthened, and in the fore wings, which are broad
and covered with a fine white powder, there is but a single vein.

The young, or larvae, of the present species, which seems to
be the Aleurodes vaporarium Westwood, so called from living
in hot-houses, is somewhat like the young of the two other
genera of bark-lice mentioned above, being broad, oval, thick,
with the middle of the body raised longitudinally ; the segments
are distinct, and there are two very short anal hairs. The abdo-
men is wrinkled transversely, the head and thoracic segments
being smooth. They are .03 of an inch long. The pupa is
convex, rather thick, oval, elliptical, with a fringe of hairlike
filaments around the edge of the body, from the top of which
arise from six to nine long hairlike filaments, secreted, as Sig-
noret states, from the surface of the' body on each side, project-
ing straight up ; two of which arise from the head. It is yellow-
ish-green, and .03 of an inch long. Just before the imago
emerges, the head and thorax of the pupa are very convex, and
much higher than the abdomen, and the eyes of the adult are
very prominent.

The adults have pale, yellow bodies and pure white, unspot-
ted, powdery wings, with dark-red eyes ; the beak is very long
and dusky at tip, and reaches beyond the base of the thorax.
The second joint of the antennas is twice as long as the basal
one, and is nearly globular ; the median vein of the fore wing
is forked just beyond the middle of the wing.

Early in September they were so abundant on the tomato as
to rise in clouds like snow-flakes from the leaves, on being dis-
turbed, according to Mr. Russell,

This genus seems allied to the Psyllidse, in the females being

HOT-HOUSE THRIPS. 263

winged like the males, and other structural characters. Next
above stands Coccus, which resembles, in the adult stage of the
female, the young of Lecanium and Aspidiotus. The genus
Lecanium differs, besides other structural characters in tlie fe-
males remaining very minute, and secreting a scalelike covering,
or cocoon, which, as in A. conchiformis or A. Gloverii, is long
and narrow, with the dead skin of the female at the smaller end,
or surrounded by it wholly, as in A. bromelice. In Lecanium,
however, the female grows to a large size before laying her eggs,
which are not protected by a scale, but by a cottony secretion.
I have found the young of L. platycerii hiding under the body
of their parent, which was still living, moving its antennae and
legs. The Aspidiotus should therefore be considered, perhaps,
as a step higher than Lecanium in the zoological scale.

Tlie Hot-House Thrips. — (PI. 1, fig. 2, magnified.) This is
one of the greatest pests in our hot-houses. It is the Helio-
thrips hcemorrhoidalis of Burmeister, and agrees perfectly with
the descriptions of the European insect. In all its stages it
may be found puncturing the leaves of liliaceous plants, azalia,
Pellea hastata, aspidium, pinks, &c., &c., and by its attacks caus-
ing the surface of the leaf to turn red or white in blotches, or
sometimes the whole leaf withers and whitens. The larva and
pupa are white, long, with short antennse. After several suc-
cessive changes, it assumes the adult state, and the pupee may
be found in different stages of growth, with the antennse turned
imderneath the head, and the rudimentary wings folded to
the sides of the body. The eyes are pink. The half-grown
young are shorter and broader than those fully mature. Hali-
day describes the adult in the following words : " Dusky black,
the extremity of the abdomen ferruginous. Antennae and legs
white, the base and sixth joint of the former dusky, wings
almost hyaline. The body above is entirely netted with elevated
lines, forming pretty regular hexagons, equal in size on the head,
where they are largest, to those of the eyes, and disposed in
perfect rows on the abdomen." It is about one-twelfth of an
inch in length.

The best remedy against them is repeated washings with soap-
suds, cleaning each leaf by itself.

Peabodt Academy of Science,
Salem, February 10, 1870.

264 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

I am happy to report that the agricultural societies are, for
the most part, in a strong and healthful condition. But there
is a wide difference to be found among them in respect to their
efficiency and power for good, owing chiefly to the management
adopted by them. Some of them comply with the spirit of the
law, and aim to gain and to diffuse information, to awaken en-
terprise, emulation and mental activity ; while others content
themselves with a bare compliance with the letter, and add
nothing to our present stock of knowledge, and nothing to the
general intelligence of the State. The former publish valuable
reports, full of instruction and replete with information and in-
terest, and regard this as the great leading object of their exist-
ence ; while the latter spend their energies altogether upon the
fair, — which, though in itself educating, is ephemeral in its in-
fluence, and, at best, only of secondary importance, — and return
little or nothing for the money they receive from the State,
nothing of general value, nothing on which the mind can dwell
with any degree of satisfaction.

Now the main object of the State in awarding bounties is not
to distribute its money to please a few small contributors, but to
develop its material resources by adding to the general intelli-
gence upon farming ; to encourage experiment and farm im-
provement ; to increase the quality and value of our stock by
holding up a high standard of excellence ; and, above all, to
elevate the dignity and character of agriculture itself as a prac-
tical pursuit. The State expects, and has a right to expect,
that every society will comply with the spirit as well as the
letter of the law, by contributing its proportion to the general
intelligence.

CHARLES L. FLINT,

Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture.
BosTOi^, January 26, 1870.

APPENDIX.

ii REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

REPORTS OP DELEGATES

APPOINTED TO VISIT THE

AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS

ESSEX.

The Fifty-Second Annual Exhibition of the Essex Agricultural
Society Avas held in the city of Newburyport, on the 28th and 29th
days of September. The weather was most propitious, especially
the second or great day of the show — one of those brilliant autum-
nal days when Nature seems to put on her golden robes, as it were,
to grace the farmer's holiday. The exhibition was largely attended,
and was worthy of the well-earned reputation of the Society and
the intelligent cultivators of Essex soil. This county has but one
agricultural society, and has always itinerated in holding its shows,
rotating from year to year through the cities and populous towns,
thus bringing the exhibitions to all parts of the county.

Without discussing the comparative benefits of this course, so
long and successfully continued by the Essex Society, it is proper
to present for our consideration the advantages which are claimed
by the friends of this measure ; and first, it is believed that the
holding of the exhibitions in diiferent parts of the county excites
new enterprise and emulation in these districts, furnishes a better
method for the diffusion of industrial art and improved husbandry,
and gives to tlie Society many new members from the neighborhood
where the shows are held. Secondly, the saving of large invest-
ments in grounds, buildings and fences, which are generally unpro-
ductive, except at the time of the exhibition.

The Essex Society, having no permanent grounds, has no horse
track, and has always discountenanced horse racing as creating an
ovei'shadowing influence and excitement, both of which are consid-
ered by a majority of the members of the Society as prejudicial to
its best interests, and not legitimately connected with a cattle show.

APPENDIX. iii

To compensate for the excitement of the horse track, this Society-
has endeavored to make the ploughing match one of the great
points of attraction, and in this department it probably surpasses
most other societies in the State. The special attention bestowed
on ploughing has done much, it is affirmed, to raise the standard of
good work, as well with oxen as with horses. One of the most
interesting parts of this exhibition in ploughing was the perform-
ance by boys, to whom special premiums are awarded, thus training
them up in the way they should go, so that when they are old they
may not depart from the good custom of their fathers.

The Ploughing Match.
This was held on a beautiful spot, in full view of the ocean.
The land was of a sandy loam, free from stones, and very suitable
for good ploughing. There were eighteen entries, including those
of the boys, which, as usual, attracted great attention. The judges
were very assiduous in examination, and the work was handsomely
done — some of it scarcely to be surpassed.

The Stock.
The stock on exhibition was not so numerous as on some former
exhibitions, but it contained fine specimens of most of the approved
breeds. There were, however, over two hundred animals, and
among these the milk-white herd of Shorthorns from Major Ben
Perley Poore, of Indian Hill Farm, West Newbury, giving proof
of the maxim, that in breeding with care " you can breed out the
last black feather from the pigeon's wing." The exhibition in the
Horticultural Hall was especially fine. There were over 350 plates
of pears, 230 of apples, and nearly 200 of grape^, and it is no
detraction to state that in the department of apples and grapes, it
rivalled the Boston exhibition of 1869.

There were 20 pairs of oxen and steers, 30 swine, 32 sheep, and
20 entries of poultry ; 76 entries of vegetables, 140 of flowers, 33
of bread, 280 of manufactures and fancy articles, 10 of butter and
cheese, 8 of agricultural implements, 10 of carriages and wagons.

The vegetable section was superior, and comprised wonderful
specimens, which, as usual, are expected from a county so cele-
brated for its squashes, onions and other vegetable products.
Among these were fine samples of the new seedling potatoes,
among which the Early Pose took a prominent stand. The liberal
show of flowers, embracing many of the novelties of the day, added
beauty and brilliancy to the exhibition.

iv REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

The result of the competition in the various departments was the
award of twenty-seven diplomas, and over one thousand dollars in
money.

The Address.
After the ploughing match had been concluded, the procession
was re-formed and proceeded to the Pleasant Street Church, where-
upon other appropriate services were performed, the address was
delivered by Mr. Benjamin P. Ware, a farmer of Marblehead. He
spoke of the methods by which farming might be made profitable ;
the improvement of our products ; the increase of crops per acre ;
the importance of fruit growing, especially the apple ; the necessity
of agricultural education ; the success of our agricultural colleges as
no longer an experiment ; and many other topics, which evinced a
thorough knowledge, not only of tilling the soil, but the tilling of
the mind. As the address is already before the j^ublic, I will not
further enlarge on its excellence.

The Dinner,
This was provided under a spacious pavilion, to which about five
hundred ladies and gentlemen sat down. The president of the
society. General William Sutton, presided. After the repast,
speeches were made by the president, Hon. Allen W. Dodge, ex-
president, Major Ben Pei-ley Poore, Mr. Ware, orator of the day,
Rev. Mr. Spaulding, Dr. Kelley and others. Your delegate was
also called on to respond in behalf of the State Board. He alluded
to the stability and influence of the Essex Society from the days of
Timothy Pickering, its first president, to the present time ; also to
the excellence of the fruits on exhibition, tracing this improvement
back to Robert Manning, an Essex man, and one of the founders of
the Massachusetts Horticultural Society ; and still further back, to
Governor Endicott, whose pear-tree still survives at Danvers.
These and similar examples were the seed, which has vegetated,
and to which may be traced, in a great measure, the increase of
agricultural and horticultural societies in our country, which he
estimated at more than thirteen hundred at this time. He alluded
also to the efiicient labors of the gentlemen whom he saw around
him, — to General Sutton as a liberal benefactor, Hon. Allen W.
Dodge, ex-president and secretary for many years, and to Major
Ben Perley Poore, who for a long time was his secretary in the
United States Agricultural Society, the orator, Mr. Ware, and to
others as associates and co-laborers in the promotion of agricultural
and horticultural knowledge.

APPENDIX. V

Your delegate expressed the great satisfaction he had expe-
rienced, after an absence of twenty years, in being present on this
occasion ; also in the jDrosperity and usefulness of the Essex society,
in the courtesies extended by the president and secretary, and
especially the attentions of the noble band of young men who
acted as marshals on the occasion, the young men who in former
days were denominated by Mr. Everett as the " Flower of Essex,"
the young men who in all coming years were to be the bone and
sinew of society, and exhorted them to let their light so shine that
others, seeing their noble example, might follow it.

In conclusion, your delegate would state that the Essex Society
still preserves its lead as one of the best-managed and influential
societies in the State. The exam^ile of its first jaresident (who was
also the first secretary of the first agricultural society established in
our country) is still felt, and has been handed down through long
terms of ofiicial service to the present day. Colonel Pickering was
president ten years, John W. Proctor secretary twenty years, and
president five years, Allen W. Dodge secretary seventeen years and
president three years, William Sutton, treasurer twenty-five years
and president three years, C. P. Preston secretary ten years, and
now holds the ofiice. Others have held ofiice for shorter terms, but
the policy of the Society seems to have been, not to make frequent
changes, but to preserve as long as possible the services of her
faithful incumbents ; and it may be stated also that its orator has
always been selected from within the limits of the county, and this
has been considered as one of the greatest honors that the Society
can bestow on its members. In confirmation of the practice of
retaining long in office her best working men, we have an illustra-
tion in the fact that the Society has sent to this Board as her i-ep-
resentative for the last ten years our able and popular associate, Dr.

George B. Loring.

Marshall P. Wildek.

MIDDLESEX.

The exhibition of the Middlesex Agricultural Society was held at
Concord, on the grounds of the Society, October 7th and 8th. The
occasion was one of peculiar interest, being the seventy-fifth anni-
versary of the establishment of the society, and being the first
occupation of the ample hall and improvements, which have been
erected within the last year.

vi REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

It is well known that for many years Concord has been the centre
of great agricultural enterprise and success. From the earliest day
the subject of agricultural education and investigation has occupied
the minds of the leading citizens there, and encouragement has
always been extended by them to the various improvements which
have from time to time been made in the various branches of farm-
ing in our State. It is evident that the Middlesex Society is deter-
mined to keep pace with the agricultural progress of the time, and
to be faithful to the example set by its early founders. The recent
purchase of new and well located grounds, and the erection of a
spacious hall, gave unusual opportunities to this exhibition. The
grounds, as yet not fully enclosed, are provided Avith comfortable
covered sheds for cattle, and are arranged with an unusually good
understanding of the wants of exhibitors; and the hall, which is
130 feet long and 70 feet wide, two stories high, with a light and
convenient basement under the whole, and furnished throughout
with tables, show-cases, crockerj^, kitchen arrangements, a good
supply of cold Avater in all parts of the building, and all other
necessary fixtures, is a model for such structures. It is not too
much to say that the liberality of those citizens of Middlesex who
have contributed to the outfit of this Society is entitled to the
gratitude of the agricultural community.

The collection of animals and articles for exhibition, as witnessed
by your delegate, was highly creditable and attractive. The
specimens of Ayrshires and Jerseys on the ground were of high
quality, and indicated care in selection, and judgment in breeding.
The niimber of animals was large enough for all practical purposes,
and the most critical advocate of either of these breeds could have
found model animals for examination. It is evident that the soil
and climate of Middlesex County are well adapted to animals of
medium size — the Ayrshire, which has been bred there ever since
the days of Mr. Phinney, and the Jersey, which was accepted early
by gentlemen of agricultural taste and wealth there, having mani-
festly improved since their introduction. The attempt to introduce
larger cattle, requiring luxuriant pastures and heavy winter feed, is
yet in its infancy, and, while admirable animals of various large
breeds are found there, the result of their use is yet undetermined.
The herds of cattle entered for premium were of hardy constitu-
tion, medium size and good shape, and indicated good care and
selection on the part of the owners, who are devoted to the business
of the dairy.

The exhibition of swine was excellent, the large and thrifty
breeds predominating. The Yorkshire was well represented, as

APPENDIX. vii

was also the Chester County. The production of a large, long,
solid, well balanced hog, with two good ends and a well developed
middle, is evidently the desire of the farmers of this Society ; and
they have succeeded well in their work.

The display of poultry was very attractive. More than one hun-
dred coops were arranged for examination, and they contained
almost every well known and desirable variety. It was evident
that the profits of poultry were well understood by the exhibitors
at this exhibition ; and it is to be hoped that the Society will offer
liberal premiums for reports upon the best experiments in poultry
breeding and feeding, and will provide for comparisons among the
various breeds.

Among the horses were many fine animals, indicating a continued
interest in this subject, which has attracted so much attention in
this section of the State.

A large and valuable collection of agricultural implements at-
tracted universal notice ; and there can be no doubt that this Society
will one day institute a trial of implements in the field — occupying,
as it does, a central point of large agricultural enterprise.

It would be unjust to this exhibition were the specimens of crops
pi-esented in the hall to be passed by unnoticed. It is seldom that
such a collection is witnessed. Not only in size, but in quality,
were the vegetables worthy of admiration. No inferior cultivation,
no misapplication of manure, no badly selected fertilizers, ever pro-
duced such crops. And while the display of garden vegetables
indicated great skill in their cultivation, the field root crops had
evidently received their share of attention from the enterprising
farmers of this county. In close proximity to these fine vegetable
crops were to be found those fruits for which Concord and the
vicinity have become so famous. The grape has found its head-
quarters there, and, judging from the specimens on exhibition, it
is evident that the practices adopted in the orchards and vineyards
of Concord are worthy of all imitation. It is understood by your
delegate that Mr. John B. Moore, of Concord, has contributed a
valuable statement of his modes of cultivating the grape, and it is
hoped that it will be incorporated into the Transactions of this
Board.

The annual dinner of this Society Avas held in the hall, and was
an interesting part of the ceremonies of the exhibition. And it is
due to the president of the Society, John Cummings, Esq., to com-
mend his wise and practical suggestions as presiding officer of the
occasion. There were many valuable suggestions made at those
tables, both by His Excellency Governor Claflin and by the gentle-

viii REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

men associated with him, but no man said a better word than Mr.
Cummings uttered when he urged the value of the best intelligence
in farming, and said, "it is to no one so important as to the practi-
cal farmer to know the laws that govern the vegetable kingdom.
The blight upon his crops is no longer a curse sent from God to
punish him, but some parasite fungi, caused, it may be, by his own
neglect."

It is evident that the theory and practice of the Middlesex Society
make a valuable contribution to our agricultural literature.

Geo. B. Loeing.

MIDDLESEX NORTH.

As delegate from this Board, I visited Lowell, September 30th,
under mistaken ideas that this was the first day of the " Fifteenth
Annual Exhibition of the Middlesex North Agricultural Society,"
but to my regret I found the Exhibition was the 29th and 30th,
instead of the 30th and 1st October. Arriving as I did at a trifle
past meridian, a hurried view was necessarily taken of the show
and surroundings. I found the attendance almost wholly farmers
and their fiiends, and I might say these are the life and sinew of
our agricultural societies, and where they lend a hearty cooperation,
a healthy and prosperous future is sure. I think it my duty to here
say there was caiise for a non-attendance of the citizens in general,
viz., the fire companies of the city making this their holiday or
muster. The weather was all that could be asked for, — clear, bright,
and a genial sun. One of the first persons I met on entering the
grounds, was the active and stirring jiresident, our honored brother
Clement, who in giving the right hand of welcome, directed me first
to the new and commodious stock sheds. These I thuak a great
addition to the grounds, and although there might be better plans
for permanent buildings, I would not withhold saying that the
Middlesex North has made a good investment here of capital that
will be appreciated in future years.

A portion of the stock had been removed, but the best I found
still at their posts. In the line of oxen, I would claim the jDrivilege
of making mention of those shown by Messrs. N. Pierce of Lowell,
D. B. Jones of Dracut, and H. A. and S. A. Coburn of Lowell ;
and as I looked on them, the thought entered my mind that the
societies of Western Massachusetts, with their boasts of excelsior
cattle, would be proud to class such in their exhibitions. Of cows
there was a good display, the Jerseys or their grades predominat-

APPENDIX. ix

ing. I note some few Ayrsliires, and in commenting at length,
would speak in high terms of the full blood of this breed, shown by
Dr. J. C. Ayer, as also the Jerseys shown by W. E. Livingstone
and E. M. Reed, the last from stock imported, as I was informed,
by himself The display of heifers was very fine, and it was with
pleasure I viewed the class, knowing that too often it is passed by
as if of little consequence, when in fact it is one of the most im-
portant, for from the heifers come the cows to be. None but the
best should be permitted to come to maturity ; if signs are seen or
time proves that the heifer will make but an inferior cow, let the
butcher avail himself of her carcass. Through this way I think,
and this alone, can the standard of excellence of our dairies be
raised to a level, that they may be even j^rofitable.

The bulls were out in good numbers, (thirteen,) and I am sorry to
say that grades were in attendance ; yet I trust the time is soon to
come when all such shall be ruled from privileges of premiums. I
would only refer to the noble Durhams shown by Z. P. Proctor^
of Dunstable, and also D. S. Wood of Tewksbury.

Sheep I saw in but two pens ; while of swine the show was from
the " titmouse to the fat porker," each trying for premium.

Poultry was in a commendable and fine display. The ploughing
and drawing match I regret miich not being in season to witness,
but it was rej^orted to me as good in both.

Of the horses exhibited, I would say that I saw no "jockey
ring ;" the exhibition was for the farmer, the track not being used
to any extent. Having no opportunity to see the various points
of excellence in this division of the show, I would not speak of it
in detail, but pass it on its merits as all very good.

The hall calling my attention, I was surpi-ised on entering, at the
full tables of fruit that first met the eye, — apples in the centre on a
long and full table, pears to the right in profusion, and at the left of
the entrance the fi'uit of the vine (grape) was the crowning j^art of
the exhibition, I can truly say the best I ever saw. Leaving the
grape and turning again to the left, I entered the vegetable depart-
ment, and found potatoes, squashes, cabbages, melons, &c., &c., in
their allotted places, the Early Rose potato predominating. Triplet
squashes from one vine in a total of three hundred and fifty and a
half pounds weight, the heaviest one hundred and fifty-seven.

I saw but a small amount of grain, while the table of bread,
honey, butter, (no cheese,) was well filled. Time and space will
not permit me to speak at length of the many fancy articles, the
assortment was so large and varied, and the only mention under
this head is the specimen of spinning and weaving manufactured
&

X REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

one hundred and eight years ago, 1762. In the mechanical depart-
ment, the labor-saving implements are recognized in mowing
machines, " Lightning Churn," knitting machine, and three or four
sewing machines. Receiving here a call, I found myself conducted
to the large dining hall, where seated on the stage I found myself
among numerous honorables, majors, colonels, doctors, &c., and while
waiting for the closing feature of the day and speculating on the
dignity and honor around me, the home power shown by the Mid-
dlesex North, the thought came to my mind that the debts of this
Society should soon be cleared, and stand as one of the first in the
Commonw^ealth. The gathering was called to order by our brother
Clement, who, after a few pleasant remarks and introduction of
your humble servant, turned the meeting into the hands of the
toastmaster, Mr. George A. Marden, who filled the place admirably,
calling on one and another for remarks, as also the "Dunstable
Band " for select music, till the hour of the afternoon told that the
shades of evening would soon cover all nature, and thus the time
had come to close the " farmer's holiday." In closing this report, I
would not pass the idea shown out by several of the speakers, that
this exhibition was not on a jtjar with former years. All I would
say is, I think it not quite good policy to tell of a fault always,
though it may exist. I see no cause here to murmur, and as the
Society now stands, with excellent buildings, I see no reason why
it may not have a happy and prosperous future. My visit here was
hui-ried, but I shall long remember it with pleasure, as also the cor-
dial hospitality extended to me by the president and officers of the
Society. E. W. Boise.

WORCESTER.

The Worcester Agricultural Society held its annual exhibition
on the 23d and 24th days of September, 1869, on the spacious and
commodious grounds belonging to the Society. Rain had fallen on
the 22d, and the evening of that day was dark, lowering, and indi-
cated anything but an auspicious dawning of the morning of the
23d. To the surprise of every one, however, the day dawned
brightly. Old Aurora shone out in splendor, her rays first glancing
on the hill-tops, and then through the valleys. The rain of the
preceding day had as efiectually grounded the dust as ever sterility
was laid by the more scientific and practical agriculturists of the
present generation. Being in the vicinity, we wended our way to
the show at an early hour, but owing to the dampness of the soil,

APPENDIX. xi

as we judged, found but few persons assembled except contributors.
As the morning advanced, however, the people began to gather
from all points of the compass until eleven o'clock, when there was
quite a respectable number in attendance, both of visitors and con-
tributors to the exhibition.

Our attention was first attracted to the various breeds of blood
stock tied up to rings attached to the stone posts which sup-
ported the high board fence on the westerly side of the grounds.
The spaces between the posts also were filled with attachments and
fastenings, which were all occupied ; and twenty feet or more in
the rear of the fence row was another, fastened to strong wooden
posts, making two rows of cattle, some twenty-five rods long, and
each man's lot pretty closely packed together, and but a narrow
space between the several lots. There were also many cattle tied
in other localities, bvit only a few in the pens. There were one
hundred and fifty thoroughbreds on the grounds, grade and native
cows, with working oxen of all grades and classes except inferior,
in almost unlimited numbers.

Each breed of stock had its section of space set apart, thus facil-
itating the labor of committees, and upon examination of the
various lots, we came to the conclusion that somewhere in Worces-
ter County there must be luxuriant pasturage, and if they do not
groio corn, they surely found it elsewhere. Those bony and meaty
Shorthorns at least indicated as much. »

First in the order of our examinations were 8 cows, 1 heifer, and
3 bulls, by Augustus Whitman, of Fitchburg. Shorthorns.

J. E. Waters, Millbury, 1 4-years old bull, 5 coavs, with young
cattle — 10 in all. Shorthorns.

O. E. & E, O. Chafin, Worcester, 5 young Shorthorns.

Stephen Salsbury, of Worcester, 1 Shorthorn bull.

B. J. Stone, of Sturbridge, showed 12 Ayrshires of his own
breeding, and fine animals they were. One cow 8 years old, from
which said Stone has sold $1,200 worth of stock. The cows, Bessie
and Eflie, seemed like remarkable animals.

Wilson Walling, of Millbury, 17 thoroughbred Ayrshires, among
which were 1 fine-looking bull, 6 cows, the balance younger stock.

Benjamin Harrington, Worcester, 11 well-appearing cows, calves
and intermediates. Ayrshires.

J. W. Wetherell, Worcester, 8 thoroughbred Ayrshires.

L. H. Rice, West Boylston, 3 Ayrshires.

W. M. Coe, Worcester, 4 Ayrshires, thoroughbred.

David K. Gates, 1 thoroughbred Ayrshire bull, 4 years old, and
nice.

xii REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

William T. Merrifield, of Worcester, 20 clean and beautiful Jer-
seys, of the two sexes, and various ages.

O. B. Iladwen, of Worcester, 16 thoroughbred Jerseys. Good.

Joseph Burnett, Southborough, 8 Jerseys.

John Brooks, of Princeton, 1 excellent bull, 9 milch cows, 5
heifers and calves, — 15 in all, and handsome as pictures.

Joseph Lovell, of Worcester, 1 fine 2-years-old heifer, ^ Jersey,
1 Durham, ^ Ayrshire, large ; also, one 1 year and three months
old, same grade. Very good.

There were many grades present, and of a variety of crossings,
well developed animals in the main, but we cannot stop to enumer-
ate them. From the lunatic hospital at Worcester, there was one
yoke of Durham oxen, of 4,320 lbs. weight, and one pair 4-years-old
steers, same breed, weight, 3,650 lbs. Also, large cows, said to be
pure bloods, and grade Durhams, from the same place. The cattle
showed no indications of lunacy, but of others we write not.

There were on the grounds some Devons also, the more as grades,
and, judging from what we witnessed, Worcester County must be
alive to the breeding and improvement iof her dairy stock, evincing
a laudable spirit in that direction.

Of swine, there were two lots noticeable. One, a sow and ten
pigs, from the city hospital and almshouse, Worcester, -|- Mackey
and -|- Chester County white. Appeared well.

Calvin Cutter had a sow and 43 of her progeny, of various ages,
Chester County and fine.

Obviously, whether right or wrong, but little interest is taken in
pigs there. In our judgment, any good breed of swine, if regularly
supplied with food, a good shelter, with abundance of turf and
muck in the yard, to protect the solid and strain the liquid manure,
may be made a source of profit to the owners.

The Poultry department contained a variety of such breeds as is
usual on such occasions.

The Ames Plow Company was well represented in the Machine,
Tools and Implements dejiartment, by some twenty-five difierent
patterns of ploughs, hay-tedders, horse hay-rakes, lawn-mowers,
seed-sowers, &c., &c. It reminds me of a statement of Frank M.
Ames, of Taunton, last winter, which was this : The Ames Com-
pany sell $3,000,000 worth of agricultural tools, yearly.

The ploughing match was contested by fourteen single, four
double, and two horse teams, and on the Society's grounds, east
side, and a portion of the land was very wet, exceedingly tough
sward, and other parts less diflicult to manage. Of course, quick
work under such circumstances was out of the question. The

APPENDIX. xiii

ploughmen appeared to be skilled in the business. Good training
was manifest in the teams. The work was well and leisurely done,
and, what pleased us much was, there was bui little music of the
lash.

In the hall, it was evident the ladies had not put forth much
effort to make a show. There were, however, a few samples of
needle-work, and some cut flowers. Of pears and grapes there
were few. The Concords were Avell ripened. Among the apples,
which were generally good, the Gravenstein, Porter, Lyscom, and
Fall Harvey were larger than usual, for those sorts. There were a
number of j^lates of peaches, some of which were fine.

It was clearly manifest 'that the horticultural exhibition which
was going on at Horticultural Hall, on Front Street, had monopo-
lized the fruit, leaving, as it did, a meagre show for the agricultural
grounds. We judged there were good market gardeners in
Worcester and vicinity, from the fact that vegetables in variety,
and of good quality, were on the tables. Among the roots which
were not for the table, were a dozen mangolds which averaged
fifteen pounds each. Excellent butter, and cheese of various com-
plexions, and marblings with different herbs, were shown. After
partaking of an excellent dinner, Avhich was served in the upper
hall in the Society's building. General Butler addressed the multi-
tude some forty minutes, in which time he reviewed the blue booJc
of 1869, in order to show what Acts, if any, had been passed for
the benefit of farmers. He succeeded in finding that an appropria-
tion of $50,000 for the agricultural college had been made.

After the address, the hall was soon cleared of bipeds desirous
of witnessing the performances of quadrupeds upon the track.
Worcester contains a goodly number of horse fanciers, and by thi'ee
o'clock an immense throng had gathered to view the races.

Our thanks are due, and cordially tendered, to the ofiicers of the
Society and others for courteous attentions.

Asa Clement.

WORCESTER WEST.

On my arrival at Barre the morning previous to their cattle
show, the sound of the drum, ringing of bells and the booming of
cannon, reminded one strongly of the days of secession, when our
young men were buckling on the armor of war to defend the Union
and the " starry flag." On inquiring the cause of this excitement,
I was told that the governor and his friends had arrived. With

xiv REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

such an extra beginning it was but natural to expect an extra-
OY(\mv^vy fair.

The weather on the morning of the first day was very fine, and
by nine o'clock the grounds of the Society presented a very lively
appearance. But, as usual, when so many have a finger in the })ie,
it took a long time to get into working order.

Some departments of stock were well represented, esi^ecially
working oxen. Several good pairs were exhibited on a cart loaded
with stone. They did credit to themselves and their owners.

There were some very fine herds of cows, mostly of the grade
Durham ; some Ayrshires and a few Jerseys, with quite a number
of grade Dutch.

I saw but one thorox;ghbred bull on the grounds. That was an
Ayrshire, and a very good si^ecimen. The others were inferior
grades — unworthy to compete for a premium at a fair.

The show of fat oxen, though limited, was very good. There
were some fine steers and young stock.

The principal object of stock raisers in this section seems to be —
not the improvement of the stock — ^but to produce the most milk
for the cheese factory, "We think our friends will in the end find
this to be a mistake. The ploughing match on the grounds was
well conducted, and the work, done mostly by oxen, was well per-
formed.

The sheej) were few, but very good, — a very nice selection of
Southdowns.

Swine were scarce, but of good quality.

The second day was devoted exclusively to the exhibition of
horses. I hardly know whether it belongs to me to report on this
day's programme, as I understand it was under the direction of a
set of fimcy horse jockeys. How the jDremiums were paid is more
than I can tell, but suppose to the satisfiiction of all concerned.
The exhibition in some respects was very good. The entry of
stallions was small, and the animals of inferior quality. There were
a few i:)airs of carriage and draft horses — some very good ones.

The class of colts from one to four years old was well represented.
Some were excellent. One belonging to Mr. Mixter, of Hardwick,
tAVo years old, attracted universal admiration.

I have always advocated the trial of speed at our exhibitions as a
means of improvement, but I cannot approve of the extent to which
it was carried here, nor the way in which it was managed. I do
not believe that such a course is beneficial to the community, or
profitable to the society that permits it.

One part of the programme was very attractive. Three fine

APPENDIX. XV

young ladies appeared on horseback, and gave an exhibition of their
skill in riding and managing their ponies, over which they seemed
to have perfect control. They won universal applause.

The hall was filled with the usual variety seen at such exhibitions.
A very good display of handiwork by the ladies, both useful and
ornamental.

Fruit of all kinds was good, some very fine.

The dinner prepared for the occasion was served in the upper
hall to a company of 250 or 300 persons. Though a bountiful
repast, it was nothing to the intellectual feast which followed. The
wisdom of the State was there, and for an hour or two there was
no lack of wise sayings or merry jesting, with which an appreciative
audience were both edified and amused.

H. S. POETEK.

WORCESTEPv NORTH.

The annual exhibition of this society took place in its spacious
and conveniently arranged grounds at Fitchburg, September 28th
and 29th. The weather was fine, and the exhibition highly credit-
able to all concerned. The cattle sheds are ample, and substan-
tially built and roofed, where the animals brought for exhibition
can be safely and comfortably sheltered in case of storm. On this
occasion they were well filled with animals that are seldom equalled
at a county show. The large herd of Shorthorns of A. Whitman,
of Fitchburg, made a splendid show, and contained many indivi-
duals of great excellence. Joel Page, of Fitchburg, also showed
some fine animals of this class.

E. T. Miles, of Fitchburg, showed his fine herd of Ayrshires,
whose milking qualities might be safely matched with the more
stately Shorthorns of his neighbor. L. H. Rice, of Boylston,
showed an uncommonly fine Ayrshire bull and heifer.

The Jerseys were represented by the excellent herd of John
Brooks, of Princeton, and also some fine animals of this class by
I. F. Brown, of Lunenburg.

In grade cattle the show was very good. The cows, steers and
working oxen are seldom surpassed. The grade bull was there
also, and took a premium, I am sorry to say. Your delegate hopes
and believes that the Society will see that it will be to their advan-
tage to ofier premiums only to pure-bred bulls, for from such only
can they expect any decided improvement in the herds of their
section. H[orses for draft, driving and breeding were well repre-

xvi REPORTS OP DELEGATES.

sented, and the fast drivers were tested in the usual Avay to the
gratification and amusement of the hirge concourse of people who
were constantly in attendance at this, as well as all jiarts of the
show.

The hall (a model in its way) was well filled with the products
of the orchard, garden, field and workshop, not omitting the handi-
work of the ladies. On the whole, the managers may congratulate
themselves on the success of their exhibition of 1869.

Wm. Birnie.

WORCESTER NORTH-WEST.

The memorable storm of the third and fourth of October, 1869,
will be long remembered by the people of the middle and western
parts of the State. The damage done to the railroads was so great
as to delay their operation for days, and in some instances for
weeks. Bridges, mills and dams were swept away, and nearly
every highway rendered unfit for travel. Amid such difficulties I
attempted to meet my ap^iointment to the Worcester North- West
Agricultural Fair at Athol, the fifth and sixth, and but for the
advice of our indomitable friend and associate. Dr. Loring, I
should have abandoned the undertaking in despair. The doctor
was to be met with everywhere at that season, either going or
coming, in the fulfilment of his numerous engagements in the in-
terests of agriculture. He was then on his way to Princeton to
address the Farmers' Club at their annual town exhibition, and
kindly invited me to take a seat in his carriage and accompany him
thus far, and trust to luck for the means of pursuing the rest of my
journey. I swallowed the 'pill, and would say, that if all the
doctor's prescrij^tions are as palatable as in my own case, I do not
wonder at his extensive practice. But his practice is purely vege-
table, always recommending his turnip elixir as the universal
panacea.

Shakspeai-e says there is a destiny that shapes our ends, and it
seemed a kind dispensation of Providence that the angry elements
should have turned me from the direct route to Athol, and carried
me to the Princeton Hills to witness one of the best town shows
I ever attended, and, if I mistake not, even excelling some of the
societies that receive the patronage of the State.

After partaking of the kind hospitalities of this place, for which I
am under many obligations, I left for Hubbardston, passing through
familiar scenes — scenes linked with my childhood's earliest thoughts

APPENDIX. xvii

and recollection". Ah, what is holier to a man in his later years

than the dissociations that cluster around the hills and fields which

his boyish feet have trod. They make him a child again. Say

what we may,

" We owe
Well more than half life's holiness to these,
Nature's first lowly influences."

The dangerous condition of the roads compelled me to take the
by-ways and lanes, lengthening my route many miles, reaching
Templeton late in the evening, cold and weary. I remained here
over night, expecting to find some one in the morning going to
Athol, eight miles distant, with Avhom I might secure a passage.
As no one was known to be going thither, and there was no ])ublic
conveyance, a lady gallantly oflTered to take me there in her own
carriage. The kind offer was accepted, of course ; so off we started,
she handling the ribbons in a masterly manner, taking the dust of
no one on the road, within the hour delivering her charge into the
hands of President Fay at the fair grounds. This kind considera-
tion from a stranger, and a lady, placed me in a new relation, and
caused me to keenly feel that

"The heaviest debt is that of f^^ratitude
When it is not within our power to repay it."

On my arrival I found the exhibition in full tide of operation, and
the grounds literally covered with an admiring multitude of people.

The grounds embrace twenty-one acres, including a fine grove of
large trees, with a beautiful pond on one side, and when all the
arrangements are perfected according to the proposed plan, tliey
will constitute one of the most beautiful fair-grounds Avithin the
State.

The half-mile track is laid out in oblong shape, giving a home
stretch equal to any mile course. A good substantial hall has
been built, 100 by 50 feet, consisting of two stories and a basement.
The exhibition room and offices are on the first floor, the dining-
room above, and the cooking department below in the basement.
A barn has been erected for the storage of hay and grain, and for
the accommodation of horses and other animals. The whole cost
of the grounds, buildings and improvements, has been about
114,000. This has all been accomplished during the jjresent season,
and the whole arrangements are admirably adapted to secure both
the comfort of visitors and the convenience of contributors. My
arrival being delayed itntil a late hour on the morning of the second
day prevented my examination of the cattle department, which was

xviii REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

assigned for the first day. But the display was said to be very
creditable. The entries of cattle of all classes numbered about
400, twenty-two being thoroughbred. There were twenty entries
of swine and twelve of shee]) reported.

As usual, the horse was the great outside attraction of the second
day, more than fifty entries being made. There Avere some fine
animals on the ground. I noticed one fine team belonging to
C. C. Bassett, our worthy associate from that Society. I presume
his modesty would not allow him to compete for a prize.

The exhibition in the hall was of a high order, every department
being well represented. The vegetable department gave evidence
of good cultivation. Fruits of every variety and beautiful flowers
graced the tables, such as woxild have made the eyes of Flora and
Pomona sparkle with delight. I am not sure but these fair god-
desses may have a summer residence in some sunny nook among
the hills in this vicinity. Excellent specimens of bread, butter and
cheese, in the domestic department, well attested the skill of the
good housewives and daughters who contributed them. The
needlework was very superior ; there were hundreds of specimens,
from the magnificent carriage aflghan to the most elaborate hair
and worsted work. It would be invidious to individualize where
all was so praiseworthy. Mr. D. A. Corey, of Fitchburg, had a fine
display of ladies' and household articles. It was a perfect " bower
of taste."

The mechanical department was less fully represented than it
deserved to be as the associate of the agricultural. The dinner was
worthy a farmer's festival, and was enjoyed by a large company of
both sexes. But the crowning event of the day was the address :
subject. The Obligations of the State to Agriculture. It was common
sense illustrated, and worthy the head and heart of our friend the
orator. Professor Stockl^ridge. I have nothing but praise for this
young and flourishing Society, which already takes a high position
among the agricultural societies of the State. The management is
in good hands, whose ability to guide her on to full success is only
excelled by their generous hospitality.

Eliphalet Stone.

WORCESTER SOUTH.

The annual exhibition of the Worcester South Agricultural
Society took place at Sturbridge on Thursday and Friday, October
7th and 8th. The weather was all that could have been desired.

APPENDIX. xix

On the morning of the 7th the people early flocked to the grounds,
where the first thing to attract attention, as per programme, was
the plonghing match, which was spiritedly contested by ten single
ox teams. The ground was a sandy loam, turf not very strong,
with a few small stones in the soil, which rendered it difficult to
turn a smooth furrow; but notwithstanding these difficulties the
work was well done. All the ploughmen were entitled to a pre-
mium, and all got one. After the ploughing came the trial of
working oxen and steers on the cart with 3,000 lbs. of stone. This
exhibition was very fine ; it showed that the men and boys of Wor-
cester County knew how to train their oxen and steers well. There
were about fifty pairs on the ground ; the Durham, Devon and
Ayrshire blood predominated, but all were so excellent it was diffi-
cult to discriminate between them. I would mention as worthy of
note one bull and a herd of cows belonging to Alpheus Davis ; one
Shorthorn bull three years old, weighing 1,700 lbs., twelve cows,
one thoroughbred, and twelve head of young stock, all high grade
Durham, exhibited by Daniel Dwight, of Dudley. Nine head
of grade Devons, by Byron "VV. Charles, and twenty-two head of
Ayrshire, by Bela J. Stone, of Sturbridge, attracted much atten-
tion. The shoAV of swine and poultry was good. Sheep was an
exception ; very few on exhibition. The dinner-hour had arrived,
and a large number of persons sat down to a well-provided dinner-
table, at which the president of the Society presided. After dinner
we retired to the upper hall, which was filled to ovei-flowing with
ladies and gentlemen — as intellio-ent-lookino; an audience as can be
found. The president then introduced the Hon. Levi Stockbridge,
orator of the day, who gave us an excellent address, defining the
duties of the State to agriculture. Of the numerous articles in the
hall I shall have to speak in general terms. There was a good
show of vegetables of all kinds, of fruits and flowers, and the ladies
had done their full share in contributing to the useful and orna-
mental department of the show. There were but few agricultural
implements exhibited. There was in the hall some fine augers and
bitts from the Snell Manufixctui'ing Company, and some fine car-
riage harnesses from Zebulon Morse & Son.

The second day was given to the horse. There was a fine ex-
hibition of breeding mares and colts, showing both care and skill in
their breeding ; also a fine show of carriage horses. There were
five entries for fast and light work, and they did it up to the satis-
faction of your delegate, and, I presume, to the farmers generally.
Finally, I tlii.nk great credit is due the officers of the Society for
their exertions and skill in the arrangements, and the people of

XX REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

Sturbridge and neighboring towns generally, for the interest shown
in making this show, as it was, a decided success. There were
judged to be 5,000 people on the ground ; there was no rowdyism,
and your delegate did not see a person intoxicated during the two
days of the show, which speaks well for the morals of the people.
In closing my report I with pleasure make mention of the cordial
reception I received as the delegate of the State Board from the
president, Sylvester Dresser, Esq., and the secretary, Avery P.
Taylor, and others, and their kind attention shown me during my
stay rendered my visit to that Society very pleasant.

John a, Mortox.

WORCESTER SOUTH-EAST.

Agreeably to my appointment by the State Board of Agriculture,
I visited the fair of the Worcester South-East Agricultural Society
held at Milford, — their tenth annual exhibition, — in company with
its president.

It was a beautiful frosty morning, and although we were early,
we found the grounds and hall fast filling up with all ages and
classes of men, women, and children ; some evidently had taken a
long, early ride, all eager to enjoy the whole of the " cattle show."

The cattle pens were very rapidly filled, so that before eleven
o'clock the pens were full, and some fastened outside. The cattle
generally looked well, although some showed greater care in breed-
ing than others. There were not as many full bloods as I had ex-
pected to see. All the diflferent breeds were represented except
the Durhams, the Jerseys being the most numerous. I noticed
some grade Jerseys which appeared to be deep milkers.

There was a very fine Ayrshire bull exhibited by the president,
Mr. Knowlton ; also a fine little Brittany cow and bull which he is
anxious to test. He speaks very highly of the " Pet."

This breed is a new kind to me, but from what I saw of it, I think
they may be valuable as pets, and on gentlemen's lawns to supply
their tables, and children with pure milk.

The exhibition of beef and sheep was very small. Swine and
poultry were well represented.

I found the arrangements had been made to exhibit both cattle
and horses on each day. The show of working cattle and trained
steers was excellent, and the ploughing with oxen very good ; the
ploughing with horses on the first day was well done.

APPENDIX. xxi

More attention was paid to the breeding of horses than I had ex-
pected to see. There were some fine colts, of all ages, entered, and
a good show of carriage, farm, and working horses. The show in
the hall was very excellent, all being arranged in perfect order,
showing that great care had been taken in the preparing and cart-
ing of the vegetables. The hall was very neatly decorated, and
nothing was wanting in the way of vegetables, grains, fruits, flowers,
and works of art, to make it beaiitiful and attractive.

The bread and honey I should pronounce good from their appear-
ance, but the butter I did not call first quality, as I had a chance to
taste as well as look at it. There was no cheese presented.

The show of agricultural implements was not large.

Your delegate was much pleased with the arrangements in gen-
eral which governed the fair, and all the committees which came
under our notice seemed to be composed of men who took an inter-
est in and were competent to discharge their duties. They exam-
ined the stock and questioned and cross-questioned the attendants
in such a manner as to show that they knew what they were talking
about. We were highly pleased with the hall ; it is well adapted
to the wants of the Society. The grounds and track were well
located and in good order ; but we were surprised to leani that the
Society did not own the track, but did own the hall. This seems
to us not what it should be to make the Society prosper, and have
everything pass off pleasantly ; they should own the track as well as
the hall and pens, and thereby have the whole control at all times.

We were informed that the rules of the Society require that the
stock shall remain in the pens until the second day at three o'clock ;
they are to be fed and watered at the expense of the Society. This
is very desirable where the fair is held two days, provided the stalls
are convenient for the exhibitor. In the judgment of your delegate
there should be covered stalls provided for all stock which is re-
quired to remain, whether it be for such as take premiums or not ;
also a comfortable place for the attendant who has charge of the
same. In this way, those who have the stock in charge Avill take
pride in keeping it looking neat and worthy of being on exhibition,
which is the aim of the second day's show. In this way, with feed,
water, and bedding, no one who has any good stock can object to
leave it until the second day.

It seems to us there must be an objection to some bringing out
their stock, knowing the rules, and the accommodations the Society
is able to furnish. We are of the opinion that the bounty of the
Society received from the State is doing good, and should be con-

xxii REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

tinned for nnmerons reasons. One is this : the Society offers a pre-
mium for improvements on swamp lands. I have been informed of
one piece entered, the improved vahie of which is $180.

In all probability had there been no bounty there would have
been no society ; no society, no premium ; no premium, no im-
provement in the swamp land referred to here.

The second day of the show opened with a trial of working and
trained oxen. The number of contestants was imusually large.
The cattle were generally finely matched, as to color and physical
resemblance, and presented a symmetry of form rarely excelled.
The work also was better done, on the whole, than at any other
exhibition of this Society. Throughout this trial, with but very few
exceptions, there was shown a. docility on the part of the cattle, and
intelligence and humanity on the j^art of the drivers and trainers,
which argues well for the future. Dumb animals, like children,
show at once, by their manner, the treatment they receive from
their teachers or masters. A disturbed and apprehensive glance ot
the eye, a cringing obedience, or a defiant manner, indicate the
tyranny of those under whom they are tutored. A trusting, loving
look, and a confiding action, at once assure you of the humanity of
their instructor. A true appreciation of brute intelligence, and a
manly treatment of it, are rewarded by an obedience that seems to
have the divine quality of love in it. They, under such a master,
work with a will. Much of this was manifested at this trial, both in
ploughing, and drawing, and backing. The shouting and whipping
were generally abandoned, and a few decisive words and motions,
understood by the cattle, accomplished the work marvellously well.
The high character of this part of the show was attested by the
interest and enth\isiasm of the crowds of spectators who were held
here in spite of the other great attractions on the ground. The
satisfactory character of this exhibition was crowned with one,
where, even in a higher degree, the capacity of the cattle and the
nobler and humaner spirit of their masters were revealed. Three
yokes of oxen, two pairs of steers, and one pair of calves, six months
old, were unyoked and began, under their drivers, to show us what
patient kindness could do Avith the ox, which has been called a stupid
animal. Their capacity seemed to respond to almost any test. At
a word they went forward together, or one went forward and the
other backward. They changed places with each other, nowise
embarrassed by finding themselves on the off or near side. By a
motion, a foot was held up, as if to offer a hoof instead of a hand.
At a blow, or succession of blows, on the ground in front of them,

APPENDIX. xxiii

and a command, they laid down and allowed their trainers to crawl
between their legs, and there lie, or sit at ease on their backs. In
a word, they went through evolutions not unlike soldiers on drill,
or a cotillion set at the call of the prompter.-

The calves were trained and managed by a boy of twelve years
of age, who commenced with them when they were six weeks old.
Their evolutions were not as complicated, but in the same direction
as those of the older cattle, and as far as they went, they did their
parts well.

The society for the prevention of cruelty to animals would have
rejoiced, we think, at this exhibition had it been before them.

It is said the great mind of Daniel Webster turned from the
maze of politics and the deceits of men to his home at Marshfield,
and found not only the solace of domestic life, but as he looked into
the broad, honest faces of his oxen, an appreciation of kindness that
made him forget the ingratitude of men.

When we saw the intelligent farmers thus drawing forth the
obedience and love of their oxen, we felt as if they, too, might ap-
preciate what the profound insight of Webster saw in his cattle,
years ago, at Marshfield.

Our sincere thanks are due to President Knowlton for his kind
hospitality and the pleasant acquaintance made with his family,
and friends. John T. Ellswokth.

HAMPSHIRE, FRANKLIN AND HAMPDEN.

Owing to the very heavy freshet which occurred October 4th,
and did so much damage to roads and bridges, and the conse-
quent delay of the trains, I did not arrive on the grounds of the
Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden Society' until four o'clock in
the afternoon, and not in time to witness much of the first day's
show. There were a few cattle from the immediate vicinity, and
two large herds that had been brought from a distance, which re-
mained on the ground overnight, and I had an opportunity of
seeing them the next moniing.

One of them was the very excellent herd of the Messrs. Anderson,
of Shelbui-ne Falls, the well-known breeders' of grade Shorthorns.
Seven of the cows, I was told, were valued at seven thousand
dollars, and the remainder, to the number of twenty, of corre-
sponding value, according to age and merit. While looking over
and admiring this herd, which had been bred with such care and

xxiv REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

discretion as to symmetry and dairy qualities, I could not help
heaving a deep sigh and saying to myself, If they had only good
recorded pedigrees ! and I was also very sorry to learn that these
gentlemen had abandoned, in this the height of their success, the
use of thoroughbred bulls. If these gentlemen had used corre-
sponding discretion in maintaining pedigrees of their cattle, at a
comparatively small additional expense that they have in breeding
and management, the value of their herd would have. been more
than doubled, and their customers for them would be legion.

The other herd, which I was also much gratified in seeing and
examining, was the beautiful hei'd of Alderneys belonging to Mr.
T. M. Stoughton, of Gill, about twenty-five in number, and each
one a specimen of itself. Mr. Stoughton is one of the pioneers in
breeding these Alderneys in the country, and he has certainly suc-
ceeded in producing an excellent herd. As we went around among
them while they were feeding on the grounds, each with a difierent-
sounding bell strapped about its neck, and under the light of as
beautiful a day as I ever saw, amid the grand views of that match-
less valley, my joy was complete. (If of a poetical nature I should
insert a few lines here.)

I regretted not seeing the entire show of cattle the preceding
day, but was told that it was very good.

The number of horses on exhibition was very large, and included
many good ones, and some which, I presume, the owners found,
in getting them near others, were not as good as they thought
them to be before comparing side by side. And just here
seems to me to be the prime object of our fairs. They enable
the farmer to form opinions by comparison as to the quality
and value of his stock and farm productions that he would not
otherwise have an opportunity of doing. I noticed an extra fine
span of biisiness horses belonging to our friend, the delegate from
that Society.

The trotting in the afternoon was 'spirited and interesting, and
some fast time was made, the best heat being in 2.33, the excite-
ment of which was added to by one horse running away and
tipping out his driver in three consecutive heats, thereby enabling
some that were behind to come in first. How many times it would
have been repeated without breaking the driver's neck I can't say,
if he had not been ruled off by the judges.

The exhibition of farm machinery was not very large nor attrac-
tive.

The display of fruits and vegetables, and fruits in pai'ticular, was

APPENDIX. XXV

the finest that I saw at any fair that I attended during the foil, not
excepting the New York State, held at Elmira; and the other de-'
partraents in the hall were well represented.

The Haydenville brass band fm-nished most acceptable music,
and this always adds largely to the interest of all public occasions.
The attendance was very large, upwards of five thousand we should
judge, notwithstanding the bad condition of the roads, and the
necessity in many cases of going a long way around on account of
missing bridges.

The management of this Society is at present in the hands of
thorough-going, practical and successful fiirmers, and who by their
own success are rendered doubly fit to manage for the jjublic ; and
as I left, I did so with the sincere wish that the worthy and vener-
able president, Mr. Milo J. Smith, might be spared and allowed to
preside over many fairs, and all as successful as the one then draw-
ing to a close ; also, the gentlemanly and courteous secretary, Mr.
Elnathan Graves. G. T. Plunkett.

HAMPSHIRE SOCIETY.

The annual exhibition of the Hampshire Agricultural Society,
was held at Amherst, September 28tli and 29th. The location of
this Society, in the neighborhood of the Agricultural College, gives
its operations unusual interest to the farmer ; and there can be no
doubt that the character of its exhibitions will ultimately be mate-
rially influenced by the investigations carried on at that institution.
The exhibition, as examined by your delegate was a good one.
The show of working oxen was, as usual in that section, worthy of
careful attention ; and it was j^eculiarly gratifying to witness the
interest taken by the members of the Society, in this most useful,
and now too much neglected form of animal labor for the farm.
The value of a good working ox should not be overlooked. Not
only is he important in the general business of the farm, but that
form best adapted to labor, is usually attended by those qualities
of thrift, and shape, and constitution, which are to be found in ani-
mals best fitted for the shambles. It is encouraging, therefore, to
witness all endeavors to keep our working oxen up to the standard
of a solid, well-made animal. A farm well supplied with cattle of
this description, has generally been conducted in a thrifty and
profitable manner. And it is to be hoped that a good ox-team will
continue to be the pride of the New England farmer.
d

xxvi REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

As might be expected, in a region where oxen still enjoy the re-
•spect of the community, and the pastures are still luxuriant, the
dis])lay of flit cattle was very fine.

Of dairy stock there was an excellent representation. The cows
were of medium size, well developed, and admirably adapted to the
service assigned them. The introduction of good blood into that
section of the State, has produced that good efiect which we have
a right to anticipate. And it is a question, whether, in view of
these fiicts, it is desirable that this Society should continue to offer
premiums for grade bulls. It is generally understood that pure-
bred bulls of any breed, are more beneficial to the farmer that any
grade can be, unless a family has been created of such high quality
that the owner is desirous of continuing it in all its characteristics.
But these instances are rare. Scarcely can a breed, large or small,
be found, that cannot be improved by the introduction of good,
pure blood. And this being the case, it is a matter of great im-
portance for a Society to decide how far it should go in encourag-
ing the use of half-bred males.

The show of stallions and breeding mares was excellent ; and the
trial of speed upon the track was confined to horses of utility, and
not opened to those whose sole merit is speed, regardless of other
qualities.

To speak in terms of commendation of the sheep, swine, poultry,
and manufactures of many descriptions, would be merely to repeat
the general oj^inion of those who examined the exhibition.

The affairs of this Society are in good condition, and indicate a
determination to fulfil the design of those enterprising gentlemen
who long ago provided ample grounds and a fine hall for its pur-
poses.

Geo. B. Loring.

HIGHLAND.

At the last annual meeting of this Board I was appointed to
attend the Worcester West Agricultural Society Exhibition, to be
held at Barre in September. After accepting that appointment I
found the time came on the same day that the Nantucket Society
held their fair, where I felt bound to attend. From this I arranged
with Mr. Porter to go to Barre, and I attended the Highland
Society Exhibition, held at Middlefield, September 16th, where I
found a fine collection of cattle, comprising many valuable thorough-
breds of different classes, and many exceedingly fine grades. The

APPENDIX. xxvii

brood mares and colts and stock horses were of the best stock in
the State. Other portions of the show were well i-epresented by-
swine, sheep and poultry. In the hall was a fine collection of fruits,
flowers and all the home manufactures contributed by the skill and
tastes of tlie ladies, and no such exhibition is complete without
their cooperation. The bread, butter and cheese were of excellent
quality, so far as your delegate could judge. On the evening of the
first day the hall was packed full of earnest listeners to the well
selected pieces of music by a select glee club, and the well chosen
remarks offered by many gentlemen present. On the second day
the general exhibition of horse stock took place, but not on a full
course track, as nature has decidedly arranged the rocks and hills
in such a manner as to preclude such a course, unless by an ex-
travagant outlay. The address was delivered by Professor Stock-
bridge, who is at all times ready and willing to add his voice and
knowledge in the cause of agriculture.

After noticing the exhibition as a whole, I am happy to report
that, in the judgment of your delegate, this Society is striving,
through its officers and active members, to develop the resources
of the Highlands, on which nature has seemed to defy the skill of
man to add to his means of transportation any method better than
the old ox or horse teams ; and I would suggest to the farmers on
these hills to adopt a course of farming by raising cattle, sheep,
swine, and the grains, roots and pastures on which to grow this
stock, from which butter and cheese could be produced and marketed
with but little cost of teaming, as much of the stock could be sent
to a market on the foot ; and again, the cattle would return to the
soil in manure such elements as were extracted by the crops.
Respectfully submitted. James THOMPSoisr.

HAMPDEK

Another year in the history of agricultural societies has passed,
and it is expected from its executive officers some account of its
progress and prospects. Experience has not removed the convic-
tion that every member of an agricultural society is responsible,
in a greater or less degree, for the success of said society. If one
sees a deficiency in the show of horses, cattle, sheep or swine, or
in the show of fruits or vegetables, or in any department of the
show, let him see to it another year that he or his neighbor supply
the defect, and by so doing bring out a good show, and encourage
the officers of the society as well as agriculture. The twenty-fifth

xxviii REPORTS OF DELEGATES,

annual cattle show of the Hampden Agricultural Society was held
on the grounds of the Hampden Park, October 6, 1869. My visit
was unexpected, but in the absence of the regular appointee, Hon.
Mr. Davis, of Plymouth, my services as i-eporter were requested by
Mr. Birnie, of the Board, and the efficient and worthy secretary of
the society, J. N". Bagg, who has served the Society in that capacity
for ten years in succession, and was re-elected at the annual meet-
ing of the Society.

It was hoped by the friends of the Society that the annual
October exhibition might be a success, the Society having offered
11,500 in premiums. But the attendance was not large, nor was it
difficult to assign the reason. The great flood of October 4th de-
tracted from everything, agricultural fliirs in particular. No one
was responsible. If water had been the only element necessary
to carry a show, it would have been a siiccess.

Mr. Wm. Birnie was on the ground with his fine herd of Ayr-
shires, the best in the State, furnishing his owti pens, and refusing
a premium. Mr. Alden Warner exhibited his herd of Herefords,
which added much to the show. Longmeadow took the first pre-
mium on town teams, among which were the well trained steers of
Messrs. Converse and Pease. Mr. A. Webber exhibited the best
pair of oxen on the ground, weighing 4,340 pounds.

The show of milch cows was not large, but very creditable.

But few horses were on exhibition ; a few pairs of work and some
fine saddle horses, and several nice colts.

The show of fruits, vegetables and the nicer things of art, of
which there was a fiiir display, was removed from the City Hall to
under the grand stand on the grounds.

The exhibition of agricultural implements was not large. Schenck's
potato digger Avould have been on the ground but for the flood.

This Society has the most valuable park or fair ground of any
in the State, and its members possess thoroughbred stock of the
different breeds sufficient, with a little more zeal, to make one of
the best shows in Western Massachusetts.

Agricultural fairs do much to overcome the growing unwilling-
ness of the New England youth to engage in farming. The in-
crease of fairs is a positive advantage ; a stimulus to agriculture,
besides affording an innocent amusement to all. The State has
long understood this, and hence the pecuniary aid and encourage-
ment she has extended to every society in the State.

In the various combinations of wood and iron which are em-
ployed in agriculture a great improvement has been made, yet a
farmer must use his brains as well as his muscles.

APPENDIX. xxix

In mcclianics, in science, commerce or law, it is imderstood that
the man who is the most truly alive to his calling is the one that
wins. The same really is true in regard to farmers. They must
wake up and join the advancing march, or be left behind.

In closing I would simply say. General Butler's address before
the Worcester society, as a means of enlightenment on important
subjects, was worth more to the agricultural interest than half a
dozen commonplace reports. In the language of another, "read
and heed its suggestions ; and would that it could be placed on the
desk of every member of the legislature."

Imxa K. Brown.

HAMPDEN EAST.

The farmer's seventeenth annual festival and cattle fair of Hamp-
den East, was held at Palmer October 12. The day was fivorable
and men, women, and children embraced the o]iportunity to see
what was to be seen, and to hear what was to be heard.

Situated as Palmer is among the fruitful hills and fertile valleys,
bordering on the Ware, the Swift, and the Chicopee rivers, — ^afford-
ing facilities for manufacturing, as well as for agricultural interests,
and where among the pleasant and tasteful villages within the lim-
its of that Society, agriculture should not be behind the other arts,
your delegate to that Society's exhibition, anticip;)ted that in many,
if not in most respects it would surpass other similar exhibitions in
the State.

With this preparation of mind I left the cars at the railroad sta-
tion and soon found my way to the fiir ground.

And now, Mr. Chairman, what shall I say? The object of this
Board, in sending delegates to the various agricultural exhibitions
in the State, as I understand, is that you, and through you the
State, whose servants we are, may know the standing and progress
of the several agricultural societies fostered by its bounty.

With this assumption, if I may be allowed to proceed, I will
state things as I found, them, and will leave you to judge of the
prosperity of the Hampden East Agricultural Society.

The grounds owned by this society, are well located, and ample
for all present purposes.

There were twenty-two entries of cattle in the yoke — five milch
cows — thirteen two yeai*s old heifers, and three f^it cattle besides a
few bulls, and yearlings.

A pair of three years old steers among the cattle in the yoke,

XXX REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

weighing 3,280 pounds, and owned by J. B. Foster of Monson,
were by far the best cattle of that age, on the ground.

Five entries of sheep, and ten of fowls, were made.

Thi-ee ox teams and four horse teams were entered for the pre-
miiini on ploughing.

There were some very good families of swine, which spoke well
for their owners. The boar " Prince Albert," an imported animal,
was a noble fellow of his kind, and showed that his owner, A. B.
Howard, of Belchertown, is looking for improvement.

There were two pairs of work horses, and two stallions on exhi-
bition. The foregoing comprises the stock and fowls on the
ground.

The Society have a track on their grounds, but it was not used as
a trial ground on that occasion. There were a few implements of
husbandry for show, which completed the out-door exhibition of
the Society,

I was informed by J, B, Knox, Esq,, president of the Society,
that there had not been any change in the financial afiairs of the
Society " since the publication of Mr, Flint's report."

Another exhibition on the ground of the Society, for which the
ofiicers may say they are not resj^onsible (but the public will
judge), was one which drew by far the greatest crowd, and in
which there seemed by far the deepest interest taken by most
people present.

It consisted of a score or more of noisy hucksters — dealers in a
great variety of small things, abounding in vulgarity, making the
air vocal —

" With sounds unearthly,
And with songs profane,"

poisoning the mind of youth and grown-up boys, to say nothing of
the other sex, and prejudicing the better part of the community
against exhibitions designed to promote the public good.

If such has been the practice in former years, no marvel that the
interest in the Society has been abating for several years, as I was
told had been the case.

Your delegate may be alone in the opinion that such scenes as
transpired at Palmer ought not to be allowed by any agricultural
society, and should be frowned down by a healthy populace.

Your delegate did not learn that there was any public dinner or
public address.

The most pleasing part of the exhibition was in the vestry of the
church, the Society having no hall in which to display their fruits,

' APPENDIX. xxxi

flowers, vegetables and the products of the dairy, with the sweets
and the sours, a general assortment of which was exhibited.

A. H. Murdock, of Palmer, exhibited one hundred and fifty-
varieties, which for quality as well as quantity spoke well for the
interest he took in that part of the exhibition. C. D. Green ex-
hibited twenty, and H. Maxwell twenty-five, varieties.

Others were not backward in their aid to make this part of the
show worthy the occasion. There was a good supply of fruit, espe-
cially of pears of various kinds, and good specimens of their kind.

Specimens of needle-work and the fine arts filled a large place in
the room, and much praise is due to the ladies who permitted an
examination of their skill displayed in the wrought pieces on ex-
hibition.

Mrs. Wetmore offered a most superb carriage-robe, which neither
the president of that society nor the President of the United States
would feel otherwise than honored by the protection of.

A robe, made from the skins of various animals, was exhibited
by Mrs. Mary Shaw, of Monson. This robe, though singular in its
api^earance, displayed good taste in the arrangment of the skins of
which it was made.

The butter, cheese and bread, to appearance, was good, and
which no doubt, if we had been allowed to taste, we should have
pronounced better than may be found in most families.

One very good-looking loaf attracted our attention, and with it
was the recipe after which it was made, which was in the following
words, viz. : " One gill hop-yeast, a quantity of new milk made thick
enough to rise ; when raised, add a little more milk, and thicken
according to the discretion of the maker, and rise again sufficient to
bake;" and there was added, " J'Ais is domestic^ And your dele-
gate thought it probable that the recipe was also original.

The exhibition in the hall was by far the most interesting feature
of the day, and showed that spirit and enterprise were not lacking
in this department, if it did wane elsewhere.

Your delegate left Palmer with the impression that if what was
seen on the fair-ground was a fair specimen of the result of the
united ambition of the Agricultural Society of Hampden East, an
element of greater power than that which now exists in the Society
must be brought into action to ensure prosperity.

Thomas W. Wakd,

xxxii EEPORTS OF DELEGATES.

UNION.

The annual fair and show of the Union Agricultural Society was
held at Blandford, September 28 and 29. The fair day was a cold,
windy, uncomfortable one, but did not have the effect to blow away
the zeal, or freeze up the ardent desire of the farmers to have tlieir
annual gathering a good one.

I understand that this infant legal organization is the offspring of
an efficient and influential farmer's club ; and, although tliis Society
is young and its present members less than 300, the two days'.
exhibition would be creditable to one more mature and of larger
size.

Some eight surrounding towns contribute mainly to its support.
The society have about ten acres of land, partly well fenced, for
their show grounds, an exhibition and dining hall, two stories high,
with all necessary apparatus for cooking and cookery for the table,
and on the grounds a suitable judges' stand ; these are all new and
occupied for the first time this season. The Society have incurred
a debt of about $1,800, but tliis, instead of proving an embarrass-
ment, may act as an incentive for vigorous action and enlarged
effort to increase the interest in the good cause for which they are
associated, and to make their annual show more attractive from
year to year.

There were on exhibition about 75 pairs of cattle and steers ; the
neat stock, consisting of cows, heifers, calves and bulls, 45 in
number. There Avere entries of thoroughbred and grade Durham,
Devon and Ayrshire ; Lewis R. Nye, G. C. Rowley and E. W.
Boise were the principal exhibitors of blood stock ; the intro-
duction of thoroughbred and grade stock into this town is quite
recent, but the future prospect for this kind of stock, judging from
what was exhibited, is encouraging.

I was informed that it was quite a practice of the Blandford
farmers to raise and purchase young cattle and keep them a few
years, and then sell for working oxen, — hence the youthful appear-
ance of the stock. The show of sheep was small, as also that of
swine ; judging from the exhibition of the latter, we should suppose
the people in that locality were direct descendants of Israel. We
noticed several varieties of poultry which did credit to their respec-
tive breeds. Notwithstanding the unfavorable season in this })art
of the State for fruit, the show of apples was good; a few pears,
but good specimens. I was shown some very beautiful Norway
oats, vei-y heavy, weighing one-third more than our common oats ;

APPENDIX. xxxiii

the owner said he harvested 75 bushels to the acre, — the soil on
which they were raised was no better, and as easily cultivated as
any other kind. Different varieties and fine samples of potatoes
and other vegetables were on exhibition.

I was much pleased with what I am able to credit to the formers'
wives and daughters as one of the best featui'es of the hall, it being
in good keeping and eminently appro23riate to a farmers' show, in
contrast with what has become very common at fairs, viz. : a great
display of imported dry goods, &c., from the merchant's shop. I
noticed a good assortment of prime, knit-by-hand woollen mittens,
gloves and stockings, and many other things useful and necessary
for the farmer and his boys ; abundant evidence was also given that
the girls understand how to manufacture such baits as they deem
policy, to accompany their own personal attractions.

Considerable time was taken in testing the strength of cattle by
drawing a loaded dray ; or, perhaps, it would accord nearer with
the fict to say, to see which would win the prize.

Were I to comment on this part of the exhibition, I could not do
so witli that degree of approbation that I should desire ; I consider
that meritorious which will develop the good training of the oxen
and the skill of the driver, with but little whipping or noise.

The second day was the show of horses; but, as I was not
present, I can make no report from observation ; I am informed,
however, that the exhibition was very respectable for that region.

The address of Col. Stone of Dedham, is spoken of as being an
able one, and added much to the enjoyment of the last hours of the
second day.

I received the polite attention of the officers and others of the
Society, for which I thank them.

Chas. C. Bassett.

FRANKLIN.

The twentieth annual exhibition of the Franklin County Ao-ri-
cultural Society occurred at Greenfield on Thursday and Friday,
September 30 and October 1, and was in every respect a credit to
the farmers, mechanics and manufacturers of this small, but fertile
and enterprising county. Both days were beautiful, and after the
fogs of the morning were dispelled, the sun shone without interrup-
tion on crowds of fair women and brave men, and the largest and best
herds of cattle that we have ever known collected at a county fair.
There were fourteen herds which numbered in the aggregate three

xxxiv REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

hundred and fifty, and each animal was worthy of counting one. In
all, there were nearly seven hundred cattle on exhibition, many of
them thoroughbred, and the grades were so near the perfect stand-
ard, that none but a connoisseur could distinguish the difference.
We were not aware that little Franklin could make so large and
excellent an exhibition. Specimens of all the different herds, from
the stately Durhams to the little Jerseys and Kerrys, were exhibited,
but the Durhams are evidently the favorite stock of the Franklin
farmers, and the finest herds of this large breed were not raised and
owned in the Connecticut and Deerfield valleys, but on the high
rough hills of Shelburne. The general impression has been that the
Durhams could thrive only on the rich pastures and meadows of the
lowlands, but our observation on the Berkshire hills has convinced
us that no cattle do better on the sweet, short herbage of the moun-
tains than the Durhams, and this conclusion is confirmed by the
experience of the Franklin farmers.

So many excellent herds were exhibited at Greenfield, that it may
seem invidious to particularize, but we should not do justice to the
exhibition, did we not allude to the fine herds of the Messrs. Ander-
son and Wells of Shelburne, and Mr. Stoughton of Gill. The Messrs.
Andersons' herd consisted of twenty-five high grade Durhams, so
high that they consider them thoroughbred, A finer herd of ani-
mals of their age we never saw, but still we think the Messrs. An-
derson have made a mistake in ceasing to breed from thoroughbred
bulls. The " Roan Duke " did wonders for the Anderson herd, but
another Duke might have led to a still higher strain of blood. The
herd of the Messrs. Wells is scarcely, if at all, inferior to their neigh-
bors, the Messrs. Anderson, and the Messrs. Wells are pushing on
for higher excellence, under the leadership of "Duke Reginald," a
noble specimen of the Durham family, weighing 2,000 pounds. All
the Shelburne stock show great weight as well as symmjetrical
form. Three pairs of yearling steers from the Anderson herd
showed an average weight of 2,500 pounds per pair, and the heaviest
pair weighed 2,640 pounds. It ought to be stated here, however,
that the custom of the Shelburne farmers is to have their cows come
in during the autumn, or the fore part of winter, so that their year-
lings are nearly two years old at the time of their fair.

These Durham cattle do not run entirely to beef, as some may
suppose. The testimony of the farmers was unanimous in favor of
their milking properties, and the cows had every appearance of being
good milkers. A very large grade Durham cow of M. A. Barnard
& Son was on exhibition, which weighed 1,800 pounds, and had
furnished sixteen pounds of butter in a week. A two-year-old

APPENDIX. XXXV

heifer, in the herd of Samuel Fisk & Son, weighed 1,410 pounds,
and six pairs of steers from the same herd weighed in the ag-
gregate 15,465 pounds, and one pair, three years okl, brought down
the scales at 3,200 pounds.

The herd of Mr. T. M. Stoughton, of Gill, consisted of forty full-
blooded Jerseys. On fourteen of his cows he had placed small
silver bells, so selected as to chime, and the harmonious tinkling, as
they grazed on the fair grounds, gave additional charms to the ex-
hibition. On the morning of the second day of the Fair, by invita-
tion of Mr. Thomas J. Field, an ex-member of the Board, we rode to
Mr. Stoughton's flirm to examine his herd more minutely. We
found the home, the farm, and the hei-d, all chiming together as har-
moniously as did the bells on the pretty Jerseys that were feeding
near by in the meadow. Could Virgil have witnessed this scene,
our High School students would have had one more Bucolic to
study. We had heard before of the poetry of a farmer's life, but
here Ave heard the music set to the poetry. The sight of a spacious
and comfortable farm house, with ample and convenient barns, and
forty fown-like Jerseys grazing in an adjacent meadow, are enough
to fill the eye of any farmer; and if in addition to this the tinkling
of a chime of bells is constantly sounding in his ear, he will be con-
vinced that farm life is not without its poetry and its music. These
little Jerseys give milk of the richest quality ; many of Mr. Stough-
ton's cows furnishing two pounds of butter daily, which commands
a price far in advance of the market quotations.

Shelburne furnished for the exhibition a string of fifty-five pairs
of oxen and steers, and of these there were forty pairs that averaged
3,770 pounds to the pair, the heaviest, belonging to the brothers
Anderson, weighing 4,800 pounds. In the Deerfield string of thirty-
two pairs, all heavy and symmetrical, there was one pair owned by
the McClellans that weighed 4,985 pounds. These are tall figures,
but the cattle were both tall and broad. The whole exhibition was
so excellent that we are conscious we cannot do justice to it. To
appreciate such a fair it must be seen. We were glad to see a pure
cattle show attracting so much attention and enlisting so much en-
thusiasm and competition. It has been said and believed by some,
that our cattle shows must be run by horses to draw the crowd and
make them pay, but the grass was growing on the track of the
Franklin County grounds, and the cattle, not the horses, were " the
observed of all observers."

Dr. J. R. Nichols, editor of " The Journal of Chemistry," gave the
address, which was at once scientific and practical, just such as should
edify and enlighten all gatherings of farmers.

xxxvi REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

The exhibition in the hall proved that the farmers had wives who
were helpmeets. The tasteful arrangement of their handiwork and
of the fruits, flowers, vegetables and specimens of mechanical skill,
reflected the highest credit on the ladies who are sovereigns in-doors
as men are in the field. 1869 was not a fruit year in Massachusetts,
but no one would have thought so, judging from the exhibition.
One old associate on the Board, Mr. J. M. Smith of Sunderland,
furnished forty-nine plates of different species of fruits, among which
were twenty-two varieties of apples, eleven of pears, and eleven of
grapes. Grapes were the crowning glory of the fruit tables. There
were bunches of Delawares that weighed fourteen ounces, and the
Concords, Israellas, and Hartford prolifics were no mean imitations
of the clusters of Eschol. We rejoice at this evidence of the success
of grape culture in Massachusetts. At the conclusion of the two
days' exhibition, we accepted an invitation from Col. Wells, the
president, to visit his home in Shelburne and examine the Shel-
burne herds on their hilly pastures. The visit was one of great
pleasure and profit, and we became convinced that it is not neces-
sary for Massachusetts farmers to exchange their rough farms for
the prairie, in order to raise good stock and make a home and a
competence.

Alex. Hyde.

HOUSATONIC.

On the 29th and 30th of September last, I attended the
twenty-eighth annual cattle show and fair of the Housatonic Soci-
ety, held at Great Barrington. The weather was truly delightful.
The attendance was large, and every thing which goes to make up
a first-class cattle show was there in great abundance.

The stock, which consisted mostly of Shorthorns and grades, was
displayed in large numbers, and the quality was unexceptionable.
A small herd of Jerseys, entered by Mr. Mackie, of Great Barring-
ton, attracted much attention. The neat stock on exhibition num-
bered about 200. We also counted 60 sheep and 40 swine.

The display in the hall, of fruit, seeds and vegetables was truly
excellent, and we were told surpassed that of any former exhibition.
Mr. Henry S. Goodale, of Mt. Washington, displayed 130 varieties
of potatoes. They were washed clean and arranged in the order of
their merit, occupying an entire table. On each variety was written
its name, and also its yield per square rod, ascertained by careful
experiment. Mr. Goodale was courteous and untiring in answering

APPENDIX. xxxvii

the countless inquiries in relation to the origin, quality, yield, and
comparative value of his different varieties. We were told that he
makes the raising of potatoes a specialty, and for this display he is
certainly entitled to great credit. This Society is in a flourishing
condition. It numbers 1,300, is out of debt, has commodious
grounds and buildings, and is perhaps doing as much to develop its
agricultural resources and to stimulate production, as any society
in the State. The competition among farmers for the growth of
crops, is very liberally and we think very properly encouraged.
During the year 1868, there were 123 summer crops and 196 fall
crops entered for premiums, all of which were examined and re-
ported on by the committee appointed for that purpose. This indi-
cates to some extent, the spirit which animates the farmers of
Southern Berkshire. Would it not be well for other societies to
increase the number and amount of their premiums for superior
crops, even though it should sensibly lighten the purse, reserved
for the " fastest horse in or out of the county."

During our visit we were the guest of T. D. Thacher, Esq., a
member of this Board, and to him we are indebted for the rare
pleasure of a ride in an open carriage some forty-five miles in the
charming valley of the Housatonic. The numerous thriving vil-
lages found at every cascade on the river, connected by smooth, hard
roads and substantial bridges, the even surface of the valley car-
peted with a dark rich verdure, the numerous large, well filled bams
and opulent dwellings of the formers, the pure bracing air and
clear cold streams gushing from the hills, the beauty and grandeur
of her mountain scenery, heightened by the early autumnal tints,
truly and justly declare the glory of old Berkshire. Her fame is no
longer a mystery.

A. P. Slade.

NORFOLK

On Thursday and Friday, Sept. 23d and 24th, 1869, the Norfolk
Agricultural Society held its twenty-first annual exhibition on its
new grounds at Readville. The weather was delightful both days,
and it was considered the most successful show ever held by that
Society. It seems scarce a day ago since the jDlain of Readville was
all alive with the tramp of our brave brothers and sons ; even the
surrounding hills were made to echo with the sound of the war
bugle and the drum. But the sorrow and darkness which then
overshadowed our land has been dispelled, peace restored, and we

xxsviii REPORTS OP DELEGATES.

can now, through the providence of God, and the blood of our brave
and gallant sons, boast of the greatest boon to a people — Freedom.
We return to Readville not to hear the tramp of camp life, but
rather the lowing, neighing, bleating, and cackling of our domestic
animals.

On arriving at the fair grounds we were met by the Society's
repi-esentative. Colonel Stone, who was untiring in his attentions
during our visit. May the blessing of God attend him and his.

The Society bought and moved on to the east line of its ground
several of the old barracks, which had been used on the old camp
ground and fitted them up, some for show rooms for the exhibition
of the difierent articles and j^roducts presented ; others are used for
stabling and stalls for horses on exhibition. Probably no society in
the State has as good an arrangement for show rooms and stabling.
The Society have built a very fine half mile track, which is used
principally for the trial of horse speed; connected with the track is
the judges' stand and the grand stand opposite.

The horse department was divided into five classes — these classes
into several divisions. Class A, roadsters, consisted of five divi-
sions ; in this class there were nineteen entries. Class B, ho;'ses
of all work, eighteen entries were made. Class C, family horses,
twenty-four entries reported in this class. Class D, draught or team
horses ; this class consisted of ten entries, all of which were very
attractive. The fifth class was made up of trotters, or sporting
horses. The celebrated trotting horse, Garibaldi, passed around the
half-mile track in 1.18. The collection of stock was large and well
represented in all the departments. Tlie most noticeable amongst
the bulls was the imported Jersey " Jack Horner," owned by W.
M. Mack, of Dorchester ; the Ayrshire owned by J. W. Gay, of Ded-
ham ; and the Alderneys of Hon. J. S. Eldridge, president of the
Society. Your delegate was not a little surprised to learn that the
Norfolk Society still continue to ofier premiums for grade bulls ; in
this respect Norfolk is behind. We should always breed from pure-
bred males ; in this way we bi-eed strength ; with grade, weakness.
Mr. Eldridge exhibited a herd of Jerseys, thirty in number ; in this
herd were some of the finest Jersey heifers I have ever seen.. To
this herd was awarded the first premium, the Wilde)- Cup.

The show of stock was very creditable being represented by fine
specimens of each of the difierent breeds, although the unmistak-
able marks of that grade bull ai-e seen in too many instances.

The collection of swine was very fine. Mr. John Sias, of Milton,
exhibited a Mackay sow, four years old, which has had one hun-
dred and three pigs; other fine specimens were also exhibited.

APPENDIX. xxxix

Most conspicuous in the show of poultry, were the Cochins from C.
L. Copland of Milton ; fine specimens of other varieties were on ex-
hibition. Your delegate was not in season to witness the plough-
ing match, but was informed that the ploughmen showed good skill
in the performance. The teams that competed for the prizes in the
department of drawing and backing showed good training. The
ladies made a very fine display of the useful, as well as the orna-
mental, in their particular department — the most noticeable was
a beautiful aftghan, about six feet square, with a raised figure of a
horse worked upon it, by Miss Nellie Thomas, of Dedham.

The department of fruit was not as large as usual on account of
the apple crop having been blown from the trees in the great gale
of the 8th inst., yet a very good show was made. Hon. M. P.
Wilder exhibited one hundred and eight varieties of pears ; and
many other gentlemen made fine contributions. Seventy plates of
grapes were shown, representing all the leading varieties by very
fine specimens of each. Fine displays in the floral department were
made by Geo. Craft, Mrs. Stewart, Mrs. Vose, and others. The
show of vegetables was very large and of superior quality, giving
evidence that the farmers of Norfolk take a commendable interest
in this most valuable crop. The show of bread and the dairy prod-
uct was rather small, but of good quality. Some good seed corn
was exhibited.

The show of agricultural implements was quite extensive, made
principally by Parker & Gannett of Boston. The Society's prize
diploma was awarded to Shamrock & Cooper, for new and im-
proved parlor and cook stove.

The cavalcade upon the track was led by the chief marshal, and
preceded by the Canton brass band, which played a quick-step,
"The Norfolk March," composed by the accomplished leader, E. A.
Samuels, and dedicated to the Society. At about twelve o'clock,
M., a large procession was formed, and marched under the direc-
tion of the chief marshal to a large tent, where a splendid colla-
'tion had been prepared. After prayer had been oiFered, the presi-
dent invited the company to partake of the repast. At the con-
clusion of the dinner, the president made an appropriate address of
welcome. The regular annual address was made by Dr. George
B. Loring ; it was one of his ablest productions and was listened to
with the closest attention to the close.

Dr. Loring is one of the soundest writers and finest orators of the
age, and no man has done more to advance the interest of agricul-
ture in our own Commonwealth.

xl REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

Your delegate would acknowledge the courtesy and attention
extended by the officers of the Society and many others.

John Johnson, Jr.
Framingham, January 26, 1870.

BRISTOL CENTRAL.

This exhibition was held the 23d, 24th and 25th of September.
The weather was such as to inspire all those interested in the ex-
hibition, and such a collection of people is rarely seen at our cat-
tle shows.

The attention of your delegate was first directed to the ploughing
match, where horses and oxen displayed their training, and their
drivers showed their skill in turning up the green sward. They
labored under the difficulty of having wet ground and a poor and
weak sward. The teams were prompt, and the work as well done
as could be expected in such ground. My own, and the interest of
others, was drawn to the trial of the strength of the various teams.
There was a novel feature here. Instead of pushing or drawing the
load up an abrupt inclined plane^ they had blocks of stone thrown
under the wheels. This seemed to impede the lighter cattle more
in proportion than the heavier ones, but tested well the evenness
of matching. But we confess that both horses and oxen not only
showed great muscular j^ower, but a skill in using it, and a courage
which reflect great credit on the intelligence, humanity and care of
their owners or drivers.

The procession of twenty pairs of finely matched work-horses from
Fall River ; thirty-one pairs of oxen and steers from Taunton ; and
twenty-five from Lakeville, with other fine teams, made a grand
display, and^had an amusing feature added, of a pair of fine heifers
attached to a wagon and driven by their owner like horses. From
this my attention was turned to the stock on exhibition, and I feel
the show of breeding mares and colts was worthy of the attention
of any persons interested in speed, endurance and action of the
horse. The carriage horses and matched teams exhibited a rich-
ness of blood and careful breeding, that leads us to feel that the ex-
hibitors are honoring our State by their selection and breeding, as
well as making their own exhibition so creditable.

The fat oxen were also remarkable for size and weight. Some
pairs weighed as high as five thousand pounds each.

The working oxen were not numerous nor large sized, but gener-

APPENDIX. xli

ally well matched and bred. The Devons seemed to be the finest
among them.

There were exhibited two as fine bred and perfect Jersey bulls, as
I have seen anywhere. The cows and heifers of this blood also
showed the great attention of their breeders. Then a few Ayrshires,
and grades of various bloods indicate that the jDeople in this region
are alive to the improvement of the neat stock. We must say,
however, that the show of stock seemed small. A few fine speci-
mens of swine were on the ground. Two breeding sows, one nine
years old had brought 285 pigs ; and another six years old had pre-
sented her owner with 156 pigs.

The show of poultry was very large. We imagine that every
breed must have been summoned to show their fine points, by the
appearance, and it is rare to find a finer display of birds.

Everywhere we encountered a crowd of people. This was es-
pecially the case in the halls where the large agricultural products,
cereals and vegetables were exhibited. The most worthy of es-
pecial notice were the white field corn and white wheat, and a very
numerous variety of potatoes, showing us that the farmers are look-
ing to new seed for something to keep the important crop up to its
full yield, in both quantity and quality.

The dairy also was represented in golden butter and a few
cheeses, that must lead the agriculturists to see that this important
staple of our farms received due attention. Added to this the man-
ufacturers and mechanics presented every variety of machinery and
products, which not only graced the exhibition and gave you the
assurance of such united interest of producers in this vicinity, but
will make the future of this region to show wonderful progress in
wealth, and success in every department of labor.

The most gorgeous and beautiful display was found in the upper
hall of their fine building. Here the eye feasted on plants of every
kind, — cut flowers, peach, orange and fig-trees, in full bearing ; with
the luscious clusters of eight varieties of graj)es, forty-four of pears,
and thirty-eight of apples, all of which were contributed by the
president. In the same line, though not as extensive, yet most
beautiful, was the display of J. M. Godfrey, of Lakeville,

Considering the heavy gale which had swej)t over this region, we
think the exhibition of fruit larger and finer than could have been
expected. The beautiful prints and silesias and woollen goods, with
some choice specimens of art shown here, all made a picture rich in
prophecy, as well as in attainment.

On the second day there was a real trial of speed of some of the
thoroughbred horses of this neighborhood, that had none of the

/

xlii REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

humbug of the race course. There was also a display of the action
and style of carriage horses, single and matched, showing speed,
training and breeding, seldom outdone.

In the 131'ocession and exhibition of the premium stock, with their
gaudy colors ; in the announcement of the premium of each by the
chairman of the several committees from the stand, and in the quiet
ease and pride of exhibitors, as they passed around the track, there
was a feature which added much to the interest of the exhibition
and seemed worthy of note. All this was crowned with the hearty
congratulations of the president, upon the success of their show,
and a witty address from Charles T. Russell, of Cambridge.

We think this Society in a very prosjjerous condition, and much
of its success is due to the great exertions of the president. Dr.
Durfee, Avhose attention and politeness to delegates from this Board
are proverbial.

I refer to his efforts in this Society, to show what one man can
do, and what we may expect when men of wealth, leisure and in-
telligence give their heart to further any great interest, and espec-
ially that of agriculture. He will find all our farmers ready to
respond to his efforts.

William Knowltok.

HINGHAM.

The Hingham Agricultural and Horticultural Society held
its eleventh annual exhibition September 28th and 29th. The
weather was all that could be desired for such an occasion.

The people were ovit in full numbers and were inspired with a
certain degree of enthusiasm essential to insure success and make
a society useful and jirofitable to the community of which it is com-
posed.

The success and general character of an agricultural society will
tell a truthful story in regard to the enterprise and thrift of its
district.

This Society have a large and beautiful building with a basement.
In this basement is a kitchen finished and furnished with all the
modern improvements for cooking. Here the Society's dinners are
prepared and by means of an elevator are carried to the dining hall
which is located on the second floor, and is large enough to seat
one thousand people. Above is another large hall not yet finished.

The grounds are not enclosed by a high board-fence as most
grounds used for agricultural exhibitions are. The people of that

APPENDIX. xliii

county having always been renowned for conscientious scruples is a
sufficient reason. On arriving at the depot I was welcomed by the
president, Hon. Albert Fearing. After a few moments very pleas-
antly spent at his house and grounds we were invited to a seat in
his carriage and were soon moving rapidly towards the fair grounds.
On our way the old church was pointed out to me as dating back
to 1681, and still looks as good as new. When we arrived at the
new library building (which by the way was built, furnished, and
five thousand dollars' worth of books presented to the town by the
Hon. Mr. Fearing the whole cost being about twenty thousand
dollars ; this is one of Mr. Fearing's pets,) we met the town team
composed of 40 pairs of oxen ; some gentlemen estimated the
weight per j)air to average as high as 3,000 pounds. It was the
best collection of oxen I ever saw together ; they were an honor
to any farming community.

Arriving at the exhibition hall and after the usual introductions
we commenced our examinations of the large and almost bewil-
dering collection of articles, &c. No department seemed at all neg-
lected, although the great blow of September 8th destroyed a large
proportion of the apple crop ; still this dejDartment was well rep-
resented by good specimens of the different varieties. The show
of grapes was very large and each variety was of superior quality-

A very good collection of bread, honey, butter and cheese, was
on exhibition.

The show of vegetables was very large and of excellent quality.
A few very handsome specimens of peaches were exhibited by
Sarah D. Fisk. The show of pears was also very commendable.

Almost an innumerable number and variety of fancy articles
were on exhibition.

The stock department was well represented by fine specimens
of each of the different importations. The appearance of the
native cows was highly commendable.

About 250 sheep were on exhibition and many of them of su-
perior quality. It is very evident that in this district considerable
attention is paid to sheep hvisbandry. The show of swine was also
excellent. Too much attention cannot be sriven to the breedins: of
swine ; every farmer should raise his own as far as possible.

Your delegate did not witness the ploughing match, but was in-
formed that the work was done in a skilful manner.

The trial of working oxen was very interesting and called to-
gether a large crowd of people.

The exhibition of horses was not very attractive not having a
suitable place for them to show their beauty and power.

xliv REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

At about half past twelve o'clock a procession was formed and
marched to the dining hall to partake of a most bountiful repast.
After prayer was offered and dinner served, the president made a
very fine address of welcome and congratulation. Your delegate
would acknowledge the kind attentions of the president and officers
of the Society. John Johnsgisf, Jr.

Framingham, January 26, 1870.

MARSIIFIELD.

As delegate from this Board, I attended the Marshfield Agricul-
tural Society's Exhibition held on the 7th, 8th and 9th of October,
1869. The first day was devoted mostly to the reception and ar-
ranging of stock on the grounds, and the various articles in the
hall and basement of what is to be a nice building for exhibition
and dining jDurposes, and for jDublic speaking. The ploughing
match was in the forenoon (1st day). In the afternoon the trial
of oxen on draft, was very good. The exhibition in the hall was
good, although very much more room would have shown them at
a better advantage. There was a large collection of apples, com-
pared with other societies, and the crop of this season. Pears,
peaches, grapes and other fruits were excellent. The vegetables
were large and the potatoes splendid. Corn and other grains that
were on exhibition would compare favorably with any other part
of the State. There were mowing machines, horse rakes, and
hay -tedders, Avagons for business, and pleasure, and a variety of other
implements for the farmer and others that are very useful.

The second day the crowd of people was larger than the first;
the exhibition of town teams was one of the best that I have ever
seen, — one hundred and forty yoke of oxen nearly enclosing the
half mile track, nearly all good size and well matched. The cows
were not large in size nor in number, as the formers understand in
that section that the soil is better adapted to a medium size and
hardy stock, as the Shorthorn do not thrive as well there. Sheep
and swine but few entered; the fat hogs were large and nice.
There was one large and nice flock of geese, thirty-sjx, including
the mother, that attracted much attention. Other fowls that Avere
good were on exhibition. The Society's dinners were provided on
the second and third days in a large tent, and well filled.

After dinner, speeches by the president of the society, clergy,
and members from other agricultural societies, the speaker en-
gaged for the occasion not being present.

APPENDIX. xlv

A show of good horses and carriages in the afternoon on the
track attracted much attention.

A concert in the tent in the evening by the hand was well at-
tended and netted the Society a good sum of money.

The third day was devoted mostly to the show of horses and
colts. The attendance and exhibition of horses and carriages on
the track was such that the ladies were particularly attracted, al-
though there was not that racing that is seen on the track of some
of our societies. The complete arrangements of the officers of the
Society with the police were Avorthy of much praise ; not a drunk-
ard or disorderly person was noticed by your delegate during the
show.

Much credit is due the Society in the zeal and effort they have
manifested by the increase of members this season, from 400 to
over 800. While their building for agricultural purposes was half
completed, it was entirely demolished in the early part of the fall
by the wind. They have made arrangements for rebuilding before
another season a substantial agricultm-al hall. With much satis-
faction for kind attention and hospitality we shall ever remember
with pleasure the officers and members of this Society.

J. S, Blaik.

MARTHA'S VINEYARD.

The twelfth annual fair of the Martha's Vineyard Agricultural
Society, was held at West Tisbury, October 19th, 20th, and 21st.
On my way I fell in company, at New Bedford, with our worthy
Secretary, who was also on his way to the island to deliver an ad-
dress before the Society. When we landed at Holmes' Hole, we
found the secretary, David Mayhew, Esq., in readiness to take us
immediately to West Tisbury, the centre of attraction for the week.
The day was nearly spent before we arrived on the ground, and as
it was a cold day, with a drizzling rain, we were disappointed at
finding so large a collection of people, and so many animals for ex-
hibition.

. There were one hundred and eighty head of cattle, among them
many thoroughbred and grade Ayrshires. And here let me say
that we occasionally hear the remark that " agricultural societies
and fairs amount to nothing, or very little." But this, I think,
usually comes from those who, like the Chinese, are willing to have
things remain stationary. But if any one will visit this island, at-
tend one of their exhibitions, learn the condition of agriculture

xlvi REPORTS OF DELEGATES.

twelve years since, trace its improvement to the present time, and
its probable success for the future, they will find something has
been done, yea much. Then let them ask themselves what has oc-
casioned this change, if not that the attention of the people has been
called more directly to the subject by the establishment of agricul-
tural societies, and their annual exhibitions.

Many much larger societies will not show as large a collection of
neat stock. Ayrshires were introduced here a few years since, and
from the reports of those who have them, we should judge they
were a decided improvement, and that this island was very favor-
able for their introduction and improvement. There were fifty-
eight sheep ; a larger number than are usually seen at any of our
fairs. In this as in other departments, it shows that the peo2)le are
alive to the best interests of the Society. Swine were not seen in
large numbers, and I think only three premiums were awarded.
Geese, ducks, turkeys and chickens were not forgotten, and re-
ceived their share of attention.

We next visited the hall, and as we had been told that " barren-
ness was the rule, and fertility the exception on this island," we
were surprised at finding so large a collection in this department of
the show. A better collection is seldom seen, or at least, I have
seldom seen one, so that the fertile spots must be exceedingly pro-
ductive. Potatoes, squashes, pumpkins, melons, turnips, beets,
carrots, parsnips, cabbages, onions, beans, corn, wheat, rye, oats,
barley, buckwheat, apples, pears, peaches, grapes, quinces, tomatoes,
peppers, flowers, bread of various kinds, cakes, butter, cheese, pre-
serves, and honey were seen in abundance, and did credit to the
vai-ious contributors. Squashes, although not as large as one shown
by G. S. Allen of the Worcester South, Avhich weighed 204 pounds,
yet large enough to satisfy any reasonable squash grower. Suffice
it to say, the show here was excellent. In the fancy and miscel-
laneous department the show was full, and discovered the skill and
handiwork of the ladies, and the interest they also manifest in these
yearly gatherings.

My attention was called to the quince and cranberry crop, both
of which flourish remarkably well upon this island. The latter is
receiving increasing attention, and is found to be very remunerative.
This shows the tact of the Yankee to adapt himself to circumstances,
and ascertain what crop is best adapted to his particular locality.

The ploughing match came off" before we arrived, but I was told
there was but little interest manifested, as there was only one team
to plough. This is a very imporiant part of farm work, as good

APPENDIX. xlvii

ploughing is the foundation of good cultivation, and a healthy com-
petion in all departments is essential to good success.

The second day was devoted to horses ; and as the president and
secretary invited Mr. Flint and myself to visit different parts of the
island, that we might get a better knowledge of its agricultural in-
terests, we readily accepted the invitation. On passing through
Chilmark the crops of corn, mowing and pasture land, indicated a
better soil and much more productive. Our attention was especially
called to some very fine fields of corn that would compare favorably
with any part of the State. From Chilmark we proceeded to Gay
Head, the western extremity of the island, which is occupied by a
remnant of a tribe of Indians, about 250 in number, who appear to
be industrious, and so far as we saw, intelligent and happy. We
were told that they were about to ask the legislature for an Act of
incorporation as a town, with all the rights and privileges of citizens.
If this is granted, it will probably stimulate them to renewed
industry in their agricultural pursuits.

We inquired, on the evening of the second day, if the people
would come out in as large numbers the third day (for they held
their fair three days), and were told that they probably would, as
that was their custom. We found it to be true ; for when the hour
arrived for the address, the hall was crowded, and the address of
our worthy Secretary, C. L. Flint, Esq., upon the importance of
concentrated labor upon the farm, was listened to with marked at-
tention. Shorter speeches followed until the final adjournment.
We left the place with many pleasant remembrances of our visit
to this beautiful island.

We found a very cordial welcome by the people ; and our thanks
are especially due to the family Avhere we found so pleasant a home,
to the president, Herman Vincent, Esq., to the secretary, David
Mayhew, Esq., to H. L. Whiting, Esq., and to Dr. D. A Cleveland,
for their kind attentions ; also for giving us so extended a view of
the island.

Newton S. Hubbard.

xlviii

PREMIUMS AND GRATUITIES.

punj ■juDunoajaj;

•uos jad JO ancBA

IB3J JO 8nii?A

■ssaupajqapui

T-H O CO O

»o^ o_ 00^ *q^ CO

00 "O" "Ji" TjT r-T

«5 iO 00 CO

CO o o

^ in

1-1 o

CO 00 -<

joj sj^raosanqsiQ

o^ 00^ co^ iq^ t^
* " co" co~ M

T-< lO ■«*< CO

00 »0 O 00 1^ lO

Cs( iO O iO 00 ^-«

O O *-(

•soitin^iuS
pill! siuniuiajd
Jjiupniout ^ou
— .u:oA ai[| joj
Sjuadxa ^^uajJUQ

W CO CO ^H 00 CO
O O O GO CO Ci

O <-l

Ci T-( O VH

m 00 ■-(

O IM

rn" CO

W '-t -^ »o

o o m ifs

lO lO «-H

•pitid sai;in:>
-isjS puB Sjraajj

lO ^ »-H

^ o ^

■» r-T ,-r

Ci lO CO O C/ I^ lO C(

cOT-io*-"tr:ior^rN,

fN. o CO o

if:i lo o

i>. m c^ o

•pajajjo •sniai<j

00 CO cs ^^

00 »0 CO 00 00

(N M vl

CO «3

IN O lO O

•jBaX
aqi JOJ s:)diaoaa

Ci W CO CO O lO

(M to "-I

•*! O <N -^
IM_ CJ_ ■-<_ M

lo' c-F oo" o"

00 T-l In, -Ti

O -^ 00 O

»-< 00 CO

OJ "-1 '-I

lO C5 Irt O

soojnos Jamonv

tN- 00 t-H
f-i O lO

?1 « w

00 i-<_ CO oo

CO to" cf e<

O (M CO CO

T-1 CO --I

•saoi^'Buop
5g sjaqmam Ma^

lO o o

W OJ i-l lO (N

•punj ^juauum
-jad ui(Jj atuooui

o wo «D

i-l C) iO

•imuaMuoui
-raoo am uiojj
PjAiaoaJjunouiv

» <»

^ OJ C 4J

IwSSS^^^^^^

62

ft ^2
S "Si

s a

n pq n n p

APPENDIX.

xliz

o

o

o

^

o

OS

o

o

^

CS

o

o

O)

s

o

o

o

o

o

CO

o

o

lO

«

o

o

to

lO

o

o

o

o

o

IN.

o

o

irt

o

o

o

r^

i?.

o

o

o

o

o

CO

o

lO

r>.

s

I^

w

■^

■*"

co_

CO

r^

"0~

IN_

of

OJ_
lo"

OS

CO

to

«»

IN

^-1

IN

N

%

8

o

^

o

o

o

o

o

OJ

«5

o

o

•^^

S3

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

OS

o

o

o

o

00

o

o

o

IC

o

o

o

o

CS

,-1

o

o

o

OS

us

s

o

"+1

o

o

o

■o

OS

CO

s

2

o

s

(N

lO

m

CO

CO

lO

I^

lO

tl

N

-^

'"^

CO

^

cT

CO

CO

CO

CO

m

■*

■»

o

o

o

o

o

OS

o

o

lO

OS

o

o

o

l>-

o

o

o

o

CO

o

o

to

ra

o

o

o

■^

^

^

o

o

o

r^

^

o

OS

o

o

o

I--

2

tC

oo"

o
o.

o
o

00^

o
o
o"

oo

00

8

IN

CO

00

to
Os"

to"

00

IN.

■*"-

CO

CO

«»

CO

0<

IN

IN

s;

» 1

o

o

o

o

CO

o

o

o

to

OS

o

o

o

o

00

o

o

o

'

1

1

Q

Q

Q

,3

to

o

^

o

to

o

so

ts^

r^.

o

o

o"

■*

r<.

Iffl

o

of

i>

«&

s

o

CO

Oi

00

00

o

o

o

OS

OS

o

I^

IN

CO

K

l»

00

00

to

00

o

o

IN

o

,_,

00

00

00

tN.

00

to

,-(

OS

00

o

CS

CO

00

00

s

OS

OS

CO

OS

CO

t^

s.

OS

o

ifi

o

o_

IN

r^

to

CO

to_

e»

o"

•^

■<t^

in"

■^

cT

tC

to"

to"

o"

0(

«»

«

<o

IN

N

00

00

»fl

w

lO

o»

liO

o

ts.

IN

o

■*

o

^

00

CO

t^

■*

to

o

o

IN

tN.

to

lO

IC

OS

00

to

O)

o

OS

Ol

CO

o

o

OJ

o

TO

-+I

to

r^

CO

tH

lO

o<

«5

Ci

Gi

r>^

00

°L

r.

■*

f.

to

<&

w

r-i

of

"*l

^

■*<

'-I

*

»-•

M

o

o

o

o

»o

w

lO

^

•^

o

o

o

o

00

o

«5

o

o

rC

OD

CO

o

o

o

o

en

o

CO

CI

OS

o

,^

CS

CS

O)

00

W5

"+I

OS

CS

tfl

t^

CO

OS

«

t^

r^

o

o

lO

o

o

CO

00

CO

0(^

o

ZN.

o

00

5

Tt<

so

to

I>

«■

IN

in"

of

o

CO

»

o

o

o

o

(5

lO

o

o

OJ

o

o

so

OJ

o

o

o

o

o

CM

«5

o

'tl

o

o

N

r>.

**

lO

o

CO

o

OS

o

Q

no

to

,_<

IN

o

■^

00

r^

o

o

I^

OS

CO

to

cc^

o

OS

■^

t^

■*

OJ

to_

!>»

CO

CO

cT

(n"

IN

CO

of

to

^

z

«5

00

o

M

o

I^

rt^

00

-tl

to

o

„

CO

^

o

<o

CO

t^

t^

to

CS

to

00

t^

o

OJ

o

I^

o

r^

,_(

CO

o

(^

CS

r*.

CO

^

CS

lO

o

Ci

o

o

r^

r^

tH

Oi

o

Tt<

=1

o_

"^

00

lO_

■^

■^

o^

to__

Cf

■^

CO

in"

»o

cT

lO

t^

00

■^

CO

<©

s

U5

00

o

0(

o

t^

■*

to

^

to

lO

o

s
s

50

o

CO

t^

t^

to

CS

t^

m

I^

I'i

o

,^

N

N

y^

00

y^

,_,

o

o

to

'

CO

to

w

o

tH

CO

o

t^

oo

J>.

CS

I^

00

o

co_

o

CO

CO

N

W5

OS

w

CO

in"

•*

ci~

1(5

to

io"

CO

o

■8»

^

o

(-,

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

00

C-7

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

C5

o

r>.

lO

o

lO

,-H

OS

iO

r>.

t>-

«0

o

00

o

CO

05

■^

o

CS

to

Ol

-*l

-i^

M

o

c?

w

CO

o^

to

^

00^

o

w

»

CO

o

o

o

OJ

o

00

to

o

o

o

o

t^

o

^

o

•^

o

o

o

'

'

'

OS

I

1

^

CS

o

CO

lO

»c

CO

to

to

■^

CO

T-t

IN

OJ

1^

«&

^s.

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

00

o

o

o

o

Q)

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

CO

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

to

o

■o

o

to

to

to

to

1 ci

»

•

•

•

-a

cS

t^

"cS

•

0)

OJ

u

a

3

'S

o

oT

"3

1

1

o

o

o

2

a"

cS

3

3

>

C3

o

§

3

o

o
o

h

'E

fl

c;

bo

a

1

3

H

^

w

n

w

12;

w

w

Ph

s

s

M

1^

s

ft© M •

"S'S.'S §

"S ^ a' OS

a^^ g u — I
c« g osS « "!

to fc. 0) ""rS '

" B"S^S-
■-31— I *^ S i- I

Ha

to O

a'Sta

S "5 a 5

a m t5 _ 0) I. _

'7 OJ a 03 -3 C 03
„ ci « c3 js a)

" M t. 0) 03 a— I i-i w I
"rSa^HMa I. I z I.

►J ;= < 2 o ^ S
P o K cc » K a

^ E t^ !a H E-' 35
K kJ w -t! -< "^ "<

«>^ I.

o K 22
o o K

■5 >; °

.0 rt

PP o »<><
t« -^ -a*
° 15 ISP

^ g-'S= a »r
«?|^a^Si,|

^2 2 a>55 2

IB .« .i^ g K g a

^S r- >< X X S

B.-Sw a w H s

S Q, I !» IB CO C

o g" I. a w w g

-< O ^ I-) J kJ H

«~ K

—TO) J3
^- ^

;^ s ^ _^-

1^2 §
■^"S" 1/;'°
£ t! -^'O so

r^oox:§o«M a

»; 03 K _ 03 tf m" a I.
aaw>^w«SSo

CCCCCC5^«JC/3hHJHCi4

oooooofL4CL,t;
03 B3 o3;»o3 « a s S
000 oo:^"2

2 OS 03

tC !;-0

0) -bo

PREMIUMS AND GRATUITIES.

■s^nara

o
o

8

8

5

o

o

o
o

8

8

-OAOjdtni tn.rej

o

rH

o

o

lO

CO

,^

*

jq; piud jCiiu

00

t^

■<J1

ec

-npi! :)(UH! lu^ox

■8^nara8AOjdaii

o

o

o
o

o
o

5

8

o

o

s

o
o

o

o

uijuj JOj pap

§

-*<

s>

CO

s

s

o

-JBAit? :)(tat! iB^ox

«©■

•sjnaraaAOJdini

o

o

o

o

o
o

8

8

o

s

s

8

8

8

o
o

raj13J JOJ P8J8J

i

00

o
to

M
M

00

fe

S

§

??

g

■JO ^unoiuB iB^ox

<»

•sjuainaAOJdiui

! rujuj jatno m^

o

Ui

o

«

•saiJjaquBJo joj[

in

IM

•spnT3{ jit;

1

1

1

1

o

1

1

1

1

o

05

o
to

JO spauiiojo joj

•saan^sud pio

o
o

Suirajispaj jo^

•saaj:j

It'inauitjujo

'

'

'

'

'

puB gaSpaq ao^

•guipBds jo^

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 t 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

■sajnuBui miAi

s^jUiTJadxa joj

•SpUBJ dniTJAiS

o
o

o
o

Suirarepaj jo^

o

00

o

o

o

•noi:Hqiqx8

1

o

O

o

o

o

o

o

o

I

CI

1

1

1

1

:)B SumSnoid jto^

o

I^

■*

"^

•Sujiiosqns joj

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 r 1

•SniniBip UT

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

,

1

1

,

s^uaiuua'dxa j6j[

o

•sniJ'Bjjo

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

^jtnaSBUiSOT joj

■d

•

A

a

Hi

s

-M

M

W

.

^

a

<a

H
H

M

'S

€
g

.a

o
a.

0)

o

12;

o

o
03

3
O

a

U

s

s

p<

!«l

Ul

t4

^4

tH

01

^

.^

rs

a

o

as

03

X

s
s

■3

41

01

2

i

0)

a;

ft

R

R

a

-3

a,

o

o

o

o

o

o

CS

S

M

s

s

a

^

^

^

^

\f

Is

w

W

w

W

APPENDIX.

li

s

o
o

8

o
o

8

8

o
o

to

o

8

o
o

00

o

s

o

o
o

§

00

to

oo

CO

??

"^

co__

o

s

o

8

o
o

8

o

o

8

o

o

o

8

8

o

i

o

o

M

§

00

fe

to

to

00

§3

00

m

CI ■
CM

o

s

'^
«»

s

o

o

8

o
o

o
o

8

§

o
o

8

o
o

o

??

o
o

8

o
o

s

g

o

^

05

to

to

to

CO

§3

s

s

U5

CO

to

00

!g

g

^

CO

8

8

'

00

00

«■

«■

g

o
o

8

8

o

o

iS

g

o

CO

'

t^.

In.

CO

to

s

<©■

—

^

—

""

o

o

o

8

o

1

1

1

1

1

'

'

'

o

'

»-(

M

w

!>.

^

o

1

'

'

'

lO

—

I

1

1

1

1

1

1

«&

o

o

m

o

'

'

'

rs.

'

IS.

^

^e'

o

o

o

o

'

'

■*

'

'

'

'

o

■*

00

«»

^

o

o

J

o

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

CO

■!«■

^

o

rs.

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

'

'

,_4

c»

^

iti:

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

o

o

*

'

'

'

rH

'

'

'

'

'

^H

«■

«©■

o

o

o

o

o

'

'

'

o

o

'

«5

K5

■»

«■

•

•

•

•

•

tT

es

■Jn"

•

X

■^

•

•

0)

3

d

T)

•

.9

o

M

a

3

2
tn

i

o

3

cj

"3

P<

a

^

^

■u

M

3

A

i

_o
'3

3

o

M

tH

o
o

o

'a

3

to

s

03

a

s

1

w

P

piH

a

M

w

»

M

n

f^

^

w

M

^

3

1

Hi

PREMIUMS AND GRATUITIES.

o

o

o

o

^

o

o

o

o

o

o

00

o

w

■JlOOJg 3AT1

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

U5

o

lO

o

IN

joj ;no piBd

g

00

00

o

s;

00

§

to

??

i

o

m

to
23

■^

3

to

I^

00

o_

o

o

CO

o

■*!

•^

^unoniB iB^ox

■«&

'^

"^

•JJOO^S 8A{1

o
o

o
o

o
o

o
o

o

o

g

8

8

8

o

8

8

8

s

JOJ papjBMB

g

^

CO

IN.

to

*

to

o

fe

?s

8

§

00

^

■^

o

00

r^

o_

IN_^

U5

lO

Ttl

to

•n

•*

^unouiB Ib:>ox

۩>

^

"^

"^

•jjoo^g sajt;

s

8

8

"g"

8

8

8

o
o

o

o

o

8

§

8

8

JOJ psjajjo

o

o

o

g

o

C5

o
■^

o
to

•rH

o

s

§

o

00

1

tH

o

I^

C!

In.

CO

t-.

to

o

tN.

o

^unoniB Ib:>ox

«■

^

"^

"^

"^

o

&

Q

o

^

(_,

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

■3I0OJS -laq^o ny

1

1

o

1

i«

1

00

to

in

CO

"S

^

s

a

CO

o

I^

w

to

CO

"*»

«

^~*

8

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

•^j^inoj JOJ

1

o

CI

N

o

00

00

IN

o

00

00

«5

o

CO

00

■*

"

o

o

o

<-,

o

8

o

o

o

o

o

o

g

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

•3UTMS J0j[

1

■*ft

CO

00

lO

M

o

CO

CO

_l

Ol

■.tl

00

to

m

o

CO

^

w

■^

Ol

CO

CO

w

C(

4»

8

o

o

9

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

•daaqg J0j[

1

W

lA

to

o

o

to

CO

._,

o

rN

s

3

w

w

■*!

IN

IN

a

^

8

o

o

^

8

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

sasjOH JOJ

s

IN.

o

1

<N

CO

§

gj

CO

•tti

g

lO

00

t^

2

00

to

o

■*!

o

to

CO

IN

^

8

8

o
o

8

8

8

8

8

o
o

o
o

o
o

8

•3IM«0 ^■BJ JOJ

1

M

■^

^

1

o

IN.

M

00

t^

^

^H

I^

lO

IN

(M

''tl

IN

w

«©■

8

o
o

8

8

8

8

8

8

8

o
o

o

•SJ39?g JOJ

'

o

1

o

1

Cs

jA

to

lO

o

lO

5R

o

IN

■*

CO

01

o

CO

Oi

CO

IN

S

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

Q

8

o

o

o

•aaxQ

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

1

cc

CO

._,

to

CO

to

o

t^

■*

lO

fH

s

3;

SnT^jjOjiiA. ^0^

«

<N

05

«5

'tl

IN

m

lO

00

CO

CO

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

lO

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

r^

•S3A1B0 JOJ

1

o

t^

1

CO

CO

to

o

■*

*

In.

to

a

lO

«»

C(

IN

oc

M

^

o

o

o

8

o

o

o

o

o

8

o

o

~^

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

■SJajraH JOj

1

Th

00

r*.

IN

00

,^

^

«

o

t^-

O)

^H

o

M

m

ej

I^

IN

Ci

IN

CO

M

«■

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

s

o

o

o

o

lO

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

•sMooqDjrpi-ioj

1

o

CO

00
00

g

^

i

00
In.

g

to

IN

to

CO

CO

s?

IN

o

o

o

^

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

8

o

o

to

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

•siina JOJ

1

o

o

r.

o

o

CO

CO

O)

CO

g

o

CO

o

g

^

^-

<a •

•

CO

.

.

.

1

3 ■

5~

J=

■s

^

^

ja"

3

a

03

H

s

t4
o

o
ta

IV

o

o

Si

3

o

CO
u

o

u

-2

£ ■

.= a,

aT

a

o

o

03

lU

■a

«

1

o

o

o

01

o

o

o

is

s

C3

ci

3
to

1

(a

§

§

§

^

^

^

^

^

^

td

n

5

APPENDIX.

liii

lO

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

to

o

i?

!?

s

(N

o

o

o

o

o

o

to

o

^~'

o

tN.

t^

o

1

o

CM

CO

CO

CM

o

._<

00

r-i

Ci

tH

o

■**

00

<o

In.

CO

00

C-l

to

CO

00

rH

o

s

®

t<.

o_

CO

tN.

oq_

o

CM

CM

Ci^

«■

"^

"^

to"

o

o

o

o

o

o

8

o

o

o

o

o

to

o

no

o

^

o

o

lO

o

o

o

o

o

to

o

o

tN.

r»

*^

o

w

,^

s

CO

CO

CM

00

J^

1-1

00

.-(

C5

'iH

o

■^

Ol

o»

00

CO

00

CM

to

o

00

tK

CI

(N

CO

to

t^

o_

CO

o

o

00

tH^

Ci

o

CM

CM

CO

■6&

'"'

'"'

*"*

'"'

2
«

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

8

o

o

«3

o

o

U5

lO

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

to

t^

«5

o

tN.

I^

IN.

■^

CO

CO

s

^

o

lO

s

t--

to

CO

._(

tK

o

•^

CJ

■^

s

■*!

Ol

o

Cl

en

a

05

CM

CM

o

o

lO

M

CO

00

c^

lO

CM

o

CM^

co_

CM

I^

■*

tl

»-<

^

"^

'^

of

'"'

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

to

o

to

OS

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

ov

o

to

^^

■^

CM

^

CM

'

'

'

'

Oil

'

OS

'

'

«3

CJ

CJ

CO

oo

CM

^

^

o

o

o

o

o

8

o

o

o

^

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

In.

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

lO

l^

o

o

o

C5

■*

CO

•*!

o

o

o

«

o

uo

o

o

o

lO

iO

to

o

■*

**<

CO

■^

o

lO

1-1

«■

o

o

o

o

o

o

^

o

o

o

8

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

CO

00

IV

CM

o

lO

._,

Cs

00

CO

t^

CM

CO

C!

o

o

s

O!

c^

CO

CO

■*

tl

o

tl

tN.

CO

8

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

8

o

o

o

8

o

o

1(3

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

C5

o

■*!

00

■*

o

CO

1

00

■*!

JN.

IN.

o

00

00

tN.

00

4©.

o

ca

00

00

CM

CO

to

CM

CO

o

o

o

o

o

o

8

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

lO

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

to

t^

CO

f-i

^

to

,_(

o

tN.

Cs

In.

^

.-t

o

o>

i+H

iO

o

»o

o

tv-

00

o

o

CM

o

o

to

tN.

CO

s

■^

to

4»

CO

■*

Oi

to

CM_

cT

8

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

r^.

,H

o

«o

'

'

iO

o

•*

r*

»f3

■^

^

._,

CM

^

(M

CO

CM

to

CO

lO

•n

CO

CM

to

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

8

in

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

t-;

t^

g?

£2

o

^H

o

r~i

lO

In.

CO

CI

,_,

'

t^.

1

CM

5

tN-

CO

"

■*

■*!

■*

o

CM

CM

^~*

CM

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

8

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

tH

o>

^

IN.

o

o

CM

lo

._,

CM

00

00

o

o

o

o

■^

CM

I--

CO

CM

■*

o

n

CM

s

«■

CM

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

i?

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

<s

o

o

o

US

o

lO

tN.

lO

OJ

CO

CO

«5

CO

to

'

00

CO

o

tN.

IN.

CO

'

CO

o

■e©

CM

CO

c<

s

8

o

o

o

o

o

o

g

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

lO

o

o

o

o

o

o

to

o

o

o

iO

to

CO

s

o

ts

t^

3;

lO

o

00

iO

*^

00

CM

IN.

1

OS

o

€©■

CO

'"'

CO

■*

^

tH

«5

M

s

««■

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

^

lO

o

«0

o

o

iO

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

tN.

o

tN.

IN

•n

CO

C-(

M

f^

o

._<

00

lO

o

^

CO

1

liO

.«

J_

CM

OJ

00

o

■*

CM

CO

00

to

t>.

$

^

o

o

o

C5

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

§

00

o

lO

s

•*

SJ

£J

f

s

tN.

o

■*

o

lO

CM

j

to

m

CO

'"'

CO

■^

00

CO

CM

to

r^

CM

c<

CM

%

s

;

•

•o

hi

^

03

a

(0

•a

1

s

3

'a
o

2

it

cS

M

Q

o

"S

o

s
o

2"

J3

i

J3

1

1

3

a

>

"oj

1

o
H

i

a

5

a

o
a

3

3

o

o
o

a

o

a

>>

cj

a

a

03

n

"a

Cj

liv

PREMIUMS AND GRATUITIES.

■sdojo

1

o
o

o

o

o

o
o

§

o

o

jooa jaino

00

CO

o

^

CI

"^

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

•suoino

00

n

N

CO

•*

'"'

'-'

o

o

o

^

SBSBg B^ng

1

(N

1

1

<M

1

1

'-'

1

CO

1

lO

•sdm

o
o

§

o
o

-jnX qsTi3ua

•<*<

'"'

s

o

o

o

•sdinsJBj;

1

CO

1

1

0}

1

1

o

o

o

o

CM

o

o

«5

•spaa

00

CO

■*

^

'^

«

^

^

o

o

o

o

•SJOJJBO

00

lO

o

OJ

'^

"*<

^

»o

o

o

o

o

o

•sao^B^oj

CO

o

00

rX

N

"^

o

o

o

o

o

w

•spaag 8SBJ0

CO

'-'

«0

o
o

sdoJO ssBjf)

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

I

1

!

1

1

'

o

o

C(

•suBaa

00

«5

o

"^

o

o

o

•s:>i30

(N

"^

^

to

o

o

o

•^aiiua

1

1

1

1

1

lO

o

o

o

o

•a^a

1

1

to

CO

Ol

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

•»B3qAl

«■

CO

00

lO

CO

tH

g

^

o

o

£^

o

o

o

•njoo uBipni

00

!>•

i?

^

CO

'"

e-t

o

•

•

•

•

•

a

■!3

p.

02

E

c4

W

to

^

w

.

^

s

s

3

CiJ

J3

xs

--

pC

^

^

^

^

^

3

O

V

3

,

><"

^

X

o

tT

^

b

^

o

o

0)

03

<o

tT

a"

,a

fl

03

x"

^

p

f

OJ

g

f^

0)

a,

a

a

1

«

■a

s

■3

o

o

1

1

o

o

ci

a

a

3

APPENDIX.

Iv

§ ,

lO

O

o

o

o

o

o

^

00

m

o

o

o

o

o

.

.

1

N

CO

o

o

'''

00

§

*
«»

^ ,

o

^

o

o

U5

lO

«3

o

o

o

00

CO

N '

'

N

'

CO

'

'

00

'

CO

lO

°s

«&

O

O

o

o

«= ,

o

o

.

1

1

Iffl

N '

o

w

'

o

«»

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

00

00

1 1

'

'

o

o

'

w

'

'

00

'

'

iO

o

Ci

^

s

«■

O

o

~o"

~"»o~

lO

"^ 1

o

o

w

tN.

o '

'

,_,

CO

1

1

'

1

'

'

'

'

1

T-H

«•

N

■^

s

«5

o

o

o

o

o

^

o

o

•^ ,

o

o

o

o

o

o

en

Tt<

O '

la

00

s

o

'

Y_,

'

'^t^

,-t

t^

«.

o

«&

o

o

o

8

^

o

o

o

o

o

o

CO

'

'

■*

<N

'

'

'

o

'

Iffl

'

w

lO

00

In.

s

«■

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

U5

lO

'" 1

o

o

o

o

o

o

*"*

1

CO

lO

50

,^

'

'

00

'

o

'

'

'

CO

no

^

CO

U5

(N

CM

N
«»

8

8

8

s

1

■*

CO

1

1

1

1

1

1

I

1

s

€&

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

' '

,-4

e>)

o

'

'

'

'

'

'

1

r-

•r

co

-f-f

«■

o

8

1

8

«5

8

CO

1

.

8

r

S5

f

,

1

o

Ci

o

<&

«5

o

^

o

o

o

o

o

W5

o

*- ,

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

!■;

o

O '

OJ

•£>

iO

'

©

CO

'

'

to

o

fN.

f^

«»

«5

iO

00

o

o

o

^

o

o

Ift

!P

o

o

o

o

o

o

s

N

,-H

iO

lO

'

'

,_,

00

'

o

'

1

lo

s

w

CO

o

^S'

"^

»

S '

Q

o

o

o

o

o

lO

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

s

t>.

o

«o

"tl

'

iO

w

'

o

'

1

1

-^

K5

^

50

»ra

s ,

o

o

8

o
o

o
o

8

8

o

§

«5

(N

in

lO

'

'

,_,

00

'

'

'

'

JS

4»

»o

CO

00

lO

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

s

o

^

o

o

!5

■^^ 1

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

00

<^^ '

«

00

o

,-4

'

o

In.

,-4

to

C-J

00

o

^^

00

■»

o

iO

(M

CO

■*

■*!

CO

•*
^

«■

■ •

•

•

•

•

rT

h

cj

"to

X

ri

.

.

>>

c2

_a)

&-<

IS

tf'

3

i

^

C3

"a

s

"a!

c5

1

"S

ft fl

3

ts

'vj

OS

o

o

p

o

A

X

a

"S

i -2

cs

a
o

o
o

o

'u,

*s

s

>>

s

1=

a

c«

c3

H

W U

fe

w

w

w

^

w

n

E

s

s

M

^

s

Ivi

PREMIUMS AND GRATUITIES.

•sjonpojj miv^

8

lO

g

8

s

8

s?

o

§

g

^

jopB3iian;J8pan

s

§

s

o

00

o

S3

s

o

o

Ci

?!.

;no pred }(Un? ib^ox

8

K

•p^ajg njoo

CO
4&

CO

^

•pBajg

o

o

o

o

o

IN

o

o

lO

o

r.

UBipui pnu 3;fa

o

-n

to

lO

o

N

CO

to

CO

CO

o

„

o

o

o

o

O

o

o

o

o

o

«5

U5

o

o

o

o

o

o

UO

•pnajg jt'aqAi

g

00

c»

o

to

tH

CO

C!

CO

CO

o

o

o

o

o

•iCauoH

1

^

M

CO

§

Oi

1

CO

■*

s

o

o

o

„

o

o

o

asaaqo

CO

«5

iO

CO

o

00

I^

o

to

o

o

8

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

•janng;

lO

o

lO

CO

o

o

o»

o

00

^

■*

o

^

m

•WM

1

1

1

■*
«»

•sdojQ pa^BA

8

o
o

o

o

8

^

s

S3

-pino J8q:(0 jCuy

S

33

CO

n

o

§

s

N

^

8

o

in

(M

o

o

tN.

o

o

•sjaAioi^ joj:

S
«■

m

M

a>

r^

•^

to

o

t>.

o

<N

CO

O

o

^

o

o

o

lO

o

o

o

lO

lO

O

o

o

o

lO

o

w

«5

«

o

•s^inj^ jo^

n

3

o

3

to

g

o

CO

00

to

CO

CO

N

•qsiijanjooraooag

1

1

1

1

1

1

,

1

f

1

1

1

1

,

joj papjUMB ?(Uiy

■sdojo

§

8

8

8

g

15

8

o

o

8

8

s

:joo)i puB njnjo

o

2

§

s

■*!

CO

o

3

IN.

g

s

JOJ pred ^(UiB iB^ox

•sdojQ ;ooh;

o

o

8

8

8

o

s

o
o

8

8

8

s

pne uiBJO JOJ pa

s

§

s

§

■*!

00

;::;

35

t^

?s

s

-pjBAVB 'iivav ib;ox

•sdoJO loog pnu

o
o

8

o
o

o

o

o

o

o

o

8

8

o
o

8

8

8

uiBjQ JOJ pajaj

o

o

S3

s

§

s

to

o

^

t

-jo ^unouiB i^iox

«■

•

a

.

•

•

•

02

01

H

•

•

-w

^X

a

'

M

05

^

H

w

M

Q)

o

3

o

r/1

Ex

1

5

o

o

CO

o

4<(

a

oj

•

o

OQ

5

0)

u

V

01

1^

•a

' Si

i;f

iJ
^

=3

_«
S

r.

(0

1

4)

0)

2

n

F1

.2
3

o

o

o

o

o

o

f

S

«

s

3

S

Is

^

^

^

is

^

K

a

a

APPENDIX.

Ivii

•a

o

lO

o

o

o

o

o

«5

0

w

^

0

0

0

«

c<

»o

C(

o

o

o

o

o

e^

«

CO

0

iO

0

I^

0

00

o

lO

00

(N

t^

o

,_,

'

CO

0

IM

■*

,-(

Sfi

00

at

<N

o

o

lO

CO

to

to

CO

M

w

00

CO

«&

K

ri

CO

Oi

M

o<

in"

lO

m

o

0

0

0

«5

.

t>.

N

o

t^

0

1

1

iO

IN.

'

o

o

'

o

1

'

0

0

(M

0

«.

M

0

€»

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

0

0

0

0

0

ira

T

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

r»

0

0

0

0

J^

CO

«5

,_,

■*

CJ

o

o

■*

'

0

CO

CO

to

■*

01

2

^

4&

o

8

o

o

o

o

o

o

0

0

0

0

0

0

in

0
0

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

0

0

10

0

0

0

Iv.

CO

(N

00

OS

°.

o

•*

CO

m

■*

la

0

■*

0

1

o

lO

o

o

o

o

0

KO

0

0

s

0

0

o

r>.

lO

o

o

o

0

(M

0

0

.

»n

*

M

rH

o

o

,_,

'

-*<

,_,

,_,

o>

<N

CO

«&

M

Oi

s

o

o

o

8

o

o

o

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

8

o

o

o

o

o

o

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

CO

o>

CO

o

to

o

o

'

'

CO

0

KO

«5

0

OJ

10

CO

«»

CO

«5

CO

«

CO

■^

^

g

o

o

8

o

o

o

o

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

8

io

lO

o

o

o

o

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

o

o

M

o

o

J^

lO

y-i

*

0

m

-t<

0

«

1— 1

1

«

T~<

CO

•n

ot

CO

CO

»-*

^-*

'""

s

,

1

1

1

o
o

1

,

1

,

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

s

w

0

s

^

o

o

0

0

0

^

'

U5

o

0

•a

I

,_,

1

1

1

«0

'

'

t>.

'

CO

■*!

'

'

'

«■

CO

€&

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

0

Ui

0

K5

0

0

0

s

o

«5

o

o

o

o

o

0

w

0

■*

0

10

0

1

(M

,_,

lO

lO

o

wo

«

'

to

CO

0

I^

CO

0

to

8

CO

(N

rt

c^

0

<N

«■

o

»o

«0

o

o

o

o

o

0

. 0

0

in

0

0

0

0

o

o<

d

o

o

o

o

o

0

0

0

i^

0

0

•*<

CO

o

o

Oi

r^

,_4

-+^

t^

CI

10

•n

^

0

to

,_(

CO

CO

OJ

I^

M

o

to

I<

to

r-

t^

CO

CO

■*

i»

IN

o

0

1

1

1

o

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

0

o

«3

«■

««■

lO

o

Q

5-,

o

o

o

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

in

t^

o

o

o

■ o

lO

o

0

0

lO

0

0

0

Ci

fl

o

r^-

lO

CO

t^

U2

o

,_)

s

,— (

0

CO

CO

CO

CO

4&

co

o

o

«5

o

t<

0(

■*!

0

0

0

■^

■^

co_

o

o

iO

o

(_,

o

8

o

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

o

I--

00

o

o

o

o

0

0

0

0

0

0

CO

C30

00

,-H

W5

CO

t^

cs

o

,_t

iO

,_(

0

CO

CO

00

0

«■

CO

•*!

to

«

ts.

'^

O!

00

lO

0

to

0

c?
of

8

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

0

0

0

0

0

0

8

0

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

o

0

0

0

0

0

0

m

CO

o

00

00

•*<

^s.

s

CO

«

,^

IC

0

CI

10

10

to

^^

lo

■^

iO

Ol

w

o

0

0

0

CO

0

to

to

l^

CO

r-i

■tl

■*!

IN

w

o<

CO

^

•

•

•a

•

u

03

■g

^

X

■s

0)

C3

n

fl"

o

^"

0)

>

B

0)

0

5-

2*
"3

1

3

03

■3

"O

TS

«

.m"

d

te

cS

0

"cj

Oi

c

f-

^

cj

'w

CS

o

o

0

0

.c

^

CO

3

J3

0
H

i

s

OS

.2

'3

s

C3

3

o

0*

o
o

s

a

03

1

K

s

&

fe

w

M

a

^

pq

n

s

s

2

n

12;

s

Iviii

PREMIUMS AND GRATUITIES.

Analysis of Premiums and Gratuities Awarded — Concluded.

MISCELLANEOUS.

SOCIETIES.

a

M

U
_g

be g

be

a

a

<2

•p qS

a B

<

a
o

a
o

li

Amount awarded for
objects strictly agri-
cultural, not speci-
fied before.

For objects not strict-
ly agricultural; do-
mestic manufac-
tures, &c.

|i
c i S

O t.'^

Massachusetts, .

-

$1,000 00

-

-

-

-

3

Essex, . . . .

$50 00

30 00

-

$25 00

-

$148 00

-

Middlesex, .

45 00

-

-

-

-

152 25

260

Middlesex North,

-

-

-

-

-

-

110

Middlesex South,

46 00

60 00

-

15 00

-

73 00

175

Worcester, .

-

22 00

-

-

-

43 00

-

Worcester West, .

11 50

30 00

-

10 00

-

89 00

190

Worcester North,

43 00

50 00

-

-

-

173 50

179

Worcester North- West,

-

-

-

-

-

82 25

98

Worcester South,

2 00

35 00

-

-

-

61 27

161

Worcester South-East,

1 00

30 00

-

-

-

129 62

158

Hampshire, Franklin )
and Hampden, j

25 00

20 00

-

-

$6 00

71 25

188

Hampshire, .

21 00

12 00

-

40 00

-

53 72

300

Highland,

5 25

-

-

-

-

86 75

169

Hampden,

17 00

15 00

-

-

10 50

29

Hampden East,

7 00

25 00

-

26 00

-

75 25

83

Union, .

13 00

-

-

-

2 50

50 15

98

Franklin,

15 00

10 00

"

9 00

92 38*

95 00

238

Housatonic, .

33 00

-

-

-

-

337 00

369

Berkshire, .

84 00

-

-

-

102 00

314 50

397

Hoosac Valley,

-

-

-

-

-

200 00

328

Norfolk,

27 50

25 00

-

-

_

37 75

144

Bristol, .

-

30 00

-

60 00

-

-

-

Bristol Central,

-

-

-

-

-

388 50

260

Plymouth, .

15 00

60 00

-

-

68 25

233 25

395

Marshfield, .

7 50

50 00

-

-

-

155 00

286

Hingham,

-

60 00

-

-

-

292 48

500

Barnstable, .

-

7 50

-

12 00

27 00

80 00

200

Nantucket, .

-

13 00

-

16 00

-

75 00

154

Martha's Vineyard, .

-

25 00

-

16 00

26 50

90 15

194

Totals, .

$468 75

$1,599 50

$229 00

$324 63

$3,598 14

5,666

* Miscellaneous.

APPENDIX.

lix

N'AMJES of Cities and Towns to which the Premiums and
Gi'atuities were disbursed, and the amount to each.

MASSACHUSETTS.

Canton,
Tyngsborough,

$150 00
200 00

Worcester,
Total,

$100 00
$450 00

ESSEX.

Amesbury, . . . . $29 00

Marblehead, . . . $34 00

Andover,

8 00

Methuen, .

11 00

Boston,

26 00

Newbury, .

199 00

Boxford,

9 00

Newburyport,

450 00

Bradford,

18 00

North Andover,

75 00

Danvers,

45 00

Peabody,

13 00

Essex,

5 00

Rowley,

16 00

Groveland,

5 50

Salem,

12 00

Hamilton,

35 00

Salisbury, .

1 50

Haverhill, .

30 00

Wenham, .

13 00

Ipswich,

36 00

West Newbury,

104 00

Lawrence,

8 00

Total, .

$1,183 00

MIDDLESEX.

Acton, .... $103 00

Framingham,

$19 50

Arlington, .

59 00

Grotoii,

5 00

Bedford,

23 00

Harvard,

5 00

Belmont,

138 50

HoUiston, .

5 00

Billerica,

4 00

Hudson,

. 21 00

Boston,

11 00

Lexington, .

197 00

Burlington, .

18 00

Lincoln,

133 00

Boxborough,

7 00

Littleton, .

31 50

Cambridge, .

92 00

Maiden,

3 00

Carlisle,

16 00

Marlborough,

5 00

Chelmsford,

50

Medford,

8 00

Concord,

227 25

Natick,

8 00

Fitchburg, .

13 00

Pepperell, .

8 00

Ix

PREMIUMS AND GRATUITIES.

MIDDLESEX— Concluded.

Providence, . . , $10 00

Watertown,

. !|11 00

Reading,

12 50

Wayland, .

. 34 00

Somervillle,

4 00

Washington,

2 00

Stoneham, .

10 00

Westford, .

2 00

Stow, .

5 00

Weston,

. 38 50

Sudbury,

37 50

Winchester,

. 14 00

Townsend, .

1 50

Woburn,

. 18 00

Wakpfipld

S 00
46 75

Walthara, .

Total, .

$1,416 30

MIDDLESEX NORTH.

Acton,

. $14 25

Reading, . . . .

$4 00

Billerica,

6 00

Tyngsborough, .

3 50

Chelmsford,

. 67 50

Tewksbury,

. 54 00

Dracut,

. 25 75

Wakefield, . .

3 00

Dunstable, .

. 44 00
. 100 75

Winchester,
Total, .

4 50

Lowell,

$327 25

MIDDLESEX SOUTH.

Ashland,

. $8 50

Sherborn, .

$7 75

Framingham,

. 671 25

Southborough, .

88 00

Holliston, .

8 00

Sudbury, . .

7 75

Hopkinton, .

. 23 75

Sundries out of district,

494 00

Marlborough,

. 22 50

Wayland, .

72 00

Natick,

. 84 50

Total, .

11,488 00

WORCESTER.

Auburn, . . . . $2 50

Fitchburg, . . . . $52 00

Barre,

117 00

Grafton,

9 50

Bolton,

10 00

Holden,

18 00

Boylston,

8 00

Millbury, .

135 00

Brookfield, .

120 00

New Braintree,

42 00

Charlton,

9 00

Princeton, .

162 00

Dudley,

6 00

Rutland,

10 00

APPENDIX.

WOECESTE R— Concluded.

Ixi

Shrewsbury,

. $37 00

West Boylston, .

. $51 00

Southbridge,

. 25 00

Webster,

. 43 00

Spencer,

6 00

Westborough,

. . 50 00

Sturbridge, .

. 46 00

Worcester, .

. 50 00

Sutton,

. 165 00

Total, .

11,174 00

WORCESTER WEST,

Barre,

$379 00

Princeton, .

. 158 00

Charlton,

43 00

Royalston, .

. 13 00

Framingham,

30 00

Spencer,

3 00

Hardwick, .

58 00

Springfield, .

. 25 00

Hubbardston,

5 00

Sturbridge, .

. 17 00

New Braintree, .

54 50

Sutton,

. 31 00

North Brookfield,

23 00

Warren,

5 00

Oakhana,

28 00

West Brookfield, .

9 00

Palmer,

125 00

Worcester, .

. 230 00

13 00
9 00

Phillipston, .

Total, .

$1,158 50

WORCESTER NORTH.

Ashburnham,

Ashland,

Barre, .

Boston,

Fitchburg,

Lancaster,

Leominster,

Lunenburg,

Littleton,

New Ipswich,

$9 00

1

00

120 00

175 00

534

00

50

115 25

73

50

63

00

23

00

Oakdale,
Princeton, .
Shirley,
Sterling,
West Boylston,
Westminster,
Winchendon,
Wilton,
Worcester, .

Total, .

$1 25
257 25
65 00
27 00
11 00
61 00

1 50
10 00

2 00

1,563 25

WORCESTER NORTH-WEST

Athol, .
Barre, .

. $294 55
. 122 66

Erving,
Montague,

$0 50
23 67

Ixii PREMIUMS AND GRATUITIES.

WOECESTER N 0 R T H - W E S T— Concluded.

New Salem,

. $3 00

State of Michigan,

. W 67

Orange,

4 33

Templeton, .

.

. 18 33

Phillipston, .

. 123 02

Winchendon,

.

. 50 00

Petersham, .

. , 13 00

Worcester, .

.

8 00

Royalston, .

9 67

Total, .

•

. $671 40

WORCESTER SOUTH.

Brirafield, .

$48 75

Spencer,

. 10 50

Brookfield, .

47 00

Sturbridge, .

. 196 77

Charlton, ....

166 10

Sutton,

. 31 00

Dudley, ....

51 50

Warren,

. 30 25

Holland,

8 00

Webster,

. 35 50

Melrose,

2 00

Worcester, .

. 21 00

Oxford,

5 00

Southbridge,

112 15

Total, .

. $756 52

WORCESTER SOUTH-EAST.

Bellingham,

$9 75

Southborough,

. $6 00

Blackstone, .

6 00

Sutton,

. 37 00

E. Brimfield,

3 00

Upton,

. 26 50

Framingham,

10 00

Uxbridge, .

. 30 00

Holliston, .

23 75

Westborough,

. 39 75

Hopkinton, .

. 32 25

Worcester, .

. 13 00

Mendon,

183 00

Wrentham, .

2 00

Medway,

50

Milford,

280 00

Total, .

. $702 50

HAMPSHIRE, FRANKLIN AND HAMPDEN.

Amherst,

. $16 00

Gill, .

. $35 00

Chesterfield,

1 00

Goshen,

3 00

Conway,

. 42 00

Hatfield, .

. 83 25

Cummington,

. 14 40

Hadley,

. 35 25

Deerfield, .

. 109 00

Huntington,

8 00

Easthampton,

. 44 00

Leverett,

8 00

APPENDIX. Ixiii

HAMPSHIEE, FRANKLIN AND H A M P D E N-Concluded.

Northampton,

. $211 00

Westhampton,

. $9 75

Prescott,

. 21 00

Whately, .

. 13 20

Southampton,

. 37 00

Williamsburg,

. 19 50

Shelburne, .

. 137 00

Sunderland,

. 21 59

Total, .

. 1864 44

South Hadley, .

5 50

HAMPSHIRE.

Amherst,
Belchertown,
Dana, .
Enfield,
Gran by,
Hatfield,
Hartford, (Ct.,)
Hadley,
Ludlow,

174 00

55 00

150 00

15 00

37 00

4 00

3 00

129 50

2 00

Leverett,

Montague, .

Pelham,

Prescott,

South Hadley Falls,

Sunderland,

Williamsburg,

Total, .

$32 12
20 00
28 00
9 00
7 00
73 00
14 00

1604 12

HIGHLAND.

Becket,

Blandford, .

Chester,

Chesterfield,

Cummington,

Dalton,

Easthampton,

Hinsdale,

Holyoke,

Huntington,

Lanesborough,

Lee, .

151 25

7 00

65

50

2

00

5

00

11

00

1

75

107

25

6

00

7

50

18

50

10

00

Meriden,

Middlefield,

Peru, .

Palmer,

Russell,

Springfield, .

Washington,

Westfield, .

Windsor,

Worthington,

Total, .

m 00

230 50
6 00

15 00
3 25
1 25

13 00

10 00

1 00

16 25

1647 00

HAMPDEN.

Chicopee, .

. $3 25

West Springfield,

. $33 00

Longmeadow,

. 72 25

Wilbraham,

1 00

Springfield,
Westfield, .

. 80 00
4 00

Total, . .

. $193 50

Ixiv

PREMIUMS AND GRATUITIES.

HAMPDEN EAST.

Belchertown,

. $53 25

Shrewsbury,

. m 00

Brimfield, .

. 25 50

Springfield,

4 50

Chicopee, .

3 00

Warren,

9 00

Ludlow,

8 00

Wilbraham,

3 00

Monson,

. 268 50

Palmer,

. 148 75

Total, .

. $527 50

uisriON

Blandford, .
Chester,
Granville, .
Huntington,
Miscellaneous,

$138 50

6 00

15 50

50

3 25

Otis, .

Russell,
Westfield,

Total, .

$7 00

6 50

19 50

1196 75

FRANKLIN.

Bernardston,

$30 25

Heath, . . . . $5 00

Buckland, .

9 75

Leverett, .

19 25

Coleraine, .

28 25

Montague, .

29 25

Conway,

36 25

Northfield, .

31 75

Deerfield, .

108 15

Rowe, .

1 50

Erving,

9 25

Shelburne, .

327 50

Gill, ....

46 65

Sunderland,

34 00

Greenfield, .

157 03

Total, .

. $873 83

HOUSATONIC.

Adams,

$4 00

Mount "Washington, .

. $12 00

Alford,

71 50

New Marlborough,

. 51 00

Becket,

18 00

Pittsfield, .

8 00

Egremont, .

201 50

Richmond, .

2 00

Great Barrington,

591 00

Sheffield, .

. 427 00

Lanesborough,

3 00

Stockbridge,

. 186 00

Lee, ....

129 00

West Stockbridge,

. 65 00

Lenox,

120 00

Monterey, .

42 00

Total, .

$1,931 00

APPENDIX.

BERKSHIRE.

Ixv

Alford,

$5 00

North Adams,

. 19 00

Becket,

1 00

Peru, ....

8 00

Cheshire,

112 00

Pittsfield, .

. 852 00

Dalton,

107 00

Richmond, .

87 00

Egremont, .

8 00

Sheffield, .

78 00

Great Barrington,

38 00

South Adams,

73 00

Hancock, .

3 00

South Williamstown, .

14 00

Hinsdale, . . . .

38 00

Stockbridge,

149 00

Lanesborough, .

259 50

Washington,

4 00

Lee, ....

123 00

"West Stockbridge,

12 00

Lenox,

354 50

Williamstown,

37 00

Monterey, .

2 00

Windsor, .

. 14 00

New Ashford,
New Marlborough,

11 00
50

Total, .

12,399 50

HOOSAC

VALLEY.

Cheshire, . . . . $77 50

Pittsfield, .

. $7 50

Clarksburg,

29 00

Pownal,

. 44 50

Dalton,

8 00

Savoy,

1 00

Florida,

17 50

South Adams,

. 92 50

Greenfield, .

1 00

Stamford, .

. 16 00

Lanesborough,

13 50

Williamstown,

. 290 00

T «»^/N-U-

Ts nn

North Adams,

344 00

Total, .

. P57 00

NORFOLK.

Brookline, . . . . $12 00

Needham, . . . . $98 00

Canton,

39 00

Randolph, .

4 00

Dedham,

99 00

Roxbury, .

131 00

Dorchester, .

100 00

Sharon,

275 00

Dover,

13 50

Stoughton, .

33 00

Franklin, .

10 00

Walpole,

12 50

Hyde Park,

16 00

Weymouth,

270 00

Medfield,

14 00

West Roxbury,

81 25

Milton,

134 00

Out of the Count

y.

364 25

Total, .

81,461 25

Ixvi

PREMIUMS AND GRATUITIES.

BRISTOL CENTRAL.

Acushnet, .... $75 50

New Bedford, . . . $356 05

Berkley,

67 50

Norton,

26 00

Bridgewater,

163 00

Raynham, .

77 50

Dartmouth, .

101 50

Rochester, .

24 00

Fall River, .

544 50

Somerset, .

167 00

Fairhaven, .

48 00

Swansea, .

188 00

Freetown, .

. 99 50

Taunton, .

406 10

Lakeville, .

130 20
34 50

Westport, .
Total, .

51 00

Myrickville,

12,559 85

PLYMOUTH.

Abington, . . . . $53 00

Middleborough, .

$108 25

Braintree, .

45 00

Mattapoisett,

34 00

Bridgewater,

686 75

North Bridgewater,

353 00

East Bridgewater,

134 00

Plymouth, .

38 00

Foxborough,

2 00

Plympton, .

47 25

Halifax,

68 00

Rochester, .

19 00

Hanover,

2 00

Stoughton, .

50

Hingham,

4 50

Taunton,

45 00

Kingston,

10 00

Wareham, .

75

Lakeville,

53 35

West Bridgewater,

141 50

Marion,

1 00

Weymouth, .

4 50

Mansfield,

5 00

Marshfield,

6 00

Total, .

1^1,862 35

MARSHFIELD.

Abington, . . . . $1 75

Marshfield, .... $272 05

Boston,

29 50

Medford, .

75

Duxbury,

108 62

Pembroke, .

19 25

Easton,

3 75

Plymouth, .

21 50

Halifax,

50

Plympton, .

50

Hanson,

50

Scituate,

25 00

Hanover,

3 50
12 25

Weymouth,
Total, .

5 75

Kingston,

$505 17

APPENDIX.

HINGHAM.

Ixvii

Abington, .

. $10 25

Quincy,

. $13 40

Cohasset, .

. 25 00

South Scituate, .

. 50 00

Hanover,

. 15 00

Weymouth,

. 38 00

Hingham, . .

. 820 39

Hull, .

. 23 00

Total, .

. $995 04

BARNSTABLE.

Barnstable, .

. $336 00

Brewster, .

3 00

Chatham, .

5 00

Dennis,

. 34 00

Harwich, .

4 00

Sandwich,
Yarmouth,
Unknown,

Total,

$35 00
17 00
20 00

$454 00

NANTUCKET,

Nantucket, $559 00

MARTHA'S

VINEYARD.

Chllmark, .

. $220 15
. 69 05

TIsbury,
Total, .

. $320 70

Edgartown, .

. $609 90

4 A?f

o (C

55 <

ABSTRACT OF IlETUliNS

?jm

oOCIE'ii

LJU

^ JL«K^

8 6 'i .

I il

p

■

1

.1
i

'

B O S T u .. .

OTTER, STATE PRINTERS,
s Street, (Coksek of Federal

1870.

N

PEEFACE.

I am indebted to the owners of the animals illustrated in this
volume for the use of the engravings which they have so kindly fur-
nished.

The beautiful Shorthorn heifer " Lucy," received the first prize
of the Middlesex Agricultural Society as the best under three years
old. She is roan, bred by and the property of Jos. A. Harwood,
Littleton, Mass. ; calved May 10th, 1868 ; got by " Roan Prince,"
6,370, out of "Flirt," by "Marmion," 1843,— "Lady Sale Ninth,"
by "Comet," 3,772,— "Lady Sale Sixth," by "Red Knight," 890,—
" Lady Sale Third," by imported " Duke of Cambridge," 1,034
(5,941),— "Lady Sale Second," by "Earl of Chatham," (10,176),—
"Lady Sale," by "General Sale," (8,099),— " Clara," by "Napier,"
(1,238),—" Maid of Orleans," by " Mameluke," (2,258),—" Helena,"
by "Waterloo," (2,816),— "Moss Rose," by "Baron," (58),— "An-
gelina," by " Phenomenon," (491),—" Anne Boleyn," by " Favorite,"
(252),— "Princess," by " Favorite," (252),—" Brighteyes," by " Fa-
vorite," (252),— "Beauty," by " Masterman's," (273),—" Tripes," by
the Studly bull, (621).

The little Brittany beauty, the " Empress," owned by William
Knowlton, Esq., of Upton, was imported by me from France in the
month of June, 1868 then coming two years old and with calf. She
dropped a beautiful heifer calf two days after reaching the end of
her long journey. She is a perfect dairy cow in miniature, of won-
derful delicacy and fineness of limb and skin, neck and head. Her
weight at the present time, being in high condition and with calf, is
about 400 lbs., color, black and white. In disposition she is gentle
as a kitten, and a good-natured, frolicsome pet. She gives from
seven to eight quarts of a milk that is remarkable for making the
finest flavoi-ed butter in the world, the Bretons being adapted espe-
cially to the butter dairy in regions of short pasturage and limited
fertility. The consumption per day in food is about ten to twelve
pounds of hay, or its equivalent. The height of the Brittanies varies
from thirty-two to forty inches. The bull imported at the same time

IV PREFACE.

with the "Empress," was just thirty-two inches high, measured
over the fore-shoulder, when he arrived, being then one year old.

" ISTapoleon," imported in his dam, was calved soon after she
reached her destination. He has grown finely and is already or is
soon to be the father of a somewhat numerous progeny. The size
and height can be inferred by the figure of the herdsman standing
by his side.

" Ivanhoe," the Jersey bull owned by James C. Converse, Esq.,
and kept at his farm in Southborough, is remarkable for his form and
beauty. In striking points of excellence he is rarely excelled by
any bull of his age and breed in the country.

He was sired by " Excelsior," he by imported " Ned " out of J.
P. Cushing's " No. 3," bred from stock of his own importation.
Dam, " Delpha," by imported " Santa Anna," out of imported
" Dolly." " Delpha " was awarded the first premium at the exhibi-
tion of the " Newton Jersey Club" in 1868, the committee consist-
ing of Thomas Motley, (Chairman,) Dr. Joseph Burnett and Leverett
Saltonstall. She was also one of the three cows, (" Lady Milton "
and " Creanipot " being the others,) foi'ming part of the Jersey herd
which drew the herd prize at the New England Fair, at New
Haven, in 1868.

The drawing of these animals was done by Johx R. Page, Esq.,
and the engraving by R. H. Carson, Esq., of New York.

I must again call the attention of the officers of societies, as I
have so often done befoi'e, to the fact that, in many cases, their
" Transactions " are meagre and unworthy of them. This gross
neglect of a most obvious and important duty, and disregard of the
obligations to the State, is discreditable in the highest degree.

The officers of societies should remember that the fair or exhibi-
tion is only one of the methods of doing good, and a subordinate
and ephemeral one at the best ; that the great and primary duty is
to gain and diffuse information thi'ough its record ; that the printed
page, full of instruction, life and interest, goes forth to awaken a
degree of inspiration in the community which no exhibition, how-
ever complete, can do so well ; that it is the permanent record that
is to spread and perpetuate its influence for good and that the State
has a right to expect that every society will do its duty in this
respect.

CHARLES L. FLINT.

Boston, Jan. 26, 1870.

OFFICERS OF THE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES.
1 8 7 O .

MASSACHUSETTS.

President— GEORGE W. LYMAN, of Boston.
Secretary— FETEU C. BROOKS, Jr., of Boston.

ESSEX.

President— WILLIAM SUTTON, of Peabody.
Secretary— CRAniuES P. PRESTON, of Danvers.

MIDDLESEX.

President— JOHl^ CUMMINGS, Jr., of Woburn.
/Secretary— JOHN B. MOORE, of Concord.

, MIDDLESEX NORTH.

President— JONATHAN LADD, of Lowell.
Secretary— E. T. ROWELL, of Lowell.

MIDDLESEX SOUTH.

PresMent— GEORGE B. BROWN, of Framingliam.
Secretary— JAMES W. BROWN, of Framingliam.

WORCESTER.

PresMenJ— SOLOMON H. HOWE, of Bolton,
/^ecrefary— WINSLOW S. LINCOLN, of Worcestex.

WORCESTER WEST.

President— JAMES W. JENKINS, of Barre.
/S'ecretory— CHARLES BRIMBLECOM, of Barre.

WORCESTER NORTH.

President— WM. WOODBURY, of Eitchburg.
^ecreiary— WALTER A. EAMES, of Eitchburg.

WORCESTER NORTH-WEST.

President— FARWELL W. FAY, of Athol.
Secretary— E. T. LEWIS, of Athol.

VI OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETIES.

WORCESTER SOUTH.

PresMen«— SYLVESTER DRESSER, of Southbridge.
Secretary— B.^l!iB.Y HAYNES, of Sturbridge.

WORCESTER SOUTH-EAST.

President— WILLIAM KNOWLTON, of Upton.
Secretary— J. ALLEN FAY, of Milford.

HAMPSHIRE, FRANKLIN AND HAMPDEN.

Presi<Ze7i«— ELNATHAN GRAVES, of Williamsburg.
Secretary— A. PERRY PECK, of Northampton.

HAMPSHIRE.

Fresident—L'EYI P. WARNER, of Sunderland.
Secretary— B,. W. STRATTON, of Amherst.

HIGHLAND.

President— M^TCALF J. SMITH, of Middlefield.
/S^ecre^ary— JONATHAN McELWAIN, of Middle lield.

HAMPDEN.

President— GEORGE DWIGHT, of Springfield.
Secretary— J. N. BAGG, of West Springfield.

HAMPDEN EAST.

President— WM. HOLBROOK, of Palmer.
Secretary— O. P. ALLEN, of Palmer.

UNION.

President— WILLIAM. M. LEWIS, of Blandford.
Secretary— n. P. ROBINSON, of Blandford.

FRANKLIN.

President— B^^RY WELLS, of Shelburne.
Secretary— SAMU'EL J. LYONS, of Greenfield.

BERKSHIRE.

President— JOB'S E. MERRILL, of Pittsfield.
Secretary— WM. H. MURRAY, of Pittsfield.

HOUSATONIC.

President— FAULTY A. RUSSELL, of Great Barringtoa
^ecrefar^/— HENRY T. ROBBINS, of Great Barrington.

HOOSAC VALLEY.

President— JOBS M. COLE, of Williamstown.
Secretary— B. CLAY BLISS, of North Adams.

OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETIES. Vll

NORFOLK.

President— JOim S. ELDRIDGE, of Canton.
Secretary— R^l^CRY 0. HILDRETH, of Dedham.

MARSHFIELD.

President— G'E.O'RGE M. BAKER, of Marshfield.
Secretary— W ABBE'S W. BARKER, of Marshfield.

BRISTOL.

President— WII.1,1AM MASON, of Taunton.
Secretary— IIZBA DAVOL, of Taunton.

BRISTOL CENTRAL.

President— NATHAN DURFEE, of Fall River.
Secretary— BOBEBT ADAMS, of Fall River.

PLYMOUTH.

President— CUABLES G. DAVIS, of Plymouth.
^S'ecretoJ-y— LAFAYETTE KEITH, of Bridgewater.

President— ALBERT FEARING, of Hingham.
/Secretor?/— FEARING BURR, of Hingham.

BARNSTABLE.

President— CRABIjES C. BEARSE, of Barnstable.
Secretary— CRABLES F. SWIFT, of Yarmouth Port.

NANTUCKET.

President— JAMES THOMPSON, of Nantucket.
Secretary— AEEX. MACY, Jr., of Nantucket.

MARTHA'S VINEYARD.

President— BENJAMIN DAVIS, of Edgartown.
/Secretary— DAVID MAYHEW, of Tisbury.

AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS

187 O

Essex, at Ipswich, , , , . .
Middlesex, at Concord, , , . .
Middlesex North, at Lowell, .
Middlesex South, at Framingkam,
Worcester, at Worcester, . . , .
Worcester West, at Barre, .
Worcester North, at Fitchhurg, .
Worcester North- West, at Athol, .
Worcester South, at Sturbridge, .
Worcester South-East, at Milford,
Hampshire, Franklin and Hampden, at

Northampton, .
Hampshire, at Amherst,
Highland, at Middlefield, .
Hampden, sA Springfield, .
Hampden East, at Palmer,
Union, at Blandford, .
Franklin, at Greenfield, .
Berkshire, at Pittsfield,
HousATONic, at Great Barrington,
HoosAC Valley, at North Adams,
Norfolk, at Beadville,
Marshfibld, at Marshfield,
Bristol, at Taunton, .
Bristol Central, at Myrick's,
Plymouth, at Bridgewater,
Hingham, at Hingham,
Barnstable, at Barnstable,
Nantucket, at Nantucket, .
Martha's Vineyard, at West Tisbury,

Septemljer 27 and 28.
October 4 and 5.
September 28 and 29.
September 20 and 21.
September 22 and 23.
September 29 and 30.
September 27 and 28.
October 5 and 6.
September 8 and 9.
September 27 and 28.

October 6 and 7.
September 27 and 28.
September 15 and 16.
October 4 and 5.
October 11 and 12.
September 27 and 28.
September 29 and 30.
October 4, 5 and 6.
September 28, 29 and 30.
September 20, 21 and 22.
September 22 and 23.
October 6 and 7.
October 4, 5 and 6.
September 21, 22 and 23.
September 29, 30, and October 1.
September 27 and 28.
October 4 and 5.
September 28 and 29.
October 18 and 19.

AGRICULTURE OF MASSACHUSETTS.

EXPERIENCE OF A PKACTICAL FAEMER.

From an Address before the Essex Agricultural Society.

BY BENJAMIN P. WAKE.

Within my remembrance, it was a laborious task for a man
to conduct the business of the farm successfully. He was ex-
pected to turn the double swath in the mowing-field, to lead the
hired men as they were desired to follow, to pitch on the hay,
to hoe the hardest row ; in short, to bear the brunt of the work.
Great physical strength and endurance, as well as good judg-
ment, were indispensable. But now what a change ! To lead
the labor of the farm does not require great strength and power
of muscle, but brains are called into requisition, and skill in
the management of machinery.

The farmer, while riding around his field on the mowing-ma-
chine, hay-tedder or horse-rake, may overlook and direct those
less skilled than himself, and at the same time accomplish the
labor of ten men, with no more exertion than is pleasant for
exercise. With Raymond's hay-elevator he may stow away his
hay in his barn with comparatively little labor and a great sav-
ing of time ; but the farmer impatiently awaits the time when
he may for his money obtain an improved hay-loading machine,
so vainly sought by many of us.

The potato crop can now be grown entirely without hand la-
bor. True's potato-planter cuts the potato, drops, furrows and
covers, at one operation. With Holbrook & Chandler's horse-
hoes, the labor of hoeing is wholly performed by horse-power.
1*

2 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

By the use of the side-hill plough, the harrow and the drag,
that any farmer can make in two hours, costing not more than
two dollars for materials, — than which no greater labor-saving
implement has yet been invented for the farm, — and with Wil-
lis' seed-sower, the Danvers truckle-hoe, all of the root-crops
can be grown with about one-half the labor formerly required.

The changing of an inferior variety of apples or pears for a
superior one, is now so simplified and made easy, by the use of
a liquid grafting-was, applied with a brush, that no one need be
without the choicest kind of such fruit who has healthy, vig-
orous trees, of whatever size they may be. Nor has improve-
ment stopped here. We need not leave Essex County to find
that within a few years there have been inti'oduced, by skill and
careful cultivation, the Hubbard squash, the stone mason and
Marblehead mammoth cabbages, Emery's early cabbage, a su-
perior early tomato and lettuce, the Danvers onion, all better,
in some respects, than before existed ; and to the list of fruits
have been added Allen's two hybrid grapes, and those of Mr.
Rogers, possessing qualities superior to those of any others,
while other parts of the State have added Dana's Hovey and
Clapp's Favorite pears, the Concord grape and the President
Wilder strawberry.

Other fruits and vegetables might well be mentioned. The
neighboring State of Vermont has made such vast strides in the
improvement of the potato as to cause those who have lived
through the morus muUicaulus, Rohan potato and hen-fevers to
stand aghast, waiting for the excitement to abate, to see if
Bresee's No. 4 is really two hours earlier than the Early Rose.
But all may be assured that great improvement has really been
made in the potato. And yet there are persons among that nu-
merous class, who, because they lived upon a farm until seven-
teen years of age, and so, forsooth, " know all about farming,"
are asking what improvement has been made in agriculture.

Who ever heard, until within a few years, of seventy-four tons
of mangel-wurzel being grown upon one acre of land ? of thirty-
six tons of carrots or nine hundred bushels of onions per acre ?
Such crops as these are facts that can be proved. Such crops
have been grown and can be grown again.

Several French and German chemists have estimated the
value of English hay in comparison with other kinds of food for

EXPERIENCE OF A PRACTICAL FARMER. 3

milch cows, and they make two hundred and fifty pounds of
beet-roots equal to one hundred pounds of hay. According to
this estimate, the above crop of mangolds would equal in value
nearly thirty tons of hay ; or supposing the chemists' estimate
to be only half right, the root-crop would then equal fifteen
tons of hay per acre. It has been ascertained, by actual exper-
iment that breeding-swine can be kept upon raw mangolds
alone from October to May in good thrifty condition. Can any
one doubt, with such facts, the great advantage of growing this
and other root-crops ?

Various breeds of foreign cattle have also been thoroughly
tested ; and in my opinion the Ayrshire stock has proved the
best adapted to our pastures, and, for milking qualities, heads
the list. Doubtless there are some specimens among our native
stock as good as the best of any foreign breed for milk, but the
native breed cannot be so generally relied upon ; therefore the
thanks of the farmers of Essex are due to the Massachusetts
Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, and to some private
individuals, for the introduction of that superior breed of cattle.

I think any close observer of the cattle-pens at our exhibitions
for the last twenty years will have noticed this fact : that any
breed, of whatever size, will, within two or three generations,
become adapted in size and form to the locality and pastures in
which it is placed, although retaining more or less of its own
peculiar marks and qualities. Hence the economy of introduc-
ing such breeds as correspond pretty nearly in size with our
native cattle.

Although two years in succession of severe drought, which
occurred four or five years ago, so weakened the fruit-buds of
the apple-trees as nearly to destroy the crop of fruit, and the
canker-worm, with other insects, has since committed such rav-
ages upon our orchards as to make the cultivation of the apple
rather discouraging, yet let us take heart. By the use of
printer's ink and tarred paper from November 1 to April 1, at a
cost of from five to eight cents per tree, our orchards can be
perfectly protected from the canker-worm ; and by securing the
small birds from the depredation of their natural enemies, idle
boys, cats and crows, and with good cultivation, I feel sure that
we may again be blessed with abundant crops of that beautiful,
delicious and health-giving fruit. Thus we shall be enabled to

4 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

return the compliment of presenting to our modern Eve the no
longer forbidden fruit, and under such circumstances and con-
ditions, that we may realize that the Paradise once lost is
regained.

Who that has planted an apple-tree, grafted, trained and cul-
tivated it, protected and cared for it from its nursery grovrth to
its orchard maturity, does not love it with a paternal love ?
"With what pleasurable emotions he recognizes the friendly
greeting of its gentle nod on a Whitsunday morning, as he be-
holds it, one mass of rose and lily blossoms, filling the sunny
air with fragrance, and listens to the soft murmur of delight is-
suing from its branches. As he stands thus, what man can
avoid thanking his God for being allowed to aid in such a cre-
ation ? And again, in October, with what satisfaction he ap-
proaches his tree, with basket and barrels, to harvest those glo-
rious pippins that hang so temptingly within his reach, affording
ample means of profit, health and luxury. Who that owns an
acre of land can afford to dispense with so much happiness as
may be derived from an apple-tree ? Certainly no Essex County
farmer. My own experience is, that no part of my farm yields
greater income for the labor expended than the orchard. If
the crop is small, the price is usually large. Let us then con-
tinue to cultivate the apple as a source of profit, of health to
our families, and of growth to our social natures.

Besides protecting our native songsters, that do so much to
aid the orchardist, I most earnestly recommend the importation
of English sparrows, whose principal occupation is to feed their
numerous progeny with insects. The experiment was tried in
New York three years ago, and proving very successful, led to
the introduction of these birds, last spring, into Philadelphia.
I know of no way by which a portion of the income of this so-
ciety can be so profitably expended as by the importation of
several thousands of these birds, to be distributed in different
parts of the county.

It may be worth the notice of the curious observer, that of
the several varieties of apple and pear-trees, each grows with
form and feature peculiar to itself, and varies as much as do the
different kinds of fruit. No one familiar with them can mis-
take, for example, the Pickman Pippin, Ribstone Pippin or Kill-
hamhill, among apple-trees, or the Winter Nelis, Louise Bonne

EXPERIENCE OF A PRACTICAL FARMER. 5

de Jersey or Rostiezer, among pear-trees. So marked are their
peculiarities, however dijfferent the stocks these varieties are
grafted into, that the quality of the fruit (other things being
equal,) remains the same. It is also a well-established fact that
in nursery rows of seedling apple-trees, budded at one year old,
and taken up at four years of age, each row being budded with
a different kind of fruit, the roots of the several varieties will
be found to have taken different habits of growth — one variety
will have numerous small, fibrous roots, growing compactly,
while another row, of a different variety, will have a few large
and long roots, with few fibres, the varieties of fruit giving dis-
tinct habits of root, although the stocks may all differ from
each other. This proves conclusively that the stock exerts no
influence upon the variety of fruit engrafted into it, but that
the graft does have an influence in forming the habit of the
roots of the stock. The same observer may with propriety ask,
how is it that when two scions are engrafted into a limb of an
apple-tree, one will produce fruit, ripe in August, of yellow
color and sweet flavor, while the other will produce fruit, ripe
in January, of red color and acid flavor, both kinds nourished
by the same sap, supplied from the same roots ? Whence the
difference ?

I think this question can be answered, by saying that the ma-
terial of the fruit is supplied principally from the soil through
the roots, while the quality of it is derived from the atmosphere
through the leaves. Hence the idea of improving the quality
of fruit by double working must be a fallacy.

Let me say a word of the tendency of the sons of farmers to
leave the calling of their fathers. I knew a farmer who took
his son, a lad of fourteen, into the field to assist him in setting
out a young apple orchard. That boy obeyed his father's direc-
tions to the letter. If he told him to move a tree to the right
or left, to set it deeper or not so deep, he obeyed ; no more, no
less ; but his heart was not in his work. That father saw and
keenly felt his son's apathy. He said : " My son, I will listen
to any suggestions you may offer with regard to the setting of
these trees." From that moment the boy was changed. What !
thought he, does my father wish for suggestions from me ? And
if so, should they not be made after careful thought and con-
sideration, that they may be worthy of his attention ? Thus he

6 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

argued with himself; thus his mind was turned to the business
of the farm ; thus he learned to love it ; and one boy was saved
to the farm, whose mind was already wandering off in search of
some other business or profession.

Thirty years have since been added to that boy's life, passed
in the various labors and experiences of the farm, and here, to-
day, he rejoices in his early choice, and is proud of his vocation.
Fellow farmer, have not you a son that you wish should be-
come a farmer ? Encourage him to bestow thought upon the
business ; listen to his suggestions ; if good, show him that you
appreciate them; if not practicable, convince him of it. Put
him in responsible positions according to his ability ; teach him
to manage farm machinery ; to observe the growth of plants ;
give him an interest in the poultry, in a vegetable garden or in
the cultivation of small fruits ; a calf or a colt, to raise on his
own account ; and, above all, see to it that you teach him all
that you know yourself about farming, that he may begin where
you leave off. In this way, though he may have no greater ca-
pacity than you, much progress will be made in agriculture.
Do this, and there will be less complaint of young men leaving
the farm for the counter.

Nor let the son's education stop here. Although much of
practical agriculture may be learned upon the farm, as well or
better than elsewhere, yet there are some things that cannot be
so learned. To be a farmer in the highest sense, he must have
a good general education. I know of no profession or position
in life that opens so wide a field for the application of a thor-
ough general education as that of the farmer. He will become
somewhat familiar, by his every day business, with branches of
geology, mineralogy, chemistry, botany, zoology, physiology, or-
nithology, entomology, meteorology, and other sciences ; and
the more thorough his knowledge of them, the better able he is
to apply their principles to his business. Let me ask, where
can the young farmer so well obtain that education as at the
Massachusetts Agricultural College, an institution no longer an
experiment, but a well-established success, where modern liter-
ature and the sciences, as applied to agriculture, are well taught,
and at a moderate expense ?

The slow growth of agricultural knowledge has proved the
necessity of scientific research and a practical experience joining

EXPERIENCE OF A PRACTICAL FARMER. 7

hands. Neither can do without the other ; but both united and
working for the same end, can make much greater progress. It
is time all jealousies should cease. The scientific man may,
from his profound learning, advance theories ; but the practical
man must work them out, and prove their truth or error. I
believe that the Agricultural College, with its noble farm, is es-
pecially adapted to bring about this concert of action ; and no-
where else can our young farmers so well become acquainted
with the results of science applied to farming.

Moreover, I know of no way by which the farmers can be so
well and economically protected from unscrupulous manufac-
turers and vendors of worthless fertilizers, as by having them
there honestly and carefully tested, and their real value made
known to the community without fear or favor. But few farm-
ers can afford the time and expense for the necessary experi-
ments, or have the ability to conduct them in a way to show
fairly the comparative value of such materials. I trust that an
especial effort in that direction will be made in that institution,
established as it is by the bounty of the United States and of
Massachusetts. I think we have a right to expect this work
faithfully performed. It would do much to insure continued
confidence and future support for the only institution dedicated
to the cause of agriculture in the State. Let us therefore give
the Massachusetts Agricultural College our encouragement, as
I believe great good to our business will grow out of it.

To be a good modern farmer, one must have mechanical skill,
in order to manage well the various machines now used on the
farm, to enable him to detect and remedy their faults and im-
perfections as they come from the hands of the inventors and
mechanics. It has required years of experience and close ob-
servation to bring the plough, the mowing-machine and horse-
rake to their present state of perfection. Who but the intelli-
gent farmer that uses them can so well suggest improvements ?
Scarcely an implement has been introduced that has not thus
been improved. The old couplet, —

" He that by the plough would thrive,
Himself must either hold or drive,"

may not be as literally true to-day as when Timothy Pickering
took the first premium, at the first ploughing match made by

8 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

this society ; but it is necessary that he should be able to regu-
late the gauge of the plough, and hitch the team properly, for
but very few of the hired men of the present day can do it. If
it is not necessary for him to do all the work himself, it is nec-
essary that he should know how to do every part of it, that he
may properly direct others.

The farmer, to be most successful, must also be a merchant,
and be well booked up in the prices current, and the state and
prospect of the market, in the relation of the supply to the de-
mand for his products, in order to know where, when and how
to sell them, and also to buy his supplies to the best advantage.
The farmer, too, may, when master of his position, like the
merchant and manufacturer, employ hired capital in his busi-
ness, and increase his profits thereby.

Yet, after all, does farming in Essex County pay ? It is use-
less to preach the ennobling influence of the farm upon the
human character, the independence of the farmer, or to cite the
examples of Cincinnatus, Washington, Jefferson, Webster and
others, to stimulate our young men, unless it can be shown'that
farming in this county pays ; for no enterprising New England
boy will be contented in a business that does not pay.

I need only to refer to the returns of the income tax to find
instances where men by farming alone, have in this county re-
turned annual incomes amounting to from three to five thousand
dollars, enough to buy a good farm, with fair buildings. I
could name an Essex County farm, of fifty acres, valued at ten
thousand dollars, the gross products of which were enough in
one year to pay for it. It was an unusual occurrence, but such
was the fact for that year. Drive in any direction through the
length or breadth of the county, and notice the comfortable
homes, the thrifty appearance of the farms, and the contented
looks of the occupants. Is the money market tight ? they know
it not ; is gold up or down ? it affects them not at all. Do the
banks refuse to discount ? they care not, so long as they have
one of their own in the barnyard, or cellar, that never refuses.
Do men lie awali;e nights, tossing upon restless pillows, wonder-
ing wherewith the note, falling due on the morrow, shall be
paid ? the farmer is not of them. While ninety-six of every
hundred who enter mercantile pursuits become bankrupt, the
farmer scarce ever does. I have yet to learn of the second in

EXPERIENCE OF A PRACTICAL FARMER. 9

stance. It is true there are many causes of discouragement to
the farmer, some of which are as yet, in the present stage of ag-
ricultural knowledge, entirely beyond control, while others, by
careful watchfulness, may be easily guarded against.

The canker-worm, has already been spoken of, the borer and
caterpillar are the worst enemies of the orchard. The borer
can easily be found by his chips, and probed to death with a
wire, or limber twig peeled and pointed. The caterpillar's nests
are readily seen when the trees first put out their leaves ; the
nests at that time are small, and a whole colony can be destroyed
by a single pinch with the thumb and finger, provided you call
upon them at proper hours. Until eight o'clock in the morn-
ing, and from twelve to two in the afternoon they are all at
home ; other parts of every pleasant day they are out foraging,
and no man has any excuse for allowing his trees to be eaten by
them. The small black fly is very destructive to young cabbage
and cucumber plants, frequently destroying the whole crop in a
single day. Air-slacked lime or ashes sifted on, are perfect reme-
dies. The striped squash bug and a maggot are very destructive
to the squash crop : air-slacked lime or ground plaster is easily
applied, inexpensive, and an entire protection against the bug.
By planting five seeds in a hill, there will usually be plants
enough for the maggot, and two or three plants, besides, to
grow, which are sufficient. To insure the seeds coming up
readily, they should be stuck in the prepared hill, one inch deep,
with the pointed end down ; this will save them two days of se-
vere labor in turning over to come up ; a labor which in some
cases is so difficult as to prevent their coming up at all.

Then we have the onion maggot, an enemy more difficult to
deal with, very destructive to the crop in most parts of the coun-
try ; whole fields are frequently swept away by this pest, and the
farmer's hopes with them. By closely watching their habits, it
will be found that the onion maggots are the offspring of a small
brown fly, that, when startled, will fly about six feet and alight.
This fly deposits, either upon the young onion or upon a small
lump of earth, from six to twenty eggs, which, within a few days
hatch ; the very small maggots then appear and immediately go
down the young plant to the bottom where the roots branch off
from its centre. Here the worm makes an easy entrance to the
very heart of the onion, followed by others of different ages, until

10 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

one plant contains twenty or more. There they are completely
screened from view and all harm, while they eat out the life and
substance of one onion, and then pass on to the next. This is
their usual habit ; sometimes they eat directly through the side
of the plant, though not often. They pass through two or three
generations during the summer, but the last in the fall, instead
of turning to flies, remain in the pupa state during the winter,
and all affected onions containing them should be destroyed.

Having learned so much concerning their habits, the question
arises, how can our crops be protected ? Gas lime and other
offensive-smelling substances have been tried in vain, for the
mother fly seems to delight in them. For many years my at-
tention has been directed to this subject, and I believe I have
discovered a remedy. It is the common practice to cover onion
seed one inch deep, and they will germinate better at that depth
than any other ; nearly all will germinate at two inches, while
none will grow if covered three inches deep. I have found that
by sowing the seed an inch and a half or two inches deep, the
young maggots fail to reach the bottom of the onion, where they
expect to make an entrance ; and so few attempt it at the side
of the plant, that the crop is but little affected. I have tried this
method for several years with success ; it is important, also, to
sow early, and to have the surface of the land highly manured,
to give the crop an early and rapid growth in order that the
plants may the sooner be too large to be affected by the few
maggots that do succeed in making an entrance at the side.

The onion blight and smut, also the potato rot, are at times
very destructive to those crops, turning the most promising fields,
within a few days, to scenes of desolation. All, in my opinion,
are caused by parasitic plants of different varieties, growing
upon and consuming the vitality of the onion and potato plants,
and in the latter so poisoning the plant as to cause the tuber
rapidly to decay. The onion smut, which has more of the char-
acter of a fungus plant, so impregnates the land with its spore,
as to render it unsafe to plant onions for several years on land
thus affected. The parasite that produces the onion white blight
does not reproduce itself by seeding the land, but comes upon
the crop at the period of its most vigorous growth, in a dry time,
showing its effects perhaps in a small spot at first, but in case the
dry atmosphere continues, rapidly spreading over the whole field.

EXPERIENCE OP A PRACTICAL FARMER. 11

Two or three days give sufficient time to stop entirely all future
growth of the crop, unless a change in the weather occurs un-
favorable to the growth of this parasite. There is another kind
of parasite equally destructive, that causes the black blight on
the onion crop, similar to that which affects the potato, and re-
quiring the same state of the weather to produce it that is nec-
cessary to produce the potato rot. The parasite that causes the
potato rot delights in a warm, close, humid atmosphere that fre-
quently follows a rain. When a field of potatoes, planted either
early or late, is in its most vigorous growth, just before the tubers
begin to ripen, if such a condition of the weather then occurs,
this parasite will be produced. The more dense the growth of
vines the more liable to an attack, and it will commence in that
part of the field where the growth is most vigorous, and will
rapidly spread over the whole, unless a change in the weather
takes place. Some varieties of potatoes are more susceptible to
it than others. If the tops are cut close to the ground, when
first attacked, the potatoes may be saved ; otherwise, in a few
days, they may become more or less diseased, and decay rapidly
follows, in which case it is better to leave the potatoes in the
ground until those affected are entirely decayed. A portion of
the crop may thus be saved, for if dug before that time the whole
will be lost.

It will be seen from what has been said, that if you plant the
rows wide apart, or alternate with some other crop, in order to
have the vines more open, they will be less liable to an attack.

Many theories have been advanced, from time to time, as to
the cause and prevention of these serious hindrances to the
farmer's success ; but none as yet have proved satisfactory.
Every one, however, knows that under certain conditions mould,
which is a vegetable growth, will certainly appear ; that on a
bank of earth and stable manure, prepared in a certain way,
under suitable circumstances, mushrooms will surely grow. A
pot of earth placed in midwinter under the drip of a green-
house, will in a short time produce a very beautiful variety of
moss, and in a longer time a second variety will appear. Very
many instances of like character might be mentioned, all going
to show that certain conditions will produce certain vegetable
growths.

I have endeavored to show that certain conditions of the at-

12 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

mosphere, at a certain stage of the growth of the onion, and the
potato, will produce the parasites that cause the blight and de-
struction of these crops, I believe that at such times, when the
known conditions are favorable for the production of these para-
sitic plants, some application may be made that would ward off
their attacks, and save our crops. Here is a wide field for in-
vestigation and experiment worthy the attention of the scientific
observer, and practical farmer. Let them work together for
effectual remedies of these great evils.

Drought and excessive wet, also, at times operate very much
against the farmer's success. The one may be partially remedied
by frequent cultivation and hoeing, and the other by a judicious
system of under-draining.

How is farming to be made most profitable ?
First, let every farmer consider the locality of his farm with
reference to the market for his produce ; then the character of
the soil, and size of the farm ; finally his own taste should be
carefully studied before deciding upon the kind of farming he
will pursue.

Man is capable of governing nations, of commanding armies
and navies, of the conception and construction of the most mi-
nute and delicate machinery, as well as the most ponderous
steamship that ploughs the ocean. He has united the conti-
nents, so that the heart-throbbings of the one are felt through-
out the length and breadth of the other. He commands the
very elements, and they obey, and do his work, but no one man
has done all these things, or any two of them. Neither can any
one man conduct successfully all kinds of farming ; life is not
long enough to enable one to become an expert in all.

Darwin, the distinguished naturalist, declares that, " appar-
ently, it transcends the power of the human intellect to breed
all kinds of fancy pigeons." How much more difficult for one
mind to grasp and manage successfully all kinds of farming.

, The farmer having chosen a specialty in accordance with tlie
above principles, let him persevere in it, and he will certainly
succeed, take one year with another, provided he pursues a sys-
tem of high culture. For I know of no kind of good farming
that does not pay well ; while no kind of poor farming will
yield more than a poor living. Nor should it. Of course any
man, who is a man and cares for the comfort and happiness of

EXPERIENCE OP A PRACTICAL FARMER. 13

his family, whatever his specialty may be, will see to it that
abundance of vegetables, fruits, small and large, milk, eggs and
poultry, are grown upon the farm for family use; for these pay.
He will see, also, that a suitable plat be carefully prepared, and
that the women and girls of the family be amply provided with
the means of stocking it with at least a few choice bedding
plants, annual and perennial flowers and shrubs ; for these pay.

Does he select the dairy or the raising of milk for the market,
let him be sure and test the quality of milk from each cow with
a lactometer, and he will be surprised to find how mean some
of his animals are. I have recently tested the milk from each
of my six cows, and find that the milk of one yields only from
one to eight per cent, cream, different milkings varying in
quality, while the milk of the others yields from ten to twenty
per cent, cream. I had every reason to suppose the first to be
a decent cow. But for the trial I might have kept her for years,
without knowing what poor milk she gave. Such milk is hardly
fit to supply even the Boston market ! Test yours. I doubt
not many of you have just such cows. The profit in raising
milk depends upon the quantity of food a good cow can be made
to consume. A poor cow should not be kept, for she affords no
profit. Except in the season for pasture or soiling, hay, roots,
shorts and Indian meal are fed to advantage in producing milk.
Meal should be given sparingly to young cows, lest they be in-
jured by it. Old cows will bear a larger quantity. I once fed
ninety bushels of meal to one old cow in one year, at a large
profit. She gave twenty quarts per day the whole time, and
became very fat for beef. A young cow would have been spoiled
by such poor feeding.

If the growing of roots and vegetables be his choice, he
should raise his own seed, unless he is sure of getting it of a
reliable grower. For whatever may be his cultivation, a poor
harvest will be the result of poor seed. The choicest specimens
should be carefully selected year after year, that the seed may
hQ thoroughbred. For the laws of selection and reversion are
just as applicable to the growing of vegetables as to the breed-
ing of animals ; and, generally speaking, the laws that govern
animal and vegetable life will be found to be wonderfully alike.
Therefore let every farmer be sure and use none but thorough-
bred seed, and that the centre of the top of all vegetables

14 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

selected for seed be uninjured, for the sprout that issues from
the centre is the only one that produces the best seed.

The seed from a turnip or a ruta-baga that has had the top
cut close, causing thereby the sprouts to issue from the sides,
will not produce good roots, but generally tops, with only a tap-
root of no value. But turnips designed for late keeping should
have the tops pared close, and the tap-root cut off to prevent
sprouting, which causes a turnip to become corky. Cabbage
seed should never be grown from stumps, but from a sprout is-
suing from the centre of a perfectly developed head. A medium
crop of vegetables, the result of three or four cords of manure
per acre, may pay expenses ; but it is the large crops, requiring
from seven to twelve cords of well-rotted or composted manure
per acre, with clean culture, that afford the profit. Green
manure is wholly unfit for the culture of vegetables.

To illustrate the importance of high culture and thorough-
bred seed, I will mention an instance that has come under my
notice the present season. Mr. David Wentzell, of Salem, has
two acres of onions, to which he applied fifteen cords of muscle
mud, of the first quality, and twenty-five cords of well-rotted
stable manure, measured as thrown lightly into the cart without
treading, and probably equal to eighteen cords trodden. He
sowed the very best quality of known thoroughbred seed on an
acre and three-quarters, then sowed seed grown by a neighbor,
of as good quality as the average used ; not having quite enough,
he bought more at a seed store to finish the field. All came up
equally well. On the part sown with thoroughbred seed there
is scarcely an imperfect onion, and the crop is the largest in the
vicinity. On the part sown with good seed, the onions are ten
days later, of inferior quality and less quantity, and valued at
twenty-five per cent, less than the first. On the part sown with
seed from the store, (which probably was of about the quality
usually in the market,) the onions were still later, of much
worse quality and less quantity, and valued at fifty per cent,
less than the first. Any one, walking across the field, could
tell at a glance and to a row where the different qualities of
seed were sown.

Here, then, is an instance where a field of onions, under very
high cultivation, was treated, every part, exactly alike, except
in the quality of seed sown. The thoroughbred seed yielded

EXPERIENCE OF A PRACTICAL FARMER. 15

the value of one hundred and fifty bushels per acre more than
the average quality of seed generally used by farmers who grow
their own, and three hundred bushels per acre more than the
average quality of seed sold in the market. This estimate is
made while the crop is yet in the field, and six hundred bushels
of onions, of the first quality, is not an overestimate of the prod-
uct per acre from the thoroughbred seed.

I have no doubt that the careful selection for seed year after
year, is just as important and profitable in all other vegetable
and grain crops as it has shown to be in the case of the onion
crop just cited. The raising of seed may be made profitable,
provided the grower conscientiously offers none for sale that is
not true to description, and of the best thoroughbred quality,
grown from selected stock years in succession. A hw years of
such business would secure a reputation worth a fortune, for
such seed will always sell at very high prices.

The growing of small fruits may be made very profitable.
The demand for choice fruit at high prices has never been fully
met, and it increases every year. As many bushels of berries
as of potatoes can be grown upon an acre of land.

Many other branches of the business of farming of equal im-
portance maybe treated of, did time permit, that can be pursued
with handsome profits, but whatever kind is undertaken, let it
be persevered in, for no man, after adapting his land, buildings,
stock and tools, to any one kind, can change to another without
great loss of time and money.

I know an instance of an industrious and good farmer, who
hired a small farm, and made every exertion to prepare it for the
onion crop. He grew onions two years and was obliged to sell
them from a dollar and a quarter to two dollars per barrel, while
early potatoes brought high prices and paid large profits. The
next two years he planted early potatoes, excluded onions, but
unfortunately for him, potatoes rotted badly both years, and
onions were sold from three to eight dollars per barrel. If he
had continued his onion crop, his returns would have been large.

In another case, a neighbor cultivated onions, and for three
years his crops were partial failures, causing him to fall in debt
five hundred dollars each year, but he persisted in their cultiva-
tion, and the fourth year he was enabled to pay off his debt of
the previous three years, and clear two thousand dollars besides,

16 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

whereas, if he had changed his system of farming, he might
never have paid his debt, and farming, in his case, vrould have
been a failure, instead of the great success it has since proved
to be.

Having thus given you some of the results of my experience
and observation as a practical farmer, born and bred in our good
old county, and knowing, too, the resources of her soil, if but
wisely and thoroughly cultivated, let me, in conclusion, urge
you to renewed efforts in developing those resources by premi-
ums, by shows, by the publication of reports and essays, by using
all means to draw out truthful statements of experience, by dis-
seminating knowledge of high farming, and by living up to the
knowledge you possess, and practising what you preach to others,
imtil every farmer, belonging to this society, makes his farming
not only pay, but yield handsome returns for his industry.

LEGISLATIVE AIDS TO AGRICULTURE. 17

LEGISLATIVE AIDS TO AGRICULTURE.

From an Address before the Worcester Agricultural Society.

BY BENJAMIN F. BUTLER.

No intelligent mind can have failed to observe the great
movements of collision of labor and capital that now agitate
every free country. Trades' unions combine the skilled labor of
the British empire ; labor unions organize the mechanics of this
country ; and strikes, the organized demand of labor for con-
cessions from capital, are the exhibitions of the perennial con-
test between the two, ever common in almost every department
of toil. And it is also to be noted that while, as a rule, hereto-
fore, capital has been successful in every one of these contests,
it is a remarkable fact that at this juncture the strikes of the
artisan and mechanic, after more or less protracted struggle,
have won. Another suggestive fact, is that none of these strikes
or collisions has yet taken place in farm labor, nor has such la-
bor been affected by them, save in degree as the wages of labor
more or less skilled have been thereby raised. What is the ex-
planation of this, taken in connection with the fact that tilling
the land employs rather more than three-fourths of all the able-
bodied men of the country ?

To answer this question will require us to devote a moment
to the examination of the causes and objects of these collisions
of labor and capital.

No one can doubt that in all mechanical and manufacturing
industries the production, or, more strictly speaking, the capa-
bility of production, has increased tenfold within the last fifty
years. The application of the steam-engine as a motive power,
the improvements in machinery in the production of every man-
ufactured necessary and nearly every luxury of life, have so
cheapened their cost as to convert many luxuries into necessi-

18 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

ties. The facilities of transportation have brought the comforts
of life to every man's hearth, and of course, following so great
increase of production, has come a corresponding increase of
profits to the producer on that production. Now, if with the
profits on the products of mechanics and manufactures by man-
ual labor solely, or aided by rude machinery, it required — as a
half century ago it did — the laborer to work from twelve to
fourteen hours a day to obtain the ordinary means of subsist-
ence, it would seem that, with this great increase of production
from his labor, aided by more perfect machinery, he might be
able to obtain the same means of comfortable subsistence, espec-
ially as they are cheapened by this very facility of production,
with at least half as many hours ; or, if working more hours,
he should obtain greater rewards for his industry, so as soon to
place him beyond the necessity of labor. But while in many
cases it is true that the workman has become the master-me-
chanic, employing others, and has thereby obtained comfort and
independence, and in a great measure wealth, yet it is impossi-
ble not to see that the condition of the mass of workmen is not
much advanced ; and these cases of the bettered condition of
the master-workmen have come, not from the improved price of
their own labor, but from their ability to employ and take the
profit of the labor of others ; while we see the dividends or re-
wards which the capitalist or employer has received from this
increase of manufacturing or mechanical production have
created vast fortunes and enormous aggregations of wealth.

Hence we may infer, with logical accuracy, that there is not
yet a fair division of the profits of mechanical and manufactur-
ing labor between the capitalists and the workmen. The cap-
italist, as a rule, grows rich ; the workman grows only a little
more comfortable ; and that comfort comes because he is ena-
bled, from the very production of his labor, to buy some of the
comforts of life at less prices in comparison with the wages he
receives.

Now there are two ways in which an equal division of profits
from the union of capital and industry can be made ; one, in
giving a higher price for labor, so that the workman would not
be obliged to be employed so long to obtain the means of a live-
lihood ; and the other is by shortening the hours daily which
he works for the same pay, to wit, the means of obtaining a

LEGISLATIVE AIDS TO AGRICULTURE. 19

livelihood. Therefore the struggle is now going on, not only
in this country, but abroad, in both directions, for such equal
division. On the one side, workmen are insisting that they
shall have more pay ; on the other hand, other workmen are in-
sisting that they shall work less hours for the same pay, which
is another mode of arriving at the same result.

At this hour, and upon this occasion, it may not be profitable
to discuss this question, which soon will tax, for its proper ad-
justment, the best statesmanship and highest humanity and jus-
tice of the country. It will not be ignored. If the laboring
man has improved in no great degree in anything else, he has
become fully aware of his situation, his powers and his capabil-
ities, and will not long suffer what he deems to be an injustice,
however it may be guarded by legal enactment. He has learned
and is still learning that with himself resides the power by the
ballot to repeal those laws, and substitute others in his own
favor in their stead ; and the danger is that he may not stop in
that change at the precise limit of justice on his side. Here he
is not limited to strikes and combinations, as in the old world,
in the pursuit of his rights. In this country he is the law-mak-
ing power itself. I have thus only adverted to the actual state
of things, to aid us in considering its relations and effects upon
agricultural labors.

It must be first considered that there is a lack of increase in
the capacity for production of the land within the last half cen-
tury, as compared with the increase of production in everything
which goes to make the necessaries of life coming from manu-
factures and the arts. True, the machine-reaper, mower,
thresher and rake have aided, in some degree, the labor of the
farmer ; but it cannot fail to be observed that almost all the im-
provements of agricultural machinery only aid him to gather
the results of his toil, but do not make a spire of grass or blade
of corn grow where there was not one before. The plough is
the same with which your fathers broke the furrow ; the hoe,
the shovel, the spade, are the same. The cultivator and like
contrivances have lightened, in some degree, your labors, but
only in the thousandth part of a degree as compared with the
production of the power-loom over the loom of a half century
since.

Therefore it is that there has been, and from the nature of

20 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

things can be, no strike by the farm laborer for a larger share of
the profits of farming, for there are no great profits to divide.
The farm laborer does not ask to shorten his hours of labor, be-
cause with those hours shortened his capacity for production
would not keep him from starvation. He does not combine to
make the farmer pay greater wages, because any substantial in-
crease of price would render employment of labor in farming
quite impossible. Because of this want of increase of produc-
tion on the farm comes the well-known fact that the profits from
agricultural labor are the least of any department af human in-
dustry. The discoveries of chemistry, the inventions of science
have aided it in a degree ; but still comes back to the farmer
the normal and primeval condition that " in the sweat of thy
face " — (not by the labor of the steam-engine,) — " shalt thou
eat thy bread." The profits of investment of capital in farm-
ing and of labor on the farm are but little advanced from wliat
they were at the beginning of the century.

I by no means mean to say that farm wages have not risen,
but they have risen because of the high prices paid in manufac-
turing, mechanical and commercial pursuits, and the higher
rewards to be obtained by the investment and employment of
capital in such pursuits. Hence it is that all our boys leave the
farm to go into other business, hardly one remaining to take
care of the homestead ; and hence it is that the father encour-
ages the boy to leave the farm to become the broker, the banker,
the merchant or the manufacturer — aye, and, too often, en-
dorses a note or mortgages the farm to raise the capital with
which the boy is to start in business. As the records of mer-
cantile and banking pursuits show that only one in a hundred
is in a high degree successful, if the boy is unfortunate, then
the old homestead goes, and the father and the mother totter
down to their graves in helpless poverty, oppressed by the
thought that they have been ruined by the darling son, whose
haste to be rich they themselves have quickened and urged.

There is another, but perhaps minor, reason to be considered
in learning the causes why there are among the farm laborers no
strikes or trades' unions by which an increase of price is de-
manded or a diminution of the hours of labor sought. For, al-
though during the few months of seed-time and harvest, wages
of farm labor are very considerable, yet during the other seasons

LEGISLATIVE AIDS TO AGRICULTURE. 21

of the year there is a corresponding reduction which makes the
average quite low. Is not this cause found in the fact that, as a
rule, the farm laborer, both male and female, is furnished with
subsistence by the farmer ? The mechanic in the village or city
finds that his wages will not provide meat and bread for his wife,
himself and little ones, and especially when are added the wants
that the village and city seem to bring up as necessaries of life,
and therefore he strikes for more pay. But the laborer board-
ing at the farmer's table is indifferent to the price of meat ; that,
in his mind, affects the farmer alone. He is to have so much
per day or week or month and be " found," and he has therefore
but little concern with the price of flour or the quotations of the
Brighton market. So that, in this way, the farmer may be said
to pay high wages, because, in fact, all that the workman has as
wages in any employment is the surplus after providing for his
subsistence, and the farm laborer subsisted by the farmer is like-
ly to find a larger surplus at the end of the season than the me-
chanic who shall have had nominally one-third or one-half more.
Another reason why agricultural production has not increased
in the same ratio with that of other branches of industry is, that
it is impossible, in the nature of things, to apply to it, in any
considerable degree, the great power of association of capital
which is so successful in every other department of life. Up to
a certain limit only is capital of any use to enhance the profits
of farming. It may and does beautify the farm. It may and
does make it blossom as a rose. But capital rarely, if ever,
finds any reward in what has come to be known among practi-
cal men as " fancy farming." No association of men have ever
undertaken to aggregate their capital for the purpose of increas-
ing the profits of agriculture. No association of men have ever
tried upon the farm even the co-operative system of labor, if we
except a few enthusiasts for religious purposes ; and even those
with indifferent success, save when they have worked small man-
ufactories in connection with their farming pursuits. No Act
of incorporation was ever asked or granted by the legislature to
raise corn, or wheat, or potatoes. Therefore it is, that while
every other human pursuit has been aided by association, and
very largely by direct legislation, nothing has been or can be
done by law specifically to aid the farmer, or generally, except
to protect him, his property, his earnings and his rights ; but

22 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

much has been done under the forms of law to injure and de-
press agricultural pursuits.

Starting with the thesis — as we must do — that all the actual
means of subsistence to man must come out of the earth at first,
and that all the other pursuits are only to add to his comforts
and luxury, or to obtain to the individual more than an equal
share of such comforts and luxuries, and then comparing the
legal and mechanical machinery which has been devised to assist
those other pursuits, it will be seen at once why agricultural
production has not been in greater degree increased, and is with
us among the least remunerative of employments.

Nothing more forcibly illustrates this than a glance at the
aids which other occupations receive from legislative action.

In no spirit of criticism — certainly none of detraction — but
by a simple grouping of facts, by way of illustration, let us com-
pare the aids given by legislation to agriculture with those afford-
ed to other pursuits. And that we may bring it to the test of
our recent memories, perhaps it may be as well to take the leg-
islation of our own State and in the present year, as any other ;
for we in Massachusetts hold, with reasonable pride, that our
law.s are models, and that our legislatures are imcorrupt and
incorruptible.

At the time I was considering the topics of my address, there
was put into my hands a book of over five hundred octavo
printed pages, containing the laws passed by the legislature of
the Commonwealth in 1869. " Five hundred octavo pages of
law," said I, " in a single year. Five thousand in ten years, and
ten thousand in twenty years, for a single State." The world
itself will not contain the laws that shall pass in a few genera-
tions ! In a note at the end we are told that the " General
Court of 1869 " assembled on Wednesday, the 6th day of Janu-
ary, and was prorogued on Thursday, the 24th day of June, the
session having occupied one hundred and seventy days ; that they
passed 466 Acts and 103 Resolves, all of which had received the
approval of the governor ; and then, not without a touch of
grave humor, we are informed that the Acts may be classified as
follows : — General statutes, or acts of a public character, 293 ;
special Acts, relating to individuals and corporations, 173. The
Resolves do not seem to have been classified at all, although they
were, with perhaps two exceptions, in favor of individuals, and

LEGISLATIVE AIDS TO AGRICULTURE. 23

with almost only the same exceptions, each one took money
from the treasury of the State raised by taxation. Led to ex-
amine how many of these 569 Acts and Resolves were in the in-
dex under the head of agriculture, I found there one only, the
indexical words of which are, " Agriculture, Board of, secre-
tary may employ a clerk," and the Act provides for expending
for clerical services, and for lectures, to be given before the
Board of Agriculture, the sum of fourteen hundred dollars.
What ! one Act only out of nearly six hundred, to promote ag-
riculture, which must yet be reckoned as the greatest single in-
dustrial interest of the State ; and the munificent sum of four-
teen hundred dollars to be expended for a clerk and lectures to
the Board of Agriculture. Why, that law and that money so
expended will not raise a single potato or suckle a single calf in
the State — always excepting the clerk who may be hereafter ap-
pointed under it. It is fair, however, to the law-making power
to say that they passed a Resolution appropriating the sum of
$50,000 to the Massachusetts Agricultural College for the erec-
tion of buildings and the improvement of the same ; and they
also repealed a section of a former act which allows each agri-
cultural society, under certain restrictions, to send a delegate to
the State Board of Agriculture.

This is all the aid, direct and indirect, that the farming in-
terest of Massachusetts received from the legislature of 1869.

" What, one pennyworth of bread only to all this sack ! "

The direct expenditure in behalf of agriculture, |1,400 !
while 17,000, in addition to $8,000 heretofore appropriated, was
in the same year appropriated for the purpose of re-publishing
the " History of the Invertebrate Animals of Massachusetts,"
which being interpreted is the history of animals lacking back-
bone. I by no means wish to urge that this expenditure was
unnecessary, partly because, although that kind of animal is not
confined to Massachusetts, yet as it is supposed that the politi-
cians are generally included in that class, so therefore the re-
publication of such history might have become a sort of State
necessity. Still, I think the farmers may well compare the ex-
penditure authorized in one case with that appropriated for the
other.

While we have but three Acts, in fact, touching agriculture in.

24 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

any form, we cannot help but compare that number with one
hundred and sixty-two Acts directly or indirectly concerning
railways and railway corporations ; thirty-seven Acts for banks
and banking institutions ; nine Acts incorporating manufactur-
ing companies — each one of which might as well have organized
under the general law ; nine Acts incorporating insurance com-
panies ; and seventeen Acts of appropriations for an expenditure
of $3,773,000 ; and the loan of five millions of the State bonds
to a single railroad, a portion only of the line of which was in
our limits, the stock of which is not worth a shilling on the dol-
lar in market.

I do not mean to be understood that the legislature of 1869
was worse or better than former legislatures — it was quite as
good as any other. I am commenting on the system of legisla-
tion which fosters every other interest at the expense of the ag-
ricultural interest and at the expense of labor in every depart-
ment of industry, if in no other way, because taxes at last come
with the heaviest burden upon land and the products and stock
of the farm, for they cannot be concealed. Capital may be
locked up in insurance companies, covered up under mortgages,
hidden in bonds, absorbed in a thousand ways of surpluses and
bonuses and extra dividends which do never reach the assessor's
eye, and in manners which may salve the conscience of its owners ;
but the farm, the ox, the horse, the cow, the pig, and the sheep,
are alwiays open to the tax-gatherer.

For what purpose, as a rule — and that, too, hardly without
exception — does any one desire a special Act of legislation in his
favor ? Is it not that he may give some advantage to himself,
some power, some right, something over and beyond what his
neighbor has ? No set of men ask for an Act of incorporation,
whether to manufacture, for a railroad, for a telegraph, for a
bridge, for a bank, for a trust company, for a deposit company,
or for a savings bank even, out of pure and unmixed benevo-
lence and philanthropy, but with the expectation to make there-
by more money than they can get by any simple, honest toil.
And whenever one man is given an advantage of his neighbor by
the law, then an injustice and wrong is done to that neighbor.
And whenever capital combines itself, it is for the purpose of
assuring and strengthening itself and increasing itself more than
can be done without such combination. And whenever capital

LEGISLATIVE AIDS TO AGRICULTURE. 25

gets an undue return for its investments, that return must come
either from an undue extension of the hours of labor or the un-
duly depressed price of wages in some department of human in-
dustry. And whenever taxation is authorized by law for the
benefit of the few to be taken from the earnings of the many,
then that legislation is unjust and oppressive, and ought to be
abrogated, whether the laws are the enactments of a republic or
the decrees of an empire.

Why is it that in this State of ours, containing less than a
million and a half of inhabitants, and less than eight thousand
square miles, one hundred and seventy days of a year — and not
that for a single year, but nearly that time in every year — must
be taken up for legislation, — a longer time than is taken by the
Congress of the United States in legislating for a country con-
taining more than three millions of square miles, with eleven
thousand miles of boundary, and forty millions of people, with-
all their varied interests and relations, domestic and foreign ?
And I by no means set up Congress as a pattern, either of celer-
ity or accuracy of legislation. The reason is that nine-tenths
of all our legislation are for private objects, and to give private
advantages to somebody over somebody else, or to meet special
cases only. True, it is said by the compiler of the Acts of the leg-
islature, that the largest portion of them are general laws ; but of
what kind ? Most of them might as well not have been passed ;
some are changes and alterations, but not betterments ; many are
passed without discussion, without being understood, and without
thought. In proof of which I can point to Act upon Act passed
at the same session to make the first either operative or intelli-
gible. In proof that the legislature is most of the time engaged
in the discussion of private and not general laws, let me cite the
fact that the committees which sit the longest and work the most
laboriously — and no one is more ready to accord them industry
and ability than myself — are those that hear the petitions of pri-
vate individuals for private Acts for their own proper benefit.
Take for example the committees on railways and manufactures
and banks and banking.

You may think my strictures upon what are called general
laws are too sweeping and too stringent. But take some ex-
amples of the so-called general laws. Every Act affecting in
any degree, however minute, the public, is classified as a general

4*

26 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

law. All Acts affecting highways, all Acts affecting schools or
school children, are said to be general laws. Let us take one
for example. It provides that " any town may raise money in
taxes or otherwise, to be expended by the school committee in
providing for the conveyance of pupils to and from public
schools." In our day we walked, some of us, miles to and from
school, and were all the better for the exercise. Our mothers
walked to school. The ruddy glow of health', the invigorated
constitution, made them the happy mothers of families of nu-
merous children. Their driven-in-a-carriage-to-school grand-
daughters, if we may believe one of the most learned and labo-
rious of our physicians, are becoming physically incapable of
perpetuating the race of New England men !

It is somewhat difficult to classify the " Act to prevent the
taking of trout in Avery Brook, within the limits of the towns
of Charlemont or Heath, without a written license from the
owners or lessees." At first thought, one would suppose that a
private Act ; but when the taking of the trout is made a crime,
to be recovered by complaint or indictment in the name of the
Commonwealth, it would seem sufficiently to interest the public
to be classed as a public one. Again, one would have thought
that the Act concerning the manufacture and sale of intoxicat-
ing liquors had been sufficiently discussed and examined not to
require supplemental legislation at the same session of its pas-
sage ; and yet, within three days thereafter, we are told, by
grave enactment of public law, that the word " constable, wher-
ever it occurs in chapter 415 in the Acts of the present year,
shall be construed to mean the constable of the Commonwealth
and his deputies." Why not have said so in the original Act, as
everybody knew that it was substantially to be enforced by those
officers ?

Agriculture asks for no special legislation. It is not benefited
by any legislation whatever, except such as shall preserve the
morals of the people and the rights of property and person.
Indeed, the best legislation to aid the tilling of the earth is that
which lets it most severely alone. But what ought to be com-
plained of is the fostering of every interest by special laws, giv-
ing to them every power that law can give to association and
combination — all interests save one. Looking through this large
volume of Acts, we find no Act in aid of labor, or authorizing

LEGISLATIVE AIDS TO AGRICULTURE. 27

any association of labor. We do find acts authorizing benevo-
lent and charitable associations, religious and educational asso-
ciations, temperance associations ; and we have seen every
possible form of association of capital, and at last an Act of cor-
poration of men to take the moneys paid into the courts in
progress of litigation or bequeathed in trust for widows and
orphans, for their benefit, and to be held and invested — does
any one believe without fee and reward ? Are not the funds,
in fact, to be held and invested for the use and benefit of the
corporators, who are to make a profit therefrom ? Everywhere,
under every conceivable state of facts, legislation has been in-
voked to aid men to get a living in some other way than by
honest toil. But we look in vain for any Act passed to organize
or associate, or give the power or benefit of organization or as-
sociation to, any form of labor, whether mechanical, manufac-
turing or agricultural.

We have already seen that agricultural labor may not be ben-
efited by association ; but it by no means follows that manufac-
turing and mechanical labor might not be so. Remembering
current history, we know that a large and numerous body of
mechanics thought best to associate themselves together for
mutual protection against the demands of capital, and that an
Act incorporating that association was refused by the legisla-
ture. A half a thousand Acts to protect capital passed ; but
one asked for, and that refused, to protect labor !

I do not now desire to discuss the question whether the de-
tails of the manner and objects of the association of laborers
which was asked to be incorporated were correct and just or
not. I have heard them severely criticised. It is said that
they proposed by their association to prevent the master-work-
men in their craft from employing such hands as they wished.
That may be very wrong. Its rights or wrongs we will not now
consider. But I cannot forget, having lived in a manufacturing
city, man and boy, for more than forty years, that the incor-
porated manufacturing companies have had in operation a rule
there, — and I believe a similar one exists in other parts of the
State, — by which no operative leaving employment in one mill,
unless he or she received a permit from the overseer under
whom their labor had been performed, could be employed in
any other mill in the same city. And this, too, with out_ any

28 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

regard to the cause which induced the desire to change the
employment. And yet I have never heard of any attempt by
any legislature to take away the charter of any incorporated
company because of this rule, the converse of which seems to
be so fatal an objection to the incorporation of a labor asso-
ciation.

Nearly twenty years ago, a woman called upon me for coun-
sel who had faithfully done her duty in every way and form,
having labored as an operative of one of the Lowell companies
for more than a year. Having a helpless mother dependent
upon her, she chose to change the place of her employment,
and having given a fortnight's notice of her intention so to do, a
proper discharge was refused by her overseer without any
reason, because, when she applied for her " line," he refused it,
although he said she might return and work for him. She had
applied to every one of the eleven or twelve incorporated man-
ufacturing companies in Lowell, and was, under that rule, re-
fused employment. It occurred to me, that, as that certificate
was so valuable, if she had faithfully performed her duty, she
certainly ought to have a right to it ; that no one could inflict
that amount of damage upon her causelessly without legal
remedy ; and therefore I brought the corporation before the
courts, demanding of them to show cause, other than the sim-
ple despotic exercise of their own will, why they did not give
her such honorable discharge. But the court, as a question of
law, upheld the manufacturing company in the exercise of this
prerogative, and the girl was thus deprived, without her fault,
and without redress even, of the privilege of labor by which to
earn the support of herself and helpless mother. The case is
in the Massachusetts reports ; you may read it there as the law
of the Commonwealth. And yet the petition of the working-
men to associate themselves for defence against this arbitrary
power of the employer, and to establish a like rule for them-
selves, was refused a hearing in the legislature of Massachusetts !
and by the votes of men belonging to both political parties ; so
that the questions we are discussing may be taken out of the
arena of party politics.

I have already demonstrated that the farmer cannot be helped
by legislation. What he should demand is that he should not
be impeded by legislation. Every law which permits or assists

LEGISLATIVE AIDS TO AGRICULTURE. 29

any individual of society to get his living without labor, is a
tax direct, inevitable and oppressive, upon the laboring interest
of the community, and is an injustice to every laborer and every
farmer. This system of special legislation, which has grown up
until it takes the legislature six months in the year to pass laws
to guide the State for the other six months, has come to be an
evil, to alleviate, aye, to eradicate which, I call upon the only
disinterested body of men — the farmers of Massachusetts — to
interpose.

In reply to these suggestions, I may be answered — as it is the
stock reply of those asking special legislation, that incorporating
railroads and aiding means of transportation of persons and
products are of equal advantage to the agricultural interest
with tliat of any other — that the special legislation of which I
have complained has built up a system of railroads over the
State which has largely conduced to its prosperity. A large
part of this may be admitted to be true, and yet it is no answer
to our argument. The legislation which has built railroads,
from which capital and capitalists may realize large dividends
and immense fortunes, may and does indeed benefit the State,
but at a very enormous expense to the tax-payer and producer.
Dividends of ten or fifteen per cent., railroad stocks increasing
from par to one hundred and fifty per cent., are only to be sus-
tained by rates of fare which are burdensome and oppressive to
those needing the means of cheap transportation to get their
produce to market. And is it not a fact, that the railroads find
it for their interest so to manage their affairs and to adjust their
tariff of charges as to favor the long lines of transportation, —
thus to entice the wheat and flour and corn of the West to come
to Boston for shipment, and not to New York, — rather than in
favor of the local agricultural interests of Massachusetts ?

Again, the undertaking of one of the most gigantic engineer-
ing enterprises of the age — the boring of a tunnel five miles
through a mountain — is not, if I understand it, although the
millions requisite for the accomplishment of the object are to
come from taxation, intended to build up the local interests of
Massachusetts farmers, but is to make a through line to the
great West in the interests of capital invested in the banking,
mercantile and manufacturing pursuits of the State. Railroads
have now become the actual common highways of the country,

30 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

and should be managed for the benefit of the people thereof, and
not, as now, for the benefit of the few having them in charge,
and scarcely even in behalf of the stockholders. We are not
complaining of railroads ; we are not complaining of business
enterprises ; but we are complaining of those laws and tha.t
theory of law-making which gives one man an advantage over
others.

Let us take an illustration. It is said there is a gentleman
in a neighboring State, who at twenty-one, was employed in con-
veying passengers with a single pair of oars from New Jersey to
New York, who, by his enterprise — by taking advantage of the
laws regulating the means of transportation of passengers and
merchandise — at the age of threescore and ten has accumulated
as many millions of dollars. Now we do not object to the
enterprise, the industry and energy which can accumulate so
much ; but what we do object to is, that the laws regulating
what has become a prime necessity of life — the transportation
of food and merchandise and the person — the common high-
ways of the people, by land and by sea, can be so manipulated
that any man in a single lifetime, by any means, can accumu-
late such a fortune. He cannot have made so great a mass of
wealth without taking from others what should have been by
them enjoyed. In other words, he has got more, much more
than his share, giving credit for all the ability he possesses. He
may not be blamable in having acquired so much ; but what
shall we say of the laws which in a country of equal rights, and
therefore of what should be equal laws, will make it possible for
one man so to overtop all others in wealth, which must be pro-
duced by labor from the earth at last ?

When our fathers abolished primogeniture and entail by
constitutional enactment, they proposed that the law should re-
quire such frequent distributions of property, through the death
of the holder, that no man could get inordinately rich. They
saw in the old world that the immense riches which made an
aristocracy of wealth arose from continued accumulations in a
single family, guarded from distribution by law. They assumed
that in a single lifetime great accumulations would be impossi-
ble, however successful or liowever enterprising a man might be.
That was true in their generation. In 1799 two men died — the
great farmer of the country, George Washington, and the great

LEGISLATIVE AIDS TO AGRICULTUEE. 31

merchant of the country, E. Basket Derby, of Massachusetts.
The fortune of the merchant was nine hundred thousand dollars,
and of the farmer seven hundred thousand dollars ; and those
were the very largest fortunes of that day, obtained under the
most advantageous circumstances. But now, by manipulation of
stocks ; by taxing the productions of agriculture in their tran-
sit from the farm to the market ; by employing men in large
numbers to work and taking the profits of their labor in manu-
facturing ; by taking advantage of or evading the laws relating
to the importation of merchandise ; by evading the internal taxa-
tion which the wants of the country imposed ; by loaning the
money received from the government without interest at enor-
mous profits — nay, by buying and selling the indebtment of the
nation itself; by subsidies and grants of special privileges by
law ; by the power of association of capital under the forms of
laws ; by any and every way except hard labor, we see many
hundreds, aye thousands, of colossal fortunes such as in other
countries and in other times were only the result of the long-
continued nurture of wealth locked up in single families for gen-
erations. Indeed, all special legislation tends to make the rich
richer, and necessarily, by comparison, the poor poorer.

In fact, our system of incorporated wealth has brought back
the laws of entail and primogeniture with all their most odious
features. The property of a husband invested in the stocks of
a corporation bars the widow of her dower, and enables the fa-
ther, because his property is in stocks which are under the care
and perpetual direction of others, to give a fortune to an imbe-
cile son, which, without these legal provisions — which keep it
productive for his use — would have been distributed in the com-
munity by his follies or dissipation.

Our legislative Acts of association give another advantage to
capitalists and to the accumulation of wealth which the laws of
primogeniture and entail never did. They so aggregate capital
that it can escape the eye of the tax gatherer, whether State or
national, and thus work a practical inequality and injustice in
taxation. While we boast — and the boast is true if the laws
could be honestly and efficiently administered — that all taxation
is equal, yet, as we have before seen, the land and farm stock
lie out under the eye, while moneyed capital, by the very provi-

32 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

sions of the laws which aggregate it, conceals itself in a thou-
sand forms so as to be wholly beyond the reach of taxation.

This state of things has not yet gone past remedy. Let us
take timely warning. Let us examine carefully into the evils
of this system of legislation. Let us reform them altogether.
One means of preventing too much legislation would be meet-
ings of the legislature once in two or four years only. We have
a system of general laws, come down from our fathers, with all
their wisdom perfected now through more than eighty years of
careful revision, ample for all the general wants of the people ;
ample to punish crime, to determine rights, to protect person
and preserve property ; ample for all purposes for which laws
are good. Why is it, then, that we should spend so much time
in making others, or rather in doing those legislative Acts which
are only the means of private advancement ? Many years ago,
the excuse for Acts of incorporation was that there was not suf-
ficient capital in the hands of individuals to enable the under-
taking of large industrial enterprises, and therefore it was ne-
cessary to associate the means of many for such purposes. Now,
as we have seen, there are accumulations of individual wealth
sufficient for all purposes — many and many individuals carry-
ing on larger industrial enterprises than any corporation ; so
that that reason failing, what can be said why the making of
corporations should not stop ? Are they now anything more
than means by which people can associate together to commence
enterprises of which, if successful, they reap the benefit, and if
lost or unproductive, by getting rid of individual responsibility,
throw the burden of the failure upon innocent persons, and gen-
erally upon the industrial classes ?

While true it is that agriculture has all its discouragements
and all its difficulties, and that it never can be the most lucra-
tive employment of men, yet the tillage of the land will ever be the
favorite one. Nearly all men in professional or mercantile or
manufacturing life look forward, as the end and object and finish
of their exertions, to a time when they may leave the turmoil of
business and find the tranquil delights of old age in the culture of
the land. To become farmers, in fact, is the end of all their aspi-
rations, of all their endeavors, of all their enterprises. The ship-
master who ploughs every ocean, visits every country, observes the
fertility of every soil, tastes of the fruits of the tropical clime.

LEGISLATIVE AIDS TO AGRICULTURE. 33

wanders amid the monuments of grandeur and civilization of
the old world, still at last returns to the cultivation of the
lands, even the sands of Cape Cod. It seems the yearning de-
sire of the human heart to return to the bosom of mother earth.
Well may it be so ; for to the purifying and revivifying influ-
ence of the farm and the country, we owe most that is stable in
government, most that is patriotic in thought and loyal in en-
deavor. The battles for the Unioh in the late rebellion were
fought in a great degree by the farmer boys of the country. A
majority of those that went forth at the first call left the plough
in the furrow or dropped the shovel or spade in the garden. The
corruptions, the vices of cities have so far not reached the land ;
and to the country the statesman must look for stability and
safety and purity of the laws. There is a reason why this must
be so. In the country there is time for reflection, time for
thought. In the city, amid the whirl and turmoil of the clash-
ing pursuits of aggregated men, there is time only for the per-
ceptions. In the city, man lives guided by his eyes and his senses ;
in the country he lives in his reflections and ideas. The occu-
pation of tilling the farm, I need not say to you, gives health
and strength to the body as well as purity to the mind. Who-
ever, tilling the soil, is inclined to look with envy upon the suc-
cesses of his neighbor in the accumulation of wealth, let him
console himself with the remembrance that at last that neighbor
will yearn to return to the soil again to till it, and in it to find
his last resting-place.

6*

34 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

PLANT LIFE

From an Address before the Union Agripultural Society.

BY ELIPHALET STONE.

The world is full of beauty, and the mind of man is sufficient
to analyze and bring it out. Let him think and work, and his
existence here will be no problem. He will become a creator
himself, and will create and surround himself with a new world
— a world of beauty and utility.

Nature is a perfect laboratory. Her curious chemistry is full
of interest and instruction to the farmer. The sciences appli-
cable to agriculture are the keys to the hidden mysteries.
These sciences develop the true order of nature through all the
successive stages of mineral, vegetable and animal forms, reduc-
ing the vegetable creation back to its mineral elements, out of
which, through the agency of subtle and mysterious laws, the
wonders of the vegetable world have been elaborated ; and
further tracing the evolution of the animal kingdom from the
vegetable, to which it is so closely related as to seem to be a
regular outgrowth of it, until at last we reach man, — the crown,
the consummate flower of all, — with that infinitely higher prin-
ciple of God himself, and the whole a mighty illustration of
Divine power and wisdom. Nature never works but for an ob-
ject, and that object is the reproduction of its species ; and
nothing is perfect that does not possess within itself this repro-
ductive power, in whole or in part.

We look upon the beautiful flowers and fruit as sent by a
Divine providence for our benefit and pleasure, and so we should
consider them ; for as man is the great master-piece of creation,
all other things must be regarded with reference to him. But
the flower and the fruit have another object in view, and that
object is the reproduction of themselves. Sir Humphrey Davy

PLANT LIFE. 35

says : " It appears throughout nature that the efforts of a plant,
from its first establishment, are directed to acquire the proper
state and condition to propagate its species, and that in its
seed and fruit is comprised its concentrated essence. We may
therefore estimate its powers and efforts to be in proportion to
its wants."

The general functions of animals and vegetables are in most
respects similar, and the operations of nature regarding both
are regulated by much the same laws. Most likely the different
species only of animals and vegetables were at first created, and
that the different varieties which we now observe were caused
by differences in climate, food and shelter. The same inter-
course is necessary to both for the purpose of reproduction.
We have the same control over the process of fertilization in
plants as we have over the mixture of breeds in animals, and
are thus enabled to produce varieties at will, although there is
a point beyond which nature revolts. Nature provides for the
propagation of plants in different ways, but generally by seed.
Some are raised by setting a part of the root in the ground,
others by offsets, and others again by cuttings, and others by
grafting and budding. Nature is prolific, but never prodigal.
She always holds in reserve the power to reproduce in case of
failure of the seed. We look upon the tree when in leaf and
flower with admiration, and yet how few ever realize the rela-
tion of the leaf to the parent tree ; how few realize that the
leaves are the lungs of the tree, and that the tree could not
sustain life long without them ; that it is through the instru-
mentality of the leaf that the tree or vegetable obtains its food,
drawing from the earth those substances there distilled, and
from the air various elements, which, combined, make the per-
fect food of the plant, throwing off into the atmosphere all im-
pure substances not required for its purpose, and then dispens-
ing the prepared food for the growth of the tree and the matur-
ing of the fruit. Cut a twig from any tree you please, and let
us examine the leaf and see what other office it holds besides
that of caterer to the appetite of the parent tree. What is this
little casket at the foot of the leaf-stalk ? Be very careful now,
for the little bud contains the future hopes of the tree. Within
are the leaf and flower for the coming year, the embryo or
germ, containing all the elements of a perfect tree within itself.

36 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

During all the time that this leaf has been so busily at work for
the tree itself, it has been nursing the little bud which is to be
the leaf's successor in ofRce during the coming year. When
the bud is matured sufficiently, and is secured with a covering
so nicely arranged that the cold and moisture of the coming
winter cannot injure it, then the leaf has performed its mission
and falls to the ground, and still further contributes, by its own
decay, to the growth of the parent tree. What a wonderful
mechanism is here ! A tree may have a hundred thousand
leaves, yet every leaf has the same functions to perform. What
a grand illustration of Divine power and intelligence !

But in order to carry out our idea, we must still follow the
history of our little protege — the bud. The leaf has now left
the bud to the kind care of the tree, which, by its juices, feeds
it through the late autumn and winter, and prepares it for the
important duties it must perform during the coming season,
(for the active force of the tree continues to a certain extent
through the winter.) Spring comes, and kindly kisses the little
bud, and lo ! it bursts forth into the glory of leaf and flower.
And now another agency — a wise provision of Providence — in-
terposes to begin the work of fertilization. The gentle breeze
scatters with its wings the seminal dust or pollen in the greatest
profusion over the whole vegetable creation, or the busy bee,

" That wanders all day long,
Sipping the sweet from every flower,"

bears with her the vitalizing atoms from flower to flower, taking
nectar in exchange, and bearing it away.

Our little flower now drops its petals and goes on rejoicing,
making haste for " coming events." The tiny leaf, born with
the flower to be its companion, is now called upon to furnish
suitable food for the infant fruit, which grows and thrives upon
its simple diet until it nearly reaches its full size. It is now
time to mature and perfect the seed, the crowning object of its
existence. All the rich juices of the tree, the work of the year,
are brought forward to attain this one object of all its efforts.
That done, it puts on the finishing touches by flavoring and col-
oring, and the fruit is ripe, and the tree's mission, for the season,
is ended.

For the better illustration of this principle, we will take the

PLANT LIFE. 37

apple. You have seen the great labor of the mother tree in
perfecting this vital principle in the seed. She has exhausted
all her strength ; still, in her economy, she has all this time
been preparing another set of fruit-buds for the coming season,
but she has not strength enough left to mature them properly.
All her efforts are now required to recuperate her own ener-
gies ; therefore the original purpose of these buds must be
altered ; their mission must be changed ; and they are conse-
quently transformed from fruit to leaf buds. Had the tree been
relieved from the necessity of maturing her large crop by thin-
ning— taking out the imperfect fruit — the balance would have
been worth more tlian the whole now is, and the tree would
have been in condition to have matured her fruit-buds, and pro-
duced another crop of fruit the next season ; for, like the
mother who bestows extra care on her deformed child, the tree
gives as much care to the imperfect as to the perfect fruit ; it is
the seed only that is the object of her solicitude and attention.

This principle runs through all nature, and from it we may
learn a lesson.

Take the grass, for example. Much has been said and much
has been written on the subject, and much good, I am satisfied,
has and will come out of the discussion. This much only I
wish to say, that I believe the proper time to cut grass for the
barn to be when the grasses are in the milk, just before the ma-
turing of the seed begins. It is then that the stalk holds all the
properties which are so nutritious for animal food. Let the
juices become absorbed in the maturing of the seed, and you
will find but little nutriment left in the stalk, nearly all having
passed into the seed, and still you will not find all its virtues in
the seed. A transformation has taken place ; the element of
sugar has disappeared, and starch is the principal property left.

But there are other important considerations to be taken into
account. By cutting the grass before the exhausting process of
maturing the seed takes place, you save the vitality of the grass
roots for a second crop ; for the moment nature is defeated in
her object of maturing the seed, she goes immediately to work
to retrieve her misfortune by throwing up new stalks and flow-
ers, which, being treated as before, crop after crop may thus be
taken without exhausting the soil as much as the maturing of
one crop of perfect seed. The ladies may, from this fact, learn

38 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

an important lesson in the cultivation of flowers. A plant will
not exhaust itself as much in making a dozen flowers as in
maturing one seed-pod. After flowering, nip off" the pod.

But to return to the bud. I wish to give you another exam-
ple of the workings of nature in the propagation of varieties of
the same species. I told you that the bud contained all the ele-
ments of the perfect tree within itself ; and to show the power
of the bud to transform the roots of the seedling plant when
budded into it, I will relate the process of budding the apple.
In order to propagate a particular variety, we nurserymen are in
the habit of taking the seedling stock, at the age of one or two
years, and inserting the bud near the ground, say three or four
inches above the root. This must be done while the stock is in
the growing state, so that the bark will readily part from the
sap-wood. If the bud and stock are both in a proper condition,
the bud will soon adhere and grow to the sap-wood. The next
spring, when the stock quickens, we cut off the stock just above
the bud. This throws the force of the ascending sap into the
bud, and it starts into vigorous growth, often growing five or six
feet during the season. The following spring the buds again
start out near the top of the tree. Some varieties throw out
three, and others four or more limbs laterally from the stock, ac-
cording to the peculiar habits of variety. As each and every
tree has a peculiar form of growth, as much so as the human
form or features, an experienced nurseryman will not mistake a
variety once in a hundred times, and he judges only by its dis-
tinct characteristics of growth. As a general rule the root of a
tree conforms to the top. A straight upright top sends its main
roots deep into the soil, and if the top is spreading, the roots ex-
tend nearer the surface. Now what produces the uniformity in
a variety ? The seedling stock has no uniformity in its growth,
and consequently the bud must have changed the roots of the
seedling to its own form of growth. This shows that the stock
and root are subordinate to the bud. This control over the
stock could not be exercised, if the grafting were done in the
top of a large tree, as the stock would then have the balance of
power, although I have no doubt the roots of the graft extend
quite a distance down the sap-wood.

Most trees and plants hold in reserve an innumerable number
of latent buds for the repair of any injury that may befall the

PLANT LIFE. 39

tree. Should a limb get broken, one or more of these latent
buds would be forced into growth to supply its place. If a root
gets broken the leaves repair the damage by sending out new
roots to supply the top with its wonted food. Should the top
lose its vigor from any cause so that it could not receive the
juices sent up to its manufactory, the roots stimulate the latent
buds along the trunk and limbs into growth, and numerous
suckers, as they are called, make their appearance to assist the
top in doing its work.

A further illustration of the power of the bud to individualize
itself, is seen in the layering of grape, when the eye or bud
throws down roots and becomes entirely independent of the
mother plant. Many plants are propagated in this way, as also
by cuttings and other methods.

The beginning of the individual plant is in the seed. It is
then a plant in miniature. The seed is now independent of the
mother plant, and we will now watch its course of development.
We will cover it with soil, and subject it to the combined influ-
ence of moisture, heat and air, so that it may bring its vital
forces into action, and germinate.

In every seed there is a little store of food for infant growth.
Moisture is necessary to dissolve and transform these little stores
of starch, sugar and other substances in the seed, into suitable
food for the young plant. On this it will feed until it throws
down its little rootlets into the soil, and its leaf-stalk up into
the light and air, and then these two parts work in unison.
When the plant has thus developed itself into roots and branches,
the food in the seed will have been exhausted and the plant must
depend wholly on the root and leaf for its support. It is curious
to observe the ingredients that are so carefully stored away in
the seed for the infant germ — starch and sugar — or substances
convertible into sugar, which are nearly the same as are furnished
by the human mother for her tender infant.

It is also said that the seed, in germinating, generates heat
within itself. The degree of heat necessary for germination
varies with different species, but generally a temperature of
about fifty degrees is required. Blackston says : " The whole
progress of plants, from the seed to the root, and from thence
again to the seed ; the method of animal nutrition, digestion,
secretion, and all other branches of vital economy, are not left

40 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

to chance or the will of the creature itself, but are performed in
a wondrous involuntary manner, and guided by unerring rules
laid down by the great Creator,"

My friends, I have brought forward these examples, showing
the process of development of the bud and seed, not assuming
that you are ignorant of these facts, but to show that we are of-
ten unmindful of the most ordinary workings of nature in the
world around us ; and it is because these methods of nature are
so common and unobtrusive that they escape our notice. And
here I would appeal to the young men and boys who are just
entering upon the stage of active life, and assure them that
farming can be made the most interesting and instructive em-
ployment they can pursue ; that if they once become interested
in the study of nature, through the medium of agriculture, they
will thereby form a habit of thinking and observation, so that
with every crop they raise from the ground, there will be raised
in the mind a corresponding crop of new ideas. So will the
problem, — What shall we do to keep our boys on the farm ? be
readily solved. Some few weeks ago, it was my rare fortune to
witness a most beautiful phenomenon of nature. I stood on one
of the bold cliffs of Mt. Mansfield,, the loftiest peak of the Green
Mountains, facing the eastern valley which lies between Mt.
Mansfield and Mt. Sterling. The thickly wooded valley lay be-
neath me like a broad, green carpet. The day was declining,
and the sun shining at my back. As the thin curtains of mist
that hung about the mountains silently parted and revealed the
wide landscape, there suddenly appeared to my sight, as if by
magic, a beautiful rainbow painted upon the green carpet of the
valley, thousands of feet below me. It was small in size with
upright sides, and arched at the top. But the most surprising
feature of this marvellous phenomenon was, that while gazing
at it with wonder and delight, I beheld in the centre and at the
base of the picture, the perfect image of a human form, inclu-
ding the body above the waist ; and that image was the sem-
blance of my own broad shoulders and head. Even the fingers
of my hand could be distinctly seen. Doubting, I raised my
arm horizontally ; the shadow did the same. I described a cir-
cle over my head, and the shadowy hand described the circle of
the rainbow. The guide, standing by my side, also had his rain-
bow and shadow ; but neither could see the shadow of the other,

PLANT LIFE. 41

thus proving the fact that no two persons looking at a rainbow
at the same time, see exactly the same rainbow.

I have described this simply as an example of those many
wonders of nature, which are found in places remote and diffi-
cult of access, and which we seek with great toil and expense.
But we need not climb the mountain peaks to find the wonders
of creation ; there are mysteries and wonders in the vegetable
creation of equal interest, which every one may study and ad-
mire in his own garden free of cost. The objects within our
own reach often surpass in wander those we travel miles after.
These hidden mysteries of the plant are the true miracles.

A person once complained to a friend of mine, of the modern
scepticism as to miracles, and the ingenious doubts and specula-
tions of science in regard to them. My friend plucked a clover
blossom at his feet, and replied — " I need no higher miracle than
that. Tell us how, century after century, this humble flower
has perpetuated its mysterious birth and growth. Tell us why
the seed has kept its plighted faith to the spring, and year after
year has blossomed always the same. Tell us who taught it to
seek out in the dark ground, or in the invisible air that subtle
food which it turns into its own substance. Tell us how this
plant, which we call lifeless and inanimate, can produce from its
own being that mysterious seed which man's inventive brain not
only cannot imitate, but cannot even understand its laws, its
structure or its creation ; and we will then talk of other mira-
cles, and discuss probabilities ; until then we will not ask for
higher miracles."

From the preceding observations, we may conclude that the
leaves are absolutely necessary to cherish the blossom-buds
formed at the foot-stalk, aided by the agency of light, which is
absolutely necessary to the operation of the generating power,
and that the blossoms and fruit are dependent on the leaves for
the preparation of the food, which is derived from the atmo-
sphere and the roots. The greater the surface of leaves and
branches, exposed to the influence of the sun and air, the greater
the quantity of sap prepared and appropriated towards the
growth of the plant ; and the richer the quality of food furnished,
the mord! robust the plant ; and the quality of the fruit will be
in proportion to the health and exposure of the stalks and
leaves. The soil is the laboratory in which the food of the plant
6*

42 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

is prepared, and no manure can be taken up by the roots unless
first reduced to a soluble state through the agency of water
which is the great solvent in the vegetable kingdom. Plants
possess the power of decomposing water, and retaining its fer-
tilizing properties ; they also possess the power of selecting and
dissolving substances in the soil, and assimilating them for food.

M. P. Wilder says : " Every blade of grass, every leaf that
flutters in the breeze, and every germ, is an organized and liv-
ing body. Every plant and vegetable is as capable as the human
system of imbibing and digesting its appropriate food. Every-
thing endowed with vegetable life requires its own peculiar food
to sustain its vigor and promote its growth, whether derived
from earth, air or water."

The circulation of the vital fluids of the growing plant has
been shown in our reasoning, and is being discussed by some of
our learned chemists. Prof. Johnson has lately published a
work of much merit on " How Crops Grow," in which he dis-
cusses this subject at great length. Much good must result
from his reasoning, as it will serve to stimulate inquiry upon
this very interesting subject. The theory of the circulation of
the blood, by Harvey, was received with many doubts at first,
and so will this theory be attended with some difficulties ; it is
the fate of all truths and discoveries which are new. But I
feel assured that Harvey's principle will be found running
through all nature, as she acts by general laws, which are uni-
versal and invariable. The perfect pulverization of the soil lies
at the foundation of all true success, either in horticulture or
agriculture. It has been fully demonstrated that the more per-
fectly divided or pulverized the soil becomes, the more readily
will be dissolved its elements of vegetable growth, and dissem-
inated throughout the organism of the plant. It is with refer-
ence to these facts that the importance of draining is seen, by
which the surplus water is not only taken away, but there is
also given the plant the benefit of the sun and air, which are as
important to the healthy development of the plant as they are
to the health and liappiuess of man. The vegetable differs from
the animal in this, that while the animal can move about and
select its food, the vegetable is stationary ; and if the soil in
whicii it is planted is not in possession of the elements necessary
for its growth, they must be supplied by artificial means, or the

PLANT LIFE. 43

plant will fail to accomplish the object for wliich it was intended.
And herein is the secret of success in cultivation. It is the
great problem of agriculture to ascertain and regulate the
adaptation of soil to plants, to find out the proper elements for
their development, and the most economical method of supply-
ing them. This problem is best answered by thorough study
and knowledge of manures, and the right application of them.
The rule to be followed is to give back to the soil, in the shape
of manure, what it has lost in the crop. This has aptly been
called the " golden rule of agriculture." It is only by this
means that the fertility of the soil can be maintained ; and by
disregarding this rule, the vocation of the farmer is one of loss
instead of gain. You cannot impose with impunity upon the
soil any more than you can on your own physical system ; both
are governed by similar laws. Science as well as reason enjoins
upon the agriculturist the duty of preserving the vitality of the
soil, and any violation of this principle inflicts an injury not
only on ourselves but upon posterity. It has been well said
that " to destroy the productiveness of the soil, to squander the
elements of that productiveness, is to destroy the hopes of civ-
ilized humanity. It robs posterity of its birthright to a career
of progress."

The importance of the science of horticulture, we fear, is not
duly appreciated. It has an influence far more important than
the mere gratification of the senses. Its tendency is to elevate
the character and fix the habits of a people. We, as a people,
are noted for our restlessness, and this, too, while we are enjoy-
ing everything in abundance to make us happy and contented.
Energy is commendable, but not at the expense of our social
relations. The practice of horticulture tends to develop our
social relations and to increase our love of home ; and just in
proportion to the intelligence and settled habits of a people,
may be measured the interest manifested in horticulture and its
kindred pursuits. There is a pleasure in horticulture, in the
innocent pursuits of country life, just in proportion as intelli-
gence and refinement preside over its labors. " Flowers," said
Henry Ward Beecher, " are the sweetest things that God ever
made, and forgot to put a soul into." The love of flowers is
inherent in man. It is the seed of which love is the fruit, an

44 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

element of true religion. Flowers have been aptly called the
smiles of God.

Show me the man that does not love flowers and children, and
you will find him but little above the brute, destitute of the
more ennobling qualities of manhood. Such a man should not
be trusted. Why was it that God planted the first garden and
filled it with fruits and flowers, and " every thing that was pleas-
ant to the sight," and then took the man he had made and put
him into the garden to dress and keep it, if it were not to bring
him into daily contact with nature, and to give him pure, simple
and rational pleasures, and to teach him happiness ? Why was
it that a garden was selected as the last resting place for Him
whose pure life of love has lasted through more than eighteen
centuries, and will continue to the end of time ? Why is it that
this feeling of reverence and yearning for the " lost garden "
has come down to us through all the dark ages of the world,
growing more intense as the world becomes more civilized and
refined ? Why is it that a flower will attract the notice of the
infant in its mother's arms, sooner than any toy ? Why is it
that the older we grow the greater is our love of flowers ? Why
is it that we decorate the graves of our loved ones, and the
graves of our dead solders, with flowers ? Why is it that the
love of flowers is not confined to any class, race, or nation ? It
is because they speak a universal language — the language of
the heart — and respond to the noblest and most generous emo-
tions of the soul — soothing, cheering, delighting, animating,
subduing and refining the mind of man by their divine minis-
trations. Truly, flowers are God's telegraph from the soul of
man to Himself — divine messengers, full of life and love and
beauty.

SOIL CULTURE AND SOUL CULTURE. 45

THE RELATIONS OF SOIL CULTURE TO
SOUL CULTURE.

From an Address delivered before the Berkshire Agricultural Society.

BY REV. WASHINGTON GLADDEN.

All of US are pleased to note the magnitude and the excel-
lence of the potatoes and the pigs and the pears that these farms
turn out, but the chief question is, after all, what sort of men
and women are they raising ? I shall ask your attention there-
fore, for a while, to " Man as an Agricultural Product ; or the
Relations of Soil Culture to Soul Culture.''^

There is no honest calling in which a man may not preserve
his integrity, and develop his manhood ; and perhaps there is not
so much difference as we are sometimes led to think, among
those callings which are honest, in their influence upon charac-
ter. There are some trades and some professions which we all
agree in considering legitimate, and which we are yet wont to
consider as rather hostile to the highest growth of manhood ;
and there are others which seem to us quite favorable to intel-
lectual and moral development. But each calling has its advan-
tages and its disadvantages as a school of character ; and some
of those which seem to us to foster the better nature do, never-
theless, in various ways, impede its growth. The work of the
farmer and the farmer's wife is in some respects favorable, and
in other respects, unfavorable to the development of true man-
hood and womanhood. The man who wants to make the most
not only of his farm but also of himself, will find in the farm-
life, some helps to rejoice in, and some hindrances to overcome ;
some incitements to follow, and some temptations to resist.
Shall we not find it profitable to consider some of these, that
the highest problems of life may be clearly stated, and the
methods of their solution fairly understood ?

46 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

First among the conditions of the farmer's life which are fa-
vorable to the best growth of the man, is the fact that the work
itself is more conducive to bodily health than almost any other
occupation. " A sound body " is indispensable to the highest
manliness. Some men contrive, with weak and ailing bodies,
to live creditable lives, but their physical infirmities are no help
to their spiritual growth. Bodily vigor is to be desirable, not
only because it helps us to live better lives, but because it is in
itself beautiful and valuable. And the life of the farmer is more
likely than almost any other manner of life to preserve and con-
firm the health of those who engage in it. It is true that by
overwork and exposure, and unwholesome diet farmers do some-
times impair their physical strength ; but the general health of
the farming community is better than that of the mechanical
and professional classes. And this gives the farmer a great ad-
vantage in the pursuit of manhood over his fellow-workmen in
other callings. It is much easier for one whose digestive organs
are sound, whose circulation is perfect, and whose nerves are
steady, to be a good and true man or woman, than it is for one
who is dyspeptic, thin-blooded and nervous.

Another condition favorable to the development of high char-
acter on the farm is the quiet and repose which it secures. " In
quietness and in confidence shall be your strength," was the
motto of the great Luther ; and there is a strength of purpose
and a depth of conviction which rarely come to those whose
lives are spent in the bustle of town life. Indeed, the great want
of our American character is repose. We are an active, hurry-
ing, restless race ; we are quick to seize a truth, or to throw our-
selves into an undertaking ; and we often suffer from the lack of
deliberation. Our work is marred, our thinking is spoiled, our
dignity is damaged by this undue haste. We are getting more
and more every year to be a feverish, eager, giddy people ;
nervous diseases are becoming fatally prevalent; body as well
as mind is giving way under this high pressure of our American
life. This bad tendency of our civilization is fostered and
strengthened by town life, but the farm-life gives an opportunity
of resisting it. There are hurrying times of year on the farm,
and seasons when the farmer must have all his wits about him,
and work with all his miglit ; but after all this strain does not
often come ; and it is quite a different sort of hurry while it

SOIL CULTURE AND SOUL CULTURE. 47

lasts, from the mad, noisy, exciting strifes of the town. Living
apart from all this clatter and confusion, having to do, not with
men who are always in a hurry, but with Nature who is never
in a hurry, there is a chance for the farmer to cultivate steadi-
ness and repose of character, graces that adorn whoever wears
them.

Not only this, but the farmer has leisure and opportunities for
intellectual cultivation, if he is only minded to improve them,
which are denied to many other workers. It is true that the
thrifty farmer is apt to find an odd job for the rainy day ; a sled
to mend, or a gate to build, or a fodder rack to fix for the win-
ter ; but there are many rainy days and some pleasant ones, es-
pecially in these latter days of horse rakes and mowing ma-
chines, when not much is done ; and when the farmer, if he
were studiously inclined, could lay in large stores of useful
knowledge. Then there are the long winter evenings, after the
cattle are housed, and the chores are all done, which ought to
be sacred to reading and study. Unlike the merchant or the
professional man in the village, who must be in the stoi'e or the
office until nine o'clock ; unlike the^ mechanic or the operative
who has been in-doors all day and really needs a little walk after
supper to the grocery or the post-office, — and who is apt to sit
down in some lounging place and spend all his evening — the
farmer has no duty to occupy his evening, and no temptation to
draw him away from home ; and here are two or three golden
hours of every winter's day that may be turned to excellent
account.

But some one is asking. What advantage is there, after all, in
this reading and study ? It will not make my crops grow any
better or my cows give any more milk. What is the use of it
all ? To this I answer, in the first place, that it will be likely to
be of advantage to you as farmers. Even if you read nothing
about agriculture, your increased knowledge will broaden and
strengthen your mind, and improve your judgment. Farming
calls for mind as well as muscle, and if reading and intellectual
pursuits bring strength and enlargement to the mind, then of
course they help to make a man a better farmer.

But that, after all, is not what we are talking about. Even if
it could be proved that the cultivation of the mind would not
enable you to be any more successful in your calling, it would

48 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

still be well worth while to attend to it. For the man is of more
consequence than the farmer, and the first concern of every far-
mer, as well as of every lawyer and every doctor, and every
preacher should be to cultivate his own manhood ; to raise large
crops and make money out of them if possible, but at any rate
to be a man, in the highest and noblest meaning of that word.
And I suppose that while you want to learn how to do farm work
well, and to obtain the best results of your labor, you want to
know something more than that. The chief end of man is not
to be a ploughing machine, or a mowing machine, or a threshing
machine. The chief end of woman is not to be a milking ma-
chine, or a churning machine, or a sewing machine. The far-
mer and the farmer's wife ought to be proud of their vocation,
ought to magnify and honor it in their lives ; but 1011116 loving
it, and working at it diligently, they ought to determine that
they will not be swallowed up in it, but that they will, by God's
grace, be all that he meant them to be in body, soul and spirit ;
and if that is their high ambition they will feel that some time
may be worthily given to the cultivation of their minds and their
hearts as well as of their fruitful acres. And what I say is that
the farmer may, easily, withoTit neglecting' anything that needs
to be done, so arrange his work that he shall get abundant leis-
ure for this class of pursuits ; that, indeed, the opportunities
afforded him for these pursuits are rather better than those en-
joyed by industrious workers in almost any other calling.

Another circumstance of the farmer's life which is favorable
to the cultivation of manhood is in the fact that he is called to
deal mainly with realities of nature, instead of the deceits and
shams which abound in town life. Truth and reality are always
good for the soul ; pretense and affectation are hurtful not only
to him who practices, but also in many cases to him who wit-
nesses them. And our town and city life is largely made up of
pretence and affectation. Whether they are disquieted by it or
not, the passengers on the pavements walk always in a vain show.
Our architecture is dishonest ; almost every house pretends to
be something that is not. Not long ago I got a rear view of
what passes for a three-story building on one of the business
streets in my own village, and found out that the building had
but two stories ; the front was built one story above the roof.
And that is only a sample of the way in which wood and brick

SOIL CULTURE AND SOUL CULTURE. 49

and stone are made to deceive our sight every day. There are
very few honest buildings. The churches ought to be true, but
many of them are gigantic lies. With mastic and stucco, and
paint and sand, they contrive to look, or at any rate try to look,
much more costly than they are. If the religion of the wor-
shippers should turn out to be hypocrisy it would not be strange.
And not only in architecture, in furniture, in raiment, in
equipage, in the whole outer life of the town, we are met on
every side with all manner of deceit ; veneering, gilding, paint-
ing, padding, stuffing — all with the design to make the exterior
showy at the expense of reality. And what is true of their be-
longings gets to be true of men and women ; many of them
will hardly bear inspection. Strip them of the falsehoods in
which they disguise themselves, and many of them would make
but a sorry figure. Now, with all the advantages of town life,
— and town life has its advantages, — this is the one stupendous
disadvantage to the cultivation of true manhood or womanhood.
To be obliged to live in the midst of so much that is fictitious
and false ; to talk and deal every day with people whose man-
ners are affected and artificial, is a hard strain upon the sin-
cerity of any human soul. Before we know it, we have the
mask on ourselves, and go about parading our deceptions before
the eyes of our fellows. This vice of pretence, more than al-
most any other, justifies Pope's often quoted verse. It looks
ugly enough at first sight : —

" But seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first eudure, then pity, then embrace."

This, I say, is a crying evil of town life, and it is an evil that
is assailing the very foundations of good society. There are
true and honest men and women in the cities and the villages,
but it is hard for them to maintain the virtues of simplicity and
sincerity in the midst of the deceit that abounds. And you,
my friends, the farmers, are but little exposed to this evil.
Honest old Nature — who does nothing for show, who never pre-
tends to be more than she is, who never puts on fine colors that
she cannot afford, who never smirks at you, or patronizes you,
or tells you white lies — honest old Nature is your daily com-
panion ; and if she does not make you truthful and sincere, it
is your fault and not hers. And I am bound to say that affec-

7*

50 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

tation is not the besetting sin of farmers generally. They have
faults enough of their own, but this is not chief among them.
They are sometimes crabbed, and sometimes miserly, and some-
times conceited, and sometimes uncharitable ; but you can gen-
erally find out what they are ; that which is worst in them lies
on the outside, and there is no effort at concealment. There is
a little danger that their contact with the town's folk will dam-
age this good quality of their characters. Even now we some-
times see the country maidens, and the country matrons, too,
trying very hard to imitate the city manners and the city fash-
ions ; and so far as this helps to introduce a little taste and
elegance into the farmhouses, it is well ; only let them beware
how they bring into their rural homes the shams and falsehoods
that disfigure the urban life. Let them love and study and
copy the traits of the country, that God made, rather than of
the city, that man made, and keep for us the beautiful simplicity
of life and character that is growing so conspicuously rare.

The last thing I shall mention that helps the farmer to be a
man, is the consciousness that ought to possess his soul that the
work about which he is employed is productive, and therefore
beneficent work. I am speaking on the supposition that he is a
good farmer, and not only raises good crops, but improves the
condition and increases the value of his land with every year's
cultivation. For the man who is spoiling good land by bad til-
lage is one of the worst of malefactors, and his work can have
no tendency to make him a better man. But one who is doing
his best to reclaim waste land and make the good land more
fruitful, who is gathering every year larger crops of better prod-
uce with less labor, he is engaged in a work which is really en-
riching the earth ; he is providing for the sustenance and adding
to the comfort of the earth's inhabitants ; he is diminishing the
dangers of famine and pestilence ; he is a real benefactor of the
race ; and the knowledge that this is the nature of his calling
ought to make a farmer proud and happy — ought to inspire him
with that just self-respect which is one true constituent of the
highest manliness. In the nature of the case, we cannot all be
producers ; our complex civilization calls for other kinds of
work ; traders and artisans and professional men are wanted ;
but after all, the producing classes are doing the best kind of
work. And as a man's calling is apt to react on his character,

SOIL CULTURE AND SOUL CULTURE. 51

it would seem that th6 farmer ought to be the best kind of man.
The business of trade has become the favorite business in these
days ; the farms are deserted by the farmers' boys, and some-
times by their fathers, who are rushing to the cities to engage
in commercial pursuits ; but trade is far less beneficent and far
less honorable than farming. We might contrive to dispense
with the trader, but we could hardly live without the farmer.
He who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before,
is a public benefactor, we are told ; but he that sells two yards
of tape where one was sold before, may be a public nuisance.
It requires no gift of prophecy to foresee that the current which
is now sweeping our young men into the whirlpools of traffic,
will be turned back ere long towards the farms. The risks and
failures of commercial life are increasing every year, and there
is no remedy for them but the withdrawal from these crowded
pursuits of a part of the surplus of competitors ; and by and by
we shall see the deserted farms reoccupied by men who have
been wearied and disgusted with traffic, and who have learned
to believe that the business of a farmer is not only in the long
run more profitable, but more dignified and more conducive to
true manliness than the uncertain and questionable strifes of
commercial life.

In the healthfulness of his work, in the quietness of his life,
in the ample opportunities of self-cultivation afforded him, in
the fact that he is called to deal with the realities of nature
rather than the shams that infest the town, and in the conscious-
ness that he is helping to make the world a better home for the
race, the farmer finds conditions favorable to the development
of his manhood. But there are also in his calling, as in every
other legitimate calling, hindrances as well as helps to manli-
ness, and I am to^ speak briefly of some of these.

Some of those conditions that were mentioned as favorable to
the growth of character, may, if they are not guarded, become
unfavorable conditions. The quiet of the farmer's life may se-
cure repose and steadiness of character ; but if the quiet is too
profound and without interruption, it may result in stagnation
of the brain. A certain amount of excitement and stimulation
is needed to keep us awake, and the farm life may be so ordered
that there shall not be enough of it.

Moreover, the farmer's work, if he keeps at it too persistently,

52 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

and denies himself needful rest and relaxation, is hurtful not
only to his body but to his mind. Manual toil pursued without
intermission from early morn till late at night every day in the
year, is benumbing in its effect upon the mental powers. Some
degree of physical exercise is necessary to the healthy action of
the mind ; but such hard work as some of our farmers do, is far
from being conducive to mental activity. The introduction of
machinery is a great advantage to the farmer in this respect ; it
makes his burden of toil much lighter, and renders it possible
for him to perform all his work without experiencing the dead-
ening and stupefying effects which are so apt to follow severe
and protracted bodily exertion. Still the farmer has need to
guard against mental sluggishness and torpor ; and that is one
reason why he should cultivate a love of reading. The stimu-
lus which he gets from newspapers and books will keep him
mentally awake, even if he goes out but seldom. He ought not,
however, to shut himself up at home, even in the good society
of good books. His business will carry him occasionally to the
neighboring village or city, and his contact with the intense life
of the close populations will quicken his pulses and do him good.
In the winter there will be a course of lectures perhaps within
reach ; and if he buys a season ticket, and takes the trouble to
attend with his family, he will hear some utterances that are
wise and some that are otherwise ; but on the whole, because of
the stimulus thus given to his mind, the lecture ticket will be a
good investment. And if I were not a minister, I should say
that the habit of church-going would be of considerable advan-
tage to him, not only spiritually, but also intellectually. Besides,
it seems to me that it would be good for every farmer who can
spare the time and the money — (and most of you can if you
think so) — to take a shortjourney every autumn after the crops
are gathered, into some region which he has never visited be-
fore, keeping his eyes and ears open, and learning what he can,
not only about the best methods of agriculture, but about men
and things in general. In such ways as these the depressing
and stupefying effects of seclusion and muscular toil may be
averted, and the mental wakefulness and vigor which are essen-
tial to the highest development of mankind may be secured.

The slow gains of the farmer are sometimes a stumbling block
in his way. With unremitting industry, with the greatest fru-

SOIL CULTURE AND SOUL CULTURE. 53

gality in his manner of life, his profits on the year's work are
small, when compared with the great incomes of some of our
successful merchants. When we think, however, that about
ninety-eight out of every hundred of our merchants are unsuc-
cessful, and reflect how large the balances are on the wrong- side
of their cash books every year, the farmer's small but tolerably
sure accumulations look very respectable. His accumulations
are, at least in the beginning, quite small. He must count his
pennies carefully, or there would be nothing left. And so he
naturally enough comes to count his pennies rather too carefully ;
falls into peimrious and miserly ways. I do not know that this
vice of parsimony is any more frequent among farmers than
among other people ; but it is a vice into which all people are
liable to fall whose gains are slow and difficult. Yet the most
generous men I have ever known have been farmers, and the
best illustration I ever heard of the profitableness of generosity,
was given me by a farmer. The story was this : Two brothers,
one of whom was penurious and poor and the other generous
and rich, met one day in the barn of one of them, when the
poor man said to the other, " How is it that you being free and
bountiful in your gifts, are growing rich so fast — while I, who
give away very little, am always poor ?" "I will show you
why," replied the other. They were standing by a barrel of
flax -seed, and the prosperous brother thrust his hand into the
seed and grasped in his closed hand as much as he could of the
smooth and shining kernels. On opening his hand hardly any
remained ; the seed had slipped through his fingers. " That is
your way," he said, " but this is my way ;" and in his open hand
he scooped up a liberal handful of the seed. Remember that,
good friends ! The hand that is open to give will hold more
than the hand that is clenched to keep.

There is another and more serious vice into which these slow
gains may lead the farmer. That is the vice of dishonesty. He
is obliged to work so hard, and his profits are so small, that
when he comes to sell his grain, and there are ninety-seven or
ninety-eight bushels of oats to dispose of, he is greatly tempted to
strike the measure quick enough to make the pile hold out an even
hundred bushels. He is just as much tempted to do that as the
small trader is to slip his thumb a little in measuring the calico ;
and he is just about as likely to yield to the temptation. I heard

54 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

a farmer talking on this subject the other day. He was a man
who had been a broker in one of our western cities, and had had
large experience with the commercial as well as the agricultural
classes ; and his opinion was that the average of honesty in the
commercial class is higher than among the farmers — that there
is an amount of small swindling and trickery among the latter
that would not be tolerated among the former. But that state-
ment I could not bring myself to accept without some qualifica-
tion. I know that it gets to be accepted doctrine among these
financiers that a big swindle is perfectly legitimate — that it is
only the little ones that are vicious ; that the man who steals
a railroad ticket is a villain, but the man who steals the railroad
itself is a highly respectable man. This is a kind of logic that
that is too high for me. I could never make it appear that the
guilt of theft is in inverse ratio to the amount stolen, or that
the big-bellied admiral who steals the ship and sails it, is not at
least as big a rascal as the scullion who steals the admiral's
spoons. But still there is guilt and meanness in cheating on a
small scale ; and I know enough about farmers to be ready to
admit that the criticism is not wholly without foundation. I do
not think that farmers are more dishonest than other people —
quite the contrary I should say ; but I have the best of reasons
for knowing that there are dishonest ones. I have bought some
barrels of apples that were just as large in the middle as on the
to}D — but I have bought other barrels in which the apples grew
small by degrees and beautifully less as you went down. I have
paid for some cords of wood that were eight feet long, four feet
wide and four feet high ; and I have paid for other cords, trust-
ing to the measurement of the man who brought them, which
have shrunk wonderfidly when piled up in my wood-shed. To
such small dishonesties as these the exigencies of the farmer's
life quite naturally lead, and they, above all things, are to be
shunned and abhorred. Nothing is more fatal to true manliness
than trickery or fraud of any sort. No man who values the es-
sentials of life more fully than its accidents, or who has any just
idea of what true value is, will descend for a moment to any
such transaction. You can afford to work hard and live frugally
and get on slowly, but you can never afibrd to stain your hands
or pollute your soul with the least deed of dishonesty.

AGRICULTURAL FAIRS AND THEIR PURPOSES. 55

AGRICULTURAL FAIRS AND THEIR PURPOSES.

From an Address before the Hoosac "Valley Agricultural Society.

BY PROF. JOHN BASCOM.

Few branches of industry have shown more growth and pros-
perity during the past forty years than farming. This fact is
due to various causes. Men of science have directed more than
usual attention to agricultural inquiries; and questions of tillage,
manures, the propagation of plants and trees and the breeding
of stock, have had much light cast upon them. Invention, also,
has been remarkably called forth in connection with agricultural
implements, and the gathering in of the harvest has been con-
verted into a triumphal procession. The farmer steps from his
mower to his tedder, from his tedder to his horse-rake, from his
horse-rake to his wagon, and rolls on wheels from the first clip
of the knives to the last forkful at the mow. Time used to be
presented as marching down the years armed with a scythe ; if
we would now intimate his ability to do a fast job, and shear
even the generations of men, he must be mounted on a Wood's
mower and reaper.

Another means to this progress has been the agricultural fair,
and it is this which we wish to make the subject of our address.
Our remarks will take two directions — the purposes which these
fairs subserve, and the best methods of supporting them. An
obvious advantage of them is, that they draw general attention
to the products and processes of agriculture. Farmers carry
on their labors in comparative privacy. No one oversees them ;
few are interested in the exact way in which they do their work.
A bushel of corn or potatoes brings the same price, no matter
who raises them, or how small the crop. The mechanics and
merchants of our cities and villages are brought into constant
comparison with each other, and their daily employment depends

56 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

on the success with which they meet it. It is impossible to tell
how poor a farmer a man may be, and still find something to
do, and a little to live upon.

What, therefore, farmers need are eyes, many eyes, intelligent
eyes, eyes out of which are looking thoughtful and experienced
men, to be directed toward them in continual scrutiny and crit-
icism. The best farmers are usually on the most travelled
roads, and in part because more persons see them. If every
time that a man ploughed his field or hoed his corn, one whose
judgment he thoroughly respected were looking at him over the
fence, much work would be improved without our scarcely
knowing why. I am never more aware of the defects of what
I do than when I review it with one whom I know understands
thoroughly how it should be done. I walk through my orchard
with an horticulturist, and feel more painfully than ever before
every neglect of which I have been guilty ; and this, not be-
cause he points them all out, but because, being with him, I
look sharply over my practice, as I suspect him to be doing.

Many men are tough, and farmers not the least so ; they
should therefore be often pricked with criticism, made uneasy
in their faults by close observation, looked over in their doings
in a straightforward, common-sense way ; and as they have no
one to do this work for them, they cannot do better than to get
together and do it for each other. Every good method is thus
made contagious, every sound principle catching, and tasteful
and thorough farming becomes an epidemic. It is not good for
men to be alone ; above all, one that is a little dull. The wise
heads are put in the world as leaven, and the large assemblages
of the agricultural fairs give their ideas an opportunity to fer-
ment and propagate. It is good to touch the hem of a man's
garment that knows more than we do, and one is likely to find
them on these occasions set apart to ideas.

This leads us to the second advantage of the fair. Farmers
do not simply look at each other, and their respective cattle and
produce ; there is provision made for their definite instruction
in various ways. The best tools and machinery of the farm are
exhibited, and, so far as practicable, operated. One is able to
decide on the merits of an instrument before the purchase, and
is stimulated to the right purchase by the opinions of those on
whose experience and judgment he can rely. The best qualified

AGRICULTURAL FAIRS AND THEIR PURPOSES. 57

men of the community are present on purpose as committees to
examine and pronounce upon stock, crops, fruits, produce of all
sorts. The opportunity for comparison is present to every one,
and his conclusions are corrected and guided by the carefully
formed opinions of those about him best fitted to decide the
point. In this contact and clash of opinion, there cannot fail to
be instruction. To these sources of information is added the
annual address, which is, or at least ought to be, another source
of ideas. On the whole he is a very smart man or a very stupid
one who has been in faithful attendance on a agricultural fair,
and has gained nothing worth his labor. The first should con-
sole himself with the fact that he may have given something to
others, and the last with the thought that he would not probably
have profited much anywhere.

To these influences of the fair are to be added prizes, which,
if well offered and justly bestowed, serve to direct attention to
the right points, to push improvement in the most important
directions, and to call forth a little pleasant rivalry among the
bright and progressive ones. To do anything better than his
neighbors, makes a man think well of himself, and inclines him
to try again. Steady improvement in some branch of farming
is often to be dated from a prize taken years ago, and followed
by a goodly succession in the same direction. The premium
gives a direct motive and a definite end, which we often want,
and for the lack of which suffer opportunities to slip from us
close at hand. They get one agoing, and with a yearly joy,
keep him agoing in the line of improvement.

A last advantage of the fair to be mentioned is, it magnifies
the farming community, puts enthusiasm into it collectively and
individually. It is good to have a grand rush of one's indus-
trial kin once a year, to feel that your name is legion, and that
there are a variety of things possible to you. To be choked with
dust, crowded and discommoded generally by one's kindred in
labor, is profitable in the elevation it brings, the sense of impor-
tance and power. No man is worth much in a calling who has
no enthusiasm in regard to it. That farmer is the best farmer
who believes, with profound conviction, that a big calf or a big
pumpkin, is a big thing ; and how can he, unless he is to open
the eyes of a thousand people with it, and carry it in the back
of his wagon for the envy of a hundred more ? It may seem

8*

58 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

trifling to kindle enthusiasm by mutual admiration and congrat-
ulation, but few things pay better in the long run, if only our
praise be honest and well earned.

We pass now to the methods of maintaining the agricultural
fair whose value we have vindicated. A first condition of suc-
cess is intelligent, enthusiastic, self-denying officers. Some
farming communities come under the condemnation, " from him
that hath not shall be taken away that which he hath." There
is not sufficient percussion and tinder in them to build a fire
with ; there are not those who have the energy, the knowledge,
and the good will requisite to organize and maintain a vigorous
society. The first recipe, therefore, for success in the fair is,
have some good, disinterested men among you ; and if you have
not such, pray for them and try to make them. There is no
seed more prolific than generous, liberal thought, ready for work
and sagacious in it. Let us congratulate ourselves that we have
men, like our late president, who had gathered the knowledge
of long experience with a diligent and liberal hand, and who
not only sits under his own vine, but has given many of the rest
of us vines to sit under, and fruit to feast on there.

A second necessity in the management of a fair is, that the
end of instruction and justice should be kept continually before
its committees, and they should never be content with simply
striving to please the largest numbers, to divide the spoils sat-
isfactorily. Let there be justice though the heavens fall, is a
good proverb. I have observed, however, that the heavens seem
to stand remarkably firm after every stroke of right doing. It
would signally strengthen this integrity and good judgment of
our committees, if they were required to give, in a few lines,
the reason on which all important awards were based. One
cannot give a reason till he has one — nor is he quite inclined to
give it, till he thinks that he has a good one. These reasons
appearing in the annual report, would be freely canvassed, and
all would be instructed, both as to what is regarded as best, and
why it is so regarded. Our reports would thus be made manuals
of farmers principles and precepts. The class of persons who
are alienated by unsound and unjust awards, are those a society
can least aiford to lose, on their own account and on account of
their influence over others. It should then, be the first aim of
a society to justify its premiums to the best judgment of the

AGRICULTURAL FAIRS AND THEIR PURPOSES. 59

community, and to impartially, fearlessly, and constantly declare
that to be good which it thinks to be good. We think our lady
friends would sometimes suffer under this rule, and would hardly
be taught by prizes on bed quilts to cut up good calico that it
may be sewed together again in odd, fantastic and absurd shapes.
We have never devised but one theory on which these prepos-
terous, patch rose-buds could be justified, — possibly an old wo-
man might do worse.

A third fatal mistake in the management of an agricultural
fair is to suppose that its primary end is to pay expenses and
make money. If it does this, very well ; and it will be all the
more likely to do it, in the long run, by not making it the con-
stant aim. It is a fault with us, in all pursuits, that we strive
to make money out of our business, rather than to establish a
valuable branch of industry for the benefit of others and our-
selves. If we could be brought to deal more liberally with our
avocations, expect less of them at once, do more for them, fur-
nishing the means and the time for growth, we should find our
returns in the end larger and more reliable. We rather, in our
haste and ignorance, wish to place our pail under the first
branch of labor we lay hold of, — as yet an unthrifty, half-grown
heifer, — and milk it full at once, leaving the ill-used beast after-
ward to care for herself. This spirit and method are not safe
and wholesome in any direction, and especially are they not so
in any enterprise which pertains to instruction and progress. A
church, a college, a fair, cannot be well handled with the lead-
ing idea of meeting expenses. There must be a more thorough
appreciation of the ends of improvement and a more generous
devotion to them than this implies. An institution which is
valuable is likely to be profitable, and no other is likely to be
for any length of time. Money that is drawn out of a business
leaves it pretty lean, and not prepared to yield much more. A
good fair invites cooperation, and pledges every strong man to
its support.

The direction in which this desire for an immediate income
has wrought especial mischief is that of horse-racing. We say
nothing of its moral character one way or the other ; we simply
say that it has been frequently and manifestly injurious to our
fairs. A race in which horses are put to their speed has noth-
ing to do with farming ; the connection is no more direct than

60 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

that between the circus-ring and agriculture. The horse, as an
instrument of industry and ordinary use, must possess qualities
quite the reverse of those which belong to the racer. To breed
for the plough, the cart, the carriage, requires attention to one
set of characteristics and form of training ; to breed and make
ready for the course calls for attention to a very different set.
In the degree in which a horse is fitted for the turf is he usually
unfitted for every other service. It is because horse-racing is
a popular amusement that it so easily engrafts itself on to the
fair, and becomes, by attracting the masses, a means of enlarg-
ing the income. Now we are not so crabbed that we object to
this simply because it gives pleasure ; so far we grant the ar-
gument is with those who sustain it. But let us look a little at
the later and less obvious results. The horse-race, once in,
easily lifts itself into popular favor ; begins to do the work that
was expected of it, and " draws." As the horse-race is doing
so much for the fair, more, it is thought, must be done for the
horse-race. An entire day is set apart to it. It is soon diffi-
cult to confine it in these limits, and gradually half the time
and three-fourths of the attention are given to it. It now
" draws finely." Premiums must be devoted to this captivating
and crowning feature, and the best horse carries off his hun-
dreds, while the best sheep and ox must content themselves
with a few dollars. An entire department, as crops or fruits,
will thus often receive less than is bestowed on this single form
of development, entirely foreign to agriculture. Pumpkins,
squashes and beets begin now to be a little dull, and boys and
men are running to see whether Jones' gray or Smith's bay is
ahead. The popular mind, not too full of ideas at the best, for-
getful of other considerations, is fevered by thir. ready-made
and respectable amusement. Every plough-boy begins to think
himself one of those

" Charioteers,
Who, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink
With eager lips the wind of their own speed,
As if the thing they loved fled on before."

The poor nag, stiffened by many a hard pull at the stone-
boat, who needs to be brought gently home and put kindly to
hay, is sent along the road at a pounding pace, as if there were
some speed in her which it were a siii not to get out before she

AGRICULTURAL FAIRS AND THEIR PURPOSES. 61

dies. The four year old boy cannot now draw his baby brother
without some one to cry, go ; while, for a month after the fair,
Tom, Dick and Harry sit in solemn conclave, and spit tobacco
over the question, whether Brown's sorrel wouldn't have come
in first if she had not lost her shoe, some one of the gentry of
the lash occasionally routing their small opinions by a louder
oath and a more professional air. The horse-race is now
" drawing " in such shape that things are likely to come to a
head. Some begin to inquire, why not all horse-race and no
cattle-show, since this is what we really like ? Others — the so-
ber, intelligent farmers — bitterly disappointed in the results, are
asking, why maintain a fair in which the hall is deserted for the
track, and a few women and old men are all that are left at the
speaker's stand ? David Crockett was said to be " half horse, half
alligator." I never quite believed it, for 1 fancied the alligator
would have eaten up the horse, and he would shortly have be-
come all alligator. Thus a fair half cattle-show and half horse-
race is in a state of unstable equilibrium. The horses run away
with the fruit and cattle, and it is soon all horse-race. It has
happened to some fairs within our knowledge to spawn a race-
course, and die in the effort ; and more than one has found their
progeny competing with them in hot rivalry. If an agricul-
tural fair gives itself to amusing and intoxicating, instead of
sobering and instructing the populace, it will soon find that oth-
ers can outstrip it in this race, and that professionals are quite
in advance in their own line of business. The jockey will stoop
to the fair when he can get nothing better, but becomes at once
ambitious of an independent course.

The New York State Fair has steadily prospered, because it
has kept aloof from the race, and given large and profitable de-
velopment to all improvements, implements, agricultural ma-
chines. Many of her county fairs, on the other hand, poor in
these means of instruction, have yielded themselves up to the
race, and become of little interest and value. I would like to
inquire, in this connection, why the Bennington race-course
came up as the Bennington fair went down ? and whether the
feebleness of the Hampden Society has not kept company with
an increase of the horse distemper ?

We do not, then, object to this intimate association of the
race-course with the fair because amusement is thus furnished,

\

62 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

but because it is amusement of such a nature as to intoxicate
the many, and draw otf their attention almost wholly from the
real object of the association ; because it is an amusement of
such a nature as to offend the more sober, and by its excessive
claims to alienate them from the fairs, which must be sustained
by them or fail. To place a bottle of wine and a glass of water
before a man may answer, if he is a perfectly sober citizen.
If he is not, the water will be very secure. To place before the
undisciplined, uncontrolled populace a horse-race and a lesson
in agriculture, is to give the latter the go-by ; is to jilt the gen-
tle goddess of husbandry in favor of the wild-eyed, hair-stream-
ing deity of the turf. Man is a respectable being ; but if there
is one position in which he is less so than another, it is when he
is the mere tail of a horse. He seems himself to be well aware
of this fact, and usually sinks in his language and tastes to his
new position.

Such are some of the gains and some of the dangers of the
agricultural fair. It can only lead to good farming, as it
springs from good farming, and is sustained by good farming.
A needful and correspondingly noble labor is given to the
farmer. He feeds the life of the globe, and should bring to this
chief employment the enthusiasm, skill and patience of a great
calling.

OPPORTUNITIES OF THE FARMER. 63

OPPORTUNITIES OF THE NEW ENGLAND
FARMER.

From an Address before the Housatonic Agricultural Society,

BY KICHARD GOODMAN.

In August, 1810, Elkauah Watson, then an amateur farmer
in Pittsfield, with twenty-six others, prepared and presented an
appeal for an exhibition in the square in tlie village of Pittsfield,
on the first of October ensuing, from nine to three o'clock, at
which time the first Berkshire cattle-show was exhibited with
considerable eclat, though the farmers in the vicinity held back
many of their animals for fear of being laughed at, " which,"
says Mr. Watson, " compelled me to lead the way with several
prime animals ; " and as he had previously purchased some
blooded pigs from Dutchess County, and Durham, or, as they
were then called, English bulls, from Cherry Yalley, in the State
of New York, he was probably enabled to make the Pittsfield
farmers rejoice that they had not put in competition their long-
legged, tall, lank-sided swine, and their diminutive, peak-backed
mongrel bulls. But this show prepared the way for the " real
exhibition " of 1811, and the incorporation of the Berkshire
Agricultural Society, with ample powers but no funds. The
clergy were at first shy of officiating on these occasions, consid-
ering them bubbles of the moment ; but these bubbles have in-
creased into tidal waves, washing not only the shores of New
England, but the whole American continent. The list of agri-
cultural fairs in the United States amounts to at least one thou-
sand, and wherever the Yankee farmer goes, he carries with
him, in addition to his pulpit, his school-house and his town-
meeting, his annual cattle-show ; and neither ministers nor law-
yers are any longer shy of officiating on these occasions, either
as exhibitors, preachers or spectators.

64 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

But Elkanah's troubles were not over even after the success-
ful establishment of the Berkshire Agricultural Society, and the
filling its coffers with the aid of funds from Boston. His next
endeavor was to get the female part of the community to iden-
tify itself with the society. " It was a great object," says the
enthusiastic old man, when, in his old age, relating these occur-
rences, " to excite the females to a spirit of emulation. We
were satisfied no measures would lead to that result with so
much certainty as premiums on domestic manufactures, and
closing the second ' farmers' holiday ' in innocent festivity by an
agricultural ball ; also to unite them in singing pastoral odes at
the church." All of which was effected in 1813, as well as the
organization of a viewing committee of agriculture ; and the
old gentleman relates with marvellous interest how he managed
to induce the weaker sex to assemble together in a private room,
" where some valuable premiums of silver plate were exclusively
devoted to them," to be awarded on domestic manufactures, and
how they wouldn't go in until he procured his wife to precede
them, such was their timidity I "And what a glorious sight,"
said he " to see a group of tlie most respectable farmers, as if
under the solemnity of an oath, critically inspecting in the
midst of fields of grain, grass, vegetables, &c. ; also the state of
the orchards, buildings, fences and farming utensils, and to wit-
ness the anxious candidate for premiums attentively seizing
every lisp favorable to his husbandry or probable success. A
sight," said he, " more exhilarating to the friends of patriotism,
than to view the gorgeous pageantry of palaces and their pam-
pered tenants decorated in gold ! "

This was a little more than fifty years since, and the " Berk-
shire system " of cattle shows, with some modifications, has pre-
vailed over the country. The novelty of crop viewing has van-
ished with the timidity of the fair sex, who are no longer afraid
of being laughed at, but rather dare to do whatever man essays,
and we are to-day assembled as members of one of the most
flourishing of these exhibitions, at the close of a bountiful har-
vest, to bring together our best if not first fruits, to exhibit
our best animals, our wives, our children and our noble selves,
and to listen to the lesson of the day, and wind up our festivities
by relieving our treasurer of his load of silver. Now, if we had
time, the true way of arriving at the best results from our gather-

OPPORTUNITIES OF THE PARMER. • 65

ing together, would be to resolve ourselves into a model town-
meeting, with a president and presidentress, and give the sub-
stance of our doings during the year, and then compare notes
and strike the balance in favor of those who have served the
Lord as faithfully when planting, manuring and hoeing, as when
singing hallelujahs, and whose handiwork bespeaks His and their
praise. But for the same reason that the ancient Wittenage-
motes or assemblies of the whole people have to give way to the
modern contrivances of Parliaments and Legislatures, in which
the few represent the many, on this occasion we are forced to put
up with a substitute, or representative, whose endeavor will be
to hold up your hands in the good work, and set before you some
of the privileges and responsibilities, as well as opportunities of
farming in New England.

" What a poor cuss the man must be who owns this farm,"
said a traveller, as he rode past an immensely neglected one.
" Not so poor as you think," exclaimed a voice from a head
which peeped out over the wall, " I only own one-half of it !"
This anecdote might have been plastered on to a good many
farms, even in Berkshire County, in Watson's time, but since then
wherever it has paid to farm well, cultivation has advanced, and
a man is not ashamed to own a whole farm in any settled part
of New England, and the brains must be wanting where some
use cannot be made of all the arable and woodland, and a profit
realized in the multiplication of animals, the sale of butter,
cheese or milk, the distribution of vegetables and small fruits in
our manufacturing towns, the supplying of beef and lambs to
the butchers, hay and grain to the villages, cream to the hotels*
and in other ways converting not only potatoes, but all the prod-
uce of the soil into human nature, for a consideration. We
have ceased to have a bee for the purpose of removing into the
neighboring stream the manure incumbering our farm-yards,
and our system of enriching the land is no longer comparable to
the farmer's cider which was so weak that the drinker asked him
how many barrels he made last year, and on being told fifteen,
replied : " If you had had another apple you could have made
another barrel !"

The old prejudices and superstitions — which, like rats in a trap,
get into men's minds easily, but find a great difficulty in getting
out — against " high farming," including in that phrase the best

66 • MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

modes of culture, draining, use of most improved implements,
blooded and high grade stock, and getting information from the
experience of others as related in agricultural papers and books,
have been eradicated, and we are now prepared to go on develop-
ing ourselves and our farms as rapidly as possible, and we are
not prepared to say that we can discern the beginning of the end
when improvements in agricultural processes or results will
cease.

Having arrived at this point in our progress, it is time for us
to consider what we have to accomplish, not merely as farmers,
but as men and philanthropists. Every man's pursuit is ennobled,
not only by the character of the work he is engaged in, but by
the object for which he works, and the one pursuit is as respec-
table as another, provided it is directed towards noble ends.
The man who lives but to continue without any definite object in
existence might as well be in one business as another ; he enno-
bles none and none shed lustre on him, because his purpose is
not defined. We have a mission, and it is of the highest im-
portance that we discern what it is, and in what manner we can
best promote its interests.

As a nation we are an agricultural people, more so than any
other people in the world, and we are destined, not only to feed
untold multitudes on our own hemisphere, but to export food to
the wanting myriads across the oceans, who even now depend
upon our bread stuffs to eke out the measure which falls to them
from the large producing, but continually narrowed fields of the
old world. With a population now of forty millions, that will
probably be expanded to a round hundred millions before the
year 1900, with possessions enlarged from the original narrow
strip along the Atlantic coast, into a mighty empire, stretching
three thousand miles across the continent to the Pacific Ocean,
and upward from the Mexican gulf to the northern lakes and
the Arctic regions of Alaska, with nearly fifty thousand miles of
railroad that bring all sections of the Union into quicker com-
munion than existed between Boston and Washington when the
first agricultural society in Berkshire was established, with one
hundred and fifty thousand miles of telegraph enabling widely
separated States and people to interchange intelligence more
rapidly than could have been done thirty years ago between the
towns of a single county, what vistas of national greatness burst

OPPORTUNITIES OP THE FARMER. 6T

upon the mind when contemplating the future, and how immense
the responsibility resting upon us, to shape that future aright.
And step by step, with the expansion of territory and the in-
crease of population, is the diffusion of all knowledges. Sciences
are within the reach of the school-boy, no longer locked up in
libraries, but disseminated through schools, colleges, periodicals
and papers ; literature is peddled as industriously, from house to
house, as tin-ware. Art has its multiplication table, in photo-
graphs and chromos ; the ballot-box turns every man into a gov-
ernor, and even fools rush in and appear to do very well where
formerly angels feared to tread.

It is only ignorance of the true principles of agricultural sci-
ence, and the best modes of agricultural practice, that leads
men to the adoption of a wandering manner of life, and a scar-
ifying of the soil instead of thorough cultivation. The two
systems of farming — high and low, or thorough and superficial
— are like the two systems of civilization — the Asiatic and the
Egyptian — which preceded the Hebrew culture. The former
induced a wandering, migratory sort of life ; the latter was di-
rected to things of practical utility. The study of the seasons,
the labors demanded by the cultivation of the earth, the neces-
sity of providing against the overflowings of the Nile, the fore-
thought and contrivance thus imposed upon men, and the early
discovered convenience of an interchange of superfluous com-
modities, opened a career to industry, commerce and the arts,
which essentially modified the Egyptian civilization, and through
that surrounding nations, and eventually, through the Hebrews
and the code of Moses, future ages and its influence, through
our pilgrim fathers, extended to this continent.

Agriculture, the industries and commerce are the tripod on
which stands the great nation overruling this western world ;
and if one leg of the tripod is weakened, the whole fabric is
shaken and may totter to the fall. Our concern is with agricul-
ture directly ; and the mission of New England farmers is like
that of the ancient priestess, to keep the sacred flames always
burning before the altar, that the torches elsewhere which
go out may be rekindled, and to send forth a refined and im-
proved civilization and culture which shall restore the waste
places, and not only prevent barbarism from obtaining the
ascendancy, but, by scientific cultivation, cause the earth to

68 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

yield tenfold beyond her pristine efforts ; and as the marts of
industry narrow the quantity of land, the quality shall so in-
crease as to more than compensate for such withdrawal. New
England churches, ministers, schools, teachers, doctors and law-
yers have exerted their due influence over the whole continent ;
and it is so far from being exhausted that the cry is still for
more ; and our pulpits, professional and scientific chairs are be-
ing continually emptied at the cry of give, give, send, send, from
the exhaustless maw of the West. The next cry will be for sci-
entific agriculturists who shall repair the broken ways of the
hasty forerunners, and enable the populations who have stripped
the surface of its richness, as their ancestors the rings from the
ears and noses of the aborigines, to restore the land by the im-
provements in agricultural practice, which alone can enable them
to compete with foreign prices, or even produce enough for the
adequate support of the millions so soon to dot the whole regions
on which now range the Indian, the bison, and the caravan of
the emigrant.

But whilst we are ready to admit that agriculture is a funda-
mental source of our national prosperity ; that the wearing out
of land in the older and Western States is a matter of serious
concern ; that a remedy is needed ; many are disposed to ques-
tion the propriety of considering agriculture as a science that
can act with precision and be moulded into shape, form and con-
tinued progress, but rather like a pile of bricks of different sorts
and sizes, from which all can take and shape such fabric as each
individual mind conceives, and then instead of one uniform struc-
ture we have thousands of incomplete, incongruous ones. But
look further and see some master builder whose sagacity and
skill are equal to the task of selection, and constructing a sym-
metrical edifice, and you will realize that the fault is our own,
not that of the material, if the structure is not as it should be.

But you say, agriculture is uncertain in its results, dependhig
upon the nature of the soil, the character of the climate, the at-
mosphere, and seasons, as well as instruments of culture, to pro-
duce its best effects, or any improved effect at all. How can it
be a science adapted to man's capabilities, and upon which he
can rely to restore the neglected soils and make the barren de-
sert blossom like the rose ? Agricultural science is empirical,
experimental, and so are the acknowledged sciences of medicine,

OPPORTUNITIES OP THE PARMER. 69

law and divinity — all tentative, and therefore progressive and
adapting themselves to the needs of every climate, soil and dis-
position.

Agriculture is no less a science because the means used are
not always adapted to the end in view. The only wonder is that
with the little knowledge we have of the mysteries of the soil
and its creative agencies, we arrive at so certain results as we do,
and our great aim and endeavor should be to understand more
thoroughly the constituents of the land we cultivate, the means
of developing its greatest capabilities for production, the true
method of maintaining and restoring our lands to fertility, at
the least possible expense in labor and money, the multiplication
of domestic animals, (which George Washington used to say was
one of the greatest blessings to be bestowed on mankind,) the
improvement of our vegetable productions, as well as our breeds
of animals, and the art of adapting our skill to special crops or
animals most suitable and profitable for the particular locality
in which we are situated.

Oh ! but say some, we don't want to go West and redeem the
faults of those, who, in their hasty progress have done so little
for the true interests of agriculture. That's just the point, my
friend ; it is needless for you, or me, or any of the well settled
farmers of New England to leave their homes. Enough will
want to go from our own households]^to make it necessary rather
to restrain the inclination than foster it, and our duty is to see
that these that set out, have their lamps burning, their armor
well on, their weapons properly adjusted that they may officer
the armies of the uncultivated and do credit to our training and
adaptation of their skill to their special calling. The famous
seventh regiment of New York City, as a body, did nothing more
illustrious in the late war, than go to Washington and Baltimore,
and by garrisoning these points when danger threatened, allow
other regiments to go to the field, and defeat the enemy. But
over six hundred of the privates of that well organized body,
took rank as officers of other newly summoned regiments, and
by their skill did more good in drilling and bringing into prepa-
ration for active work these new levies, than if they had remained
in the old seventh, and in that shape near the enemy. We had
men enough for soldiers. What we wanted were skilful officers,
and our West Points and military schools and military organiza-

70 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

tions supplied them. Now we propose by an early education in
common schools, and behind the plough, continued when possi-
ble in academies and agricultural colleges, to educate, at least,
leaders enough to make the advance of agriculture a certain
thing, and fill \jp all the gaps which may be occasioned by heed-
lessness or disaster.

But, say some others, we know all that can be learned of the
processes of agriculture already. We can raise good stock, cut
and store our hay and grain successfully, manure and hoe our
crops, and generally maintain our farms and ourselves profitably
and comfortably. Of course, those that know everything are
incapable of learning anything more. They remind me of an
incident on a recent trip of one of the Illinois river packets — a
light draught one, as there were only two feet of water in the
channel. The passengers were suddenly startled by the cry of
" man overboard." The steamer was stopped, and preparations
were made to save him, when he was heard exclaiming : " Go
ahead with your darned old steamboat, I'll walk behind you."
Now, if there are any here so smart that our steamboat is too
slow for them, we would respectfully recommend them to go
ahead and let us follow more slowly, and as Pat said of the har-
row, after the teeth fell out, we shall '■'•go a bit smoother with-
out them."

There is another class of objectors who are continually ex-
claiming that farming don't pay ; that other kinds of work are
more agreeable ; and point to the wealthy merchant, the mil-
lionaire, banker and the railroad Croesus, as more worthy of
imitation. It would be a sufficient answer to these croakers to
say, that the necessity for farmers exists, and will always exist,
and that the work must be done by somebody, and must be
made to pay — must become agreeable by habit. I don't suppose
it is agreeable to the blacksmith, the machinist, the factory
operative, the effeminate clerk, the toilers in cities, on the vasty
deep, in mines, the myriads of workers above and below ground,
who follow their trades from dawn to twilight, to pursue their
various occupations so continuously, and get but the pittance of
their day's wages, and have in too many cases no house nor per-
manent home, and when they die leave their families to the
cold charities of the world. It certainly can't be agreeable to
the hard-working ministers all over the country " to be, to do

OPPORTUNITIES OF THE FARMER. 71

and to suffer " for the small salaries they receive ; and, in com-
parison with the numbers engaged, there are as many lawyers,
doctors, and a great many more merchants and petty tradesmen,
who receive less in the way of comfortable living, and a cer-
tainty for the future, than farmers. All these hard-working
orders occasionally look up to the few comets who rush madly
across our spheres with their golden tails, and wish vainly that
they, too, had the talent of turning everything into precious
metals; but the wish is just as preposterous and futile as the wish
of every soldier in the ranks to be an officer ; of every child to
be at once a grown man or woman ; of every operative to be
the wealthy manufacturer ; of every boy to be a Grant, a Lin-
coln or a Washington. Leaving out the lucky few, let us look
around among the great multitudes and see if we can better
our condition by exchanging places with them. In the city of
New York, with a population of over a million, scarce twenty
thousand live in houses by themselves. At least one half of the
whole population live in tenement-houses and cellars. There
were, at the last census, sixteen thousand tenant houses, con-
taining each an average of over seven families, in many cases
an entire family occupying but a single room ; and there is a
story of an inspector who found four living in one room, chalk
lines being drawn across in such a manner as to mark out a
quarter of the floor for each family. " How do you get along
here ? " inquired the inspector. " Very well, sir," was the
reply, " only the man in the farther corner keeps boarders ! "
And I regret to say that I have found many of the occupants of
single rooms in tenement-houses in that city, farmers by profes-
sion, who, in the hope of making money faster, have sold their
farms, deprived themselves and family of a home for their old
age, and so far from bettering their condition, have dropped
from bad to worse, until death has released them, and relatives
or the public have removed their families back to the country
or to the poor-house. Do you find the condition of the laboring
classes in the smaller cities and towns advanced in comfort be-
yond yours ? Do they work any less ? Do they have any bet-
ter houses — or any at all ? Do they have more or better to eat
or drink ? As much leisure to ride about, for social converse,
for self-improvement, for education of children ? And have
they the same certainty that farmers have of a final provision

72 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

for them left behind, when the portals of the grave open to re-
ceive the head of the household ? As, according to the ancient
philosopher, no man can be justly called happy whilst living, so
no man's happiness can be measured by temporary wealth. Ex-
perience shows that those who have a regular business and mod-
erate competency are the most fortunate ; and if, in addition,
they enjoy the full use of their limbs, are free from disease and
misfortune, are blessed with wife and children, and shall end
their life well, they may be pronounced happy.

This, then, is our position to-day. We are as comfortably
situated as the more favored of the majority of mankind. We
have an occupation rendered less toilsome every year by the in-
troduction of machine in lieu of human labor ; more profitable
by the constantly increasing avenues of consumption ; healthful
from its very nature ; keeping us amid heaven's breezes and
pure air, instead of confining us in the foetid atmosphere of
towns or cities ; an occupation so scientific that its capabilities
are boundless, and only need the attention and intelligent con-
ductors to extend its benefits far beyond its present limits, and
not only conduce to our own personal welfare, but promote that
of myriads present and to come. Now let us realize that the
opportunity of the New England farmer has arrived. The
whole world is clamorous for scientific labor. We are living,
and shall continue to live, closer lives. Competition is to be
sharper in all departments of industry ; the lessons of the past
are more searching and more exact. The line of demarkation
between the cultivated and the uncultivated farmer will become
broader ; and as men get rich by the skilful direction of the
labor of others rather than by that of their own hands, the un-
educated farmers will have to do the drudgery, the poor-pay
work, and be employed by those who have learned to think, and
can make their head-work direct the hand-work of the less
favored. If, as I firmly believe, it is to be the mission of the New
England farmers to go forth as scientific teachers, and restore
not only the once fertile lands of the West, but rejuvenate the
soils of the East, it is time to unfold our arms and prepare for
the responsibilities thrust upon us.

The whole country, and our State especially, is aroused to the
necessity of having institutions especially adapted to the higher
branches of instruction for farmers' sons ; and we must not

OPPORTUNITIES OF THE PARMER. 73

only avail ourselves of these advantages, but be clamorous for
more. There is no reason why in our common schools sciences
which are the foundation of agricultural knowledge and prac-
tice should not be taught ; why our girls, as well as our boys,
should not learn the elements of a science by which, perhaps,
they may yet rise to fame and fortune. Some one has said that
God never made a man who was safe to be trusted out of sight of
a woman, and certainly we are all the happier for keeping them
in view and there is no reason why the coming woman, who is
described as a bright-eyed, full-chested, broad-shouldered, large
souled, intellectual being, able to walk, able to eat, and of course
able to talk, will not assist in the management of the farms, and
eventually usurp the business of raising small fruits for market,
also vegetables, and flowers, and occasionally give such attention
to raising stock as is not deemed unseemly by ladies of the best
breeding abroad. And if these high considerations that I have
set before you do not win your sympathies, let me assure you
that education in your calling is the true road to riches. It is
only by the ignorant that active capital acquired by thei^indus-
try is unemployed in their business, and among the great advan-
tages of scientific agriculture will be that of investing in it the
moneyed capital which will be as productive as in other pursuits,
and much more safely employed than if embarked in hazardous
enterprises or doubtful investments. What Mr. Motley says of
the Dutch Republic in its palmiest days is applicable to ours : —

" In proportion to their numbers they were more productive
of wealth than any other nation then existing. An excellent
reason why the people were so well governed, so productive,
and so enterprising, was the simple fact that they were an edu-
cated people."

Now we claim to be an educated nation, but we cannot really
become so until all professions and trades, not merely one or two
or three, are represented by youth educated in all the special
learning applicable thereunto, and each have a share and share
alike in the sciences which underlie all business and callings.

The view that I present of the opportunity of the New Eng-
land farmer is no wise chimerical. Scientific agriculture is
hardly of half a century's growth, and in that time it has reno-
vated nearly the whole of Europe. Agricultural schools have
existed in the Old Country more than fifty years, and under the
10*

74 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

new systems of husbandry propagated by their influences, profits
have increased from 500 to 1,000 per cent. Great enterprises
like the cultivation of beets for sugar in France, and its exten-
sion to Russia, through the means of educated agriculturists,
imported for that purpose from the former country, have been
fostered by the appropriate scientific knowledge, and the value of
arable lands has increased two and three fold. In the little
kingdom of Hesse, which, during our revolution, was so poor
that its mercenary ruler sold his subjects to England as instru-
ments of our attempted subjugation, land under the treatment
of improved husbandry has risen in value three hundred per
cent. But we need only to look around among ourselves to see
what education in farming has done and is doing. We have
been educated by these agricultural societies, by the farmers'
clubs, by the newspapers, and every one of you who is taking up
a specialty, such as breeding stock, raising fruit, or sending
milk to the cities, is in a process of education, because it rouses
you to study all the departments connected with your labors,
and to apply all your energies to make the resources of your
farm meet the demands for the article you raise or sell. But we
all regret that in our youth, when we were pursuing our avoca-
tions on the farm, we had not the opportunity of studying the
sciences so intimately connected with our pursuits, that we
might now have the knowledge through whose application we
could make our farms produce twofold more than they do, the
pleasure which the prosecution of any undertaking whose ra-
tionale we understand always bestows, and the perseverance and
method which are only given by precepts and principles grounded
on demonstration. This is what our children want — not mere
theoretical study, not a college education in the old sense, but an
acquaintance with the physical sciences carried along pari passu
with their work on the farms, thus combining the knowledge of
principles with their constant application. In addition they
want more from us than mere bed and board and a chance to
work hard. They need our sympathetic encouragement, our in-
stilment of the belief that agriculture can be the noblest em-
ployment of mankind, an application of all the knowledge we
possess or can acquire, and at the proper season an appreciation
of their efforts by a partnership or interest in the profits of the
farm. By this course we shall be co-workers in raising up a

OPPORTUNITIES OF THE FARMER. 75

class of scientific practical agriculturists,, who will be prepared
first to be successful in a moderately bad climate and a compar-
atively sterile soil like that of New England, and eventually to
stem back the tide of slovenly cultivation threatening to over-
whelm us in the West, and raise our country to its normal posi-
tion of the leading agricultural country in the world.

The mottoes of our country are emphatically, Peace and La-
bor. We desire to be at peace with all, and to provide the means
of support by honest labor to all. We claim that labor, whether
of the head or hands is alike honorable, and that more true glory
is won by increasing the fertility of the earth, by the invention
of implements which lessen the toil of the hand workers, than
by creating new engines of war, or even using them successfully
against our fellow-men. Sir William Jones in an eloquent pan-
egyric, nearly a century ago, said, " He who makes two spears of
grass grow where but one grew before, is a public benefactor far
in advance of the noblest chieftains, who aided by armies and
the enginery of war, sack cities, carry conquest onward only to
conquer, subjugate and desolate kingdoms." If that sentiment
was true of the art of agriculture in its infancy, how much
greater will be the glory of those, who, aided by the experience
of the past, educated by the schools of the present and future,
shall not only make two, but dozens of spears of grass grow where
but one grew before, shall restore by scientific effort the fertility of
the ravished soil of the virgin West, and double and treble the
products of the exhaustless farms of the older sections of the
country. Of these efforts it may well be said : —

" The plough aucl the sickle shall shiue bright in glory,
When the sword and the sceptre shall crumble to rust,

And the farmer shall live both in song and in story,
When warriors and kings are forgotten in dust."

76 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

THE FARMER'S CONFLICT.

From an Address before the Norfolk Agricultural Society.

BY GEORGE B. LORING.

The day of instinctive, traditional agriculture and spontaneous
crops has gone by, with us at least. We look back with aston-
ishment upon the time, when, unaided by science, the practical
mind of man seized hold of the most successful methods and
accomplished the highest results. What do we not owe to the
past generations of the working farmers ? It is they who have
discovered that remarkable system of drainage by which the
hard and unyielding bed of clay becomes, through the agency
of a simple circulatory tube, as obedient to the hand of tlie cul-
tivator as the warmest and most fertile loams. They have
brought out of wild and useless classes of plants the nutritious
grains and luxuriant fruits which nourish and delight. They
have seized and tamed the species of animals adapted to their
wants, and have produced every variety of breed which diversity
of soil and climate and market may require. The heavy Short-
horn makes haste to repay them for his food by a rapid produc-
tion of beef. The hardy and patient Ayrshire devotes all her
faculties to an abundant supply for your dairy. The clumsy
draught horse learns readily the duty which has been imposed
upon his phlegmatic family. The racer and the roadster are
ever alert in the service to which you have specially assigned
them. You have learned the capacity of your lands, and un-
derstand what fertilizers they require, as well as you know the
food which will best nourish your domestic animals. You have
discovered how to subdue nature, and go forth to the first step
of the process with axe upon your shoulder, as confident of the
result of the contest as if the blooming fields were already
before you.

THE FARMER'S CONFLICT. 7T

Out of this number of practical men .came Cavour, who, in
the intervals of his public life, was the most successful farmer
of modern Italy ; and Mechi, whose practical operations, as re-
corded, have become one of the text-books of farming ; and
Marshall, who learned to manage his own lands, and who de-
clared that " attendance and attention will make any man a
farmer;" and John Johnston, who has taught us all how to
raise wheat on drained lands ; and Farmentier, who was obliged
to turn farmer before he could overcome popular prejudice and
introduce the potato into France. From among their numbers
have come the clear-sighted, quick-witted workers, who have
made immediate application of every good suggestion, and have
brought agriculture to a high standard. To them belongs espe-
cially that class, who, having acquired their knowledge, repro-
duce it in some useful form for the practical benefit of mankind ;
that class whose minds are not so burdened with theories, that
when the moment for action comes, they lose sight of the very
object for which their theories were constructed.

It is to such as these that we owe the early construction of
our social and civil fabric, and the existence and early prosperity
of our country. They were thriving farmers, and with the ex-
ception of a limited commerce, they held in their hands all the
resources of our country. They carried our country through
the Revolutionary war — " the embattled farmers," as the poet
calls them. Year after year they toiled on, clad in their house-
hold manufactures, laboring on the soil with their own hands,
by prudence and economy constantly increasing their own
wealth and developing the wealth of the republic which they
had founded. They led lives of usefulness, and left behind
them, on every hillside and in every valley in our State, the
broad and thrifty farms which even now bear witness to their
sagacity in selecting land and their skill in cultivating it. They
had neither agricultural school nor society nor newspaper to
guide them ; and were they alive to-day, they might well inquire
why all this intellectual effort is put forth to accomplish what
they accomplished simply by obedience to the natural laws of
earth and sky.

Now, if we have what they had not, they had what we have not.
Their soil was as fresh and fertile as the vegetable and mineral
accumulations of centuries could make it. They required but

78 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

little manure. Their staple crops of corn, potatoes, grass and
small grain were abundant, in favorable seasons. A record care-
fully kept in Essex County shows that in the early part of this
century, there were raised to the acre, 28 bushels of wheat, 117
bushels of corn, 52 bushels of barley, 518 bushels of common
potatoes, 900 bushels of carrots, 1,034 bushels of mangel-wurzel,
688 bushels of swedes, 783 bushels of beets, 654 bushels of onions ;
thirty tons of hay grew on six acres, and the yearly average of
forty acres was, for many years, more than 120 tons. Their
pastures were luxuriant ; and the abundance of sweet grass en-
abled them to feed with considerable profit, animals whose ex-
cessive carcasses rendered a liberal supply of food imperatively
necessary. Their wants were few and simple, their labor was
cheap, their markets were seldom overstocked ; and they fol-
lowed the advice of Dr. Putnam in our day, and resolved " to
stay at home," because they had no convenient and rapid means
of getting away. They had but little book-farming, and that
little was 'of such a description that it secured their contempt
rather than their respect or admiration. Their conflict was com-
paratively light, and their victory comparatively easy.

Now, however, new difficulties beset our path — difficulties
which must be met by systematic and methodized farming in
order that they may be overcome. The soil of the older States,
and already too much of the soil of the newer ones, has become
exhausted by constant cropping. The natural productions of
the earth are diminished ; and crops which grew luxuriantly
with easy cultivation a century ago, now require the most care-
ful hvisbandry and a judicious application of manures. An acre
of land in Massachusetts to-day, will probably absorb in cultiva- .
tion for most crops, five times as much money, in labor, cost of
manure, cost of seed and interest on capital, as it would fifty
years ago. The busin'ess of fertilizing has become a most im-
portant one. The difficulty experienced in obtaining barnyard
manure, the cost of transporting so bulky a material, and the
labor required in handling it, are now serious obstacles in the
way of using this manure at all — obstacles which our ancestors
hardly considered. And all the chemical ingenuity of man is
employed in finding a substitute.

The cost of food for cattle, and the deterioration of our pas-
tures, combine to render the business of cattle-feeding one in

THE FARMER'S CONFLICT. 79

which the wisest calculations must be made, and the most skil-
ful selection of animals, if we hope for any reward. It would
be impossible to reap any profit from the misshapen animals of
the last century, fed in barns when hay and grain command the
present market value, or on pastures whose herbage has been re-
duced in quantity and perhaps in quality by long feeding. It
has been found necessary, therefore, to create animals adapted
to the rapid production of beef in order that a pound of meat
might be obtained with the lowest possible consumption of food.
Modern skill has accomplished this, and it has also provided us
with an animal for our dairies, capable of furnishing large re-
turns in milk for the amount of food consumed, and capable
also of providing for herself easily and rapidly on a short pas-
ture.

The demands of the markets have materially changed within
the lifetime of many now before me. Within a few miles of
our cities and large towns, the market-garden is the chief source
of profit to the farmer, and in supplying this he is obhged to
adopt a system of rapid husbandry unknown in this State not
many years ago. Early potato crops, vegetables grown under
glass, and the early products of the garden, forced into almost
premature existence, now take the place once occupied by corn,
and grain, and hay, in the list of what the farmer sells. In or-
der to meet this requirement of the market he must exercise a
kind of skill wholly unnecessary in the production of the staples
of trade.

The raising of fruit, too, was once as simple as the planting of
a forest-tree. In order to obtain an abundant supply it was only
necessary to plant trees — and wait with patience a few years.
The apple was at times a drug in the market ; peaches were al-
lowed to decay on the ground where they fell from the overladen
trees ; plums were easily raised in abundance ; all with but lit-
tle care and at little cost. But now the earth is encumbered with
" barren trees, decayed and dead ; " the curculio destroys the
plum ; the yellows extirpate the peach ; the caterpillar, and
canker-worm, and burrowing maggot, and cere-worm blight the
apple in every stage of its growth, and ingenuity and science
are exhausting themselves in endeavoring to ascertain the surest
and most economical way of destroying the pests.

It is the careful and economical application of fertilizers and

80 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

labor to the soil for special crops, provided for a local market,
the selection of animals adapted to the land on which they are
to be fed, and an effectual and inexpensive war upon the destroy-
ing insect tribes, that occupy the attention of the successful
farmer of our day. Add to these the cost of labor and the
expenses of subsistence, and you can easily understand that
his work is by no means easy.

To enable the farmer to meet and overcome these obstacles,
we appeal now to science and invention. Agricultural educa-
tion has become one of the most important questions of our day
— how it shall be conducted, and in what it shall consist. An
accurate knowledge of the best systems of husbandry, an under-
standing of the structure, habits, health and diseases of animals,
a capacity to analyze and apply manures, skill in the manipula-
tion of soils, an intelligent comprehension of what lands to drain,
and what to avoid, are deemed now to be the object of an agri-
cultural education, and indispensable to successful agriculture.
The plastic, receptive, and inquiring mind also, which is created,
or should be, by careful mental culture, the mind ready to give
and receive, quick to forget all prejudices, and throw over all
unfounded notions, has a great work to perform in elevating ag-
riculture to its proper standard, as a useful and profitable em-
ployment. Industrious, ingenious and open-minded farmers are
what the times demand, and what societies and clubs and col-
leges create.

To enlighten the agricultural mind, therefore, and strengthen
the agricultural hand, we appeal to our educators and inventors
— and we do not appeal in vain. The zeal with which agricul-
tural investigation is pursued, and the increasing desire for
knowledge manifested everywhere, indicate not only a thorough
understanding of the magnitude of the conflict, but a determi-
nation also to be victorious in the strife. And this incessant
and untiring invention of machinery — what does it all mean,
but that the old weapons are unfit for the toil, and have become
powerless amidst the difficulties and trials of the present age.
As it is, the ingenuity of man exhausts itself for us. The wheel,
the pully, the lever, centrifugal and centripetal forces, every
corner and angle are brought into the construction of machin-
ery to aid us in subduing a hard and obdurate soil, and in gath-
ering in our crops. In nothing is the profound interest of man

THE FARMER'S CONFLICT. 81

in the great art which feeds and clothes him made more mani-
fest, than in his constant endeavors to strengthen the hands of
those engaged in it. If you would estimate the true value of
all this effort, strike down for a season your societies and clubs,
close the doors of your schools and colleges, lay aside the inven-
tions of labor-saving machinery, and returning to the scythe,
the hand-rake, the flail, and the wooden plough, call upon the
East to gather its crops, and upon the West to send its seas of
grain to market, and see what answer you would get to the call.
So earnest do I consider the demand for agricultural education
in the popular mind, that I have no fear for the success of all
institutions devoted to this purpose. And I cannot doubt that
the application of machinery to the cultivation of the soil, will
one day become as accurate and effective as it now is to manu-
factures and the mechanic arts. I would have agriculture a
triumph of skill. Man cannot control the elements, I know ;
the drought will wither his tender plant, the floods will drown
it, the frosts will nip it. But relying on the great promise that
seed-time and harvest shall not fail, he can exert all his powers
to success in that conflict to which he was doomed, when the
decree went forth that in the sweat of his face should he eat
bread.

In presenting this view of the agricultural effort of the pres-
ent as compared with the past, I find myself suddenly arrested
and called back to the tastes and traditions of the long line of
hardy, industrious and prosperous farmers from whom we
sprang. We must enter anew upon our new career, but we
may not forget the laws by which they subdued the earth, and
which have gone into our text-books of farming. We should
not forget their modes of cultivation, by wliich they raised ex-
traordinary crops, nor their attempts to improve the animals
upon their farms. And we should remember that it was they
whose strength civilized these hills, in whose hands the material
prosperity of our State rested half a century ago, whose ample
abodes still remain in our villages and along our roadsides,
whose social position was won by solid merit, who constituted
that intelligent rural population from whom the merchants, and
lawyers, and divines, and statesmen of our day have sprung,
and whose homes are still waiting a return of that wealth and
intelligence which long ago deserted them. In our busy and
11*

82 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

restless and ambitious life we have poured our best powers of
mind and body into our cities and towns, and exhausted them
in the forum, or in the hard toil of the inventive arts. We
have forgotten too much the old rural homes — those broad
fields, those overshadowing trees, that substantial New England
dwelling, whose very presence even now tells of the staunch
and reliable virtues of those who have long since gone to their
rest. We should know that the charm of life is not in our
cities and large towns. Neither our moral nor our religious
nor our physical natures can be developed with that beauty of
proportion of which man is capable, so long as we prefer the
feverish excitement of the busy concourse of men to the healthy
and refining influences of a cultivated rural life.

There are charms in the increasing current of life which flows
through the farm and the market-place. There is a fascination,
as Mr. Choate once said to me, " in the newspaper and the post-
office," above the quiet of a country life. But when we remem-
ber the annoyances which meet us at every corner, the petty
strifes of men, the struggles and distresses, the efibrts and dis-
appointments, shall we not sigh for the rural respectability of
our ancestors, and exclaim with Cicero, " Tiiere at my Lauren-
tium, I hear nothing that I repent to have heard, say nothing
that I repent to have said ; no hopes delude, and no fears
molest me. Welcome, then, life of integrity and virtue." We
must learn to love the land, to love it as our fathers loved it, to
love it as the people of old loved it, whose great men enjoyed
their favorite retreats, and listened many a returning spring to
the nightingales that tenanted the dark ivy, and greeted the
narcissus, ancient coronal of mighty goddesses, as it burst in
beauty under the dews of heaven. When from our New Eng-
land cities, which have received their life-blood from the coun-
try, there flows back a current of wealth and intelligence to
beautify our towns and cultivate our fields, we shall make our
land still more the fit abode of a free and intelligent people.

FARMING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 83

AGRICULTURE IN MASSACHUSETTS.

ESSEX.
Essay by Warren A. Durant, of Lawrence.

When we consider the number of societies that have been
formed in this Commonwealth by the tillers of the soil for mu-
tual encouragement and improvement, the variety and large cir-
culation of periodicals devoted to their interests, the machines
and implements which the inventive genius of the day is pro-
ducing to lighten their labors, the superiority of modern farm
buildings, the new fruits and vegetables which are yearly offered
to the public, and improvement in all kinds of stock, it is nat-
ural to infer that our agriculture is progressing rapidly, for are
not all these things sure indications of a deeper interest, more
careful study, and a higher success ?

It is true there has been a great advance in the ways and
means in farm management, that never before did farmers mani-
fest so strong a desire for thorough, accurate knowledge, and
and never were so many educated men devoting their time and
talents to its elevation ; but amid these cheering signs of prog-
ress are others of a different character, which give another
view to the subject. Ride about any county, traverse the length
and breadth of the State, and the traveller may go a long dis-
tance without seeing a single work of permanent improvement
in progress. Occasionally he will find a man subduing meadow
land, or breaking up a rough pasture, but not in a strong-handed,
energetic way, as if he were positive of the utility* and profita-
bleness of his labor. Here and there he will see new buildings.
The fact that the old ones are tumbling down is as often the
cause of their erection as the pressing necessity of enlarged ac-
commodations. If he examines every farm carefully, he will
be surprised at the number where the pastures are growing up
to bushes, briers and brambles, where mowing fields need to be

84 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

renovated, wliere the crops suffer for want of thorough under-
drahiing, where a majority of the fruit-trees are upon the de-
cline from old age or neglect, where walls and fences require re-
building, and the buildings are behind the times and rapidly go-
ing to decay from lack of timely repairs. A large portion of
the farms are owned by people who have passed the meridian of
life ; their children are grown up and gone ; under increasing
years and increasing infirmities, what was once to them a pleas-
ure has become a burden. Short of reliable and efficient help,
they adopt that course of management which involves the least
care and labor. These men can tell you of the larger crops this
farm has produced, or the greater number of stock which that one
kept, and freely admit the backward tendency of their own home-
steads. The simple fact that none of the children can be induced
to assist in carrying on the farm, causes scores in every county to
be thrown upon the market for sale. Everywhere can be seen
field after field that does not pay interest, taxes, and cost of main-
taining fences. Scarcely a beginning has been made in thorough
drainage, and yet the wet lands, which constitute no small por-
tion of the area of the State, can be rendered the most profitable
of any in proportion to labor. Thousands of acres of hillside,
and rough, rocky lands, which have been stripped of their nat-
ural product, the trees, and are now kept for a sort of pasturage,
would return a higher percentage if they were at once convert-
ed into vigorous young forests. It will be seen, taking the State
as a whole, that the number of farms which show a steady in-
crease in productions is not large, and all that can strictly be
called progressive in her agriculture lies in improvement in
quality ; that, notwithstanding the numerous appliances for
saving labor, the quantity of products has not been increased
during the last twenty-five years.

If any one wishes further evidence on this conclusion, he can
turn to the statistical record, and there he will find that the
State had in '1845, 52,541 more cattle than the returns show for
1865 ; there were 185,509 more of sheep — the falling off being
principally in the Merino blood ; there has been a decrease of
41,519 in swine. The horses, however, are more numerous,
there being a gain of 25,101. This gain may be attributed to
farmers substituting horses for oxen, and to the larger numbers
required in cities. The corn crop in 1845 was nearly as large

FARMING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 85

as that of 1865, the difference being only 1,470 bushels ; the in-
crease in barley is 16,664. The hay crop shows an increase of
19,189 tons, while, during the same period, wheat fell off 7,206 ;
in rye, the decrease is 176,512 bushels ; in oats, 572,162 ; in
potatoes, 940,575 bushels. In 1845 there was made 3,410,045
pounds of cheese more than in 1865. The butter sold from our
farms at the latter date was 3,892,766 pounds, which is nearly
four million pounds less than the product in 1845. Some de-
crease might be expected in the dairy, since selling milk is tak-
ing precedence of butter and cheese-making, but neither the
increasing demand for milk, nor the high price of butter and
cheese have prevented the number of cows from diminishing,
for the returns at the last decade show a loss for the State of
9,624, and of this the share of the leading dairy county, Wor-
cester, was 3,890.

It may be suggested that this diminution in stock and staple
products may partly be accounted for by the increasing attention
given to horticulture, the raising of raw material for our manu-
factures, and by the absorption of some of our best land into
house-lots and suburban residences. In answer to this, it may
be stated that the market gardens are mostly confined to the
three counties encircling Boston, and flax, broom corn and
tobacco are the only articles raised that are not strictly edible,
and that the whole area devoted to these three articles, and also
to market gardens, is only 9,891 acres, which would not account
for the deficiency in the oat crop alone allowing a yield of forty
bushels to the acre.

The question may here well be asked, why, while our com-
merce and manufactures have achieved unparalleled success,
our agriculture has not likewise prospered ? Is it owing to a
lack of enterprise ? The past twenty-five years have in some
respects been trying times to our farmers. It has been a period
of changes, and to keep up with the advance of the day has re-
quired a succession of radical changes — in the kinds of crops —
in modes of cropping and cultivation — in the introduction of
labor-saving implements — in the system of marketing and means
of transportation ; and while striving to keep up with these they
have been contending in sharp competition with the first fruits
of the richer soil of our younger States. Moreover, a spirit of
discontent has prevailed ; said some, the lot of our Pilgrim

86 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Fathers did not fall in a goodly place ; the promised land of the
western world lies beyond in the great valley ; why delve we
here amid these many hills, rocky fields and stertile plains ? let
us go and possess it ! Others said, money can be made easier
and quicker in the factory, the workshop, or counting-room, and
we will go thither ! Our business men have spoken contemptu-
ously of tilling such a soil as this ; Eastern capitalists largely
interested in Western railroads and in the sale of lands, have
urged on emigration from our rural districts ; every man thus
withdrawn from the farm is a material loss to our agriculture.
When the ranks of our farmers have been continually thinned
by the removal of the young and robust, what could our old men
do ? Where was the encouragement for them to remodel their
buildings, buy labor-saving machines, smooth down their rough
fields, underdrain and adopt all the new improvements of the
day ? Where would our manufactures be were it not for the
young men crowding into every department ready and willing
to rise early and bear the heavier burdens, and who have the
courage and spirit to try the new projects ? If under such cir-
cumstances our farms have held their own, they have done well ;
if they show a decrease it is not surprising.

It is well known that the production of food in our State is
not equal to the consumption ; and from the foregoing it will
be seen we are less and less able to meet the demands of the
yearly increasing population. Our markets are so regularly
supplied at all seasons of the year that it is difficult to tell how
much comes from within and how much from without the State.
A simple enumeration of the sum total, either in pounds, bush-
els, acres, or their value in dollars, does not always give a full
idea of the quantity our farmers have to sell, or the real pro-
ductiveness of the soil. A few equalizations and comparisons,
however, may help in attaining an approximate idea. The
wheat crop for 1865 gives but a trifle over one quart to each in-
habitant, and if to the wheat the rye, barley and buckwheat be
added, it would give 11.4 quarts to each person ; still add to
this the whole corn crop, and there would be 1.9 bushels of
grain whereof each inhabitant could make his bread. The po-
tato crop, divided equally, gives three bushels to each ; but of
the whole crop, so small a portion comes to market that our
cities must obtain a part of their supply from other States.

FARMING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 87

There is only one cow to every nine people to supply dairy
products ; the cheese made gives a fraction over three pounds
to each. Boston, with its present population, would find in all
the butter sold from the farm about sixteen pounds to each per-
son. It has been argued by some that fruit culture would be
overdone, and that even now apples do not pay ; yet within the
last few years we have imported largely of all varieties, and if
the amount of what has been brought into the State, both fresh
and preserved, foreign and domestic, could be ascertained, with-
out doubt it would exceed all which has been sold from it even
in our most fruitful years.

An average of the hay crop gives each farm 13.2 tons ; the
oat crop, 14.2 bushels ; corn, 42.3 ; potatoes about 81 bushels ;
the wheat less than one. The English hay, divided among the
horses, cattle and one-fifth of the sheep, is 1.3 tons to each ani-
mal ; add to the English the^meadow, both salt and fresh, and
they would make 1.7 tons. The oats and corn fed to the horses
alone, in daily rations of six quarts, would last one hundred
and fifty-six days. If the horses were divided among the farm-
ers, they would have 1.9 each ; an equal division of the sheep
gives 3.4 ; of swine, 1.3 ; cows and heifers, 3.7 ; of all the cat-
tle, 4.7. Or, to proportion the stock to the population, there
was, in 1865, 5.6 people to each head of cattle ; 7.4 people to
each sheep, and 20 to each swine.

In 1860, the United States had 1.5 people to each sheep; 1.1
to each head of cattle, and less than one to each swine. There
are obvious reasons why Massachusetts does not keep up with
some of the younger States in stock-raising, but is there any
reason why she should fall so far below the average ? Our
State is not so well stocked as many foreign countries, where a
great deal is said about land monopoly, excess of population,
slow progress, &c. In Great Britain there were 3.5 people to each
head of cattle ; France, 2.6 ; Holland, 2.7 ; Sweden, 2 ; Russia,
2.9. France had 1.1 population to each head of sheep ; Prussia,
1 ; Spain, less than a unit. Spain had 3.6 people to each head
of swine ; Great Britain, 7.6 ; France, 7.1 ; Austria, 4.4.

Although the excess of the consumption of food over the pro-
duction is large, no one acquainted with successful farming will
doubt that the present and even a larger population could be
furnished with food from our soil, when its real productiveness

88 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

has not yet been developed. Thousands of acres of our best
land lie waste, or yielding at most a stunted growth of wood or
a little coarse hay and sour grass. Our farmers returned nearly
an acre of unimproved land for every acre of improved. Now
if one-twentieth of the unimproved land were planted in corn,
it would give, at thirty bushels per acre, a gain nearly equal to
the present crop ; if another twentieth were sowed to rye, at
twenty bushels per acre, the crop would be about four times the
present one ; a twentieth in barley, at twenty-five bushels per
acre, would give more than eight times the present crop ; one-
twentieth in wheat, at fifteen bushels per acre, would be 773,130
bushels, or about sixteen times tlie amount now raised ; one-
tenth in oats, yielding twenty-five bushels per acre, a crop four
times the present ; two-fifths in hay, at one and one-fourth tons
per acre, and the hay crop would be doubled ; if the remaining
five-twentieths were brought into good pasturage, and two acres
made to support a cow, more than 125,000 of this valuable and
profitable part of our stock could be added to our present num-
ber. Large as the products would then appear, who will say
the maximum point would be attained ; for the average yield of
the acres now termed improved could be easily raised twenty-
five per cent., and still be below what it produces under the
management of our best cultivators. That greater progress in
our agriculture can and ought to be made, none will question ;
but are the tillers of the soil, under present circumstances, able
to bring it up to the desired standard ? If all the means within
their reach are persistently and faithfully used, the prospects
are encouraging. The transition state through which they are
passing will soon be over, and things settle down to a more per-
manent basis. The work they have to do, and the best manner
of doing it, will be better understood ; and it is to be hoped that
ere long the migration from the farm will be checked. It was
an important step towards progress when an institution was pro-
vided for educating our young farmers for the work they are to
assume. Hitherto the existing means for acquiring that educa-
tion were inadequate to the exigencies of the case, and all plans
proposed to meet the deficiency failed to receive the hearty ap-
proval of those who were to be benefited thereby. Teaching
the agricultural sciences in the public schools would only give
a smattering of the rudiments ; and, judging from the past, lit-

FARMING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 89

tie direct, practical aid could be expected from the classical col-
leges. The canker-worm and caterpillar may devastate the very
trees that shade their grounds, the curculio and mildew destroy
their fruit, rust, blight or rot their potatoes and other vegeta-
bles, yet they pause not, swerve not from their routine to dis-
cover, if possible, practical and effecutal remedies against these
and kindred pests that continually harass the farmer. Digging
out Greek roots, discussing knotty points in metaphysics or an-
cient history, or discoursing upon heathen mythology, are more
congenial occupations. The effect of the training of our clas-
sical schools seems to be adverse to fitting a young man for fol-
lowing the quiet, laborious life of the farmer. Were it not so,
why do so few graduates immediately choose this as their future
and only avocation ? Were an attempt to be made to teach ag-
riculture in our scientific schools, the otlier industrial pursuits
having a stronger hold upon the sympathies of our citizens, it
would be crowded into the background, and would not receive
the attention its importance demands.

Therefore all honor to the men who decided to establish a
distinct, separate and independent college for farmers, and who
located it in a purely farming district ; there it can stand upon
its own merits, and work out in its own way the agricultural
problems of the day. It was a bold movement ; few States
have had tbe courage to do likewise. But the exigencies of our
farmers required it, and their sons can fill it to overflowing, and
it can be made an institution of incalculable benefit to the whole
State.

In the great work before them, farmers need the aid of the
legislature and the hearty cooperation of the public. To this
some manufacturers may object^ and say we create new and bet-
ter markets ; if agriculture does not thrive under the stimula-
tion of these, let it decline. Other men may claim that any
special grants, privileges or aid from the public will be construed
as favoritism, and may form a dangerous precedent ; for agri-
culture is only one of our many employments — merely a
specialty. But have not our manufactures and commerce been
constantly under the patronage of government, and are they
either more than a specialty ? Our manufacturers saw from
the beginning that protection was necessary for their very exist-
ence ; they sought it, claimed it, and obtained it ; and even

12*

90 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

now their great prosperity is due in large measure to the foster-
ing care of government. A few merchants, finding that Boston
would be benefited by a larger traffic with the West, at different
times determined to open new thoroughfares across the State,
and they asked for aid ; it has been freely granted. Most faith-
fully and zealously has the State watched and guarded the mer-
cantile and manufacturing interests. So far has legislation
sometimes been carried to advance these interests, that the
rights of farmers have been ignored. It would not be an act of
generosity if the helping hand of the State were now extended,
and an effort made to raise agriculture to the position it should
oocupy ; it would be simply justice, or the recognition of rights ;
for farmers have rights — by the virtue of the property they own,
taxes they pay, and votes they cast. When we consider how
cheerfully they have submitted to — nay, often cordially sup-
ported— measures for the advancement of our varied industry,
it is surprising they have not asked more for themselves ; and
when they see how these have advanced with rapid strides, while
they have been stationary or retrograde, what shall be said ?
Were the 46,904 owners of farms and their 68,636 employes
united upon any plan, their requests would certainly be heeded.
But the desired end may be secured without one class of citi-
zens arraying themselves against another ; the interests of all
classes are in the main identical ; every man, woman and child
in the Commonwealth, has an interest in any project which will
improve the quality and increase the quantity of food. Our
manufacturers, from their peculiar location, will think more of
this subject in future, for they soonVill meet with sharp compe-
tition from the rising establishments at the West and South,
and they will find it quite enough to transport coal and raw ma-
terial to this corner of the Union, and carry their goods or
wares to distant markets, without sending a thousand miles or
more for provision for their workmen. They must have some
material advantages in order to continue to make their profits ;
one of these should be cheap labor ; cheap labor depends upon
cheap food, and where shall they obtain the cheap food ? Shall
it be from our own fields, or from the West ? If from the West,
Western manufacturers will have it still cheaper. It has been
a pet theory with many of our leading men, that it is cheaper
to bring provisions from the West, than to raise them from our

FARMING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 91

own soil, and an enormous expense has been incurred in open-
ing various lines of communication with more fertile lands ;
still, the price of staple products has steadily advanced and the
markets in and around Boston, are the dearest in the Union, for
purchasing food, if we except the mining districts. This will
continue to be the case so long as the acres within our own limits
and within full view of our workshops, are neglected and we de-
pend upon localities far away. Bushels are bushels, barrels are
barrels and tons are tons, and it will require as much force to
move them thirty years hence as now, and the older, richer and
more influential railroad companies grow, the less disposed are
they to carry for low rates. The true working of this plan will
ere long be apparent, and it will be seen that if some of the
State's money that has been furnished for the construction of
railroads to carry it into execution, had been expended in the
promotion of our agriculture, it would prove a better invest-
ment. After all that may be said, our manufacturers, in reality,
are sensibly affected by the prosperity of the farmer ; they de-
sire our markets to be cheaply supplied with provisions in abun-
dance. If our farmers will now develop their resources, show
the capacity of the soil, and their ability to furnisli the markets,
every plan for the promotion of agriculture will be promptly
seconded and supported. Were there no higher motive, a State
pride should prompt every citizen to speak a good word for the
advancement of this important branch of industry, for will it
not be gratifying as we travel from town to town, county to
county, through the length and breadth of the State, to see the
rough fields made smooth, the waste places productive, all the
steep, bleak hillsides again clothed with trees, valleys full of
waving grain and well-kept flocks and herds, and every acre pro-
ducing its full quota, — to see around the home of every farmer
unmistakable evidence of contentment, happiness and prosperity !

92 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

FARMS.

ESSEX.

From the Report of the Committee.

Notwithstanding the urgent calls of the committees, and the
liberal offers of the society for the last few years, the number of
farms entered for premium is by no means increasing. The
general business of farming which prevailed until a recent pe-
riod, and which developed some of the finest specimens of mixed
farming in the Commonwealth, is now displaced, to a consider-
able degree, by a special attention to particular crops, or by a
tasteful improvement of valuable estates. The production of
garden vegetables for the market, both early and late, occupies
the attention of most cultivators residing near our large cities.
And as the wealth of our county increases, the number of ele-
gant residences, ornamented by landscape gardening and sur-
rounded by fields subjected to expensive culture, increases also.
Meanwhile, the farms which were once managed by husbandmen,
who took pride in their working oxen and dairy herd, in their
ample fields of corn and grass and potatoes, in their orchards
bending beneath the weight of fruit, and who sent beef, and
hay, and pork, and butter, and cheese, and apples, and cider, to
the market, are fewer than they once were, and are not, in
many instances, conducted with the industry and skill of former
times. While this change in the condition of agriculture has
been going on, agricultural emulation and rivalry have declined,
and the business of horticulture has become more prominent.

The importance of encouraging this modern system of farm-
ing should not be lost sight of. The devotion of lands, in small
parcels, to special crops, is especially necessary where a large
portion of the population is occupied in mechanical and manu-
facturing operations, and own no land, raise no vegetables and
fruit for their own consumption, and should find a well-supplied
market. Vegetables and small fruits are produced in such lim-

FARMS. 93

ited quantities that they are a luxury, beyond the reach of many
of the laboring classes. This state of things should no longer
exist. And we urge upon all owners of land special attention
to those crops which are required in the markets of our manu-
facturing and commercial towns. We trust, moreover, that the
competition among small farms deroted to this object will in-
crease, and that committees will hereafter be called upon to
examine and report upon numerous entries of this description.

The only farm entered for premium this year is the estate of
Dr. E. G. Kelley, of Newburyport. The careful management
and cultivation of this tract of land (about sixteen acres,) were
a source of great gratification to the Committee, as an illustra-
tion of the ample reward which a skilful cultivator of trees and
fruits will receive, even in a few years, and of the advantage to
be derived from proper preparation of the soil, and from the
destruction of weeds, and the appropriate use of fertilizers.

The following statement of Dr. Kelley gives a clear and ad-
mirable account of the processes to which we have referred : —

Statement of E. G. Kelley.

In presenting a farm foV premium, the following are the
printed conditions : " For the best conducted and most improved
farm, taking into view the entire management and cuMvation,
including lands, buildings, fences, orchards, crops, stock and all
other appendages, with statements in detail relating thereto."

Oar management and cultivation of lands has been to under-
drain about six acres with tiles, transported chiefly from Albany,
N. Y., and laid more than three feet deep on an average ; to
surface-drain five acres not admitting of tile draining ; to sub-
soil two acres twenty-two inches deep ; to trench three feet
deep, four acres in all, at different times, as labor could be
spared from other work ; and for some years the trenching was
being done nearly all winter.

Hundreds of loads of clay have been moved to divers places,
and thousands of loads of sand and yellow loam have been
carted on to and mixed with clayey soil, or used for top-dress-
ing or for levelling and grading. The land thus worked has
been so much improved as to produce almost anything in per-
fection adapted to the climate.

Cultivation on this place having been decidedly bad for more

94 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

than half a century, a change was of course made. Your Com-
mittee well know how a farm runs to waste and weeds when
conducted by others than the owner. The previous proprietor
died in 1806, leaving the use of the estate for the support and
maintenance of a daughter, who at length died in 1852, when
we purchased it. A more dilapidated, neglected and exhausted
Sahara could not well be found.

To give minute details of every renovating process could not
have been intended by the requisitions. We will therefore only
cite a few operations. Weeds were exterminated in time by not
allowing any to mature. Grass was cut early for the best hay,
particularly if it contained " white weed," which, being propa-
gated by seed, was thus yearly lessened. " Dog grass " and
other noxious perennials were completely eradicated from arable
portions by thorough digging up and securing their roots. All
annual weeds were uniformly raked up, but were never saved
for manure. We were consequently soon troubled by succes-
sion only from seeds wafted from the premises of our otherwise
good neighbors, or deposited by the numerous birds. Moreover,
we seldom used any manure besides wood ashes — the best nutri-
ment, by the way, for all vegetation, and free from weed-seeds.

Tilling the soil was early, frequent, superficial or deep, ac-
cording to circumstances. Trenched or drained and subsoiled
land can be worked quite early in the spring, and does not re-
quire to be often repeated during the season, and vice versa.
Continual growth and successful crops, notwithstanding drought,
are also sure and gratifying, as well as the annual saving of
labor. Properly prepared soil, planted, and free from weeds,
receives, therefore, but little subsequent stirring, and that chiefly
for hilling. We plant potatoes, corn, &c., in drill-rows, the
former six or eight inches apart in the furrows, and at the usual
time of hoeing form the continuous hill row, and turn back the
same soil in the fall with the plough, thus obtaining more prod-
uce with given land and labor.

Of the buildings : the house — not built by modern hands but
in 1776 — is fifty feet square, with white oak frame, high-stud-
ded, and filled in with bricks, and having been modernized
inside and out, is now faultless. We built a barn same size,
the most economical form, and most convenient for interior ar-
rangements. The ample cellar is a substitute for out-houses ;

FARMS. 95

and we would build another barn, or even larger, if necessary,
to contain all carts, implements, &c., too often left unhoused,
or more or less exposed to the weather in sheds.

We removed at once all division fences, and have only the
boundary line fenced. Some three hundred feet of this has
stone posts set five feet in the gravel ground. Another, four
hundred feet, has large stones on the surface of clayey soil, ten
feet apart, with one and a half inch iron posts sulphured into
drilled holes ; and these, together with the rails and slats, rise
and fall with the freezing and thawing clay. This novel and
useful fence, and that of the stone posts, give great satisfaction.
A live fence of the honey locust is also being tried. Other
fences are of the usual varieties.

An old apple-orchard has been rejuvenated by draining, trim-
ming and grafting. Several trees grafted with the Hubbardston
Nonesuch bore so profusely as to destroy their vitality. "We
have forty varieties, many of them on paradise stocks, which
gives a smaller tree but larger fruit. Many pear-trees are also
in this orchard.

The exclusive pear-orchard is well drained and trenched, with
horn-piths thrown in from one to three feet below the surface,
as a permanent phosphate manure. We have seventy-five vari-
eties of the fruit, comprising the kinds we think worthy of cul-
tivation. Bach year, however, we think more of standards and
less of dwarfs. The former, particularly of the Lawrence, do .
as well in grass ground as the apple-tree.

Crops have not as yet been raised to sell, with the exception
of hay, which, on the prepared land, is fourfold compared with
former cuttings. Crops for domestic use are grown — corn and
carrots for horses, turnips and beets for cows. All are in abun-
dance and indispensable.

Stock generally consists of a pair of horses and two cows.
The latter have been " soiled " during the summers for three
years, and the practice is quite satisfactory. They are con-
tented, thrifty, give more and better milk.

" Other appendages " with us must be trees, hedges, ponds
and glass houses. Of the former there is a supply, and ever-
greens predominating, they have naturally given the name to
the place. So numerous are they, that they protect each other
and all about them. As screens, to secure and perfect fruits,

96 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

they are of great service, unless the source of too much damp-
ness. It is incredible, to an unobserver of the facts, how per-
ceptibly masses of trees affect temperature and moisture. Where
land is plenty and cheap, it is singular that groves and screens
are not oftener planted.

Where trees are trimmed to hedges, they become ornamental
divisions or borders, are easily cared for, and add much to the
value of any place. We have hedges of the Norway spruce,
hemlock, arbor-vitse, holly, weigelia, honey locust and cornus
sanguinea.

Artificial ponds, like hedges, on a place called a farm, may
be viewed by some as superfluities. To others they are a great
source of pleasure, and not unprofitable. We long since dis-
carded the dunghill fowl as too troublesome, and find water
fowls more remunerative in themselves, while they decoy valu-
able wild game instead of hawks. The question has also been
settled by cultivators of fish, that an acre of water surface may
be made to pay better than an acre of land merely.

Glass houses also compensate, except to the exclusively utili-
tarian, whose income is only in dollars and cents. We have
been many years building three of these, thereby obviating
much extra labor, and at the same time have some of the most
scientific and convenient structures in the country, unsurpassed
for the purposes intended. We thus have employment for self
.and family the year round, and with only one man for help,
quite enough of a good thing — care.

It might be deemed presumption to present a farm of sixteen
acres to the consideration of your Committee, had not one of
only fifteen been offered and accepted last year. It is, however,
on the idea of " ten acres enough," " a small farm well tilled,"
and the like, that it is undoubtedly justified.

Our profit and excellence, if any, have not been in the many
acres carried on by numerous hired men, with a list of merely
profitable and perhaps forced crops, without annual and perma-
nent improvements. On the contrary, we have only put in
practice our theory, advanced some twelve years ago, in the
annual address before the society, on Home Improvement.

We have perfected a few acres, doing the right thing at the
right time, and added so much to their nominal and real value
for the comfort and tastes of life, that for the original outlay

FARMS. 97

and subsequent expense a present market price might show a
profit not exceeded by any other land operations.

For the Committee.

Wm. Sutton, Chairman.

BERKSHIRE.

Fro7n the Report of the Committee.

Your Committee received great pleasure, and no little profit,
in the critical examination of the farms submitted for their in-
spection. There was great variety in their location and natural
capacity, as well as in the ends proposed, and the skill displayed
in accomplishing these ends. Some were adapted and appropri-
ated to the dairy almost exclusively, others to fattening stock,
and others still to a mixed husbandry. All exhibited points of
excellence, and in some, we are sorry to say, we found marked
defects ; but, as a whole, we were more than ever convinced,
that our county is second to none in the State, in the natural
capacity of the soil, and the skill with which it is cultivated, and
that nowhere in the wide world are the homes of the yeomanry
more replete with the comforts and even luxuries of life. Good
as is the general character of the agriculture of the county,
there is still a wide margin for improvement, and we venture to
make a few suggestions in order to elevate the standard of farm
management.

Like the old divines we will commence with the negative, and
say that a large farm is not necessarily a good one. We are not
aware of any prejudice against large farms. Much has been
said lately in favor of small estates, and books have been
written entitled " My Farm of Ten Acres " and " Four Acres
Enough," and quite lately one with the ridiculous title, " My
Farm of Fourteen Rods." This may not be " running farming
into the ground," but it is running it somewhere out of sight.
Whether a man should cultivate a large or a small farm must
depend upon circumstances ; his capital, the branch of farming
he pursues, his capacity to handle a large number of workmen,
etc., but it cannot be denied that the tendency of most farmers
is to spread themselves over too great a surface. It sounds big
to say we own a thousand acres, but if we have to skim over

13*

98 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

this great extent to secure what might be garnered from a tithe
of it, the profit and pleasure must be far less. The social privi-
leges are also greater where the cultivation is so perfect, that a
dense population can be sustained. Our Southern friends could
have few churches and no system of common schools, because
their plantations were too large. The farms in Berkshire County,
vary from ten to twelve hundred acres, will probably average
one hundred, and if the average was reduced to fifty, twice as
many families could be supported ; and it is men and women,
not land and cattle, that give value to a place.

Again, good land does not necessarily imply good farm man-
agement. The Great Creator distributed fertility among lands,
much as he did talents among men, and the perfection of farm
management is to make the soil produce all that, and just that
it is capable of producing, as the perfection of education con-
sists in developing all the faculties of the mind. The old say-
ing is, " You can't make a whistle out of a pig's tail," and in
like manner we cannot make vineyards nor grain farms out of
some of our mountain lands, but grass can be made to grow
where grain will not, and he that makes the most out of a graz-
ing farm, deserves credit equally with him who cultivates the
alluvial meadow. We have the authority of Dr. Seelye for say-
ing that a whistle has been made from a pig's tail, but whoever
makes one, pays dear for his whistle, and there are lands which
do not pay for cultivation, and in such cases we should consider
it good management to let them revert to forest.

Neither does the hoarding of money from the products of the
soil necessarily involve good farming. Money is a good thing,
but manhood is better, and he that skims his farm and keeps his
family on skim milk, that he may lay up money for heirs he
knows not whom, or that he may be considered rich, is not a
good farmer, but he is simply a poor, rich, fool. A great mistake
with many farmers, is not to invest on their farms their surplus
earnings. The manufacturer grows rich by improving his ma-
chinery and extending his business, and the farmer should grow
rich by the increased value, and sometimes by the increased ex-
tent of his land. At all events, this world was never made for
a great savings bank, and making money is not the great test of
success in agriculture. Columella, a distinguished agriculturist
among the old Romans, gave his countrymen this sage advice.

FARMS. 99

applicable to Yankees as well as Romans, " Whoever would de-
vote himself to the pursuits of agriculture must cultivate the
faculty of spending."

This leads us to say, as our final negative, that good farming
requires liberal, but not extravagant expenditure. The man
who lives upon the productions of his land cannot lavish money
upon it, as he who makes his farm a mere plaything. The city
gentleman and the country gentleman, can learn much from
each other, but the country-seat must not furnish the model for
the farm. We welcome the denizens of our crowded cities, to
our pure air and beautiful scenery, and are much obliged to
them for crowning our hills with their mansions, introducing
much good stock, giving us specimens of landscape gardening,
and setting us an example of the amenities of city life, but as
the tailor cuts his coat according to his cloth, so must the farmer
expend according to his means. There is a golden mean between
parsimony and extravagance. Nature deals bountifully with
those who deal bountifully with her, and farmers can well afford
to spend liberally for fertilizers, good buildings, good tools, and
good stock, but not one cent for snobbish display.

But we must hasten to some of the positive points in good
husbandry ; and the first is : there must be some well devised
•and thoroughly prosecuted system. Agriculture, like every
other art, has many divisions and sub-divisions, and he is a good
farm manager, who selects some division to which his soil and
capacity are adapted and pursues it with unfaltering faith and
systematic energy. If the dairy branch of farming is selected,
then dairy it should be, and the dairy business should be studied
with all the light the experience of other dairymen in this and
other countries, in this and other ages, can throw upon it. He
that gropes his way by his own experience solely, must creep
when he might just as well walk. Experience is the best school-
master, but it does not follow that we cannot learn from the ac-
cumulated experience of our cotemporaries, and all who have
gone before us, as well as from our own limited observation.
No matter what branch of farming is selected, it must be studied
thoroughly and pursued perseveringly and systematically, or emi-
inence cannot be attained in it. Changing from the dairy to wool,
and from wool to stock breeding, with every changing current in
business affairs, is most certain to end in partial success, if not in

100 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

complete failure ; butshow us the farmer who lias pursued through
life one steady course with intelligence and industry, and we will
show you one whose efforts have been crowned with great success.

In the second place, the progressive farmer is the good man-
ager. All men are naturally inclined to get into the ruts, to do
as their fathers did, to take life easily and jog along this year
pretty much as they did last, and we are sorry to add this is par-
ticularly true in an agricultural community ; such a course
never leads to excellence. The world moves, and if we would
keep up with it, we must move. The fogy who rejects improved
machinery and improved modes of culture, mows with a scythe,
and denies the virtues of compost, must expect to see himself dis-
tanced by his neighbors, who are awake to the progress of the
times. The farmer who wastes his corn on porcupine hogs and
his hay on raw-boned cattle, may blame Providence because he
does not succeed as well as his neighbor who feeds Sufifolks and
Durhams, but the trouble with laggards is in themselves, not in
Providence. We have met with those who really thought the
world moves in a circle, that history repeats itself, that a Beurrd
d'Anjou pear is no better fruit than graced the tables of our
grandfathers, and that a Durham ox has no more symmetry of
form than the ox which the old Egyptians worshipped. To all
such we can only say, " Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him-
alone." In a well managed farm we want to see the land, the
stock, the implements, the products and the buildings improving
from year to year. The farmer of high aspirations can never be
content to move on a dead level. His energies are not satisfied
unless he is pushing up an ascending grade.

Again, we say that good farm management demands some
taste as well as energy and skill. Taste is that faculty that dis-
covers beauty, order, proportion, symmetry and fitness in things,
and finds scope for its exercise on the farm, just as well as in the
milliner's shop or dry goods store. We know there are some
farmers who discard all idea of beauty and make utility the
great end of life. Such place their cabbage patch in the front
yard, and their pig-pen in close contiguity to the kitchen door,
cannot afford their wives a plot of land for flowers, and think
shade-trees cumberers of the ground, build a story and a half
house, and locate the barn so as to obstruct the best prospect,
pile refuse lumber by the side of the road, and old sleds and

FARMS. 101

cart wheels by the side of the house. All this may be conven-
ient, but is entirely inconsistent with the idea of symmetry
and order which the Creator has implanted in all men, and the
cultivation of which adds comfort and charm to life. As soon
as we put our eyes on the premises of a farmer, we know whether
he is blessed with a cultivated taste or not, and we should be
forever ashamed, if we awarded a premium to a man for a well
managed farm, whose premises indicated great neglect of this
faculty. When God made the world, he did not design it with
sole reference to utility. There is beauty in every object in na-
ture, and we do but carry out the plan of the Creator, when we
arrange our buildings with an eye to symmetry, and make our
home attractive. If there is any heaven on earth it is in the
home, and it should have an air of comfort, so that the family
may be attracted to it as " a thing of beauty and a joy forever."
It is the absence of taste in some farmers' premises, that has
driven the children to seek a more congenial home elsewhere.

But we must hasten, in conclusion, to say that on a well man-
aged farm, intelligence so guides labor that every dollar spent
tells to the greatest advantage. " The mind is the standard of the
man," and the intelligence displayed on the farm is the stand-
ard of its excellence. It is a great mistake to suppose that
muscle is the great motive-power in agricultural pursuits, and
that the bright son must be sent to college, and the dull boy to
the plough. Nowhere is intelligence more in demand than on the
farm. In draining, composting, stock raising, and indeed in every
branch of farming, much money has been wasted for the want of
knowledge. Take for example the simple matter of fencing.
Many of our farms are cut up into small lots, by fences which
have cost as much as the farms are worth. Pastures have been
divided and sub-divided, under the influence of the old but false
maxim, " A change of pastures makes fat calves." A better
version of the maxim is, " A change of pastures demoralizes
cattle." It certainly necessitates a great and useless outlay for
fences. Money is not coined so easily in farming that we can
afford to spend it for that which profiteth not. Intelligence must
guide every step the farmer makes. If a Durham steer at two
years, weighs as much and is worth as much as a native at three
or four, then it is foolish to raise natives in preference to Dur-
hams. If a good garden will half support a family, and add

102 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

greatly to its health and comfort, then a little time and money
spent in the garden are well invested. If a cellar furnishes a
solid foundation for the barn, and warm and convenient room
for stabling and storage without any additional shingles, then
the intelligent farm manager will be sure to have a barn cellar.

Alexander Hyde, Chairman.

PLYMOUTH.

From the Supervisor's Report.

Increased production may be secured at a ruinous loss to the
productive capacity of the soil, as is painfully apparent in the
condition of numerous farms, once fertile and fruitful, but now
exhausted and almost sterile ; once teeming with busy life, but
now almost or entirely deserted. Such impoverishment of the
soil is not peculiar to Massachusetts or even to New England.
The same process is in continual operation in other parts of the
country, although the same result may not be so speedily
reached in the more fertile soils of the so-called producing
States as it has been in Massachusetts.

To prevent as far as possible the repetition in the future of
the process of deterioration, and to remedy as far as practicable
the evil consequences of its prevalence in the past, is the appro-
priate office of agricultural societies. They aim also at " in-
creased production," with this very significant qualification,
" from diminished areas." One of the agencies employed by
them for this purpose is the offer of premiums for field crops,
to be awarded mainly upon the basis of comparative quantities
per acre ; and this basis of awards, however much it may be
objected to by men claiming for themselves peculiar shrewdness,
is the most satisfactory in its results, considering both the crops
and the condition of the land, of any yet devised. From the
evils consequent on the cultivation of land which has been, and
is growing year by year less productive, the cultivator of pre-
mium crops is sure of exemption. The conditions essential to
his success, are liberal and judicious applications of plant-food
and frequent and thorough cultivation ; and these conditions
fulfilled, the results must inevitably be generous returns, in the
form of present harvests, and increased capacity of the soil for
future production.

FARMS. 103

Judgment in the application of manures is quite as essential
as liberality. Bread is said to be the staff of life ; but perfec-
tion of physical growth in man cannot be secured by the exclu-
sive use of bread, even the best ; nor perfection of vegetable
growth by the application to the soil of ammonia only, or phos-
phate of lime, or any other one of the organic or inorganic sub-
stances that jointly contribute to the formation of^healthy and
vigorous plants. Manure from well-fed animals, in sufficient
quantities, more nearly compensates for the loss of the produc-
tive elements in soils, consequent on repeated cropping, than
any other single attainable fertilizer. But even this will fail to
maintain perpetual fertility through its deficiency in mineral
substances. If this is true of manure from such animals, what
shall be said of that from the ill-fed and poorly housed stock,
once so common, and even now seen occasionally, hovering
about the sheltered sides of buildings and fences, or reluctantly
pursuing the scattered wisps of coarse fodder, whirled by the
wind from the corner where it may have been thrown for their
morning or noonday meal. If any portion of the manure made
under such circumstances fails of being blown away or washed
away, its effect upon the soil to which it is applied will be very
similar to that of the food from which it is made upon the ani-
mals compelled to consume it. Time was when the possession
of large areas in the marshes on our coast and in tlie natural
meadows on our streams was considered by all farmers, whether
of large or small means, indispensable to the keeping of neat
stock ; and such marshes and meadows now in many cases
deemed worthless were for many years held, or sold at prices
which by the present generation would be thought almost fabu-
lous. Salt and fresh hay are as nutritious now as forty years
ago, but, fortunately for our dumb animals, such hay is seldom
relied upon for their subsistence to any considerable extent.
There are farmers — and very good farmers, too — who continue
to make their annual midnight pilgrimage " down to the salt
meadows," always deeming an apology necessary for so doing,
and always finding one in the belief that their cattle " eat bet-
ter " for being sometimes fed on salt or fresh hay, a belief which
is undoubtedly well founded, as nothing is so well calculated to
sharpen the appetite of man or beast as an occasional meal of
innutritions food. Against this hygienic view of the subject,

104 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

nothing, perhaps, can be well urged. But stock fed on early-
cut and well-cured English hay, such as is wont to follow pre-
mium crops of roots or cereals, seldom needs special treatment
for promoting an appetite ; and in the fact that so large a pro-
portion of the stock in the State is fed on such hay, and on
grain and roots, is to be found one cause of the improving con-
dition of soTiie of the land used for agricultural purposes, and
of the increase of agricultural products, notwithstanding the
constant decrease in the number of acres of what the valuation
committee would denote as " improved land." Well-fed stock
and well-manured land act reciprocally, as cause and effect,
each affecting the other, and being in turn affected by it.

It is not uncommon to hear agriculturists of a certain class
spoken of as " fancy farmers," the term being applied to those
who devote only their money to agricultural operations, in con-
tradistinction from those who depend mainly upon their own
personal labor for success, and who are termed practical farm-
ers. But the time may come when we, who are compelled to
" farm it " without capital, may recognize the so-called fancy
farmers as the salt of the earth, in their influence upon its agri-
culture. From their theories, many of them absurd and chi-
merical, from their experiments, many of them ill-conducted
and unsatisfactory, and from their earnest discussion of topics
once supposed to have very little if any connection with practi-
cal farming, has proceeded, in great measure, the admitted ad-
vancement in agriculture as a science, followed by a partial
awakening of the community to the necessity of popularizing
agricultural industry, as lying at the foundation of national
prosperity. Through their efforts knowledge has been increased
and disseminated, and the most practical of farmers have been
led to make great changes in the methods and appliances of
their vocation. But, aside from the indirect influence which
the class of whom we are speaking exert upon the opinions and
practices of the mass of farmers, their opinions are in them-
selves directly and eminently practical. The fact is patent to
all observers, that, on very many farms, not only are permanent
improvements wholly neglected, but that even the conservatism,
which would, at least, keep things as they are, is very far from
being generally apparent ; that mowing lands are given over to
pasturage, and pastures suffered to grow to wood and bushes ;

FARMS. 105

and that the general aspect of many portions of the country
would warrant the impression that farming is, to use a homely
expression, on its last legs. If, then, while so-called practical
farmers permit their farms to deteriorate year by year, and to
return slowly but surely to their originally uncultivated condi-
tion, there are men, not " to the manor born," who are willing
to expend their surplus wealth in reclaiming and rendering
fruitful farms previously neglected and unproductive, in trans-
porting fertilizers, ammoniacal and mineral, scores, perhaps
hundreds of miles, and in other ways promoting the production,
in constantly increasing quantities, of grains, roots and grasses,
as food for man and beast, who will say that the result is not a
practical one, or that the community is not greatly in their debt,
especially when comparing their course with that of others, who
use their money only to insure greater accumulation, or expend
it in personal gratifications or upon the mere fripperies of fash-
ionable adornment.

The truth is, agriculture is following, though at a somewhat
tardy pace, the course of all other active vocations, and its suc-
cessful prosecution in the future will require, and, in a con-
stantly increasing ratio, will receive, all the aid which science
can supply or capital command. It is not meant by this that
the possession of capital by each individual farmer will be abso-
lutely essential to his success, but that capitalists will more fre-
quently become farmers ; and that their capital, operating with
and through the highest knowledge and best skill attainable,
which money can always command, will test theories and estab-
lish practices, which, when so tested and established, can but be
accepted and adopted by all farmers in whom self-conceit is not
predominant over self-interest.

Farmers have heretofore obtained knowledge principally
through their own experience, a most excellent schoolmaster, as
all must admit : but the process is a tedious one, especially as it
must be repeated by every seeker after agricultural wisdom.
Hereafter they may find it advisable to avail themselves more
generally of the experience and observation of others, either by
accepting their personal instruction or by studying the recorded
results of their operations.

Alden S. Bradford, Supervisor.

14*

106 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

IMPROVEMENT OF MEADOW AND SWAMP

LANDS.

MIDDLESEX SOUTH.

Statement of Isaac V. Adams.

The piece of improved meadow which I enter for premium is
situated in Little Cedar Swamp, in the east part of the town of
Hopkinton. As the improvements which have recently been
made upon this tract of swamp land have been fully described
in previous reports I will not repeat them here.

This lot is fifty-eight rods long from cast to west, seven rods
wide at the east end, and five rods at the west end. As it is
bounded at each end by the main channel, excavated by the
Commissioners, (see Agriculture of Mass., 1865-6, page 35 of
the Abstract,) it was only necessary to cut a cross ditch on each
side connecting at each end with the main channel.

In order to facilitate getting on to the lot, and to avoid the
expense of a bridge, the ditch was omitted on the south side for
about four rods near the middle, and as the water passes readily
from this point, both east and west, to the main channel, the
drainage is as perfect as though the two parts of the ditch were
connected.

These cross ditches were cut in July, 1864, at a cost of thirty-
three and one-third cents per rod by contract. They are three
feet wide at the top, two feet wide at the bottom, and about three
feet deep. As these cross ditches are equally advantageous to
the adjoining lands, only one-half the expense should be charged
to this experiment.

By the latter part of July the part of the lot on the east side
had become sufficiently dry to burn. I accordingly set fire to it
and got a most excellent burn. The sod was all consumed and
the ground left light and fine, nearly a spade deep. I sowed a
half peck of herdsgrass seed, and a peck of redtop, and harrowed
it in. The remaining portion was not dry enough to burn until
the last of August, at which time I set it on fire but obtained
only an indifferent burn. The grass roots were not near all de-
stroyed, and I was obliged to enter the lot with cutter, and puller,
and plough, and spend considerable time in tearing up the tough

MEADOW AND SWAMP LANDS.

107

places and getting all the sods loosened so that they might dry
and be consumed at the second burning, which was successfully
accomplished a few weeks later. I did not, however, seed down
this part of the lot until the autumn of 1865, when I sowed one
peck of herdsgrass and one-half bushel of redtop. The portion
first alluded to gave a good crop of English hay in 1865, and the
entire lot a good first crop and a fair crop of rowen in 1866, and
one fair crop in 1867.

In the winter of 1867 to 1868 I covered the entire surface of
the lot with gravel, applying twenty loads, of twenty-five bushels
each, to the acre. This application of gravel improved both the
quantity and quality of hay, of which there was a good yield —
say two tons to the acre — in 1868.

In the winter of 1868 to 1869 I applied twelve loads to the
acre (twenty-five bushels to a load) of compost, composed of
three parts sand and one part night soil, which is obtained at
the village three miles distant, and composted in a sand bank
lying conveniently by the side of the meadow and in sight from
this land.

The condition of this ground previous to the commencement
of these improvements was like that of the entire swamp, wet,
cold and unproductive, too soft to admit of driving a team over
it. It is now so hard that the hay is cut and raked with horses,
no field in the county being better adapted to the use of machin-
ery than the level, unobstructed breadths of these meadows.
Wonderful, indeed, are the results of well directed labor.

To intelligent labor how applicable are the words of the
prophet Isaiah, when he says : " He will make her wilderness
like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord."

Expenses
Interest and taxes, .
Burning three times,
10 days ploughing, cutting sods, etc.

1| pecks herdsgrass seed,

1 bushel redtop.
Sowing, .....
50 loads gravel, at 20 cents,
12 loads manure, .

>.

$10 00

...

7 00

, . . .

15 00

1 50

• . .

1 00

.

50

.

10 00

.

12 00

108 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Applying manure, $2 40

112 rods ditch, (one-half expense,) . . . . 18 67

Total expense, 178 07

Per Contra.
12 tons of hay raised since 1864, valued, standing^

at $13, $156 00

Increased value of land, 180 00

Total, $336 00

HoPKiNTON, August 1, 1869.

MANURES.

ESSEX.

From the Report of the Committee.
The Committee on Manures have received but one invitation
from the farmers of Essex to examine the progress and results
of experiments with manures or commercial fertilizers. The
farm of Wm. R. Putnam, of Danvers, was visited by his request
in September, and some crops upon which he had applied vari-
ous kinds of fertilizers were examined. Mr. Putnam has handed
us a report of these experiments, which we herewith transmit
for publication. Mr. P. deserves commendation for his zeal and
painstaking in procuring and applying to his crops some of the
well-known compounds called fertilizers. In examining the
crops to which they had been applied, but little new information
was obtained, and but few useful facts were deducible. In fact,
what can be learned from the experiment of seeking, in the
market, a mixture called " Croasdale superphosphate," or
" Baugh's raw bones," or any other " raw bone " compounds,
and applying them to a few rows in a corn-field or potato-patch ?
In the first place, who knows what the raw bone mixtures or
" superphosphates " are made of ? Certainly the experimenter
does not. It is apparent, then, that the experiments must be

MANURES. 109

empirical, inasmuch as the substances experimented with are of
unknown fertihzing value. The " phosphates " or bone mix-
tures usually possess no uniformity in composition. One farmer
may be lucky enough to secure a barrel or two of the substances
in which a considerable amount of plant-nutriment is found ;
another may purchase packages of the same brand which are
almost wholly destitute of the phosphatic or nitrogenous ele-
ments, and are therefore practically valueless. These, employed
in the usual empirical way, of course give varying results —
results which are better calculated to confuse and perplex than
to instruct.

But if the fertilizers we employ are honest mixtures, and
have a fixed value, how much positive practical information
can we gain from applying them in a small way, in our fields,
without taking into account some important considerations
which are usually overlooked ? It is true, if we thrust the
" raw bone " into the hills of one row of potatoes, and leave the
next one without the mixture, we can measure and weigh at
harvest time, and thus obtain results from which to form wise
conclusions or dogmatic opinions. These results, however,
must be regarded as blind guides. Any experiments in hus-
bandry which do not extend over a period of time exceeding
one or two seasons, and which do not take into account varia-
tions in soils and meteorological conditions, are practically
worthless. It appears to your Committee high time that the
intelligent farmers of Essex abandoned the " irregular," uncer-
tain, empirical methods of experimenting with fertilizers, and
adopted a form better calculated to advance true knowledge in
respect to the greatest interests of agriculture. In the first
place, the materials experimented with should be definitely un-
derstood. In phosphates, the exact percentage of soluble phos-
phates of lime contained in the fertilizer should be known, and
also the amount of free ammonia, or ammonia-forming constit-
uents. If substances containing potash or soda are employed, a
knowledge of the exact percentage of these alkalies also should
be had. With the best and most appropriate materials in our
hands, we do not obtain in one or two seasons even a proximate
knowledge of how much actual value they may be to our crops.
A dry season may prove entirely unfavorable for the appropri-
ation by plants of any one element or compound, or a wet

110 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

season may produce like results. If a farmer should judge of
the influence of a phosphate upon his corn in a dry season, he
might be led to condemn one year a material which in the next
would prove his most efficient and prompt friend. When we
bury in our soils a fertilizing agent, it is quite uncertain when
we shall receive back the value or thrice the value in increase
of crops. If we are sure we have got the genuine agent there,
and in an assimilable condition, we need have but little solici-
tude concerning ultimate good results. Five years is short time
enough to conduct experiments with fertilizers to reach ends, or
obtain results worth publishing to the world. Much of the con-
fusion existing among soil cultivators regarding the value of
fertilizing agents arises from the incomplete, unfair, unscientific
" trials " or experiments made. The public taste is so per-
verted, that all statements of this nature given in the agricul-
tural papers are read with a peculiar relish. If a farmer is
anxious to see his name in print, let him buy a peck of " raw
bone phosphate," or " patent guano," sprinkle it in a few hills
of corn, or in the turnip drills, and in the autumn send the
" results " to the nearest journal. The fame, although short-
lived, will be cheaply bought. With the care, accuracy and
completeness of detail demanded of experimenters in every
branch of science, in this age of the world, it is a pity that we
should not improve our methods in all departments of hus-
bandry. Before scientific agriculture can rise to a point worthy
to command confidence and respect, this must be done.

In behalf of the Committee.

James R. Nichols.

Statement of Win. R. Putnam.

It is with some reluctance that I make public my experiments
with manures. I regret that my crops were not seen by the
Committee earlier in the season ; coming as you did, just after
the severe gale, you had not so good an opportunity to judge of
the effects of different kinds of manure as you would have
had before the gale.

If I rightly understand the object of the society, in offering
this premium, it is to collect and publish such information upon

MANURES. Ill

the use and the effects of different kinds of manure as will
enable the farmers of the county to judge better what kinds of
manure to use. If in my statements I can furnish a peg for
you to hang your report on, I shall be satisfied.

Early in April last, when planting pease, part of the piece
was manured with good manure made by the horses, cows and
sheep, applied at the rate of six cords to the acre ; to the re-
mainder I applied Croasdale's superphosphate, at the rate of
four hundred pounds to the acre. This costs about three cents
per pound, and it is said that it is one-third Peruvian guano,
and the remainder mostly mineral phosphate from South Caro-
lina. The pease were as early and produced as well as those
that were planted upon the manure.

Some of the farmers in this vicinity have been using pine
sawdust from the saw-mills for bedding for their stock. Does
it injure the manure, is a question that I should like to see set-
tled by a course of well-conducted experiments. Last February
I spread about ten bushels of sawdust, that had been partially
dried, on the floor of my sheep-pen, then covered it well with
hay, so that the manure would not mix with it ; the sheep were
kept upon it till the last of April, when it was well saturated
with urine ; this was mixed with some sawdust that had been
used in the stable, and well wet with the urine from the horses.
I planted pease upon it ; they came up, but did not grow much.
By digging and examining them, I found the rootlets avoided
tlie sawdust, and got their nourishment from the soil beyond it.
The first week in May I planted a field of potatoes ; part of it
being manured at the rate of six cords of manure to the acre,
which was a compost made by mixing three cords of barn cellar
manure with three cords of meadow muck. This was put in
the drills on part of the field, and by the side of it I applied
Croasdale's Superphosphate at the rate of four hundred pounds
per acre. The same kind of seed was used, (the sebec) those on
the manure yielding at the rate of 256 bushels to the acre, and
the phosphate giving at the rate of one hundred and twenty-
two and one-half bushels per acre. Those on the phosphate
came up first, and were of a deep green color in June ; in July
they rusted. On one acre of the same field I spread six cords
of manure, of the same kind as the other, and harrowed it in.
It was then marked out in drills, three feet eight inches apart,

112 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

and planted with Harrison potatoes. On twenty-four rows I put
one hundred pounds of Peruvian Guano, costing five cents per
pound ; two rows were left without additional fertilizers ; the
next twenty-four rows had one hundred and fifty pounds of
Croasdale phosphate, costing three cents per pound. The acre
yielded three hundred and fifty bushels. In the first part of the
season, when the guano was applied, the vines were much the
larger, and I thought before I dug them that the guano would
increase the crop twenty-five per cent., but when they were har-
vested, I had as many bushels of marketable potatoes in the two
rows that were left without it, as in the others. They were uni-
form in size, though not near so many in number. By measure-
ment, I find that one hundred pounds of guano gave me five
bushels of small potatoes and a great heap of vines, the phos-
phate gave three bushels of small potatoes and about half as
much increase of vines as the guano.

In the corn-field which you saw, I applied different kinds of
manure, but it was so much injured by the wire worms in the
first part of the season, that I cannot give any accurate state-
ment. But the guano, and the phosphate gave only about half
as much corn as the stable manure. That on the fish guano,
where it was not injured by the worms, did well.

The manure on the field of ruta-baga turnips, which you saw,
was prepared as follows : To three cords of meadow muck, I
added one cask of lime, twenty bushels of ashes and four hun-
dred pounds of ground bones. In the first four rows we used
the mixture at the rate of six cords to the acre. The first row
yielded twenty-two bushels, the next seventeen bushels. I ac-
count for this difference by the fact that the first got some benefit
from the manure upon the cucumbers that were planted by the
side. On the fifth row we put two-thirds of the quantity of this
mixture, and added twenty pounds of Pales' fertilizer, costing
three cents per pound. This produced seventeen bushels. On
part of the field, a compost made of barn cellar manure and
meadow muck was applied at the rate of four cords per acre,
and twenty pounds of Baugh's raw bone (this bone is prepared
at Chicago and costs three cents per pound). Where this bone
was added to the compost, the turnips were the best in the field ;
twenty pounds of this bone produced one hundred and fifty

ORCHARDS AND VINEYARDS. 113

pounds of turnips. On this piece, containing about two-thirds
of an acre, we had three hundred and thirty-seven bushels.

If I had not ah^eady made this statement too long, I might
speak of the effects of different kinds of manure upon the squash
crop and the cabbage.

ORCHARDS AND VINEYARDS.

MIDDLESEX.

From the Report of the Committee.

There are few subjects connected with the agricultural in-
dustry of the county of Middlesex of more vital importance
than those under consideration, viz., its orchards, vineyards and
gardens.

At present, its orchards — apple, peach and cherry — have, in
a great measure, lost their past fruitfulness, and give no high
promise for the future. Pear orchards are more promising, al-
though blight and disease have found their way into them ; and
unless some new developments in science or art are found to
aid the cultivator in arresting their progress, may yet destroy
their fertility, as they have of the apple, peach and cherry. It
is hoped that men of science may yet discover a remedy suffi-
ciently cheap and practical to avert so great a loss.

With regard to vineyards, the Committee tind much gratifi-
cation in observing that a fruit is now extensively cultivated
which is adapted to light, warm lands, of easy cultivation, and
not among our best lands for the production of the grasses or
the cereal grains.

If the reader will refer to the statement of Mr. Moore, which
is subjoined, he will find described such a soil as we refer to,
and which is yielding the grape in the most luxuriant profusion,
and, according to his statement, without the aid of high manur-
ing. Indeed, he considers high manuring pernicious rather
than useful. The land upon which Mr. Wheeler's vineyard is
set is of a similar character. Both are what arc termed sandy
loams, though we should judge that there is a higher percent-
15*

114 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

age of sand in Mr. Moore's soil than in that of Mr. Wheeler.
Here, then, we are able to produce a hardy and healthful fruit
in abundance, on lands, most of which have been considered as
second-rate in value. From the earliest settlements, they have
been devoted to a few annual crops of rye, left to be recuperated
by nature's processes, and then cultivated to rye again, until
nearly all their vegetable powers were exhausted.

But with the care bestowed by the gentlemen now competing
for a premium, the grape will grow on almost any soil and in
any position — in the corner of the yard or by the side of the
porch. It may be trained on the roof of the woodshed, on the
side of the barn, on a simple trellis, or on a simple stake. The
sunny corner of the garden, which would not be convenient for
a tree, will afford space and shelter for a vine. Even cities and
villages have many places that the grape-vine likes the best.
Placed in the front or back yard of the dwelling, its roots find
their way under walls and into places where they can select the
precise nutriment they require. There they find shelter from
rough winds, and protection from early frosts, by the warmth
radiated from brick or wooden walls or fences. In this way
some of the most perfect samples of the grape are grown. The
vines grow to a very large size, and produce fruit in proportion.
One plant in the famous Hampton Court vinery bore two thou-
sand and two hundred hunches, averaging one pound each, mak-
ing more than a ton in a single season. Another vine at Val-
entines, in Essex County, England, produced two thousand
hunches, of nearly the same weight, at a single crop. The
branches of the vine at Hampton Court covered a space of three
hundred and forty-eight square feet, and that at Valentines four
hundred and forty-one square feet. Under favorable circum-
stances they attain a great age. Some have died known to be
more than a hundred years old.

There is, then, this encouragement in planting grape-vines :
that they produce their fruit in one or two years after setting,
and hand it down in perfection through several generations. It
is hardy, easy of cultivation, palatable and nutritious as food,
and, in several forms, exceedingly grateful to the sick.

A single entry only was made for a premium on " Fruit and
Vegetable Gardens," and that by Edwin Wheeler, of Concord.
The garden contains one and a half acres of land, on which

ORCHARDS AND VINEYARDS. 115

there are three hundred and seventy-six pear-trees, seventy-five
grape-vines, and eight apple-trees. Among these were egg-
plants, squash, melon and cucumber vines, tomatoes, and other
plants useful in the culinary department of the house. In other
portions of the grounds seeds for market are quite extensively
cultivated, such as beet, parsnip and carrot seeds.

The small fruits were also grown, such as strawberries, rasp-
berries, currants and blackberries.

The soil is a deep, black or sandy loam, but the vegetable
matter is largely prevailing. All the crops were free from
weeds, and the soil everywhere in a high state of pulverization.
The grape-vines and apple-trees are set on the west and north
sides of the garden, and Norway spruces on the east and south
borders, all acting as screens, and consequently modifying the
climate considerably.

The arrangement of the trees, grape-vines and all the smaller
plants gave evidence at once to the Committee that the garden
was under the control of a skilful and neat workman. All the
rows were in straight lines, and bore the marks of constant and
careful attention. The soil was mellow and rich, deep, porous
and moist, so that the growth was vigorous and the product
abundant.

The pear-trees made up a portion of the garden, and may
well claim some attention here. Most of them fruited the pres-
ent season, and were the source of considerable profit. The
cultivation of this delicious fruit has now become general in all
gardens which are worthy of the name. The number of vari-
eties used by the common cultivator is altogether too large, as
Mr. Wheeler suggests. The extension of varieties, and ascer-
taining those of greater value, may well be left to persons of
large study and experience on the subject, or to amateurs, who
can afford the losses which must always occur in testing varie-
ties. So much, however, is accessible to all in regard to the
hardiest, richest and most profitable varieties, that the Com-
mittee do not consider it expedient to enter into any statement
of that nature here. They recommend to all, however, who are
about to engage in pear culture, to visit the orchards of those
who have been successful, and learn the modes of culture which
have resulted profitably.

No entire apple orchard was entered for premium.

116 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

The Committee examined, with much pleasure, a peach orch-
ard of three hundred trees, entered for exhibition only, by John
B. Moore, of Concord. The trees have been set two years, and
are three years from the bud. The foliage on them was large
and high-colored, the trees symmetrical in form, and had every
appearance of health and vigor. They stand on a sandy loam,
like that upon which his grape-vines are set.

As the value of this Report will chiefly consist in the state-
ments made by the competitors, the Committee refer the reader
to them for full and clear descriptions of their modes of culture,
and the results which they bring.

John Cummings, Chairman.

Statement of John B. Moore.

In offering my vineyards for the Society's premium I desire
to call attention more particularly to the lot directly back and
north of my house. Aspect, a very slight inclination to the
south ; soil, light sandy loam, underlaid with a hard red gravel,
full of cobble-stones. In the year 1864 the wood was cut from
this land, which had formerly been used as a rye field for many
years, and was composed of a small growth of pitch-pine, white
birch, and scrub oak. After the wood was removed the land
would not have sold for more than $15.00 an acre.

The brush was burned and the lot ploughed as well as possi-
ble where full of scrub oak roots and stumps, and then planted
for two years, principally with melons and squashes, and ma-
nured in the hill only.

In the spring of 1867 I planted on this lot five hundred Con-
cord grape-vines, one year old from the cutting, which have been
trained on large stakes ; also two hundred more of the Con-
cords, and two hundred Hartford Prolific vines, which have been
trained on a wire trellis. The Hartford Prolific vines were nearly
rained by the last two severe winters ; although laid down and
covered with soil, the tops came out all right in the spring, but
the roots were mostly killed or injured by the severe freezing.
I shall be obliged to remove most of them and plant Concords
in their places.

When these vines were planted, in the spring of 1867, there
had not been any matmre applied to the soil, except the manure
in the hills for melons and squashes, before mentioned, and

ORCHARDS AND VINEYARDS. 117

•which is the only manure that has been used on this lot up to
the present time, except what I shall mention hereafter, in con-
nection with the strawberries raised between the rows of vines.

At the time of planting the vines the ground was ploughed,
harrowed, and made as fine and level as the remaining stumps
and roots would allow, and then carefully planted in straight
rows, ten feet apart, and seven from each other in the rows,
where stakes were to be used to support the vines ; between the
rows I planted two rows of strawberries, which were allowed to
run into beds. In the spring of 1868 the edges of these beds
were trimmed, which left two beds three feet wide, with a path
on each side of them ; from these beds I sold, in 1868, a little
over 1400.00 worth of berries and plants, and the only manure
or fertilizer that was applied to them was a lot of ashes from a
pile of stumps, gathered from the same lot, burnt, and spread
where the strawberries were to be planted, and two hundred
pounds of superphosphate of lime sowed in the spring of 1868.
In July of the same year, as soon as the crop of strawberries
was gathered, the entire beds were ploughed under. Since that
time there has been no crop raised between the vines.

These vines have certainly been grown without animal ma-
nure, and I might say, almost without any manure ; still, I would
not have it understood that I would not use any manure, for I
certainly should, if in my judgment the vines needed it. What
the grape-grower must have to produce the best crops of fruits,
is a medium-sized short-jointed, solid and well-ripened wood ;
excessive manuring does not give that, but rather a coarse, long-
jointed, immaturely ripened, soft, spongy wood ; the first will
produce an abundance of fruit, of good quality ; the last, less
fruit and later in ripening ; perhaps, I should say that withhold-
ing manure would apply more particularly to the strong-grow-
ing varieties, such as the Concord, Hartfox'd, Diana, and most
of the Rogers'.

Five hundred of these vines are trained on stakes, two arms
and two stakes to each vine ; one arm is coiled around each
stake, and spur-pruned with rather long spurs, as the two buds
nearest the old wood are very often only leaf buds, and would
not give fruit. This is the case with the Concord, more partic-
ularly than w^ith other sorts. The rest of the vines are on a
wire trellis, and are intended to spread out as evenly as possible

118 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

over the trellis ; in pruning I cut out a large portion of the old
wood every year and lay in new canes in its place. From these
vines there were gathered one hundred boxes, of forty or more
pounds each, or two tons of grapes, which were sold in Boston
as soon as gathered, at from twelve to thirteen cents a pound,
in bushel boxes, without any particular packing.

I regard the grape as more certain to produce a crop than any
other fruit we grow. During the last ten years there have been
only two seasons in which the crop has not matured very well
under good cultivation, and those (1867 and 1868) were only
partial failures. Even in 1868, I averaged as high prices as the
present year, although the fruit was not nearly as good in quality.
Can that be said of any other fruit ? It does not require much,
if any manure, which is so much needed for the other crops on
the farm ; and to be a success it only requires ordinary skill in
selecting the soil, and planting good, strong, healthy vines, of
some well-tried variety, like the Concord, which is the only kind
I have found profitable. I have about exhausted the nursery-
men's catalogues, and have been disappointed with many new
kinds, coming highly recommended and costing high prices.

A wire trellis, with good posts, well set, and three strands of
the best galvanized wire. No. 13, costs about $3.50 for one hun-
dred feet in length ; the same length, with stakes, would cost
according to the size of the stakes ; if they cost three cents
each, with setting, it would be fl.l2 for one hundred feet ; if
seven cents each, for very large ones, $2.24 for one hundred
feet ; it requires much more time and labor to prune, tie, and
take care of vines on a trellis than on stakes. Which will pro-
duce the most, or best fruit in the end, is the question to be
solved. I have only tried a trellis five years ; so far, one is as
good as the other, as far as cropping is concerned, with, as I have
said before, a great difference in favor of the stakes in the
amount of tying, pruning, and care.

I have also entered my peach orchard, of three hundred trees,
which is on the same sort of soil, and adjoining the lot contain-
ing the grape-vines, /or exhibition only ; these trees have been
set two years next spring, and have grown entirely to my satis-
faction ; if they only escape the disease called the yellows, I
feel confident of getting fruit. I have entered them for exhibi-
tion only, thinking that no orchard should receive a premium

ORCHARDS AND VINEYARDS. 119

until it has shown its capacity of producing abundant crops of
good fruit.

Respectfully yours,

John B. Mooee.

Statement of Edvnn Wheeler.

"Wishing to compete for your premium " for the best vineyard
of not less than one-half acre, which shall have been set or planted
since the year 1863, and which shall be in the best and most
productive state in the year 1869," I herewith present the fol-
lowing report :

The piece contains about one acre of good plain land, or corn
ground, underlaid with sand and gravel, and is situated on the
east bank, and within ten rods of the Sudbury River, lying from
fifteen to twenty-five feet higher than the ordinary level of the
water, sloping gently to the north and east. It had been used
as a pasture for six or eight years previous to 1864, when it was
ploughed about ten inches deep, and manured with about twen-
ty-five horse-cart loads of compost manure per acre, and planted
with potatoes. In 1865 it was ploughed, manured the same as
the year previous, and planted with corn.

In the fall of 1865 and spring of 1866 I planted about two-
thirds of the piece with Concord grape-vines, which I grew
from cuttings the previous summer. They were set in rows
eight and ten feet apart, alternately, for the purpose of better
passing between the rows with the team, the rows averaging
nine feet apart, the vines seven feet in the rows. The ground
between the rows, for two years, was planted with early potatoes,
white beans, and for setting carrots and parsnips, for seeds
(manuring them lightly in the drill) , thereby receiving a paying
crop from the ground, while the vines were unproductive. The
third year I set between the rows yearling vines, a part of which
you saw when you examined the vineyard.

The first year after planting the vines, only one cane was
allowed to grow ; these were trained to small poles, and the
laterals pinched off at the second leaf ; in the fall the canes
were cut back to two buds ; and the second year two canes or
arms were grown and trained to poles, and the laterals pinched
oflf as the year before ; these, in the fall or early winter, were
cut back, leaving the canes or arms from two to five feet long.

120 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

according to the strength of the vines for fruiting the following
season, and were allowed to lie on the ground through the win-
ter. In the spring of 1868 these vines were partly trained to
trellises made of old telegraph wire, nailed to cedar posts, set
about twelve feet apart, three or four lines of wire on each row
of posts, the posts from 5 to 6^ feet above ground ; the balance
of the vines were wound around cedar posts 6-|- feet long, two
posts to each vine. This being the third year set, the vines were
allowed to bear a few bunches each, according to the strength
and size of the vines ; the product was between $90 and $100
worth sold, which, for an unfavorable season, and the age of
the vines, was a good crop. I prune in the fall, after the leaves
fall, or in early winter, as I find leisure, on the spur system,
leaving about two buds on each spur, which are allowed to grow
the following summer to the second or third leaf beyond the
last bunch of fruit, when they are pinched off; if they make
large growth through the summer, I pinch two or three times.
I have not applied any manure to the land since the summer of
1865 (only as above stated, for early potatoes, &c., when planted
between the rows,) except fifty bushels of ashes, made from
pine-wood saw-dust and shavings, under a steam boiler, which
would be about one-half peck per vine.
Concord, Oct. 2, 1869.

Statement of Edwin Wlieeler.

The fruit and vegetable garden that I offer for your inspec-
tion, contains about one and one-half acres of land, and three
hundred and seventy-six pear-trees ; eighty-eight are on pear
stocks, the balance on quince ; eighty-four were set in the
spring of 1853 and 1854, by digging holes about four feet in
diameter and one and one-half feet deep, using mud and com-
post about them. The rows are seventeen feet apart, and the
trees ten feet apart in the rows, on pear and quince, alternately.

In the fall of 1863 and spring of 1864, 1 set eighty-four trees ;
they were planted at the same distance as the first lot, and on
pear and quince stocks. In the spring of 1865, I planted two
hundred and eight trees, all on quince stocks, arranged twelve
feet by ten. I have some twenty-five varieties, which, I think,
is quite to many. I prune in April or May, in pyramid form,
before the leaves are fully developed, heading them in one-half

ORCHARDS AND VINEYARDS. 121

of the previous year's growth (especially the dwarfs), and
pinching back some of the stronger growing branches during
the summer ; thereby forming stronger and better trees, which
are not so easily disturbed by the wind, and the fruit is not
shaken off so readily as when the branches are long and
slender.

The soil is a black, heavy loam, too wet and cold for corn in
ordinary seasons. In the fall of 1863, I commenced draining
with two-inch tile, laying the drains thirty-four feet apart, and
midway between every row of trees, and about three feet deep.
The effect of this was so plainly seen the next season, that in
the fall of 1864 I drained the remainder of the piece.

On the west side of the piece there are about seventy-five
grape-vines, four feet apart (set within the last five years), of
the following varieties, viz. : Concord, Delaware, Hartford,
Creveling, lona, Israella, Adirondac, Allen's Hybrid, Clinton,
Rogers' Nos. 4 and 19, and two varieties not true to name.
These are grown on a slat and wire trellis. I prune on the spur
system, in November and December.

On the north end there are eight apple-trees, of about twenty
years' growth, of the following varieties, viz. : Hubbardston,
Moore's Sweet, Saps of Wine, Pumpkin Sweet, and Williams.

On the east side and south end are set Norway spruce, about
eight feet apart. They are now about eight feet high, and were
set to form a break-wind.

This piece of ground has been used since the pear-trees were
set for raising all the various kinds of vines and small fruits,
and as a vegetable or kitchen garden ; also, for raising garden
seeds of various kinds, but most extensively, beet, parsnip and
carrot.

Concord, Oct. 1, 1869.

MIDDLESEX NORTH.

Statement of Messrs. E. Bunce and Son.

The fourtli acre of vineyard which we would enter for your
consideration, is situated on a side hill sloping to the west.
Variety of grape. Concord, mostly strong one year old vines,
from cuttings when set. Soil, generally loam. Heavy wood
cleared off in 1847, burned over and sown to rye and grass.
16*

122 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

After the rye was harvested, pastured till spring of 1865, when
it was ploughed and planted with corn, manured in the hill,
with a compost of hen-dung, ashes and plaster, at the rate of
twenty-eight bushels of hen-dung, seven bushels of ashes, and
two hundred pounds of plaster per acre, yielding a fair crop.

In May, 1866, ploughed and harrowed the ground ; then fur-
rowed it north and south ten feet apart, east and west six feet
apart, the distance at which the vines are set, setting them
wthere the furrows crossed. Also planted a row of potatoes in
the ten foot spaces, manured in the hill lightly with a mixture
of flour of bone and plaster. Hoed in around the vines, at
first hoeing, in 1866, forty pounds of flour of bone and six
pounds of sulphur. In spring of 1866, sowed broadcast and
worked into the ground forty pounds of flour of bone, with
equal measure of ashes mixed, moistened with water and al-
lowed to remain about a week before using. The vines were
hoed twice in 1866, three times in 1867 and 1868, and twice in
1869, using a small horse plough lightly the first time each year,
and a cultivator at other times.

The method of pruning and training has been as follows : —

In 1866, the vines were allowed to grow without pruning or
training till November, when they were cut back nearly to the
ground. In the spring of 1867, set stakes from two to three
inches in diameter, cut eight feet long, two to each vine, one
and a half feet from it, making them three feet apart in the
rows, setting them about a foot and a half in the ground. As
the vines grew, trained up two branches from each, one to each
stake, using waste strings from the factory. In November, cut
back the vines to the top of the stakes ; also pruned off any
side shoots that were on them. In 1868, kept the vines tied to
the stakes without pruning till November, when the branches
were cut back to within three buds of the main vine.

This fall, shall cut off all of the present year's growth to
within one good bud of the old wood, and so continue from year
to year. Have left the vines standing winters, renewing any
strings that were weak in the spring. The vines showed a little
mildew in 1868, and also in 1869. Dusted them lightly with
sulphur and it left immediately.

The expenses have been as follows : —

ORCHARDS AND VINEYARDS.

123

180 vines, raised by ourselves, would have sold, in
1866, for

Setting vines, ......

360 stakes, and setting, .....

10 pounds sulphur, .....

80 pounds flour of bone, ....

10 pounds strings, ......

Pruning and training vines, ....

Cultivation in 1866, paid by profit on crop of pota^
toes, ........

Cultivation in 1867, .....

" in 1868,

" in 1869,

Gathering and marketing 2,375 pounds of grapes.

Interest on value of land, ....

Total

130 00

3

00

10

00

1

00

2

60

65

6

00

6

00

6

00

4

00

23

75

4

50

$97 50

The receipts have been : —

1868. 700 pounds of grapes sold, at 10 cts. per lb.,

1869. 1,675 pounds sold, for 10 cents, .

Total receipts,

Total expenses, ......

Profit on the fourth acre, (to which is to be ad-
ded the present value of the vines,)
Westford, Mass., October 16, 1869.

$70 00
167 50

$237 50
97 50

$140 00

HOUSATONIC.

From the Report of the Committee.

The Committee on reclaimed lands and orchards for 1867-9,
having attended to their duties, respectfully submit the follow-
ing Report :

We regret to say that no reclaimed land was entered for our
inspection. There is an apathy on the subject of draining and
cultivating the waste lands of Berkshire which is not creditable
to the farmers of the county. The most careless observer, as he

124 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

passes around the county, must see that " much land remains
to be possessed." The swamps that are now exhahng miasm
and death should be producing sustenance for man and beast.
Health and thrift alike demand this. In many instances our
highways pass through these swamps, and even in a warm sum-
mer's evening, the dampness is so great that we involuntarily
shudder at the chilly exposure and close our mouths that we
may not inhale the seeds of consumption and typhoid fever.
Whoever has any of this cold, wet land on his farm, and does
not drain it, is exposing the health of himself, his family, and
the community. If more drain tile were used, there would be
less demand for pills and powders. Dry and pure air gives
vitality, not only to man, but to the flocks and herds. Some of
the first efforts at drainage in England were made by a farmer
who became convinced that his sheep were suffering from disease
that originated from his pastures being too wet. Both cattle
and sheep, if free to select their grazing and sleeping grounds,
choose the sweet herbage and pure air of the hills. Man, less
mindful of the dictates of reason than the dumb beasts of their
instincts, often locates his house in the neighborhood of low,
damp, foggy land which he neglects to drain, and thus make the
air more healthy and the soil more productive. We are so
thoroughly convinced of the importance of drainage that we put
this down as the first step in successful agriculture, and hope
future committees will not have to lament that no reclaimed
lands were offered for their inspection.

The apathy on the subject of fruit is not much less than in
the matter of wet, unproductive lands, if we may judge from
the number of orchards entered for a premium in 1867, as only
two apple orchards and one of pears were offered for our inspec-
tion. " Good fruit and plenty of it," should be the maxim of
every farmer. Fruit seems to have been the staple diet of man
while in the Garden of Eden, and is what all crave, especially
those living in the temperate and torrid zones. The eagerness
with which children seize even immature fruit, proves the inher-
ent longing in our natures for the cooling antiseptic and refresh-
ing influences which fruit furnishes. With more apples, pears,
peaches and grapes, and less meat, our systems would not be
strained so constantly to their utmost tension, and we should
have less dyspepsia and neuralgia. We can have, and should

ORCHARDS AND VINEYARDS. 125

have, an apple to eat every day in the year, and the modern
mode of excluding air by canning, enables us to be furnished
with all manner of fruits in fresh condition at all seasons. We
call no farm perfect without its apple and pear orchards. The
apple of late years has been a little coquettish in its habits, and
some may have been discouraged from cultivating this most pro-
ductive and most useful of the fruits. Let such remember that
even in our most unproductive seasons, more and better apples
are raised in the northern and western sections of our country
than in any other part of the world. Our soil and climate as a
whole are exceedingly well adapted to this fruit, and nowhere
does it find a more congenial home. Others have feared that,
by the great increase of nurseries, and multiplication of orchards,
the market for apples would be overstocked. We need only to
remind these fearful ones that the price of apples has steadily
risen in our country. The increase in demand has more than
kept pace with the increase of orchards, so that the price of re-
fuse apples, fit only to be made into cider, is now more than our
fathers could obtain for choice winter fruits. They thought
themselves fortunate if they could obtain one dollar per barrel for
picked, grafted apples. We are not content unless we realize four
or five times this amount. Cider, that most healthy of all the
vinous beverages, was formerly sold by the barrel for about the
same that it now brings by the gallon. The foreign demand for
apples has also greatly increased. England, with her foggy at-
mosphere, intercepting the solar rays, cannot produce the high
colored and high flavored fruit peculiar to our country, and will
most gladly purchase all our surplus production. But so far,
we have had little surplus, for comparatively few, even in our
favored land can say, they have all the fruit they desire. Let
no one then be discouraged by an occasional unfruitful season,
or by fear of an overstocked market, from planting apple
orchards. We hope soon to see some remedy devised against
the attacks of the curculio and other insects, which now are the
pests of our orchards, and if no other more profitable disposi-
tion can be made of our apples, our cattle and swine will con-
sume all we can raise.

While apples of late years have become a rather uncertain
cropj the vigor of pear-trees has increased, and their variety and

126 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

quality must now satisfy the most fastidious. The old maxim

was,

" He that plants pears,
Plants for his heirs,"

but, thanks to Yan-Mons, and other pear culturists, we can plant
pear-trees one year and gather fruit from them the next. While
the pear is not so lasting a fruit as the apple, it is more luscious,
and both for the dessert and for cooking is more universally
liked, and commands a much higher price. We hope therefore
to see more pear orchards started in the county.

The roots of the pear-tree run more perpendicularly into the
ground than the apple. Pears, therefore, require a deep, dry
soil, and are less injured by the extreme droughts to which our
climate is exposed. As their limbs also run up more perpen-
dicularly they will bear to be planted more closely than the
apple, so that on a given plot we can plant twice as many pear
as apple trees.

A mistake of many young orchardists is to put out too great
a variety. There is only one best variety. Amateurs differ as
to which is the best, but all agree that the varieties of both apples
and pears which are letter A, are few in number.

Another mistake is to plant too closely. While the young
trees are mere whip-stalks, they seem far enough apart, but ere
we are aware, their branches are interlaced and the sun's rays
are excluded.

Alexander Hyde, Chairman.

GRAIN CROPS.

MIDDLESEX SOUTH.

Statement of P. McMahon.
Indian Corn. — Seven acres of corn entered for premium has
been a pasture, ploughed, April, 1869, with a Michigan plough:

Expense, 121 00

140 ox-loads of barn cellar manure, . . . 280 00
Spreading and ploughing with one horse, . . . 10 00

GRAIN CROPS. 127

110 00

14

00

12

00

12

00

$359 00

140

00

Planted May 12-15,
First hoeing, June 1-5, .
Second hoeing, June 20-25,
July 5-15, third hoeing, .

Half value of manure, .....

Total expense, $219 00

Tops and stover for the harvesting ; 1,193
bushels of sound ears ; shelled corn, 596
bushels, at 11.25 per bushel, . . $747 50

Sixty-five bushels of poor corn, . . 24 25

Sixty-seven bushels potatoes, 75 cents per
bushel, 50 25

Two bushels of white beans, . . . 5 00

827 00

Profit, $608 00

This field was marked three feet eight inches apart each way,
thinned out four in a hill. Pulled off the suckers middle of
July. Manure well, and do likewise, and you will raise good
corn. Patrick McMahon.

PLYMOUTH.

Abstract of Statements.

Indian Corn. — Albert Thomas, of Middleborough. From the
statement of Mr. Thomas, duly filed, it appears that the land on
which he raised his corn crop in 1868, (the experiment not
having been completed at the time of making up the last annual
report,) measured one hundred and sixty-seven square rods, of
dark, sandy loam ; in grass, without manure, in 1866 and 1867 ;
fifty loads, of thirty bushels each, of barnyard manure ploughed
in, in April, 1868 ; the ground harrowed and furrowed three
feet by three and one-half feet apart ; planted. May 30, with
Whitman corn ; cultivated three times and hoed twice ; har-
vested about November 1. Product, 182 basketfuls of ears,

128 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

weighing 45 lbs. to the basketful, making 8,190 lbs., which, at
85 lbs. to the bushel, gives 96|| bushels. One basketful, kept
till December 1, weighed 411^ lbs., and yielded 34 lbs. shelled
corn, being, at that rate, 5,541-^- lbs., or 98|| bushels per acre.
The same corn, kept till January 1 following, and being then
very dry, weighed 32|- lbs., giving, as the merchantable product
of an acre, 94|| bushels of corn and 2^ tons of stover. Ex-
penses : Ploughing and harrowing, $7.50 ; manure, 150 ; seed
and planting, $6 ; cultivation, $1 ; harvesting, 17 ; total, $77.50.
Value of crop, $163. 12|. Profit, 185.62.

1869. Spencer Leonard, of Bridgewater. One acre of sandy
loam, inclining to clay ; in grass, without manure, in 1867 and
1868; thirty loads of manure, of thirty bushels each, ploughed
in May 12, 1869, from seven to eight inches deep ; the ground
thoroughly harrowed and furrowed ; planted. May 14, in hills
three feet five inches apart one way, and about half that distance
the other, putting four kernels of smutty white corn in each
hill ; hoed four times with horse-hoe and twice with hand-hoe ;
the stalks cut and fed to stock in September, and the corn har-
vested in the latter part of October. Product, as computed
from an average rod harvested by the supervisor, 108|| bushels
of corn and four tons of stover. Expenses : Ploughing and
harrowing, |5 ; manure, $55 ; seed and planting, $4.50 ; culti-
vation, $10 ; harvesting, $15 ; total, $89.50. Mr. Leonard says,
in his statement : " A small portion of my corn land was
ploughed in the autumn of 1868. Tliis portion was manured
like the rest, in May, 1869, and ploughed only about four inches
deep. There was no perceptible difference in the corn on these
different portions. Some slight injury was done by the wire-
worms early in the season, and later, on the higher and dryer
portions, by the white-worm. Otherwise it has made a very
even and regular growth, and ripened well. The manure used
was from my barn cellar, about one-fourth of it being soil, and
the remainder the droppings from my cattle and horses, worked
over and enriched by three swine. A small handful of hen-
manure mixed with soil was put in each hill. The corn crop
appears to be a paying one, notwithstanding the statement of
Mr. Pratt and others that corn raising in Plymouth County
doesn't pay."

Albert Thomas, of Middleborough. One acre of dark, sandy

GRAIN CROPS. 129

loam, in grass, without manure, in 1867 and 1868 ; forty loads,
of thirty bushels each, of manure from the barn cellar ploughed
ill seven inches deep in May, 1869 ; the ground harrowed and
furrowed out in rows about three feet apart ; planted. May 10,
with Whitman corn, putting about ten bushels of hen-manure
and ashes, in equal parts, in the hills ; cultivated and hoed
three times ; harvested about November 1. Product, computed
from an average rod, ninety-five bushels ; stover valued at $12.
Expenses : ploughing and harrowing, $6 ; manure, 140 ; seed
and planting, 13.50 ; cultivation, $10 ; harvesting, |7 ; total,
166.50. Value of crop, 1130.75 ; profit, $64.25.

James Howard, of West Bridgewater. One acre of stiff,
heavy loam, with clayey subsoil, wet and springy ; in grass,
without manure, in 1867 ; in corn in 1868, manured with forty
loads, of thirty bushels each, of barn cellar compost, ploughed
in, December, 1868 ; forty-five loads of compost ploughed in,
seven inches deep, in April, 1869, and mixed with the soil by
using a Ross horse-hoe, and two hundred and thirty pounds of
ground bone, composted with ashes, put in the hills ; planted
May 13, in rows three and one-half feet apart, the hills sixteen
inches apart in the rows, putting two kernels of corn in each
hill ; on one-third of the piece early yellow corn, on the other
two-thirds white corn ; cultivated twice with Ross cultivator,
and hoed twice ; stalks cut about September 18, and the corn
harvested October 15 to 18. Product, 57| bushels of corn, and
about three tons of stalks and husks. Expenses : Ploughing,
&c., $7 ; manure, $53 ; seed and planting, $4 ; cultivation, $10 ;
harvesting, $10 ; total, $84.

Mr. Howard will scarcely expect a premium on his corn, yet,
as his statement contains some valuable suggestions, the super-
visor recommends that he be paid a gratuity of $6. He says :
" As my corn crop was not more than two-thirds of what I ex-
pected when preparing my land, perhaps some suggestions as to
the causes of failure may not be inappropriate. This land has
a wet, cold subsoil, which possibly might be much improved by
under-draining. The early part of the season being wet and
cold, the corn did not come up well, and it became necessary to
replant it, thus making it late in starting. The bone compost
is not as forcing as some other manures, although, on another
piece of higher land it produced a noble crop of corn this year.

17*

130 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

My corn being thus late, was much injured by the September
gale. Perhaps it was injudicious to plant corn on the same
land two years in succession ; but the best corn I ever raised
grew on land planted to corn the previous year."

Wheat. — Charles 0. Thayer, of West Bridgewater. One
hundred and seventy-three rods of gravelly loam ; in corn in
1867, manured with fifteen loads of barnyard manure, of thirty
bushels each ; in potatoes in 1868, manured with sixteen loads
of similar manure ; ploughed September 8, 1868, seven inches
deep ; one hundred bushels of ashes harrowed in ; six pecks of
blue stem wheat sowed September 12, harrowed in, and the
ground rolled ; harvested the last of July by cradling. Product,
1,856 pounds of wheat, being at the rate of 1,716 pounds, or
28|| bushels per acre, and 3,000 pounds of straw. Expenses :
Ploughing and other preparation, $5 ; manure, $22 ; seed and
planting, $4 ; harvesting, $14 ; total, $45.

James Howard, of West Bridgewater. One hundred and
sixty-two rods of stiff, gravelly loam, with a small percentage of
clay ; in corn in 1867, manured with fifty loads, of thirty bush-
els each, of manure from the barn cellar ; in corn in 1868, ma-
nured with twenty-five loads as before ; ploughed, September
17, 1868, about six inches deep ; one and one-half bushels of
white flint wheat sowed September 18 ; harrowed, bushed and
rolled ; cradled July 19, and threshed with hand-flails. Prod-
uct, 1,580 pounds of wheat, being at the rate of 1,560 pounds,
or twenty-six bushels per acre very nearly, and 2,500 pounds of
straw. Expenses : Ploughing and other preparation, $3 ; seed
and sowing, $7 ; harvesting, $14 ; total, $24.

In his statement, Mr. Howard says : " My wheat crop, when
harvested, was worth $86, and, with flour at prices it averaged
two years ago, would have been worth $125. I think the atten-
tion of farmers in this vicinity should be called to the advan-
tage of producing their own bread. More value of wheat can
be raised upon an acre, at the same expense of labor and ma-
nure, than of Indian corn. Winter wheat, raised on our own
farms, will make better flour than is found in the market. I
think Plymouth County farmers should aim to produce such
crops as they require for their own consumption, when it can
be done economically. I would not, by this statement, influence
any one to scatter seed, hap-hazard, upon any piece of land, at

ROOT CROPS. 131

any season, without knowledge or careful preparation, as such
a course would be sure to result in disappointment. But with
suitable care, and the exercise of the same degree of knowledge
and skill necessary to insure success in other business, wheat-
raising will be found as satisfactory as any other branch of
farming. I find it more and more so, after twenty years'
experience."

ROOT CROPS.

ESSEX.

Statements of H. L. and W. W. Phelps.

Potatoes. — The acre of land entered by the undersigned for
premium, is situated on the south side of a hill. The soil is a
gravelly loam, with here and there a slight mixture of clay.
Grass has been the annual crop since 1856, and in 1867-8 it was
hardly worth cutting, as no manure had been applied for several
years. It was ploughed once, about six inches deep, late in the
fall of last year ; cost $5. Harrowed early last spring ; cost
$1. As soon as harrowed.^ eighteen loads of well rotted manure
were hauled upon the ground, and piled ; estimated value $35.
The potatoes were planted April 16-22. The land was fur-
rowed, making the furrows four feet apart and eight inches deep ;
the manure was spread evenly along the furrow, and the seed
which had been cut, leaving but one eye on a piece, was dropped
upon it about nine inches apart, and covered four inches deep.
Five bushels of seed were used, four of Early Goodrich and one
of Garnet Chili, costing $1 per bushel ; cost of planting $15.
May 27th and 28th it was cultivated with a horse hoe, and hoed,
the potatoes at that time being about six inches high. June
10th and 11th it was ploughed and hoed. This being the last
hoeing, they were hilled as much as possible ; cost of cultivation
112. July 21st, and August 25th, dug 21,600 pounds of pota-
toes, of which 320 bushels were merchantable.

The above statements are correct, to the best of my knowledge.

W. J. Dale, Jr.

North Andover, November 9, 1869.

13

00

4

00

6

50

10

00

132 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Statement of Charles L. Perkins.
Potatoes. — The land upon which the potatoes which I oflfer
were grown, is a dark, gravelly, loamy soil ; has been planted
with onions the last thirty years, with the exception of last year
when it was planted with Swedes turnip. The piece of ground
contains one hundred and eighteen rods, was manured the first
week in May with three cords of barnyard manure, ploughed
seven inches deep, harrowed with an iron tooth harrow and
brushed twice over with a brush harrow, drilled three feet apart
and planted with three barrels of Harrison potatoes. The seed
potatoes were cut, and two small pieces, or one large piece put
in a hill. The expense of cultivating, as near as I can estimate
was: —

For hauling and spreading manure, ....
Ploughing, harrowing and drilling, .....
Planting $1.50 ; cultivating and hoeing twice, 15,
Harvesting, ........

123 50

For some cause, perhaps owing to the drought in July and
August, the tubers formed on the joints of the vines, thus re-
ducing the crop considerably. Tlie hills, where the potatoes
formed on the vines, outside of the hills, did not yield more
than half as much as the hills where the potatoes formed inside.
The potatoes weighed 18,172 pounds ; at sixty pounds to the
bushel, there is three hundred and two bushels and fifty-two
pounds.

Statement of Paul Hsley.
Onions. — The crop of onions which I enter for consideration
was grown upon a soil of gravelly loam, the land sloping slightly
towards the south-east. The crop the year previous was onions.
I ploughed in the fall, turning under about seven cords of barn-
yard manure, to the acre. Manure composed largely of salt
marsh muck. I sowed, about the 25th of April, in drills, thir-
teen or fourteen inches apart, about three and one-half pounds of
seed to the acre. In cultivating, use the wheel hoe, going over the
ground seven or eight times, and weed thoroughly four times.
The crop this year was pulled the middle of September, and

175 00

12

50

29

00

45

00

36

00

ROOT CROPS. 133

topped on the ground, and housed two or three weeks later.
The result was 610-|- bushels of ripe onions on an acre.

Value of manure, estimated, .....

Cost of preparing ground,

Cost of seed and sowing,

Cost of cultivating, .......

Cost of harvesting and topping, ....

1197 50
Statement oj J. J. H. Gregory.
Carrots. — The piece planted to carrots was tile-drained a year
ago last spring and then planted to carrots. This spring it was
liberally manured with a compost of muck, night soil, sea ma-
nure and barn manure, at about the rate of eight cords to the
acre ; it was ploughed about eight inches deep, and very thor-
oughly worked. About the middle of June it was planted to
the Improved Long Orange carrot, the short top variety, in rows
fifteen inches apart, seed being dropped at the rate of one pound
to the acre. The season being unpropititious, the plants aver-
aged thinner than was desirable. After the carrots were three
or four inches high, they were thinned where too thick, to three
inches apart, with the exception of a small portion of the bed,
which was overlooked. All after cultivation, was by finger
weeding and the slide hoe. The yield was five hundred and
twenty-three bushels from ninety-five rods of land, or at the rate
of twenty-two tons to the acre.

Statement of J. L. Newhall.

Mangolds. — The crop of 1867 was grass without manure ; the
crop of 1868 was grass without manure, on half the piece, the
remainder was in cabbage with manure, at the rate of four cords
per acre, and a handful of ashes to each hill. The land was
ploughed in the fall Of 1868, and again in the spring of 1869.
At the last ploughing, about eight cords of manure were plough-
ed in ; the land was then harrowed and turned into ridges three
feet apart, with the plough, and the seed sowed on the top of
ridges, four pounds of seed required for this piece. Cost of
seed, $1.80 ; planting, $2 ; cost of ploughing, |5 ; other prepa-
ration, $5 ; value of manure on land, $64.

The piece was cultivated with horse cultivator three times,

134 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

and the weeds pulled from tlie rows. Cost of cultivating and
weeding, $20. The crop was gathered about the middle of Oc-
tober ; the roots were stripped of leaves and thrown into rows of
four rows each, in the forenoon, and in the afternoon carted to
the cellar. Cost of harvesting crop, $15. Product of 117 rods
— 29 tons 110 pounds.

Statement of H. F. Longfellow.
Swedish Turnips. — The land on which the turnips were
raised was broken up in 1867 and planted with potatoes ;
in 1868 a crop of corn was raised upon it. Each year it re-
ceived about thirty loads of manure to the acre. The piece
which I enter is part of ray field of three acres, and was manured
with thirty-three loads of barnyard manure, spread broadcast
and ploughed in to the depth of four inches, and then thrown
into ridges, thirty inches apart, with a double mould-board
plough. A heavy brush harrow was then passed lengthways
over the ridges, leaving them so smooth that the seed was easily
sown with a common brush seed sower, on the 21th of June.
The plants were thinned to the distance of nine inches. The
seed used, was Skirring's King of Swedes and Carter's Improved,
at the rate of one and one-third pounds to the acre. Both varie-
ties are good. After hoeing once, the weeds were pulled by
hand. The three rods selected as an average, by a member of
your committee, Mr. Perkins, were harvested on the second of
November, and the turnips, after being relieved of tops, dirt
and roots, weighed 1,060| pounds — 56,580 pounds, or 943 bushels
to the acre, which I think is the largest crop ever offered for the
society's premium, and if it had not been for the drouth of July
and August, I think I should have raised 1,200 bushels to the
acre.

COST OF CROP.

Manure, hauling, and spreading,

Ploughing, ridging, and harrowing, .

Seed, hoeing, weeding, thinning, and harvesting,

Interest on land, ......

Cr. by tops and small turnips,

$60 00

3

50

23

33

6

00

$92

83

12

83

$80 00

VEGETABLES. 135

Making the cost, per bushel, at previous estimate, eight and
one-half cents. The price of ruta-bagas varies from $1 to $2.25
per barrel.

Statement of J. L. Newhall.
Ruta-Bagas. — The crop of 1867 and 1868 was grass without
manure. Ploughed in the fall of 1868 about eight inches
deep, again in the spring of 1869 six inches deep, and just be-
fore sowing, about six cords of manure were ploughed in to the
depth of six inches, the ground harrowed and about 200 pounds
of superphosphate applied broadcast, the surface was then thrown
into ridges, and one and one-half pounds of seed, cost il.05,
sown on the top of these ridges. Value of manure on land,
$54 ; cost of ploughing and planting, $12 ; the crop was culti-
vated three times and weeded twice ; cost of weeding and culti-
vating, $15 ; the crop was harvested the last of October, the
roots were pulled and topped and thrown into piles in the
morning, and carted to cellar in the afternoon. Cost of har-
vesting, $10. Product of 136 rods, 17 tons.

VEGETABLES.

ESSEX.

From the Report of the Committee.

Any thrifty housewife who was compelled by untoward cir-
cumstances to drop into the dinner pot an onion weighing one
pound, or a turnip beet weighing six pounds, would consider
herself unfortunate, and when " boiled dinner " came to the
table John would not be expected to go into raptures over the
thick, coarse, sloughing layers of the onion ; the stringy, flavor-
less beet. Now an onion is grown for table use only ; and, as
a rule, turnip beets are grown for table use only. Why then
should a false standard be encouraged on our exhibition tables
by awarding premiums to specimens of these two vegetables,
whose size would render them utterly worthless for the table,
the only use now made of them.

136 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

The carrot has a double use, being cultivated for the table,
and for stock ; for our tables we want the swditest, the finest
grained, and the richest flavored of all the numerous varieties.
This we have in the Early Scarlet Horn, the earliest of all.
This is a short carrot, growing about three inches long and two
in diameter, but it will bear planting in rich land three inches
deep. For feeding stock, the size is of primary consideration ;
this we find in the White Belgian and large Orange varieties.
Tlip White Belgian will yield a quarter more than any other
variety, and growing partly out of the ground, a large part of
the crop can be pulled by hand. For horses this is a good car-
rot, but for the butter and milk of dairy stock, we want the rich
color of the Orange varieties, and the best of these is the short
top, half long, otherwise known as Improved Long Orange, and
locally known as the Dan vers Carrot. This carrot has a greater
diameter near the surface than the Long Orange planted at the
same time, while being shorter, it is more easily pulled and less
liable to break in the ground than that variety.

The parsnip is at present, grown almost entirely for the table,
and at the best, we do not, ordinarily, by October grow a very
large root, other conditions being equal ; to the largest root, I
would award the highest premium. I think that the day is not
far distant when our Jersey Cows will be treated in winter to
the root on which they are almost reared in their native island,
the parsnip. Shallow, dry, stony, or anything but the richest
of soil is unpropitious for a good growth of the parsnip ; but
peat meadows, to the reclaiming of which so much attention is
given of late years, are most excellent for growing the parsnip,
and all other roots to the largest size ; and when the best possi-
ble result is sought in our Jersey Cows, in the condition of the
stock, and the quality of butter and milk, then the rich, sweet
parsnip will have its day. For family use, on deep soil, the im-
proved varieties such as Abbott's and the Student's, which taper
quickly from the top, are preferable, while for shallow soil the
little turnip rooter, of nearly the shape of a flat turnip, is a
gem.

I believe of beets, as of parsnips, that a day will come when
the condition of quality will so far enter into our consideration
that we shall grow the turnip and long blood beet to feed to
stock. By planting early in the season in rich soil and thinning

VEGETABLES. 137

to a foot apart, a growth of from ten to twelve pounds can be
attained, and I have had isolated specimens weigh over twenty-
pounds. While the mangel-wurzel afford us but little else than
water, the common beet is a saccharine vegetable, and the sugar,
besides improving the quality of milk, adds fat to the animal.
Let me here make a seedman's suggestion to my brother farm-
ers,— when you see sugar beets, or white sugar beets advertised
in catalogues, remember it means a variety of mangel-wurzel,
used largely in Europe for the manufacture of sugar — preferred
to other sorts because it has but little coloring matter in its
composition, and utterly worthless for table use.

As an early short top, the Early Flat is desirable, while for a
handsome round beet, excellent for the family, or the market,
Dewing's is an acquisition. Simon's Early is a favorite with the
Philadelphia marketmen. The half long varieties, such as Hen-
derson's Pine Apple, Castelnaudary and Crapaudine, are rather
small in size, but of excellent quality.

In mangel-wurzel, what we want, is size and quality, though as
ordinarily grown, we have in view quantity only. If the variety
of mangel-wurzel, alluded to above, had no more sweetness in
it as grown in Europe, than most of those fed to our milch cows,
" the bottom would be knocked out " of their sugar enterprise
in a single season. Let the experiment be tried of growing
under the same condition, a piece of mangolds, one on high and
one on low land. When the crop is gathered, those on the low-
land may be larger, but those on the upland will be sweeter. If
the farmer is only desirous of increasing the quaniiiy of milk,
he will feed mangolds from lowland ; if he has regard also to
the condition of his animals, he will feed mangolds grown on
upland, and I will add if he aims at producing butter, he will
feed carrots rather than mangolds. I know of no more common
error in dairy matters, than in the time at which mangolds are
fed to cows. Most vegetables undergo a change in their nature,
after they are gathered and stored, — some potatoes undergo a
ripening process, so that the characteristics of October are not
the characteristics of March ; in a few months our turnips be-
come " corky " and the seed of our running squashes do not
fully mature until from one to four months have elapsed from
the time they were gathered ; so of the entire beet family of
which mangolds are a class. In the sugar making countries of
18*

138 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Europe, it is found necessary to store the sugar beet awhile, un-
til certain changes shall have taken place in its nature, before it
is in a condition suitable for use. So in the mangold, it is nec-
essary that some important change should take place in its na-
ture before it can profitably be fed to stock ; if fed liberally,
early in the season, it will scour the cows ; feed ruta-bagas»
carrots or cabbages early in the season, and feed the mangolds
towards spring.

If planted before the first of June, the long red mangold is
apt to have a long, woody, hollow neck by harvest time. I
would recommend the ovoid varieties as preferable in this re-
spect, besides being of more compact growth, and having fewer
lateral roots. The yellow globe is an excellent sort for a sandy
soil. If our farmers would be brave enough to have their rows
thirty inches, and thin their plants to fifteen inches apart in the
row, when young, they would find that they could do about all
their tillage with the cultivator and hoe, while they would have
as much weight in the crop, and the pleasure of handling man-
golds as big as their thigh, instead of as big as their arm.

As turnips are grown both for family use and for stock, we
need to encourage good specimens of all sizes at our annual
exhibitions. Of the ruta-baga or Swede class, the best for family
use is the white variety, known as " Sweet German." This ex-
cels in its sweetness, crispness and keeping qualities. It is also
an excellent turnip for stock. The demand for this variety has
increased wonderfully within a few years ; whereas twenty years
ago it was rare to see a barrel of the white ruta-bagas in -Boston
market, almost all sold being of the yellow sort ; now ten of the
white may be seen to one of the yellow. Of the yellow varieties,
Skirvings has been exceedingly popular, but though it forms
good bulbs, the long neck that goes with them is an objec-
tion, and Laings, London and Shamrock Swedes are now pre-
ferred.

In testing about a score of flat turnips, American and foreign,
I have found our white and purple strap leaf the earliest ; yet
I think it is not generally known to our farmers that these are
the most subject to the attack of the worm of the wliole class
of flat turnips. Yellow Finland, Improved Yellow Globe and
Cowhorn are preferable in this respect.

VEGETABLES. 139

Of onions, the standard for an excellent table article is found
among those that are not over three inches in their greatest di-
ameter, with a fine, close skin, thin, compact layers, a small
neck, with the whole bulb feeling about as hard, when handled,
as a stone. The Large Red Wethersfield onion is the latest in
maturing, and a large percentage makes but scullions, even
under the best of treatment ; while the Early Red Globe grows
to as large a size, crops equally well, and the onions are among
the most symmetrical, and in earliness are among the earliest.
For these reasons, as would be inferred, it is fast superseding
the Late Red where it has been introduced. The Early
" Cracker" onion, when I first introduced it to the general pub-
lic, was remarkably early, but quite thin, and therefore would
not measure well when marketed. For the past two or three
years, while retaining its earliness, it has grown much thicker,
and now so closely resembles the old Flat or Strasburg onion,
that the public would be decidedly a gainer if they would throw
overboard that late variety, and substitute in" its place the
" Cracker," which matures fully two weeks earlier, a character-
istic of vast value, in short seasons, to the onion farmers of the
North. For general crop, in Essex County, the Early Danvers
rules the market, and we know of no variety for a standard
onion that deserves to replace it. The Potato onion is the ear-
liest of all varieties, and, when used as early, is tlie sweetest
and tenderest of all onions ; but after summer has past, it soon
becomes tough and unsuitable for the table. I would advise all
farmers- to plant a quart or so of the potato onion sets, to be
used in the family before those raised from seed get sizable.

The largest cabbage of its kind is usually the best, and
among our greatest cabbage-eating class the largest cabbage of
the largest kinds always find a ready market. For these reasons
it is desirable that we should encourage at our exhibitions the
largest specimens of all varieties where such specimens have
hard and handsome heads. The largest cabbage of its kind,
other things equal, is the best ; because, to attain this extra
size, it must have grown faster than its fellows, and having
grown faster it is therefore more tender, and being more tender,
under these circumstances, it is also the sweetest. The Marble-
head Mammoth is our standard large cabbage in Essex County,
and when the market is within a few miles, it is a capital sort

140 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

to raise for our Irish and German brethren ; but where the
market is more distant, or there is mostly a different class of
customers, then the Stone Mason and Fottler become standard
sorts. For family use, the Savoy family are decidedly the best,
having that rich, marrow-like taste that belongs to no other
class of cabbages. The Early Ulm Savoy is as early or earlier
than Early York, and, with the Improved American Savoy, is as
reliable for heading as any cabbage grown. I have been exper-
imenting with over sixty foreign and native varieties this season,
of which I may have more to say at some other time.

When the Autumnal Marrow, or Boston Marrow squash, as
it is usually called, was first introduced, it was of small size,
weighing about five or six pounds ; it cooked very dry, was fine-
grained and of excellent quality. At the present time it is
usually watery, often coarse-grained, and poor in quality ; we
have utterly lost its fine qualities for the table. Within a few
years, the American Turban, as a fall squash, and the Hubbard,
for winter use, have, to a large extent, replaced the Marrow
upon our tables. In these two we find the chief good charac-
teristics of the Marrow when in its palmiest days, and, in addi-
tion, superior keeping properties which characterize these two
fine varieties. As a general rule, the Turban and Hubbard are
too grainy in their texture to enter into the structure of that
grand Yankee luxury, a squash pie. For this the Marrow ex-
cels , and this, I hold, is now the proper sphere of this squash ;
it is now a pie squash. Where dryness, sweetness and quality
for the table are sought for, we find these, as a rule, in squashes
of medium size, those weighing from six to ten pounds. This,
therefore, I hold, should be the standard encouraged for a table
squash. If we select large specimens for seed stock, we find, in
practice, that there is more of sport in the crop ; that the Hub-
bard gradually loses its shell and grows coarse in structure,
while the Turban tends to develop the cross of the French
Turk's cap that is in its blood, which gives it size at the expense
of quality. Because this is so, and because the temptation
among marketmen is to raise weight at the sacrifice of quality,
I hold that our premiums should point emphatically to the cor-
rect standard of weight in these two prominent table squashes.
Discussing the Marrow as a pie squash (and I find that the most
intelligent of the market-gardeners around Boston agree with

VEGETABLES. 141

me,) I hold that our premiums consult the best welfare of both
consumer and producer, when they encourage the largest crop
possible consistent with a sufficient fineness of structure for
pies. It is my opinion that for this use the Marrow squash can
safely be grown to average from twelve to fourteen pounds in
weight. The idea entertained by many good farmers, that
special aim should be made to grow the Marrow as small sized
as formerly, when it was so excellent a table squash, based on
the idea that by so doing we can get the old excellence back
again, is a delusion, as is proved by the fact that, with all the
efforts in this direction, the old excellence has not been recov-
ered.

The annual exhibition of vegetables this season was hardly
up to the usual standard. We particularly missed the great
variety usually displayed by Mr. Merrill, who for so many years
has been the right hand of the society in this department. As
the exhibitors had no standard in common to guide them while
selecting their various kinds of vegetables for the annual fair, I
hardly feel that tlie quality of the vegetables was open to crit-
icism. There was a large variety on the tables, and some fine
specimens of the various standard kinds.

It would greatly improve our vegetable exhibitions if the same
plan was pursued as has been adopted in the fruit department
— that of offering special premiums for each standard vegetable,
the number of specimens required of each kind to be stated,
and the standard of excellence to be briefly given. The Mas-
sachusetts Horticultural Society has practised this in part for
the past few years, with marked improvement in its annual ex-
hibitions. In its printed programme the society has confined
itself to specifying how many in number or how much in meas-
ure of each vegetable was required to compete for the premiums
offered. I propose that our ancient society become a pioneer in
a still further improvement, and fix a standard of excellence in
the several vegetables, so far as the characteristics present
themselves to the eye. The experience and good judgment of
the vegetable committee of the Massachusetts Horticultural So-
ciety has usually assigned premiums to the most deserving of
their kind ; yet, in their exhibitions, anomalies have been pre-
sented that would be impossible under the more matured system
that I propose — such as prominent premiums assigned to over-

142 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

grown potatoes, overgrown squashes, to Hubbard squashes that
were but little more than half matured, the color being of a
deeper green when in that stage — one year awarding premiums
to the largest, coarsest onions, the next to the ripest. I fully
believe that our society would promote the best interests of the
community, and add much to the educating value of its exhi-
bitions, if it would define in general terms what a premium
onion, potato, squash or other vegetable must be.

There can be no good vegetables without good seed ; and the
more hands seed passes through before reaching the end of its
journey — the seed drill of the farmer, the greater the chances
are of its being too old, impure, or wrongly named. I hold,
therefore, that the Essex Agricultural Society has done a wise
thing in directing its attention of late years to the matter, and
offering special premiums for seed grown within the limits of the
county. It is very difficult for the farmer who has had the mis-
fortune to handle worthless seed, to fix the responsibility on any
one ; it has passed through several hands, and " he told me so,"
is the catch phrase of the entire series ; but let the seed be grown
in its own neighborhood and the direct responsibility is a power-
ful stimulus to the utmost honesty and highest care on the part
of the grower, while it proportionally increases the confidence
and profits of the planter. There are three positions taken by
prominent societies in New England in respect to the exhibition
of vegetable seed : the Massachusetts Horticultural Society not
only does not offer any premiums for vegetable seed, but goes
farther than this, and positively refuses to have any exhibited on
its tables. As several of the prominent men who are active
members of that society are seed dealers this action appears
anomalous ; but a knowledge of the fact that under the by-laws
of that society the exhibitor must have grown his own seed,
naturally tones down all surprise. The New England Society
offers premiums simply for garden seed, without any condition
that it shall have been grown in or out of New England, or that
the exhibitor shall have raised a grain of it. The obvious effect
of such a course is simply to encourage the production of seed
as a commercial article. Our own society in offering premiums
for a home grown product, encourages a very important branch
of agriculture in our midst, annihilates the vast intervals that

VEGETABLES. 143

usually exist between the producer and the planter, and keeps a
wholesome responsibility within easy access of the purchaser.

For the Committee,

James J. H. Gregory.

NANTUCKET.

From the Report of the Committee.

In making our awards the present year, we would say that in
no year since the formation of the society has the duty been
more agreeable or satisfactory than in this, from the fact that
the display of vegetables uniformly excelled in size and quality
the exhibitions of former years, thus showing a decided improve-
ment in the method of cultivation among our farmers. It will
be gratifying to our agriculturists to know that it was the opin-
ion of the State delegate, and also of those friends who visited
us from abroad, that our show of vegetables cannot be excelled
by any similar exhibition in New England, expressing at the
same time a very favorable opinion of the capabilities of our soil
when properly managed.

In view of the increasing importance of agriculture as a means
of subsistence in the county, your Committee would offer a few
suggestions relative to a method of fertilizing the soil not here-
tofore practised among us. We refer more particularly to the
ploughing in of green crops. The scarcity and consequent high
price of manure on the island, creates an imperative demand
for some cheaper method of rendering the land productive, and
your Committee believe that such a method will be found in the
practice above referred to. According to the best information
which the Committee have been able to obtain, the practice has
been attended with entire success in those sections where it has
been adopted, and should like results be obtained here, it would
certainly be of great importance to our agricultural interests.

In order to convey to our farmers some idea of the practical
utility of this system, the Committee would here introduce a
statement made to one of their number by a gentleman from Illi-
nois, who visited the island in the summer of 1866 and 1867,
and spent some time in looking over the land and noticing the
capabilities of the soil, and being himself a practical farmer, his

144 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

opinion should be entitled to some consideration. Said he, why
is it that so large a portion of your island lies uncultivated,
while so many of your people are seeking employment ? Sim-
ply because the land is barren and unproductive. But why not
go to work and make it productive ? Because the expense of
manure, &c., would make it cost more than it would yield.
Then, said he, make it without manure. As this idea struck
us as being the quintessence of absurdity, our only reply was a
prolonged stare. The gentleman seemed amused at our per-
plexity, and presently inquired whether we had ever practised
ploughing under green crops as a means of manuring the land.
We replied, that as far as we knew, no such practice had ever
obtained in this county, and expressed our doubts as to its being
any cheaper than the ordinary way of manuring. To this he
replied that he would relate the experience of a neighbor of his,
which came under his own observation, and which might per-
haps tend to alter our views on the subject.

Some six years ago, said he, there came a man from the East-
ern States to Illinois, and located on a tract of barren land, for
which he paid five dollars per acre. Having exhausted his
means in purchase of the land, he commenced work for his
neighbors, and as soon as he had earned enough to purchase
seed, he had the land ploughed and sown with mammoth clover.
This crop in due time he ploughed under, and then put in bar-
ley, which at maturity he cut as high as possible, turning under
the stubble, and threshing out the grain, which he sold for
enough to pay the expense of seed and ploughing, leaving a
surplus equivalent to one dollar and a quarter per day for each
day's work which he himself had done on the land. This
process he repeated, and at the end of five years the land was
in a condition to raise one hundred bushels of corn to the acre,
and other crops in proportion. He is now offered two hundred
dollars per acre, which he refuses. Now, said he, I have passed
over hundreds of acres of your commons, which I consider bet-
ter land to begin this process upon than the land of which I
have been speaking.

In view of the above statement, the Committee would sug-
gest to the society the propriety of ploughing an acre of ground
in their enclosure, with the view of testing this method for the

VEGETABLES. 145

benefit of the agricultural community. The experiment is
worth trying, and we believe it would pay its own expenses.

So many conditions are to be observed for the growth of veg-
etables, that the subject demands the most careful research.
Climate, soil, planting and cultivating, are the requisites for
growth. We are all aware that much of our island soil is very
light and sandy, with but little depth. Constant crops in
former years have nearly exhausted hundreds of acres of up-
land. Cultivating without manures has been the ruinous pol-
icy. This spoliation system has to a serious extent impaired the
productiveness of our common and undivided lands. The prac-
tice of seeking the greatest possible production at the least pos-
sible cost, has impoverished the soil on thousands of acres of
the more fertile lands of other States. Where cultivation has
been easy, past generations have taken ever from the soil, giving
little in return, leaving to their successors the almost hopeless
task of restoring what their ignorance or stupidity had de-
stroyed ; and many of the present generation are too faithful
imitators of the practice of their ancestors. Men buy land too
often for the same use as they do cattle — to wear out. Meas-
uring the result by the money received, they consider the busi-
ness profitable. Were all to adopt this system, the earth would
soon become a barren waste.

We have a number of mineral chemicals which are being
tested for fertilizers by the scientific agricultural world. Guano
is thought by some to be excellent for grain or vegetable
crops. Potash is said to be the most valuable mineral alkaline
substance that can be used, as it decomposes the mineral sub-
stances in the earth. This may be returned to the soil in wood-
ashes ; they contain nearly all the mineral elements necessary
to vegetation. Common salt may be safely used with manures,
as it decomposes vegetable and mineral matter. Lime is a pow-
erful agent, and will in many ways benefit the soil and hasten
vegetation. It is said that two hundred pounds of lime and
two bushels of salt, mixed together, dry-slack under cover.
Sow the mixture on the surface in the fall ; cultivate in, if sowa
in the spring, to incorporate with the soil. If for potatoes, use
a little in the hill ; from four to five hundred pounds of lime to
the acre is a fair dressing. Bones are of great value ; they
contain one-third organic and two-thirds mineral. Many other

19*

146 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. .

minerals may be applied to soils with success as restoratives.
Soils may be improved by mixing one with another ; if clay
predominates, it should be amended by sand ; if the soil is too
sandy, by an admixture of clay.

Close and intelligent observation will enable every farmer to
determine what character of land is best adapted to each crop,
and what crops should succeed each other. "We want more
labor and a rotation of crops. An eminent agriculturist has
said : " We not only want more capital, but we want more
labor — a great deal more of it." There is nothing in which our
farmers come so short as in the employment of labor on their
farms. The profit comes from skilful working of the land.

We would not overlook the value of our barn and stable
composts, for they are the most important resources we have
for fertilizers ; but the amount is by far too limited for our hay
lands, cereals and tillage, and substitution must be resorted to
for vegetables.

Time and space will not allow us to more than hint at these
systems by which our lands may be made much more produc-
tive. We believe that maximum crops of from seventy-five to
one hundred bushels of corn, and three hundred to four hun-
dred of potatoes to the acre, can easily be produced, by skill and
labor, on some of the lightest lands in our county.

Alexander Macy, Jr., Chairman.

FRUITS.

HINGHAM.

From the Report of the Committee.
So favorable a season for the successful cultivation of grapes
has not been experienced in this vicinity for a number of years,
and the results were apparent at our exhibition in the large num-
ber of contributions and the beautiful appearance and ripeness
of the fruit. Yet this season must not be taken as an index of
what may be the result in the future ; on the contrary, we must
rather judge from the experience of the past ten years, what we
may expect, and what varieties are really worthy of our atten-

FRUITS. 147

tion, insuring good returns for the care and labors of the culti-
vator. It is fortunate for many of us that we have in our midst
gentlemen of means and liberality who are ready and willing to
purchase and test new varieties and give us the result of their
experience to guide us in the selection for our gardens and
farms. Many varieties which are extolled in the public journals,
and lauded by circulars, although they may prove valuable in
the localities were they originate, oftentimes disappoint the ex-
pectations and hopes of the cultivator in other sections of the
country. By experience only can the real value of any variety
for our locality be ascertained, and whoever plants the different
kinds of vines that are constantly being brought out, must ex-
pect failure in many cases.

It must be admitted, notwithstanding numerous new varieties
have been produced during the past ten years, that the Concord
should be selected to-day, by the person who wishes to cultivate
but one kind. Its returns are more certain, it is hardy and
prolific, of good flavor, and generally sure to ripen. No other
grape has been produced that combines all these necessary
qualities in so great a degree, and is so well suited to our soil
and climate.

Next to the Concord, we should select the delicious, beautiful
Delaware, which needs but little more than an increased size of
berry and cluster to make it the perfect grape so much desired
by the horticulturist. Many of the varieties should be selected
only by those who can furnish some favored, protected locality ;
among them may be named the lona, a beautiful grape in color,
size and flavor, but requiring a long season, and liable to blast
and mildew. The same may be said of the Allen's Hybrid,
Diana, Union Village, Maxatawny, Cuyahoga and Montgomery.
The Adirondac is almost worthless in this locality, and the
Creveling may also be considered a failure, growing poorer as
the vine grows older. It would seem almost foolish to commence
the cultivation of the Catawba or even of the Isabella in this
vicinity.

The Garrigues is not so good as the Isabella, of which it is a
seedling, neither is the Martha to be compared with the Concord,
from which it sprung. The Dracut Amber and the Perkins, we
believe, are not worth cultivating.

Of the new varieties which were exhibited this year for the

148 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

first time, we have great hopes for the Cottage, which has been
brought forward by Mr. Bull, the originator of the Concord, who
believes it, in some respects superior to that variety ; the Rentz
also promises well for the future, being quite early. At no pre-
vious exhibition of the Society, has so large a display of Rogers'
Hybrids appeared, and these grapes attracted considerable at-
tention from those interested in grape culture, because notwith-
standing the number of years these varieties have been known,
there still exists some diversity of opinion with regard to their
value. Certain it is that the various numbers retain in a greater
or less degree the foxy flavor and hard pulp of the native grape,
yet some of them are excellent, and they have these advantages
over many other varieties, that they are hardy, generally vigor-
ous, giving fruit of large size, and are prolific bearers. Of the
red varieties, we should judge No. 3 to be the earliest, although
not of the best quality ; in this respect it is excelled by Nos. 15,
22 and 28. In our estimation No. 28 is the best variety for this
locality, it being both early and of good quality. Of the black
varieties Nos. 4, 19, 40 and 44 would be selected as among the
best ; the two latter surpassing the others as far as flavor is con-
cerned.

In concluding this Report your Committee would urge upon
the members of this Society an increased attention to the culture
of the grape, believing as they do that in some parts of our town
it could be made a profitable crop. Every person who owns a
few rods of land should plant a grape-vine. No branch of hor-
ticulture afibrds greater pleasure to the man who wishes to spend
S3me of his leisure moments in his garden, than the cultivation
of this delicious fruit. It requires a sufficient amount of care
and judgment in its cultivation to make it interesting to the cul-
tivator, who finds his reward in the beautiful clusters of health-
giving fruit, gladdening the eye and cheering the heart.

L. Stephenson, Jr., Qiairman.

WOECESTER WEST.

From the Report of the Committee.
Pears. — The pears presented were less numerous in variety
than the apples. The list embraced nearly all the kinds worthy
of cultivation in this locality. The Bartlett, always at the head,

FRUITS. 149

was very fine ; but the Flemish Beauty, which cracked so last
year that many trees were allowed to drop their fruit ungath-
ered, was never finer or grown in greater perfection, fully re-
deeming its character. No pear-tree is more vigorous or better
adapted to our soil. It is very productive, and was supposed to
crack last year on account of the wet weather.

Clapp's Favorite has been fruited for the last three years in
this locality, and it bids fair to take the lead. It began to drop
its fruit the last day of August this year, and was in perfection
the first week of September. It originated on the farm of Mr.
Clapp, of Dorchester, and is said to be a cross between the
Bartlett and Flemish Beauty, and is superior to either. The
tree makes wood with great rapidity, and comes early into bear-
ing. The fruit is large, melting, with a rich flavor, and very

jwicy.

The practice of dwarfing the pear by growing it on quince
stocks, so extensively practised in France, so much advocated
by some in this country, and so successfully carried on in
and about Boston and on the seacoast generally, has met with
but partial success in this immediate vicinity. And when we
take into account the short life of the tree, the uncertainty of a
crop, and the few varieties that have ever succeeded, after a
thorough trial of more than a quarter of a century, we unhes-
itatingly pronounce the practice of growing the pear on any
stock except its own a signal failure. We may be told that
the Duchesse d'Angouleme, Glout Morceau and Urbaniste are
greatly superior when grown on the quince. This may be true
where the dwarf tree succeeds best ; but in this locality, after
repeated trials for thirty years, not a single specimen of the
above named kinds has been produced in perfection. It has
been said, too, that the Louise Bonne de Jersey is far less astrin-
gent when grown on the quince stock ; but the fact is, that this
valuable pear has been grown year by year for more than a
quarter of a century, and perfected its fruit as a standard, while
all attempts to fruit it as a dwarf have rendered it disagreeably
astringent. There is but a single variety that has ever really
succeeded as a dwarf, — the Vicar of Winkfield, — and the suc-
cess in this case is dependent on setting the quince stock so low
in the ground that roots may be sent off from the pear stock ;
but the pear is of inferior quality, only fit for cooking. The

150 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

chief argument in favor of dwarfing pears on the quince stock,
is the early and immediate fruitfulness of the tree ; but most of
our choice kinds — the Bartlett, Flemish Beauty and Rostiezer —
bear too young for the good of the tree, and at this very hour
fears are entertained that the Bartlett will soon fail and become
extinct, because the bearing trees begin to show signs of decay ;
but the tree has been allowed to bear fruit too young, and this
is the chief cause of its decay. The Beurr^ Bosc, a slow grower,
and does not come to fruit till the tree is ten or twelve years
old, is in full vigor, and promises to be a long-lived tree, and
one of the most approved kinds. Your Committee, therefore,
would recommend the following kinds of pears to be grown
always as standards : " First, summer pears — Beurr^ Gififard,
Rostiezer, Dearborn's Seedling and Clapp's Favorite. Second,
autumn pears — Bartlett, Flemish Beauty, Marie Louise, Beurr^
Bosc and d'Anjou, Sheldon, Seckel, Louise Bonne de Jersey and
Bufifum. Third, winter pears — Winter Nelis, Lawrence and
Vicar of Winkfield. When the above kinds are well cultivated,
any man will be abundantly rewarded with a rich supply of this
invaluable fruit. Joshua Poeter, Chairman.

WORCESTER NORTH.

From the Report of the Committee.

Pears and Grapes. — The apple, which was formerly looked
upon principally as a luxury, has become one of the indispen-
sable comforts, if not indeed almost a necessity, of healthful ex-
istence. The pear and the grape have now taken the position
that the apple once had as a luxury, and are fast approaching a
position among the comforts of life that we can ill afford to be
without.

This change in their relations brings with it a corresponding
change in the manner of cultivation. Where formerly an
almost bewildering number of varieties were coddled and nursed
as pets, and coaxed to dole out a few specimens for our en-
couragement, we now devote our labors in such a way as to
secure in much larger quantity, a product, which, without any
material sacrifice in quality, can yet be afforded at a price which
promises eventually to bring it within the means of the great
body of the people.

FRUITS. 151

We find, however, this apparent anomaly, that as the supply-
increases, the price advances, showing that the consumption in-
creases at a greater rate than the production. This may not be
at once evident if we compare any one year with that immedi-
ately preceding or succeeding, but by comparing seasons of
greater interval, it will be found to hold true, notwithstanding
the fluctuations in currency values. This being the fact, there
need be no fear of an over-production. A very slight reduction
in the price of a luxury, calls in an additional class of purchasers,
and increases the consumption of those already existing, and
the fact that the larger part of community have yet to taste, to
say nothing of eating freely, of these fruits, places the time at
which fruit-growing will cease to be a remunerative occupation,
fairly out of sight.

Though this is true of the business when judiciously carried
on, it is not true of all those that engage in it. While the
growers in very many cases fail to get a new dollar for an old
one, and their crops in some instances will not pay the cost of
marketing, good fruit is yet not brought within the means of a
large portion of the people.

This arises from various causes. The production of fruit is
often embarked in merely as a means of making money, under
the stimulus of occasional and unusual successes, without the
requisite knowledge of the principles and practices essential to
good results. It is as if one should, on the strength of a muni-
ficent price paid for some finished picture by a master, set him-
self up as an artist, and find that though his daubs were plenty
enough, yet the price paid for pictures was tantalizingly high.

Fruit growing is an art, and a science as well. The art must
be learned, and the science comprehended and understood if wo
are to successfully compete in the race. One of the greatest
drawbacks to success has been found in the multiplicity of varie-
ties under cultivation. While but a very few have been found
to be uniformly successful in a commercial way, the time and
efforts have been spent upon scores that were only a bill of ex-
pense to the owner from first to last. This is eminently true of
the pear, and to a large extent also of the grape. The acquire-
ment of this information has been a work of time, but the difii-
culty about it is, that almost no one is willing to accept such
knowledge at second hand. Each one persists in gaining it

152 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

through a personal experience, which brings with it, in many
cases, disgust and retirement from the pursuit. Almost any
grower with an experience extending over a period of more than
ten years, will say that the fewer the varieties, if well chosen,
the greater and more valuable will be the product.

Among pears, after naming the Bartlett as standing at the
head of the list for productiveness and profit combined, we shall
be obliged to look in vain to find a second, which in a series of
years promises to supplant it, and if we are asked to name half
a dozen approaching it in these regards, we shall be apt, after
consideration, to class the question among the unsolved conun-
drums. Among grapes, the Concord holds the same rank, only
if possible, more emphatically.

To render fruit-growing a successful matter for the country at
large, it must be made a success both to the producer and con-
sumer. The one should get fairly remunerated for his efforts,
while the other should be supplied with an abundance of fruit
at a reasonable price. This can only be done by selecting those
varieties for cultivation that yield large and uniform crops, even
though their quality may not be quite equal to that of others
whose single specimens are the apology for pecks or bushels.
We should demand quantity as a first essential, and be ready to
exchange only when we are sure of a gain in quality without
loss in productiveness.

Another important obstacle in the way of success is to be
found in the lack of knowledge among cultivators of the wants
and requirements of their trees or vines ; a knowledge that
comes only from long and thoughtful experience and observation,
and cannot be acquired from books or otherwise only in a partial
degree. Dame Nature is apparently capricious. One day she
will, and the next she won't. Now she promises to tell us a
secret, and directly we find tliat she has not done it. She is ever
talking in riddles, and just as we get ready to put our finger on
a point we find that it has elud^l our touch. The infinite
variety of soils and conditions surrounding each plant, renders
it extremely difficult — in most cases, impossible — to solve a
problem of culture so that it will stay solved. The second ex-
perience contradicts the first, and the third is opposite to both.

There are, however, some general considerations that are not
to be overlooked. A plant, like an animal, lives and grows by

FRUITS. 153

what it feeds upon, and can yield compensating returns only
when generously fed. The requirements of each tree or vine,
in its particular situation and surroundings, should be carefully
studied and made the subject of intelligent experiment. The
empirical application of any manurial substance is to be avoided,
unless in such a way as will insure a result meaning something.
A great difficulty is, that when we put a question, we ask it in
such a way that nature cannot answer it by a simple negative or
affirmative. She is compelled to use circumlocution, and the
answer is valueless, if it do not even mislead. The fault in such
case is our own, and not hers. Compel her to say yes or no,
and the answer is at once valuable. It is very common to hear
cultivators allege, in cases where one occurrence follows another,
that the first must be the cause and the second the effect. If,
fpr instance, a particular tree has not blossomed for some years,
and, following an application of some kind during the winter,
it shows a full bloom, it is at once concluded that the application
was the cause of the blossoming. A very little knowledge of the
matter in which fruit buds are formed and matured during the
previous season, would prevent the exposure of such ignorance.
It is as ridiculous as was the annually repeated assertion of an
old gentleman who was a confirmed invalid, that he had always
noticed that if he could manage to live through the month of
March, he did not die that year.

It is very satisfactory to notice, from year to year, the mani-
fest improvement that is exhibited in our display of fruits.
Worthless and inferior varieties gradually disappear, and the
collection grows more choice and select. It is getting to be
understood that it requires no more labor or skill to produce only
the desirable varieties, and in fact less of either, if the less be
accompanied by increased knowledge how to begin.

The writer has often taken the first premium for a display of
the largest number of varieties of pears. Although he enjoyed
the victory, he would dissuade others from attempting it, and it
is doubtful if the society should encourage it. If any one thing
has tended to dishearten the cultivator and drive him^from the
pursuit, it is the failure arising from wasted time and money
spent over a large number of varieties. As a matter of per-
sonal satisfaction it may answer, but the public can never ^be

20*

154 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

supplied with fruit in this way, and it requires a vast amount
of enthusiasm to follow it up for a very great length of time.

It is highly desirable that competitors should take a little
more pains in arranging their fruits for premium. The rules
are plain, simple and easily understood ; but, for some reason,
little or no attention is paid to them by many exhibitors, and
then complaint is made that the committees are incompetent,
unfair and partial in making up their awards. If a rule re-
quires twelve specimens to compete for a particular premium,
plates will be found with from eleven to half a bushel, the com-
petitor seeming to think that half a bushel is certainly twelve,
and that the committee can discard the surplus, which they
have no right to do. Mr. Heath's Delaware grapes, for instance,
were very fine, and had he arranged his best six clusters as the
rule specified, he would, without doubt, have taken the firs^
premium ; and so in a number of other cases.

Premiums ought to be offered for specific things, because they
are desirable and worthy of encouragement. If a premium is
not offered for any particular display, the inference should be,
unless it is something new, that the society do not care to en-
courage it. The mere piling up of bushels of fruit does not
make an instructive or even interesting exhibition. The society
might, perhaps, extend its offers so as to cover more ground,
and then allow but a very small amount for gratuities.

Jabez Fisher, Chairman.

CRANBERRY MEADOWS.

MARSHFIELD.

From the Report of the Committee.

Your Committee on the Preparation of Cranberry Meadows
have attended to the duty assigned them, by visiting the mead-
ows of those who have made entries, the premiums for which
are to be awarded in the years of 1871 and 1872. The names
of those persons who have made entries are as follows : Martin
Bryant, of Pembroke ; John Harlow, of Marshfield j Gifford &

CRANBERRY MEADOWS. 155

Loring, of Duxbury ; I. H. Sherman, of Scituate. Thus far they
have made a fair progress in the preparation of their meadows,
and it is desirable that they follow up their industrial pursuit in
such a manner as to reap a rich reward for their labor. They
have all chosen good locations, viz., peat-bottomed land, which
is very desirable, most of them well sheltered by woods and
trees or bushes, which in a great measure protect them from the
cold northerly and westerly winds. Such locations ought to be
highly appreciated by the cranberry-growers. By taking a sur-
vey through the towns of Massachusetts, you will sometimes
come in contact with swamps surrounded by sand-hills. Such
locations as these are also very desirable, as sand is very useful
and important for a top-dressing for cranberry land. Our opin-
ion is, that the cranberry vines should be flooded as soon as the
first of November, to such a depth as to prevent the water freez-
ing among the vines, and pulling them out of the surface, and
also that the vines may retain the sap, which the frost would
otherwise take out by freezing. Flowing is also desirable, to
prevent the ravages of the cranberry-worm ; for the meadows
which are flowed through the winter are not half so likely to be
attacked by them. This worm is of small size, smaller than the
apple-worm, although similar in appearance. It makes its ap-
pearance about the time the berry begins to ripen, by eating a
hole through the outside and coming out. The berries are then
rendered worthless. It is our opinion that the worm originates
in the blossom by a white miller, which lays an egg there ; then,
when the cranberry is about to grow, the worm is also grown,
and it eats out of the berry, and, we suppose, remains in some
form about the meadow, and in the spring turns into a miller,
and the berries are again destroyed in the same way ; and it is
on this account that flowing through the winter is beneficial, as
it is very likely to kill most of the worms. The water should
be kept on until about the first of June, for keeping it on until
that time prevents the vines from vegetating, as the early frosts
would be likely to destroy the new shoot, which is very sensitive.
The cranberry never grows directly on the old vine, but always
on the new shoot, which starts from the old vine. If the shoots
are struck with frost in the spring, we are sure to have no ber-
ries that season. After letting the water off, care should be
taken not to have any stagnant water in or about the cranberry

156 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

lots, as it always injures the vines and berries. Another desir-
able place for cultivating cranberries, is where a reservoir can
be made above the lot, so as to flow it at any time and in about
two hours ; and, if desirable, be able to let it off in about the
same time. If we watch the thermometer, and let the water on
when there are any indications of a frost, we shall in that way
save the berries, when otherwise they would be destroyed. It
requires skill and judgment, however, to know how long to
keep the water on, in the different stages of the growth of vine
and berry. If it is in warm weather, do not keep the water on
long enough to soften the berries, so the hot sun will destroy
them. It is impossible for us to lay down any rule ; skill and
judgment must guide us in a great measure. Let us, the mem-
bers of the Marshfield Agricultural Society, try to enlarge each
others' knowledge in regard to husbandry of all kinds, for we
are all aware that agriculture forms the most permanent riches
of a nation, for we can eat neither golden bread nor golden
butter.

Israel H. Sherman, Chairman.

FARM IMPLEMENTS.

WORCESTER NORTH.

From the Report of the Committee.
The Committee on " Farm Implements " would report : That
having first examined the list of implements for which premiums
were offered, we found there was no prize to be awarded to the
first and most important one now in use ; to wit, the plough.
Although improvements, within the last few years, have been
made in this department, yet we have seen nothing at our
" ploughing exhibitions " that supersedes, for good work, that
of the " old double Michigan." Now that still greater improve-
ments should be made in this as well as in all other farming
utensils, greater inducements should be offered by way of prizes,
and the Committee should judge of their merits or demerits by
the work they are capable of doing. No man or committee can
properly deal out justice even-handed without a fair trial of

FARM IMPLEMENTS. 157

them in the field. We fear that the practice already adopted of
awarding prizes for farm implements without trial, may lead to
unsatisfactory results, to the inventor as well as the consumer.

The swivel plough is fast coming into use, but no faster than
necessity demands. We believe that all lands should be
ploughed without leaving those unsightly dead furrows and
huge ridges upon them.

We would therefore recommend that prizes be offered for
ploughs that will perform the best work.

The question may be asked, Why do we plough ? This ques-
tion being answered, we get a clue to the science of the work.

The first object in ploughing is to pulverize the soil, and
make a deep, mellow seed-bed, capable of absorbing from the
atmosphere those gases necessary for the growth and life of
plants. The absorbing power of the soil is better understood
than formerly, and the power depends very much on the fine-
ness of the particles. It is well known that if water, adul-
terated with barn manure, be strained through fine clay, it be-
comes partially pure ; if loam be used, it is less so ; if filtered
through gravel or sand, the change is hardly perceptible ; prov-
ing that the water diminishes in purity in proportion to the po-
rosity of the soil — sand a poor absorbent. Hence, if we wish
our soils to retain the manure we put upon them, and absorb
from the atmosphere the rains and dews, it is all-important that
we well pulverize our soils and make them porous. Clay is
said to have more absorbing power than sand, not because of
the affinity that exists between clay and ammonia, but because
the particles of dry clay are exceedingly fine, and the ammonia
is retained by them. Although pulverization is not a complete
substitute for manure, yet it materially aids the young rootlets
in making their researches, and hastening the crop.

One object, then, in ploughing, is to turn the sod or stubble
so that the air and rains may penetrate the soils and deposit
their fertilizing influences. In ploughing sod ground, two
opinions seem to prevail. The first, that the furrow-slice
should be cut and laid independent by itself, and the whole
field thus ploughed should present a smooth, fiat surface.
Doubtless this method is preferable, if we intend to stock the
field down to grass, either with or without small grain, as it
then becomes an easy matter, with a cultivating harrow, to

158 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

make a level, smooth field, fit for the mowing-machine the next
season. But in case the field is to be cultivated in some hoed
crop, we prefer that the furrows should be somewhat shaken up,
and lap a little upon each other, and their relations to a certain
extent disturbed.

It will be found that the sod thus broken by the plough will
much more readily yield to the harrow than the field that pre-
sents the smooth and even surface ; and if it contains a large
amount of clay, it soon becomes dry and hard, through the in-
fluence of solar heat, and is not easily pulverized. We know
of no plough so well adapted for pulverizing the soil as that
already alluded to. It requires a strong team before it and an
expert behind it ; but what is lost in the muscle of the animals
is gained in the crop that follows.

Another object in ploughing is to mix the soils. It frequently
happens that the surface soil is sand, and the subsoil clay, or
the surface abounds in vegetable matter and the subsoil want-
ing. Now it is all-important that these soils are mixed and
reduced to a proper fineness before they are fit to give a strong
growth to the virgin plant ; and the plough that accomplishes
this work in the most effective and thorough manner, other
things being equal, should be preferred. And how can the
merits of it be determined, except by actual trial ?

Another object in ploughing, is to increase the depth of soil,
that the roots of the plants may have a more extensive range.
Formerly it was supposed that the roots of all cereals extended
only a few inches ; but within a few years it has been proved
beyond doubt that they extend several feet. These facts go to
show that shallow ploughing is all wrong.

We would not, by the way, recommend to plough up a large
amount of subsoil that never before had been removed, but at
each successive ploughing gauge the plough so that it may re-
move about one inch more in depth than at the previous plough-
ing. This will add an amount of subsoil to the surface equal
to about one hundred loads, of thirty bushels each, to the acre,
to be converted into surface soil. This method should be prac-
tised till the required depth is obtained.

Mo wing-Machines. — The first farm implement that came to
our notice for which a premium was offered was the " horse-
mower." Only two entries were made. The probable reason

FARM IMPLEMENTS. 159

for so meagre a show in this department, was in consequence
of the small amount of premiums offered, viz., f 10, whereas it
should have been at least $40. If our grass fields are to be cut
by horse-power, our agricultural societies should be more liberal
in offering premiums, that we may have greater competition and
bring out the best machines. Manifestly the horse-mower is the
greatest labor-saving machine to the farmer that has yet " been
got up." It was the prevailing opinion, less than eight years
ago, that there was not brain enough in New England to get up
a mowing-machine of one horse power worthy the name of a
horse-mower. Yet at the present time there are probably more
one-horse machines used in Worcester North than of the other
kind. Of the two machines entered, — the Buckeye and Clip-
per,— we have to say that the Committee were not unanimous
in awarding the premium.

About four years ago, these two machines were exhibited in
the field, before a committee, for their preference. Hence the
general movement of the machines was critically examined,
and after the hay had been removed, the committee again ex-
amined the field and were not unanimous. This committee was
composed of one professional gentleman and four practical
farmers, each of whom was the owner of a horse-mower ; yet
they were equally divided in giving their preference. The
chairman, not being a practical farmer, declined giving an
opinion. One member of the present Committee was also a
member of the committee in the field where the machines were
exhibited and had a fair trial. Hence, from the experience we
have had in using horse-mowers, we are satisfied that the good
work done is not all in the machine ; that it requires a good
team before it, and a man of judgment and common sense be-
hind it. Now we have simply to say, that we have seen just as
good work done by the Clipper as by the Buckeye, and by the
Wood machine as either ; and Joseph Marshall, of North Leom-
inster, performs first-rate work with the Union, while Solon
Carter, with the " old Manny," will do as good work as the next
man with any machine.

Horse-Rakes. — As this farm implement has for so long a time
been used in this section, it is hardly necessary to speak of its
merits. Those who have used the old wooden revolver, very
well known that one acre can be raked in less than an hour.

160 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Therefore, no farmer that owns a horse has a right to rake his
hay by hand and let his horse stand in the stable or run in the
pasture. And no farmer that cuts hay sufficient for twenty head
of cattle and a horse, can afford to be without one of the im-
proved rakes mounted upon wheels ; it is a great labor-saving
machine and should be in the hands of every practical farmer.

Now as hay is the principal crop raised in New England, every
farmer should be well armed with such farm implements as have
been invented, and still greater inducements should be given
that greater improvements maybe made. It is well known that
a farmer cannot afford, at the present high prices of poor labor,
to harvest his hay crop with manual labor alone ; hence horse
power must come in. Moreover, we believe it morally wrong for
men to undertake to do that kind of work that can so easily be
done by horses.

We believe that the great reason why farmers' boys are so
anxious to leave the farm and go in pursuit of other business is
in consequence of so much drudgery and hard work. The bone
and muscle are too much exercised and the mind too much
chained and narrowed down. Every farmer should endeavor to
give his boys a good common school education, at least, and if
his means are adequate to go beyond this, all the better. Why
should not the boy who intends to become a farmer, be as well
educated as though intended for mercantile or any other pur-
suit ? Boys should be taught in the school-room as well as at
home, that farming is healthy and honorable and independent,
not low and degrading.

But agriculture has not kept pace with other pursuits in mak-
ing improvements. It is not a science by itself, but connected
with other sciences, and the farmers have yet much to learn in
the matter of reclaiming waste lands — the cultivation of fruit
trees — the rotation of crops — the application of manures and
fertilizers — field drainage, &c.

E. Graham, /or the Committee.

STOCK. 161

STOCK.

MIDDLESEX.

Herds of Cattle.
In the term as here used, these are not chance selections in
the market — such are the " stock " of farmers. But a herd im-
plies breeding, and breeding with a purpose, pursued with all
his skill to meet the wants or the taste of the owner. This re-
quires, too, a fondness for the herd — for without a strong liking
for the breed or grade selected, they will not get the thought
and care necessary for success. With this love, it makes little
diffierence what kind are chosen ; any kind will be good, and
prove the better for the attention they receive. With a herd so
raised, the owner takes pride in having his name associated ; he
values them higher than their market price ; he parts with them
reluctantly, and only when they bring all he asks, and are rea-
sonably sure of good treatment. Of them, he makes the most
his care and skill can accomplish, and the results to him are
much more profitable, than to another with the same animals,
only without the strong liking for them. It was sound advice
to a retired merchant, stocking his newly purchased farm, to
buy and breed that kind of animals for which he had a decided
taste ; and if he was indifferent, to consult the likes of his fore-
man. It is good advice to every farmer to keep that breed or
grade of cows he fancies most, and if he does not fancy any,
not to keep cows, or to try to create a grade that will suit him.
Altogether too little attention is paid in this milk-raising county
to breeding calves and raising cows. Bad habits, disease, abor-
tion, are the drawbacks that follow the unnatural and wasteful
method that is commonly pursued. If every promising heifer
calf were raised, the worst of these troubles would soon disap-
pear, and the stock of milch cows would be greatly improved.
Hay tea, and reasonable allowances of shorts and other grain
the first season, good rowen and pasturage the second, diminish
but very little the supply of milk, and secure a supply of cows.
Care in the selection of the stock bred from, and care in the
raising, are the chief requisites ; and this care costs but little in
money, and produces much. Thoroughbred stock, if not within

21*

162 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

the reach of all, is so widely distributed that good grades are
easily obtained, and if there is a limit to the improvement that
may be thus effected, it has not yet been reached. Much has
already been done, but even more remains to do, and successful
experiments in judicious crossings will amply repay all who
make them. This is the way, and the only way, we shall ever
obtain a stock suited to the wants and conditions of our farms,
and every farmer who can, should do his part toward it.

The Committee to award the herd premiums, met and re-
ceived the statements of the competitors on the first day of the
exhibition. Proceeding to the pens, they found two herds of
Jerseys, one belonging to Francis B. Hayes, of Lexington, the
other to N. Foster, Jr., of Belmont; one herd of Ayrshires, the
property of George M. Barrett, of Concord, and two herds of
natives and grades, one owned by Mr. Barrett, the other by
Webster Smith, of Lexington.

Mr. Hayes's herd had previously taken the first premium,
and were entered only for exhibition. They are very superior
animals, and fine specimens of the breed. The more recent im-
portations would seem to indicate that we can breed Jerseys
here as well as in the Channel Islands, or at least that the later
importations are not improvements on the earlier. Certainly
the portion of this herd bred here, would be preferred to the
new arrivals, and as this has become so common, it tends to
show that we are really improving the breed, and adapting it to
our condition and wants.

The herd of Mr. Foster were finely marked, and evidently
carefully and judiciously bred. The old cow, " Buttercup, No.
4," has been one of the best Jerseys in this county, and Mr.
Foster, in securing such an animal, has laid the foundation for
a herd that will have great excellence. The younger animals
show the results of good breeding, and the promise of becoming
even better stock than their progenitors. Although his state-
ments were deficient in some of the particulars required in this
class, there were so many good points about the herd, and it was
so evidently within the design and object of the society's pre-
miums, of which more will be said farther on, that the Com-
mittee had no hesitation in awarding him the premium.

Of the Ayrshire herd, we need only say that it fully kept up
the reputation of Mr. Barrett as a breeder, and would have de-

STOCK. 163

lighted the eyes of a milk raiser. Of its effect on a milk con-
sumer, we cannot speak so confidently, as we had no opportunity
of testing the quality of the milk. The percentage of cream
given by the lactometer at the end of milking, would not afford
much indication of the character of the milk when it reached
the consumer, and many cans of the " eighteen per cent, cream,"
would be a fortune to a dealer in milk, if it did not " make fat
the eater." The Committee awarded Mr. Barrett the premium
on Ayrshires.

In deciding between the two native or grade herds, we were
chiefly influenced by the fact that Mr. Smith's herd were bred
by him, and wholly of grade Ayrshire and Durham. This seems
to us the real object of the society's offer of a premium. It
never could have been intended that a cattle dealer, who by skil-
ful purchase or lucky trade, should get together half a dozen
cows of any or all breeds, or select that number from his stock,
and keeping the measurement of their highest flow, take this
herd premium simply because he happens to own the six best
cows shown together at the exhibition. This would furnish no
information as to their breeding, and would only indicate the
luck or skill of the owner in his trade. The premium alone
would pay quite a percentage on the investment, and the utility
to the society or the community would be doubtful. We pre-
sume it was intended to induce experiments in raising a breed
or grade of cows adapted to the wants of the owner — and by the
successful results of these to furnish an example for others to
follow, or improve upon. Such a herd have a value both to the
owner and to the agricultural community, far beyond the chance
selection in the markets of equally good cows, as the character
and qualities of the herd can be perpetuated or improved, and
such a herd alone really deserves the premium. Acting on this
idea, we awarded the premium to Mr. Smith's herd, even if the
statements of the milk produced and the percentage of cream
made by his competitor did indicate a better result. Mr. Smith's
cows looked finely, and were a stock of which any farmer might
well be proud, especially when they had all been bred on his
farm, and he had good reason to believe he could increase their
number and their good qualities as occasion might require.

J. S. Keyes, Chairman.

164 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

From the Report of the Committee on Grades.
Tour Committee are of the opinion that much good will re-
sult to the agricultural interest by these experiments in crossing
some of the various breeds of stock, by producing a change in
certain peculiarities of form and condition. This your Com-
mittee noticed especially in the crossing of the Dutch with the
Jersey, resulting in a thinner skin and a finer limb than can be
found in the pure Dutch ; and the cross of the Jersey with the
Dutch produced a fuller proportion of quarter, a rounder form
of trunk, and a hardier general appearance than is seen in the
pure Jersey ; and we think that these experiments in crossing
may be profitably extended to other breeds, so that objections in
the form of the one may be overbalanced by an opposite excel-
lence in the other. So long as like produces like, so long we
may go on with these experiments with pleasure and profit, by
gradually but surely bringing about greater perfection of form,
and at the same time increasing the products of our dairy, by
mingling elements that will surely produce better quality with
greater quantity. The dairy interest promises to be the great
interest of our Middlesex farmers, and the rearing of the
choicest animals, with reference to the best results in this direc-
tion, is now consistent with our interest, our duty and our
pleasure. And your Committee feel that the constant and un-
tiring efforts of the donor of the special premiums offered,
under which we have made the above awards, in improving the
stock of our farm animals of this county and State, are having
a decided effect, visible not only on our annual exhibition days,
but apparent also wherever in this vicinity business or pleasure
leads us. The scrubby stock is visibly disappearing, being sup-
planted by that which is more pleasing to the eye and more
profitable to the purse. May our numbers be increased from
year to year by public-spirited gentlemen of affluence, who will
cooperate with him and this society in developing to a still
greater degree profitable stock raising and profitable farming.

Charles A. Cutting, Chairman.

WORCESTER.

From the Report of the Committee.
Working Oxen. — It is impossible to make good, strong oxen
of steers that are starved a portion of the year, or left to care

STOCK. 165

for themselves as best they may during the cold season, however
full they may be fed the other portions of the year. Such cat-
tle may perhaps be made to grow to a decent size, but the com-
pactness and muscle which ought to have been attained during
their " starving time " can never be regained, however highly
they may be fed and nourished afterwards. Neither can oxen
grown up suddenly, after being grossly neglected while young,
ever attain that endurance for hard, continuous labor as those
that are kept constantly growing, and, without being pampered,
are always in a thriving, healthy condition. Many an ox has
been spoiled for the work he ought to be able to do, by starving
over poor hay during the winter, and standing in the cold and
sleet while young, instead of being fairly fed and comfortably
housed.

It is well understood by every intelligent farmer that it does
not pay to starve or freeze heifers, if he desires to make good
milch cows of them, or to keep sheep on brush if he expects to
get healthy lambs and a good fleece. So he who desires a good
pair of oxen will find that all neglect of proper feeding and
shelter, and all abuse of them while young, will depreciate their
value when grown to working oxen just in proportion to these
abuses. It does not pay as well to half raise stock as it does to
feed and shelter them as the best good of the animal requires,
saying nothing about the moral guilt that attaches itself to all
such wrong doing. Many of the objections which men have to
using oxen on their farms would doubtless disappear if they
had proper care when young.

. In most instances, the oxen at the trial were under good
discipline, and performed their work in such a manner as to
show that they had been carefully trained, and with a good
degree of gentleness. Before an ox can do what is required of
him, he must first be taught what it is, and how to do it. Whip-
ping does not do this ; it only irritates and renders him less
willing to learn. If the driver will carefully and patiently show
his oxen what he wants them to do, he will find but little use
for the whip afterwards.

The Committee could but notice one fact at the trial, viz. :
those teams did the best where the whip was used the least.
The oxen that took the first premium were hardly struck during
the time of trial. If other teamsters had been equally careful

166 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

in that respect, their oxen might possibly have performed their
part so well as to have made the awards different.

Augustus J. Sawyer, Chairman.

WORCESTER WEST.

From the Report of the Committee on Bulls.

Your Committee are of the opinion that " bulls two years old
and upwards " are far less numerous than they should be, not
only at our agricultural fairs, but throughout the community
on our farms.

It is the prevailing opinion, and we think a correct one, that
heifers are not as desirable to breed from as mature cows ; and
that a cow's value as a breeder does not abate till old age begins
to tell upon her constitution. Why does not the same principle
apply to bulls ? Is it not reasonable that a mature animal will
reproduce more vigorous stock than one that has not arrived at
maturity ? The principal reasons why most bulls are disposed
of at two years of age, are, first, they cease to be sure getters ;
and, second, they are liable to become vicious and troublesome.
We do not wonder that the first reason named so often exists.
Bulls are usually put to service at one year old, and often serve
forty or fifty cows during the first season, and, as a consequence,
their subsequent value for stock is quite uncertain. If bulls
were limited to twelve or fifteen cows the first season, and to
twenty-five or thirty the second season, we think there would be
as little cause of complaint of the sterility of a three years old
bull as of a yearling. There is little necessity of bulls becom-
ing dangerous if they are treated with uniform gentleness and
firmness, especially if they are broken to the yoke, as they
should be, when quite young.

M. 0. Ayres, Chairman.

From the Report of the Committee.
Thoroughbred Dairy Cows. — Your Chairman wishes to ask
some questions, and make a few suggestions. The questions
here presented themselves somewhat as follows : First, For
what purpose do agricultural societies offer premiums ? Second,
Does the offer of premiums by this society for thoroughbred
dairy cows attain all that is desired ? In regard to the first

STOCK. 167

question, we believe they offer premiums for the purpose of en-
couraging the public to breed and raise the best stock and crops,
and to elicit all information beneficial to agriculture. The State
bestows upon this society six hundred dollars yearly, and it is
evident that we, as a society, are under an obligation to the
State for its bounty. We should show to the State that its
money has been judiciously offered and paid in premiums, and
that it has elicited information of much value to agriculture ;
and this can be shown only by our printed Transactions. If
our Transactions contain only the awards of premiums, they
are of no consequence to any one except those interested as
competitors. This leanness of the reports of the different com-
mittees is not wholly the fault of the society ; perhaps it is more
the fault of the committees themselves. Each committee has a
portion of the State's bounty to award, and should give the
reasons for their decisions, in every instance, where the case will
admit of it ; for of what value is it to the community to know
that B's animal or article took the first premium, and C's the
second ?

The second question, we believe, must be answered in the
negative. The society requires the competing animals to be on
the ground, ostensibly that the public may view them ; but, at
the same time, it requires nothing of their owners except to tell
who their cows' ancestors were. If an exhibition of " thorough-
bred dairy cows " is worth anything, its value lies in its power
to instruct those who witness it. Now, so far as imparting any
information to the public is concerned, the public might as well
have looked at pictures as at the cows.

But at whose door does the fault lie ? Not the competitors',
(as they answered all the requirements,) but the society's. A
cow that would not give milk enough to keep her calf in good
growing condition, might, if her pedigree could be traced back
to some very popular animals in their day, in the kingdom of
Great Britain, get the preference over another nearly as perfect,
and very much superior in point of dairy qualities. If a dairy
cow has any value as such, she should not put forward her ped-
igree as the only answer, when we ask what quantity of milk
she gives, or how much butter or cheese she can produce. Now
to obviate these objections, we would suggest to the trustees to
require competitors to make a trial of their cows, at a time to

168 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

be designated, and to file with the secretary a written statement
of their produce at such trial ; also the manner and expense of
keeping. We would also suggest, that, for the benefit of the
public, copies of the statements should be posted upon the pens
where the animals are.

And now for the reasons which influenced us in making the
recommendations of award. As the society requires nothing of
competitors except to furnish a pedigree of each of their ani-
mals in this class, we had nothing else to guide us except out-
ward appearances, which are not always reliable.

The writer of this Report believes there would be just as
much propriety in awarding premiums on work-horses or oxen,
without a trial with a load, as there is in awarding premiums
on dairy cows, without knowing either the amount or quality of
their milk.

J. P. Reed, Chairman.

From the Report of the Committee.

Fat Oxen. — If there is any one class of cattle more than an-
other, that adds to the attractiveness of an agricultural exhibi-
tion, and makes it really a " feast of fat things," it is the presence
of a large number of fat oxen. There is an old time saying,
that " bread is the staff of life." Your Committee think beef
is a very good support to lean upon. If the statistics of the
number of cattle slaughtered in any one year, were here pre-
sented, the question, that beef is only second to bread, would be
fully sustained. And another question, from whence comes all
this great number, would be as readily replied to, from " the
cattle upon a thousand hills." Suppose we look into this mat-
ter of beef a little, and see how much of it would really bear
the description which the fruit culturist gives his fruit : " Flesh
tender, juicy, rich, sweet and almost buttery."

In regard to the production of beef, very much of it hardly
deserves the name. Oxen that have been worn out with labor,
poorly fed, muzzled when " treading out the corn," kept till
their bones are like pillars of brass, and their sinews cables for
shipping ; cows kept for dairy purposes till their systems are
all worn out and exhausted ; these two classes of cattle are put
in pasture or stall and fattened for market ; and the result is,
your nice beefsteak, which you aim to get, has to go through a

STOCK. 169

pounding process, said to be for the purpose of making it ten-
der, though in case of the laboring ox, in many instances, that
was done beforehand, resulting, perhaps, in either case, in not
having juicy and tender beef ; and the boiling of your corned
beef, the cook complains that it is all " shrunk up," and all, of
course, because the slaughtering was done at the " wrong time
of the moon." Occasionally some choice calf is reared for the
purpose of getting the most growth and making the finest beef,
and when slaughtered it is made the scape-goat for a half dozen
poorer ones, resulting in no credit to the best fattened beef.
One very essential thing for making the finest quality of beef,
is the keeping of it in such a manner as to make continuous
growth, without having at some seasons of the year loss from
poor feeding or inattention and care.

Take, for instance, two steer calves of good form and size,
grade Durham, if you please, put them upon a good cow, let
them have the use of her the first summer, then feed in winter
upon early cut hay, some roots and a little meal, give good pas-
ture the second summer, and so continue till three or four years
old, and see if you have not beef of a quality equal to any here
described.

This manner of growing beef will be objected to by some as
too expensive. Can you have anything of a superior quality,
without care, labor, and expense ? And as regards profit, we
believe there is more of that, and certainly much more pleasure
will be derived in this way, than skimmed milk and meadow
hay. Farmers are too careful about present profits in the rear-
ing of good oxen for beef as compared with future rewards.

E. C. Faensworth, Chairman.

WORCESTER NORTH.

From the Report of the Committee on Thoroughbred Stock.

Your Committee having made its awards, cannot forbear
some remarks growing out of the occasion of its coming together.
Its members were felicitously chosen for the impartial perform-
ance of its duties, four of them being non-residents of the county,
and one of them being a breeder of Shorthorn or Durham stock ;
another of Ayrshires, and another of Jerseys, and strangers to
the particular stock exhibited at Fitchburg. The arrangements
22*

170 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

for the examination of the stock cannot be too highly commended,
differing, as they did, from most of those at our county fairs,
and allowing the Committee to pursue their labors without mo-
lestation, and without the necessity of hunting on the field for
the cattle desired. We were very agreeably surprised by the
show of Shorthorns and Ayrshires, owned in Fitchburg, and
could hardly realize that amid the incessant toil and watchful-
ness consequent upon the employments of so prosperous a man-
ufacturing community, sufficient attention could be given to the
raising up of such noble herds.

It was the remark of one (General Washington,) who seldom
said an unconsidered thing, that in the multiplication of ani-
mals the greatest blessing was being conferred upon the coun-
try, so far as its material prosperity was affected. Many of our
amateur farmers are coinciding in this view, and, of late years,
great attention has been paid to the breeding of pure stock, and
the most noted breeds — those which find higher favor among us
— the Shorthorns, the Ayrshires, and the Jerseys have attained
great prominence in New England. It is claimed by the adher-
ents of each class that it alone is more especially adapted to
our wants ; but, as Uncle Toby said to the fly, " the world is
large enough for all," and their merits are so sui g-eneris, that
neither breed should conflict with the other. The Ayrshires are
especially valuable when milk alone is desired, and the pastures
are rough and short ; the Jerseys, where butter is the main con-
sideration, and on the gentleman's lawn ; the Shorthorns, as a
general farming stock, and in localities where, in addition to a fair
allowance of milk and quantity of butter, carcass is needed for
working cattle and for beef. We need not fear being overstocked
with too many good animals of either kind, and the industry of
careful breeders will be severely taxed to meet the wants of the
more intelligent farmers, and fill up the voids arising from the
neglect of the less intelligent, who purchase fine stock and fail
to take proper care of it.

The Shorthorn cattle, as is now well known, came from the
original stock, brought into England by the Danes prior to the
Norman conquest, and were improvements made by careful
breeding, commencing about the year 1780. Importations came
to this country as early as 1815, and into Massachusetts in 1818,
and the fine milking stock, now so prominent throughout New

STOCK. 171

England, is owing to the efforts of breeders yet living in our
State and those contiguous to it. The successful efforts of the
Messrs. Lathrop, of South Hadley Falls, Mass., and Benjamin
Sumner, of Woodstock, Connecticut, to breed this fine stock to
flesh and milk are worthy of the highest commendation, and we
see, with pleasure, that Mr. Whitman, of Fitchburg, whose fine
herd of over fifty head came under our consideration, is vieing
with other good breeders to restore to our Shorthorns their milk-
ing qualities, of which, by continuous breeding for beef pur-
poses they have, in a measure, been despoiled.

The origin of the Ayrshire cow is even yet a matter of dis-
pute, but is comparatively recent, as writers on cattle, not long
previous to the beginning of the present century, do not mention
the Ayrshire as one of the recognized breeds of Scotland, but
they undoubtedly arose from an admixture of the native cattle
with some improved breeds. Tradition refers to an early im-
portation of Alderneys to the parish of Dunlop, which first be-
came distinguished for its cows and produce of its dairy, and
tradition appears to be confirmed in the minds of some, by what
is considered a similarity between the Alderney breed and the
modern Ayrshire ; but more recent criticism leads to the conclu-
sion that the improvements in the Ayrshire stock were effected
by a cross with compact Shorthorn bulls, descended from good
milking families, and from this cross came the shape, color, and
milking qualities of the modern Ayrshire cow. They first be-
gan to be imported here in 1831, and have not lost by contact
with our climate in stamina and form, though probably they do
not yield as much milk as in the moister air of Scotland. The
best importations have been into Massachusetts, none exceeding
those of Mr. Cushing, of Watertown, near Boston, prior to 1837 ;
and the herd of Mr. Birnie, of Springfield, has disseminated its
progeny all over the country, and stands, at present, unrivalled
for excellence. We are glad to see the fine herd of Capt. Miles)
at Fitchburg, and among it animals second to none in the country.

The Alderneys — or as they are now designated, the Jerseys —
though a recent favorite among us, are an old importation into
England — are mentioned incidentally in volumes of the last cen-
tury, and have been brought to this country by captains of ves-
sels, for use on the voyage, for more than thirty years. This
breed is derived from the group of beautiful islands pertaining

172 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

to the British crown, which lie near the shores of France, in the
bay formed by the coasts of Normandy and Brittany. The
islands are four: Alderney, Jersey, Guernsey, and Sark ; and
from the largest and richest (Jersey,) our more recent importa-
tions have arrived ; and, as by a law of that island, no cow,
heifer, calf, or bull can be taken into it from elsewhere, the in-
digenous breed must be pure. The breed of Guernsey differs
from the others, having more spreading horns, size of the ani-
mal larger, form rounder, and bones less prominent, and the
whole carcass coarser, and presenting but few of the peculiarities
of the graceful Alderney or Jersey cow. As is well known, these
cows are now great favorites, are increasing in numbers, and sell
for good prices, and estimated as well for their diminutive size,
and deer-like head, body, and limbs, as for their richness of but-
ter. The late John A. Tainter, of Hartford, Ct., as early as
1850, made the first large importations, and their descendants
have always been highly esteemed ; but in all probability the
finest animals of this breed in the world are now owned in the
eastern part of Massachusetts. The herd of Mr. Brooks, of
Princeton, was well represented at Fitchburg, and there were
several other fine animals belonging to other owners.

It is not necessary for us to refer to the'Devons, another fav-
orite in special localities ; nor to the Holsteins, now coming into
notice, through the exertions of Mr. Chenery, of Belmont, as
they were not represented on this occasion.

Perhaps we have dwelt too long on the subject of improved
stock ; but when it is considered that in England, by improved
breeding, the capital of the country invested in bovine stock has
increased in value twofold during the present century, merely
by the earlier maturity of the young intended for beef — a steer
or heifer weighing as much now at two years as formerly at four
— the two years' feeding being thus saved, among other consid-
erations— and that we have an aggregate value of nearly one
thousand millions of dollars invested in neat cattle of all de-
scriptions, in this country, we can but think no employment
is more worthy of the men of resources and taste, than the car-
ing for and the improvement of our stock ; and we rejoice in
the activity of the thousand and more agricultural associations
throughout the land — owing their origin to the Berkshire sys-
tem, introduced by Elkanah Watson, in Pittsfield, in 1810 — by

STOCK. 173

which the competitors in growing the best stock of all kinds are
so generously fostered. If all these associatigns are as well man-
aged, and present as good a show as that at Fitchburg, we are
on the high road to great results, not only in improved stock,
but improved farming.

R. Goodman, Chairman.

HIGHLAND.

From the Report of the Committee on Calves.

In rearing and buying calves, the best will always pay the
best ; but it will not always pay to sell the best. There is an
old adage, that " blood will tell." Then know that the blood
of the dam is what you want ; that she has never been served
by anything except the blood you wish to perpetuate. Once
served by impure blood endangers all future progeny. What-
ever the dam and sire may be, no progeny can be said to be
strictly thoroughbred if the dam has ever been served by an
impure animal. Cultivate those qualities you wish to perpet-
uate, remembering that " like begets like."

Breeding-animals should be treated with the utmost kindness.
Avoid all irritation, excitement or fear. The mental condition
of dam and sire, and the continued mental condition of the dam
during pregnancy, (if the word mental may be applied to
brutes,) has very much to do with fixing the temperament of
the offspring, and may influence the physical conformation.
Having used every precaution, that your calf has come into the
world under the most favorable circumstances, it should receive
constantly uniform attention ; not overfed, but a generous
amount of feed should be regularly given, and at stated times.
A variation of half an hour in time of feeding will cause one-
half hour of uneasiness and wasting of flesh. Let the feed be
of such quality and amount that the animal will be kept con-
stantly thriving. An animal that is growing to-day will be more
likely to grow to-morrow. Every day that an animal is kept
without growth is so much loss in feed, time and care. Any
shortening of feed, so that the growth is checked, is a loss for
that day, and may be a loss for days to come, as an animal that
is stationary, without growth, may take time to get again in
growing condition.

174 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

The best animals always find the most ready sale, and at the
best prices. A growth of one pound per day, until three years
old, will give an animal weighing abolit 1,150 pounds. If the
growth be one and one-half pounds per day, the weight will be
about 1,700 pounds. With the price of neat stock at eight
cents per pound, live weight, a growth of one pound per day
will give eight cents ; of one and one-half pounds per day, twelve
cents ; and if stock is so kept that there is no growth, then the
time, care and cost is an entire loss.

Within the limits of this society there is a very considerable
portion of young stock so kept from fall to spring that there is
no increase of weight ; consequently the entire winter feed and
care is a total loss. This should never be ; and the remedy is,
early-cut hay, warm shelter, convenient water, and regularity
of feed and drink. We think no farmer can fail to see the dif-
erence, pecuniarily, between twelve cents per day and nothing.

C. 0. Perkins, Chairman.

BRISTOL.

From the Report of the Committee.

God, in his wise providence, gave to mankind the cow, one of
the best gifts to the human family. We, by the aid of our
housewives, receive a great many luxuries from this noble ani-
mal. The flowing pail of pure milk, in which are dainties sup-
plied for the rich and food for the poor, which is both healthy
and delicious ; rich cream, excellent cheese and the rolls of
golden butter are a few of these dainties of which we should
not be willing to be deprived. Her products are carried wher-
ever civilized man goes. How surely she pays for every blade
of grass, lock of hay and kernel of corn with her daily contri-
butions ; and all she asks in return is enough to eat and drink,
and that to be of good quality. In Eastern lands, the good
" shepherds watch their flocks by night," and remain with them
during the day, seeking for the most fertile spots. Joseph's
brethren went to Dothan for better pastures, for Jacob had
much cattle.

In our own time we do not drive our herds from place to
place to obtain better pasture, but our flocks and herds must be
kept within bounds ; and we supply them with roots and grain,

STOCK. 175

as we deem them wanting, in sufficient nourishment from our
own pastures and well-filled barns of hay.

In consideration of the importance of the cow to mankind,
the question arises, How shall farmers obtain the best breed of
cows ? What breed of cows will produce the greatest amount
of rich milk for the food consumed ? For it costs no more to
keep a good cow than it does a poor one.

As to the best breed for farmers, that will depend on circum-
stances, whether for making butter, cheese-making or selling
milk.

Much might be said in favor of the Jersey cow for the rich-
ness of her milk and the amount of butter which may be ob-
tained from the smallest quantity of milk. They are becoming
popular with some farmers. The larger breeds of cattle require
more feed than some of the smaller kind. Some farmers con-
sider them good for their milking quality.

The Ayrshire is considered by many farmers who have had
experience in stock-breeding to be the most profitable to raise,
giving the most in return for the amount of food consumed,
and being best adapted to the climate of New England. They
are becoming favorites of the dairy farmer. The Devons make
good oxen, and the cows are considered good milkers.

Farmers, in the first place, must procure a cow from which
to breed ; then, instead of slaughtering all her calves for veal,
raise her best heifer calves, and keep them in a good, healthy,
growing condition until they arrive at maturity ; or, in the lan-
guage of another : " I believe it is much the best way for a
farmer to raise his own cows. By so doing, with judicious
management, he can always have a good milking stock. Raise
the best cows in your lot, and keep them in a healthy condition."

Many think a young calf can live on little or nothing, and
give it food just sufficient to sustain life. The consequence is,
they always have a miserable- looking animal. I believe a calf
will make a better cow for being kept growing and healthy when
young. It gives her growth in all the elements together that
constitute a good cow. I am not in favor of doing as some of
our stock-raisers do — let the calf have the milk of one or two
cows, and all the meal it will eat until it is eight or ten months
old, to see how large an animal they can get, almost worthless,
except to relieve some fancy farmer of a few hundred dollars

176 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

surplus funds. If farmers would make it a point to raise their
own cows, we should have a much better milking stock than we
now have.

Whatever breed the farmer keeps, whether Jersey, Ayrshire,
Shorthorn, Devon or grade stock, the cow requires proper care
and food. The better care and keeping she receives, the larger
return she makes. Yet how often do we see them standing out
in cold, windy or stormy days in March without shelter ; or in
the fall, to obtain their food, are let out in frosty mornings to
eat the stiff and frozen grass, which affords them but very

trifling nourishment.

Augustus Lane, Chairman.

PLYMOUTH.

From the Report of the Committee on Bulls.

The trustees have, very wisely as we think, excluded from
premiums any but bulls of distinct breed. In your offer for
premiums you specified by name the Jersey, the Ayrshire, the
Devon, and then say " for any other pure blood." The only
other pure-blooded bulls that have competed for the society's
premiums are the Durham and Dutch breeds. The Herefords,
Kerrys and Jamestowns, have never been offered, we believe,
if the latter may be called a distinct breed. Permit us to make
a brief statement as to the different breeds and the encourage-
ment these breeds should receive, as we think, from the farmers
of the Old Colony.

The Jerseys or Alderneys are one of the oldest breeds known,
their history extending back several hundred years, some say a
thousand or more. In our own country they have been like
most of the other breeds, of recent introduction, but by natural
increase and fresh importations they have become the most nu-
merous of the imported breeds except, perhaps, the Durham or
Shorthorn. Their introduction into the Old Colony was but
about twenty years since, some we think, by direct importation.
Nahum Stetson, of Bridgewater, Seth Bryant, of East Bridge-
water, and C. G. Davis, of Plymouth, have been large owners
and raisers of this stock ; latterly several gentlemen in Hingham,
besides a large number who own from two to eight animals.
The advantages claimed for the breed are : First, the richness

STOCK. 177

of their milk, thejinest yellow butter being made from compar-
atively small quantities of milk, the cream of which is made in-
to butter readily. Second, their power of constantly producing
milk. Third, their docility or easy domestication, becoming
readily pets in the family. Fourth, their producing calves at an
early age. The objections are : First, the smaller quantities of
milk given, of which we have some doubts, if we consider their
time of giving milk. Second, that they are not as hardy as na-
tives and some others, which in some cases means they would
starve more quickly ; but the fact that no farmer can afford to
keep a cow otherwise than well, would, as we think, generally
answer this objection. Some minor objection may lie against
individuals, but not against the breed generally.

The Ayrshire was introduced somewhat earlier into the State
than the Jersey. The large quantities of milk given for the
size of the animal, with no objection on account of hardiness,
makes it a favorite with many and worthy of our consider-
ation. It is not as numerous as the Jerseys in the county, and
it remains to be seen which will be the favorites of the farmers.

The Devons are a very old breed, and they have been much
improved abroad since their first introduction, in the shape of
our old red native stock. Mr. Nahum M. Tribou was, at one
time, a large raiser of the improved Devons. It is not now a
special favorite, though many claim that for cream and beef it
has fine qualities. The cows generally give good milk. We be-
lieve no bulls of this breed have been offered for premiums for
several years.

The Durhams are esteemed wherever nice beef and large
oxen are wanted, and many of the cows are fine milkers, but it
is generally thought that our pastures are not sufficiently rich
to raise so large a breed. They are probably much the most
numerous of the pure bloods in the ^country. Where there is
good pasture, or cattle are stall-fed, they will always be favor-
ites. But few Durham bulls have been offered for premium in
this county.

The Herefords are scattered through the country, and are
esteemed for their activity as oxen. We know of none in this
county.

The Kerrys have but few representatives in the county ; they
are very small, and their introduction will not be rapid.

23*

178 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

The Jamestowns were sent over in the Jamestown, on her re-
turn from Ireland, in the time of the Irish famine, after deliver-
ing the supplies forwarded by the munificence of the citizens of
Massachusetts. It is known mainly in Norfolk County, where
it takes many premiums. We know nothing of its being a dis-
tinct breed.

A few gentlemen have recently imported some Bretons, of
which we know but little.

We have thus taken a cursory glance at the imported breeds
of cattle, and we believe that our stock raisers would find it for
their interest to raise pure-blooded stock, as the demand will
doubtless be greater than the supply for many years to come.

Take for illustration the Jerseys ; the present importations
are costing from three to six hundred dollars apiece, and we
think we have as fine animals as are now imported, but at the
price of two hundred dollars for a cow, there is quite a profit in
raising heifer calves of that breed, while it is doubtful where
would be the profit in raising calves of native stock.

We think the society should in some way encourage the en-
tering of the pedigree of our full-blooded stock in the various
herd-books, inasmuch as greater care would be used in breed-
ing. The stock raiser can realize a much larger price for a cow
of which he can give the pedigree than one of which he cannot,
so that the wealth of our farmers would be increased by such a
course, especially if we would send our animals out of the
county ; and we should also be relieved of the not unheard of
imposition of palming off grade stock as full blooded.

Harrison Staples, Chairman.

NANTUCKET.

From the Report of the Committee.
Thoroughbred Stock. — The Committee on Thoroughbred
Stock respectfully report, that the exhibition this year was very
creditable. There was not so great a number of animals, tak-
ing in natives, grades and blood-stock, as at the last fair ; but
the value of the stock in money was far in excess of last year.
The largest part of the thoroughbreds were Jerseys, and al-
though the animals exhibited did not constitute much more
than half the number on the island, yet there were enough to

STOCK. 179

show that many gentlemen are turning their attention to this
kind of stock. There are those in our midst who are croaking
about Jerseys, and pretending to fear that the " bubble will soon
burst," and that the price of this class of cows will fall down to
natives, and even below. Your Committee at present are not
apprehensive of any great falling off in the demand for Jerseys.
Their reputation for producing a large proportion of cream is
not disputed. The only answer is, that " if they only give half
as much milk," then double the proportion of cream is just
equal, except that the farmer has only half the quantity of
skim-milk for his pigs. All that sounds well if it were true.
But the record of various herds, here and elsewhere, shows that
from the Jerseys about as large a quantity of milk is obtained
as from the best natives. Now we do not pretend to say that
the best native cow in the State does not give more milk and
more butter than the poorest Jersey. But what we will say is,
that fifty Jersey cows, taken indiscriminately, will give more
milk than fifty natives, and more than twice the amount of but-
ter, on the same feed. If this be true, there is no danger of
getting a surplus of these cows on hand at present. As a
" gentleman's cow," she is acknowledged to be head and shoul-
ders beyond any other cow. A person of means, who keeps one
cow to supply his own table, can get a nicer milk and a better
butter from a Jersey than from any other cow. The average
price of Jersey butter in the large cities is fifty per cent, more
a pound than any other kind.

When it is remembered that acccording to the last United
States census, 1860, the number of cows in the United States
was nearly nine millions, (8,581,735,) and that among this
somewhat extensive herd there was, in 1869, this very last
spring, little more than one thousand Jersey cows in the whole
republic, there is not much danger of a surplus at present.

The record, as we gather it from Charles Wyllis Elliot, Esq.,
who publishes the table in the September number of the " New
York Galaxy," is as follows : —

Massachusetts, 298

New York, 202

New Jersey, 164

Pennsylvania, ........ Ill

180

MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Maryland,

. 104

Connecticut,

60

Rhode Island, - .

45

Ohio,

35

Kentucky,

22

Missouri,

15

Vermont,

5

Maine,

2

Total,

1,058

There seems to be some confusion in the minds of many, and
some among them breeders even, with reference to the Alderney
and Jersey cows. The vessels which trade at the Channel Isl-
ands usually touch at Alderney last, and so were reported in
London as having arrived from that island with cows, which,
though really from Jersey, were thus called Alderneys.

The island of Jersey, just alluded to, is in the English Chan-
nel, is about twelve miles long and six broad, containing about
forty thousand acres. The northern coast is a high, rocky
bluff, rising nearly four hundred feet from the sea, and then
gently sloping away to the south. It contains about sixty
thousand people, and is productive enough to maintain them.
In 1868, it was found that there were on this island six thou-
sand four hundred and twenty cows. The English have been
for sixty years drawing from this stock, and America for the
last twenty years. There is more of a mania to-day among the
rich men of England for the Jersey cow than there is in the
United States. The price now of a fine Jersey, which was once
about <£10, has gone up to £40 or .£50. The effect of this
continual drain has been a loss to the island of its best cows, so
that now the most competent judges admit that " better spec-
imens exist now in this country than can be found in the island
of Jersey, and that many herds in England are greatly superior
to any herds in Jersey."

Now why is this desire for these expensive cows ? Is it all a
whim ? Is it only because of her beauty ? If such be the case,
England has been pursuing a shadow and a phantom for more
than sixty years.

Mr. Morton, of Farmington, one of the most distinguished

STOCK. 181

breeders, says : " Seventeen years' experience convinces me,
unqualifiedly, of their superiority as butter-makers."

Judge George, of Orange County, N. Y., says : " I have
bred Durhams, Ayrshires and Devons, and I think the Alder-
neys decidedly more profitable for butter."

Mr. Goodman, of Berkshire, " has made a pound of butter
from five quarts of milk."

Messrs. Converse and Flagler's account of their own two
cows, " Lady Milton " and " Cream Pot," is perhaps unequalled.
It is as follows, for June, July and August, 1868 : " Lady Mil-
ton," product, milk, 1,595 quarts ; product, butter 249 pounds
and a fraction. " Cream Pot," product, milk, 1,533 quarts ;
product, butter, 239|- pounds.

Our farmers will notice that we speak of the Jersey cow as a
butter cow only. The farmer who simply wants the most milk
to sell by the quart, meaning to kill off his calves when they are
very few days old, that his cans may be filled, might find it
more profitable to him to have Ayrshires or grades or good na-
tives. In fact, we have no doubt that the Ayrshire, for cheese
and quantity of milk, is ahead of the Jersey. Yet we have no
doubt that a farmer who intends to sell milk and raise his own
stock for that purpose, will do a great deal better by having^
thoroughbreds, whether Shorthorns, Ayrshires or Devons, than
natives or grades.

There are but few who appreciate the quantity of milk used
in the United States. The trade for a single locality is enor-
mous. Into the city of New York alone, each day there comes
a great stream of milk over the Harlem road, another over the
Erie Railroad, another over the New Haven, another by the
Hudson, and still another by the Long Island. Twenty-five
thousand dollars' worth of milk a day comes flowing into this
one city — more than 19,000,000 worth a year.

The milk in this county, for the last ten years, has increased
to an average of five quarts a day to each cow, from about three
quarts. Now, when we remember that the number of cows in
the States is this day over nine millions, and the annual value
of their milk is over six hundred and seventy-five millions of
dollars, what a vast work would the farmers do to increase that,
as we have in Nantucket, two-fifths. Who would be mean
enough to talk about repudiation, when the national debt of the

182 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

country can be paid in about three years out of the milk-pails
of the United States alone ?

There are farmers who undertake to keep cows, and neither
feed them well nor house them well. To such it makes but
little difference whether they have Ayrshires or Alderneys, na-
tives or grades ; they will have a lot of poor cows, let them
come from what stock they may. A man who keeps more cows
than he can feed, who has a dirty and ill-ventilated stable, will
not only have sickly cows, but his milk will be rank and strong,
his butter bad, and his cheese worse. Dirt, except when scat-
tered on a man's pastures, never produced a farthing to a
farmer. There is no economy in dirt. The good farmer keeps
no more cows than he can feed well. If you go about the
State, you will find poor cows and poor farmers. But the poor
farmer is altogether the poorer of the two. A poor farmer will
make a good cow into a poor one, almost as by miracle ; while,
on the other hand, a good farmer will make a very fair cow from
a poor one, or fat her at once for the shambles. If poor farmers
could be disposed of in some such summary way, it would be a
blessing to the country and a day of jubilee to the cows.

A man that will starve or abuse such a mild, beautiful, for-
bearing and Christian animal as a cow, is fit only for the lone-
liness of the desert. Even when she is kicked and sworn at
and half fed, and, when maternal affection is most strong, we
take from her her first-born, that she would like to lick and
ramble about the green pastures with, so that we may make
money from her yield of milk, she still turns up her mild eye
in calm resignation, and goes uncomplaining to her poor and
slovenly shelter, without a murmur or a look of reproach.
What human beast would submit uncomplainingly to such a
fate ? E. M. Gardner, Cliairman.

SHEEP.

MARTHA'S VINEYARD.

From the Report of the Committee.
The merits of the several breeds of sheep with their crosses
having been ably treated by the Committee for 1868, it is only

SHEEP. 183

proposed in this report to throw out a few hints in regard to the
rearing and general management of the flock.

The importance of keeping up the condition of the flock
through the winter and spring, is admitted by all good breeders
of sheep. If allowed to lose flesh during the early part of win-
ter, their relish for proper food, and their ability to digest it is
weakened, and their restoration during the winter and following
spring, a difficult matter. The fleece grows but little, and much
of it is frequently lost before the following shearing. The
above evils may be remedied by feeding turnips, grain, refuse
beans, or anything else that they will eat ; the greater the variety
the better until they will eat hay readily, when the grain, roots,
&Q., may be discontinued, provided the hay is of good quality.
The flock, however, would be much improved by feeding grain
and roots in addition. The writer has repeatedly carried a flock
through the winter in good condition, by feeding what they
would eat of any kind of marsh hay, with the addition of a lib-
eral feeding of turnips — some four bushels to one hundred sheep
daily.

When sheep begin to lose their relish for hay, induced by an
early start of grass in spring, they should again be fed on grain,
— even so small a quantity as a half gill per head daily will do
much to keep up their condition, which will rapidly diminish at
this time if not fed.

Sheep should be provided with a barn or shed on dry ground,
with a door opening to the south, and otherwise well ventilated,
which should be constantly well littered, and so large that all
may lie down without coming in contact with each other. Al-
though the flock may prefer to lie out in mild weather, they will
resort to it and find comfortable quarters when the weather is
severe. Feeding racks or mangers should be provided, three
feet high, two and one-half feet wide, and any desirable length,
and should be constructed by nailing boards one foot wide to
upright posts on the sides and ends at the bottom ; also boards
which may be narrower, on the sides and ends at the top. Short
boards, six inches wide, should be nailed from the bottom to the
top boards, leaving space six or seven inches wide.

If flocks could be divided, and provided with separate accom-
modations, placing the ewes, the wethers, and the weaned lambs
each by themselves, it would be much better than to have the

184 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

three classes together, as the weaker ones, in the latter case,
would not get their full share of feed.

Perhaps the first of May is as good a time as any to have
lambs dropped that are designed to be kept for breeding stock ;
but where the ewes are well cared for, especially when the lambs
are designed for the butcher, a somewhat earlier time would
be better.

Lambs should be taken off from the ewes the latter part of
August 'or early in September, and placed in a meadow, and
should be well cared for during the fall, following winter and
spring, when such should be selected for breeding as combine the
most desirable qualities.

Herman Vincent, Chairman.

POULTRY.

MIDDLESEX.

Statement of George C. Wright.
I offer for your inspection and premium two coops of white
Leghorns that are bred from fowls which have taken the first
premium at the Middlesex Agricultural Fair. They were
hatched the last of March, and are six months and a few days
old — commenced laying when five months and two weeks old.
I have kept black Spanish, Brahma pootra, and other breeds of
fowls, but, for the size and number of eggs, white Leghorns are
the best, in my estimation. My method of feeding is as follows :
I give my fowls all they will eat, both summer and winter. In
summer I feed them on rye, oats, pease, &c., for grain. A cake
of scraps is also kept moistened so that it can be readily eaten.
Fresh water is given them every day. In winter I give them, in
addition to the above, scalded meal, mashed potatoes and meal,
carrots, cabbages, and burned bone and crockery pounded. By
feeding fowls in this way they are kept constantly laying, except
for a few weeks, when moulting.

To the Committee on Poultry.
Gentlemen : — I have entered for your examination and the
society's premium, one trio light Brahmas, six months old ; one

POULTRY. 185

trio Crevecoeurs, four months old ; one trio white Leghorns, six
months old ; one trio silver-laced Bantams, one year five months
old. The fowls are all pure bred, and from the best stock to be
found. They have been fed on a variety of grains — oats, corn,
buckwheat, wheat screenings ; also, corn meal, scraps, meat, and
boiled potatoes. They appear to thrive better on such variety
than when confined for any great length of time to any one par-
ticular grain ; they have been confined all the time in a close
yard, where they could not pick up their living from the farm.

My stock is nearly all Brahmas, and I prefer that breed to any
I have had, for the following reasons, namely :

They are very hardy, and quiet ; the best layers in cold
weather, when eggs bring a high price ; the young chickens are
very strong — much more so than most other breeds ; they grow
quick, and are preferred by the dealers in the market, the eggs
being five to eight cents a dozen more in Boston market in the
winter than either Leghorns, Black Spanish, or the common
fowls, not so much on account of their size, but because they
are thought to be of better quality. I have intended, and tried
to breed, a good shaped, broad, square-built, compact fowl,
rather than a coarse, over-grown, long-legged one, believing that
they mature quicker, lay eggs younger, and more of them.
These in the coop are almost precisely like fifty more at home.
The Brahma pullets on exhibition have been laying for the last
six weeks.

The Crevecoeurs were raised by me from stock of one of the
best importations that has been made ; they are very heavy
fowls and mature quickly. Not having bred many of them, I can-
not give my opinion as to their final value. The Bantams are
first-rate layers, but we keep them more for their beauty than
for profit. The Leghorns are very superior fowls ; they are
great layers in the summer, but not so good to lay in the winter
as the Brahmas. I have annexed an account of receipts and ex-
penditures— everything that has been bought for their keeping.
I have not charged anything for use of buildings, care, and in-
terest, as I am satisfied that the manure will pay well for all
those items.

24*

186 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Oct. 1, 1869. Stock on hand, 54 hens, 2 cocks and

17 chickens, $125 75

Oct. 1, 1868. Stock on hand, 54 hens, 3 cocks, . 114 00

Excess Oct. 1, 1869,

811 75

ACCOUNT OF RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES.

Cr.

By 416J dozen eggs, .... $132 86

hens and chickens sold, . . . 96 16

excess in value of stock, Oct. 1, 1869, . 11 75-

-8240 77

Dr.

To feed from Oct. 1, 1868, to Oct. 1, 1869, 8163 64

1 cock, bought in March, . . . 5 00

3 chickens, bought in June, . . 3 00-

- 171 64

Balance, 869 13

Eight Crevecoeurs and six Bantams have been kept the whole
season out of the above feed, but they, or their products, are not
estimated in the above account. It must have cost at least
823 to have kept them ; and, therefore, that sum must be
added to the profits, which would make it amount to 892.13.

Also, one coop for premium, containing a trio of one-half
Brahma and one-half Crevecoeur chickens, three months old.
I crossed the Brahma and Crevecoeur breeds, thinking that per-
haps I might obtain a cross superior to either. These chickens
have grown very much faster than either the pure Brahmas or
Crevecoeurs of the same age.

John H. Moore.

worcester north.

From the Report of the Committee.
We firmly believe that in giving our influence to encourage
the improvement of poultry, we are contributing largely to the
support of the agricultural interest of the State. Unfortunately,
there are not, so far as we know, reliable general statistics existing
to show what is the proportion which poultry bears to the other
farmproducts of the Commonwealth; but it is believed that neither

POULTRY. 187

producers nor consumers are fully aware of the magnitude of
the interest and product. The demand for both the meat and
eggs of fowls is steady, and the supply is never in excess of it.
There is no branch of the farmer's interest where science can
be applied with better pecuniary results than poultry raising.
We believe that all failures are traceable either to blindly
divorcing nature from science, or to a non-application of science
in the management of fowls.

All developments of permanent value are only possible by
conforming to the special law of the quadruped or biped sought
to be improved. We think our poultry men would do well to
observe closely the law of nature in even the feeding of poultry.
Let them not lose sight of the fact that the fowl is physically
constituted to live on whole grains, and that to ignore or disre-
gard this necessity of the fowl is to invite failure in some if not
in many points. All domestic fowls require green herbage,
and, if deprived of it for any considerable time, they inevitably
decline. Hens, during the laying period, require animal sub-
stance in some form, and it is absurd to expect a good crop of
eggs unless this condition is supplied. In the agricultural
papers we find a good deal bearing on the subject of supplying
the shell-producing substances ; and although too much stress
can scarcely be laid on this point, we think that science will yet
demonstrate the impropriety of presenting limey material in a
crude state. Scientific farmers and others are getting indoctri-
nated with the fact that our lands lack lime, and that, conse-
quently, there is a deficiency of that material in our grains. At
present our wheat contains but about 45.2, in 1,000 parts, of
lime, calcium (the metallic base of lime), magnesia, soda and
phosphoric acid. Providing this is sufficient for the osseous tis-
sues, there is still too little to make the shell of the egg ; but the
question is, how shall we remedy the deficiency ? We argue that
if the land is deficient in phosphates, lime, salt, &c., they should
be administered only to the land in crude state, thus supplying
the want in plants and fruits, they supplying it to animals which
consume such fruits. Some years ago, the writer made some
experiments in administering limey substance to fowls. Having
a quantity of air-slaked lime, it was mixed with the dough in
the proportion of about half a pint to six quarts of meal, and
fed to hens, while laying, with most excellent results. Later,

188 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

the writer has had his attention called to the propriety of admin-
istering the egg-producing material in the form of bone-meal.
A correspondent writes as follows : —

" Last winter I procured two barrels of bone-meal, intending
to use it for Irish potatoes and other garden crops. My wife,
however, appropriated some of it to manuring her roses in the
flower garden, by simply strewing it on the surface of the
ground around the bushes. The fowls have free access to the
garden, and were discovered eating the meal very eagerly.
Thinking it might be of service to them, we gave them some
for several weeks, and I assure you it was but a short time be-
fore the eggs began to come in such numbers as we had never
before known ! If a nest was broken up to prevent a hen from
hatching, it was but a few days before she was laying again, and
thus it continues until the present time.

" One hen has taken possession of a barrel which has some
bone-meal in it, and is laying in the meal. Whether she intends
to lay the barrel full or not, time alone will determine.

" My wife thinks that care and bone-meal are great institu-
tions for her poultry yard, and very extraordinary in their effect ;
but as the hens have an unusual amount of cackling to do, fears
they may bring on bronchitis ! This manuring of hens to make
them lay we think is original, but we have no idea of taking out
a patent for it, and hence leave the discovery open to the use of
all who may choose to try it."

In closing this Report, your Committee would further urge
upon the attention of all our farmers the value of the dung-
hill fowl, both as an always marketable product of the farm, and
for the virtue of its excrements as manure. In these days,
when beef claims such high prices, and pork is liable to the
charge of unwholesomeness, we can fall back upon poultry,
with the certainty of living as well, if not better ; while that
we should be as well off, pecuniarily, we think does not admit
of a doubt. A. B. Davis, Chairman.

BRISTOL CENTRAL.

Fro7n the Report of the Committee.
The kind most largely represented was the Brahma-pootra,
and your Committee, as usual from the excellence of the speci-

POULTRY. 189

mens exhibited, were more embarrassed in awarding premiums
to this class than any other. As there seems to be great diver-
sity of opinion as to what constitutes the chief excellence or best
points in this favorite and valuable breed, it may be well to enu-
merate, somewhat specifically, the points deemed most impor-
tant by the London Poultry Club, (whose standard of excellence
in relation to all breeds has been adopted by the American
Poultry Club,) for the information of breeders : —

GENERAL SHAPE OP ALL BRAHMAS.

" Beak very strong, taper and well curved. Comb, pea, small,
low in front and firm on the head, without falling over on either
side, distinctly divided so as to have the appearance of three
small combs joined together in the lower part and back, the
largest in the middle, each part slightly and evenly serrated.
Head small and slender ; deaf ear large and pendant ; wattles
small and well rounded on the lower edge ; neck long, neatly
curved and slender near the head ; breast very full, broad and
round, and carried well forward ; thighs very large and strong,
covered with short fluffy feathers curving inward round the hock
so as to hide the joint from view ; vulture hocks, that is, with
hard, stiff feathers projecting in a straight line beyond the joint,
— an objection but not a disqualification ; legs rather strong and
large, standing well apart very abundantly feathered down the
outside to the end of the toes."

The color of the light Brahmas, which are most extensively
bred in this country, is given as follows : —

" Comb, face, deaf ear and wattles rich bright red ; head
white ; neck white, with a distinct black stripe down the centre
of each feather ; breast, under part of body and thighs, white ;
saddle, white striped with black ; wing bow and coverts white ;
wing primaries black ; wing secondaries white on outside ; web
black on inside ; web tail black ; tail coverts glossy green-black ;
lesser coverts silvered on the edge ; legs bright yellow ; feathers
white, slightly mottled with black."

It will be seen from the above that pea combs are considered
the best. The single combs are not, however, a disqualification,
and the following enumeration of the points show that this ad-
vantage may be more than counterbalanced by other excellences.

190 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

POINTS IN BRAHMAS.

Size, .... 3 Legs and feathering, 1

Color, .... 4 Fluff, . . 1

Head and comb, . . 1 • Symmetry, . 2

Wings, primaries well tucked Condition, . 2

under secondaries, . 1

9 6—15

Breeders of Brahmas are earnestly requested to study the
above points. The Brahma' fowl has become, perhaps, the most
common of all the distinct breeds, and the fixing of a more defi-
• nite standard than has been generally recognized seems neces-
sary, in order to save your future committees from obvious em-
barrassment. We take the liberty of making a few general
suggestions upon other breeds. The Hamburg varieties must
have slaty blue legs. In the Leghorns, yellow are preferred,
though white is not a disqualification. Dorkings of every color,
must have white legs, inclining to pink. Games may have
willow, olive, white, yellow, blue or bronzy black legs — the colors
preferred in the order in which they are named. The color of
the hen's legs should match those of the cock.

The noble family of Game fowls was represented by ten coops
many of them of great beauty, though few were in good feather,
our exhibition occurring too early in the season to do justice to
the old or the young birds. There is, perhaps, no breed more
truly valuable for the farmer than the Game. Its good qualities
are so evenly balanced that, for general purposes, it has no su-
perior, perhaps no equal. The hens are excellent layers, the
best of all setters and mothers, being active, vigilant and fear-
ing nothing when they have their young broods around them.
They are also remarkably hardy. The cocks are very gallant,
seldom or never taking a dislike to one of the flock and persecut-
ing her unceasingly, as is not unfrequently the case with many
other breeds. They are brave, but not quarrelsome, seeming to
feel conscious of their superior strength and skill, and as if dis-
daining to engage with foemen unworthy of their steel. They
take little or no notice of the young cocks growing up under
them. If attacked, a true blooded Game cock will fight to the
death ; but after an experience of many years, we are convinced

POULTRY. 191

that no one need fear to keep them on account of their warlike
propensities. Those who indulge in the barbarous amusement
of cock fighting usually breed them to weigh, not to exceed,
four and a half to five lbs., it being difficult, they say, to match
them at heavy weights. There is no difficulty, however, in
bringing them to an average weight of five and a half to six
lbs. by judiciously crossing of difierent strains. One of the cocks
(a cross of the Derby and Sefton,) exhibited by Mr. Rodman,
weighed seven and a half lbs., while the hens average over five
lbs. This is, however, an extreme weight. A Game cock will
improve greatly the stock of any yard where there is need of
fresh blood.

The Bernicle and Brent geese are capable of being domesti-
cated, and Audubon thinks there is no reason why the Eider
duck, so valuable on account of its down, should not also be
successfully reared in confinement, as it feeds readily upon corn
and different grains. Great numbers of these are annually shot,
under the name of " Isle of Shoals duck," every winter or
spring, on Martha's Vineyard. We have no doubt that some of
the enterprising sportsmen of that island might trap some of
these without much trouble. They would, no doubt, prove a
most valuable addition to our poultry.

COOPS.

Your Committee remark some improvement in the style of
coops this year, but there is room for much more. Some of the
coops, containing very fine birds, were apparently contrived with
the express purpose of preventing the awarding of premiums to
their occupants. This defect is always noticeable in the case of
the largest birds, such as turkeys, geese, &c. The difficulty of
transporting coops large enough to show these to advantage is
obvious. Your Committee would renew the recommendation
made last year, that a few large sized coops be purchased by the
society. They can readily be made principally of wire netting,
so as to fold up in a small compass. Any quantity of these
might be stored in the hall of the society, to be brought out at our
annual exhibitions. Their average cost is about $3.00 per coop.
If the society provide accommodations for the larger kinds of
poultry, as it does for its annual show of sheep, swine, &c., we

192 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

think the attractiveness of our exhibitions would be largely in-
creased.

Only four exhibition coops were entered for premium, and
none of these were of a very high order of excellence. There
is one precaution which should be taken, in accordance with a
due regard to the health of the fowls ; all coops should be not
less than two feet high, and close on the backs and sides, (with
the exception, perhaps, of a slight opening for ventilation to-
wards the top,) in order to avoid drafts. It is a cruelty to ex-
pose fowls to the cool night air, in coops open upon every side.

GENERAL REMARKS.

We have alluded, in the opening part of this Report, to the
growing interest in poultry, as evidenced by this exhibition.
We have no disposition to magnify unduly the department which
we have the honor to represent ; but being convinced that no
part of a farmer's investment can be made more profitable than
poultry under a wise and intelligent system, we venture to offer
a few general suggestions on this subject.

There can be no doubt that the demand for eggs and poultry
in all of our large towns and cities is rapidly increasing. The
quantity of eggs consumed in the city of New York, for culinary
purposes alone, must be at least 500,000 eggs per day. In ad-
dition to this, there has sprung up within a few years a large
demand from the manufacturers of albumenized paper for pho-
tographic purposes, one establishment in the city of New York
alone consuming 900,000 per annum.

If we consider the average price of eggs and poultry during
the past year in this vicinity, which has been about thirty cents
per dozen for the former, and say twenty-eight cents per pound
for the latter, together with the average cost of corn, it seems
clear that there has been a handsome margin for profit.

It has been ascertained that one hen consumes not to exceed
one bushel of corn per annum. She will lay about one hundred
and twenty eggs per annum. Suppose we take a flock of twenty
hens and three cocks, costing one dollar each, . . |23 00
Estimated cost of poultry-house and fixtures, . . 27 00

150 00
Twenty hens will produce 200 eggs per annum, at 30

cents per dozen, . . . . . . . 60 00

DAIRY PRODUCTS. 193

They will consume annually 23 bushels of

corn, at $1.10, $25 30

Interest on stock and fixtures, . . . 3 00

128 30

Balance to credit of poultry account, . . . $31 70

It will be seen that there is here a profit of about forty per
cent. It does not follow that the same result will be reached
with largely increased numbers ; but if plenty of range be
given, and due care taken not to crowd the poultry together at
night, the profit will approximate, we think, quite nearly to the
above estimate. The value of the manure will more than pay
the depreciation of stock and fixtures.

Let every farmer remember that the almost exclusively laying
fowls, such as the Leghorns, Black Spanish, Houdans and Ham-
burgs, will be most profitable, if eggs only are his object ; while
the Brahmapootra, Gray Dorking, Game, Dominique and their
crosses will be the best for general purposes, especially if early
chickens are desired for the table. The Brahmapootras should
be disposed of after they are two or at most three years old,
and no fowl should be kept over four years, unless the breed is
choice and rare, as they deteriorate after that time. Let his
motto be, not more than fifty in a flock, dry, clean roosting
houses, and plenty of grass. With these precautions, almost
any breed will do well ; without them, disappointment and
failure are almost certain.

^ Edmund Rodman, Chairman.

DAIRY PRODUCTS.

WOECESTEE WEST.

From the Report of the Committee.
BuTTEE. — Butter is an important farm product, when we con-
sider its quantity and value, its general use in all classes of the
community, and its sanitary influence as an article of food.
Butter is now not only a necessity, but a prime article is a lux-
26*

194 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

ury. The consideration of this topic is important, from the fact
that a much less quantity is produced than might be, with the
same outlay of capital and labor ; and still more important from
the sad fact that much of it is so poorly manufactured. It is
estimated that more than a million of dollars is annually lost to
the producer and consumer from poor butter.

Let us hint at some of these great leaks in this branch of
dairy farming. First, the character of our milch cows, their
feed and their treatment.

The cow from whose milk we wish to manufacture butter,
should not only yield a fair amount of milk, but this milk
should be rich in the amount of constituent elements needful to
make butter, abundant in quantity, yellow in color, firm, well-
grained in texture, and " nutty " in flavor. Every dairyman
knows that cows vary in the above particulars. It should be
the earnest endeavor of the butter dairymen to obtain cows that
are known to have descended from a " butter family," to rear
their progeny, and thus improve the butter-making herd in this
county.

The feed of the cow should be in abundance, and contain all
the constituent elements that enter into the composition of milk
rich in butter properties. The cow is only a vitalized manufac-
tory to change the elements of grasses, roots and cereals into
milk appropriate to the uses of man. The cow can no more
secrete milk suitable for good butter-making without appropriate
feed, than the Israelites in Egypt could make brick without
straw. The cow, in summer and autumn, should feed on the
succulent grasses, as clover and timothy, and not on white-weed,
thistles and brakes. To improve the manufacture of butter in
our county, we must improve our pastures ; cut down and ut-
terly eradicate bushes, hardbacks and other noxious weeds,
apply compost, ashes, salt and lime, also gypsum or plaster of
Paris, and the green grass will wave, and the white clover will
dot our hillsides.

The milch cow should have hay in winter not overdried, and
the grass for the hay should be cut when in blossom or the seed
soft and doughy. The quality of the grass should be improved
by fertilizers. It is economy, nay, capital, to get out the rocks
and use the modern agricultural implements in cutting, curing

DAIRY PRODUCTS. 195

and storing hay. "We have already taken a too long " Van.
Winkle " nap.

In the drought of summer and autumn we should have corn
or millet for soiling ; also roots, as carrots, sugar-beets and tur-
nips, to give variety to the winter feed. The milch cow should
have, both summer and winter, an abundance of good water to
drink. Muddy water or stagnant pools produce disease in our
cows. She should be kept quiet, both in the pasture and yard
or stable, driven carefully, milked gently, with little or no con-
versation while being milked. Blows with the milking stool
and loud talking arrest the uniform flow of milk. The stables
should be well ventilated, warm and dry ; and be assured, the
dairyman will be rewarded by his flowing pails of milk and his
golden rolls of butter.

Second, I will pass to the manufacture of butter. Heat,
light, moisture and ventilation or change of air, influence the
milk while the cream is rising, or the separation of the elements
that form butter, from the caseine, (cheese element), and other
component parts of good milk. Uniform temperature for the
season, subdued light, constant but moderate change of air,
facilitate the rising and amount of cream, also its quality.

To secure, measurably, the control of all the above-named
agencies, so as to have their activity not only tolerably uniform,
operating with that energy found by observation to be best
adapted to attain the desirable result, namely, a prime article
of butter, is the great desideratum in the construction of a milk-
room and care of milk. Not only the arrangement and con-
struction of the walls inside and outside of the room, but local-
ity should engage the farmer's attention. But few persons
realize how readily milk and butter absorb surrounding odors.
A slice of the latter becomes air-slaked in a few hours.

Every butter dairy should have an adequate supply of pure
soft water. The most scrupulous cleanliness is demanded with
the pails, pans, churn and butter-tubs. The process of churn-
ing, salting, working and packing butter demands time, close
observation and labor.

The West and South can raise corn and wheat more cheaply
than we can, and these cereals are transportable to our doors
at all seasons. Meat can be brought from Texas and Illinois,
with advantage to both producer and consumer. Cheese is less

196 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

perishable than butter, consequently can be transported as well
as exported with less detriment than butter. For these reasons
our cities and manufacturing villages will look to our farmers
for a nice, fresh, healthy article.

Why cannot Worcester County have as good reputation for
butter as Orange County, N. Y. ? If more intelligence, care
and persistent labor are required in this branch of farming, let
us give more brain-work and hand-work to this necessary and
healthy vocation.

If not irrelevant, let me suggest that the butter dairymen and
their wives meet in their respective towns this winter, or other
places deemed most practicable, to consider and socially examine
the whole question relative to the manufacture of butter.

And permit me to ask, why should not our daughters have
the advantage of scientific culture in chemistry and kindred
sciences as well as our sons ? In the manufacture of cheese, of
butter, in the different processes of cooking, more or less chem-
istry is involved. Why not open the Agricultural College at
Amherst to our girls ? Equality before the law is now the
" shibboleth " of our country. As we are in favor of the adop-
tion of the Fifteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution,
we are as decidedly in favor of the education of our daughters
at our noble State institution, as fully and as completely as we
are our sons.

From the Report of the Committee.
Cheese. — The " cheese factory is among us," and bids fair to
make a complete revolution in this branch of manufacture.
Will it be a success ? It is too late in the day to doubt it. Like
all other new enterprises, they require time and patience to de-
velop them, but the result is certain. It is supposed by many,
that these establishments are designed particularly for those
doing business on a large scale and not adapted to small dairies.
But this we think is a mistake. The cheese made from five or
six cows, more or less, cannot be equal to that produced by a
large number. The cheeses are too small, they are hard and
dry, and not what the market calls for, either for home con-
sumption or export. A large portion of the cheese that goes to
market, is retailed at the counter of the grocer in small quan-
tities, and for this purpose the large-sized cheese is preferred,

DAIRY PRODUCTS. 197

and will sell in the market for a handsome percentage over the
small cheese of the household dairy ; so that in the opinion of
your Committee our small farmers are particularly interested to
connect themselves with the factory ; as in that case the milk of
their few cows is as valuable in proportion as the milk from the
largest dairies, to say nothing of transferring the labor of cheese-
making from the farm-house to the factory, where it will event-
ually be done at a much less cost than in the individual dairy
rooms, thus relieving our mothers, wives and daughters from a
task that at the present day they are so unable to perform, or
saving the cost of female labor, which is not only very expensive,
but often very vexatious.

Cheese, in the opinion of your Committee, is the most impor-
tant agricultural article that can be produced in this part of the
country. We can, as it seems to us, have no other great staple.
It becomes more apparent every day that beef, pork, wool, hops
and all breadstufifs and grains can be sent to market from other
sections of the country, at much lower prices than can be
afforded in this vicinity. The towns included in the " j-irisdic-
tion " of this society, so to speak, are best adapted to the pro-
duction of hay and grass, and these it has been abundantly
proved, can be made into milk at a better profit than into any-
thing else. And besides, it may be said truly that we have a
reputation for the production of cheese in this vicinity that has
been of value to our farmers in the past, and ought not to be
lost in the future. This reputation is founded, as we believe,
not only upon the perfection of its manufacture, but the material
out of which it is made, the grass grown upon our hillsides,
which partakes so largely of the white clover, produces a white-
ness of milk and cream that manifests itself in the product of
our dairies, whether in butter or cheese.

This, then, should be our specialty, in this part of the coun-
try, and all should co-operate to increase the quantity and im-
prove the quality of this important article.

We have already said that the quality of our cheese has been
greatly improved through the influence of this society, by stim-
ulating inquiry as to the requisites of a good cheese, and the
way to produce it, and we may say to the credit of our farmers,
that they have had no secrets in their business. They have
freely communicated their ^^ modus operandi'''' to all inquirers.

198 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

No notice of •' Positively no Admittance " has been on their
doors. So far from that, the presiding genius would be but too
liappy to communicate all the facts and experience connected
with the establishment, and make a full display of all the tools
and fixtures, together with a full view of the dairy product in
the cheese-room. And if visitors should admire a shelf of noble
sage cheeses, they might be informed that corn leaves and potato
tops would color a cheese as handsomely as the best sage that
ever grew !

Whether the same courtesy will obtain between the different
cheese factories is doubtful. Should some one of them discover
a process by which a percentage could be added to the weight
of cheese from a given quantity of milk, we doubt much whether
the information would be thrown into the common stock for the
benefit of all concerned. However this may be, we hope that
the manufacture will be carried to the greatest perfection, and
that our factories may endeavor to have a common reputation
which may be known wherever there is a cheese market. The
export demand for cheese is frequently for large lots, and it is
desirable that they should be essentially " one chop." We make
these remarks as to cheese factories, because we think the future
of the business is in that direction, and that our farmers would
do well to turn their attention to this subject.

Freeman Walker, Acting Chairman.

HINGHAM.

From the Report of the Committee.

Butter. — Inhabitants of this manufacturing State of Massa-
chusetts, as we are, we hardly realize the extent to which the
art and business of butter and cheese making has been carried
in this country. Dairying has, within the last few years, engaged
the attention of the farmers throughout the Eastern, Middle and
Western States, and the " American system," as it is called, has
become an important branch of national industry. A few statis-
tics may be of interest.

American dairying now represents a capital but little short of
11,000,000,000. The cheese product of 1867, sold for 125,000,-
000, and the butter product for 1100,000,000. In the same
year, the product of the New York dairies sold for more than

DAIRY PRODUCTS. 199

the entire grain crop of the State, and three times as much as
the whole wool clip. From the United States census of 1860,
we learn that the value of the dairy products of all the States,
at that time, could not have been less than two hundred millions
of dollars, that it was worth nearly as much as the cotton crop,
and was one-ninth of the total agricultural products of the whole
country. The product of cheese, now made in the United
States, is greater than that in Great Britain, and a large quantity
is annually shipped there. It has been estimated that there are
now, almost one thousand cheese factories in the State of New
York alone, and over twenty in the State of Massachusetts.
There are also many butter factories in the country, and butter-
making has become a specialty with many farmers.

But, although dairy farms are becoming valuable, and dairy
farming profitable, we can hardly expect, in Massachusetts, where
our farms are small and our population large, to produce much
butter or cheese for export. If we can supply the demand for
home consumption, we shall do well. But we ought, at least,
to make good cheese and good butter, and this we can do with
proper care. To be sure, we need good, healthy cows, and good
feed, but these we usually have. Then, as in bread-making, we
want care ; indeed, oftentimes, hard work, for as dough must be
kneaded, butter must be "worked." The question of salting
seems to us to be, in a great measure, a matter of taste ; some
like more and some less, but a certain amount of salt is neces-
sary, of course, for all butter that is to be preserved.

Arthur Lincoln, Chairman.

SUPPLEMENT.

PRIZE ESSAYS

Roads and Road Making.

26*

PEEFAOE.

In liis Inaugural Address to the legislature of 1869, His Ex-
cellency Governor Claflin used the following words : —

" Closely connected with our agriculture and other prominent in-
terests is the system of public highways. Few things are of greater
importance to a community, or a surer test of civilization, than
good roads. Those of our citizens who have visited Europe are
unanimous in the opinion that our public roads are far inferior to
those of other countries, where the means of easy and safe com-
munication are better appreciated. The science of road-making is,
apparently, not well understood ; or, if it is, the present modes of
superintending the construction and repair of roads are so defective,
that the public suffers to an extent of which few of us are aware.
It may be found, upon investigating the cause of our miserably
poor and ill-constructed roads, that the laws relating to this subject
need revision, so as to give more uniformity in the construction and
the rej^air of our highways. It is evident, also, that the science of
road-making should have a prominent jilace in the course of applied
mathematics at the Massachusetts Agricultural College."

This suggestion was embodied by the legislature in the form
of a Resolve, offering prizes for an Essay or Essays upon Roads,
in the following words : —

Resolve concerning the construction and repair of roads.

Hesolvedy That there be allowed and paid out of the treasury of

the Commonwealth the sum of four hundred dollars, to be expended

under the direction of the board of agriculture, in the payment of

204 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

one or more premiums for the best treatise or treatises, containing
not more than two hundred pages duodecimo, respectively, uj^on the
science of road-making and the best methods of superintending the
construction and repair of jDublic roads in this Commonwealth ; and
that said board are also authorized to cause to be printed, for the
use of the next legislature, three thousand copies of the treatise re-
ceiving the highest premium under this resolve, if they shall deem
such publication expedient. \^Approved, June 12, 1869.

The subject was referred by the Board to a Committee con-
sisting of Messrs. James P. C. Hyde, of Newton, Avery P. Slade,
of Somerset, and Newton S. Hubbard, of Brimfield, and this
Committee was authorized to offer, on behalf of the Board, one
or more prizes as, on mature consideration, it should think
best. The Committee issued the following circular : —

Roads, and Road Making.

The undersigned, a Committee of the State Board of Agriculture,
would respectfully call your attention to a Resolve, adopted by the
Massachusetts legislature at its last session, and approved June 12th,
1869, "concerning the construction and repair of roads;" a copy
of which is hereto annexed.

The Board of Agriculture offer $200 for the best, $125 for the
second best, and |75 for the third best treatise on the subject of road
making and repair, as provided for by the Resolve ; the same to be
sent to Charles L. Flint, the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture,
State House, Boston, on or before January 28th, 1870, for exami-
nation. All manuscripts, whether receiving an award or otherwise,
to be at the disposal of the Board. As the time is short, it is ear-
nestly desired that the subject may receive immediate and thorough
attention, as it is one of very great importance to the whole State.

James F. C. Hyde,
Avery P. Slade,
Newton S. Hubbard,

Committee.
Decbmbee 13, 1869.

PREFACE. 205

A wide-spread interest was awakened in the subject. Nearly
thirty essays were submitted for the inspection of the Committee,
some of them by writers residing in other States. These
essays differed widely in their character. Some of them were
scientific and elaborate; others meagre in extent though often
containing suggestive and useful hints. No one appeared to
the Committee to embody all that was desirable, or to form in
itself a full and comprehensive treatise adapted to the wants
of both cities and towns, or large centres of population and
sparsely inhabited districts.

The general principles of road making may be the same, but
it is evident that they cannot be applied with equal completeness
under all circumstances. A city street, or a road in the neigh-
borhood of large and wealthy centres of population is one thing,
and a country road, little frequented, is anothei;, A sandy road
on Cape Cod, where both clay and gravel are inaccessible, and a
rocky mountain road in Western Massachusetts, would require
somewhat different treatment.

Nothing certainly need be said of the importance of good
roads. No community can afford to be without them. The
wear and tear of vehicles and horse-flesh and muscle on a bad
road is enormous ; and it constitutes an indirect tax which
probably amounts to very nearly as much as the direct tax upon
the people. Strange as it may seem, public sentiment needs to
be educated up to a full appreciation and realization of the dif-
ference between good and bad roads. Nor can it be questioned
that the system of road making, as it has been adopted and ap-
plied hitherto in most of our towns, is defective and bungling.
True economy would require a more liberal original outlay, if
the public comfort and convenience did not, for the item of cost
for repairs to follow would be materially and permanently les-
sened. Besides, the same power will move a much larger load,
and do it with greater ease, with less wear and tear, on a solid,
properly-constructed road, than on one of an opposite character.

206 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

The awards were made^ after very careful study and consid-
eration, with reference to the wants of all sections of the State,
and though neither of the following Essays would be complete
in itself, it is believed, that, taken together, as they should be,
they present a comprehensive view of the subject, and that they
will be found both useful and instructive, as furnishing sugges-
tions worthy to form the basis of legislative action.

CHARLES L. FLINT,

By order of the Committee.

A FIEST PEIZE TEEATISE

THE SCIENCE OF EOAD MAKING.

By Clemens Herschel,

CIVIL ENGINEER, MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OP CIVIL ENGINEERS.

Intkoduction.

This treatise was written in answer to the printed circular of
a Committee of the Board of Agriculture, calling for " treatises
upon the science of road-making, and the best methods of su-
perintending the construction and repair of public roads in this
Commonwealth."

This circular was issued about the middle of December, and
as the time for writing and sending in the called-for essays was
limited to January 28, the writer has thought it best, no specific
character being prescribed for the treatises, to attempt to write
one suitable to be so called from the stand-point of the public,
rather than from that of the civil engineer, and, giving results
rather than the methods of arriving at them, to be as concise as
possible.

The Science op Road Making.
Starting, then, with the first of the two subjects mentioned in
the circular, — the science of road making, we can divide this
into three periods : (1) laying out a road ; (2) making the
road-bed, which includes all earthworks, cutting and filling, cul-
verts, drains, bridges, even tunnels, &c. ; and (3) the making
of the road surface ; to which, not improperly, might be added,
(4) keeping the road in repair.

Laying out a Road.
The considerations which determine the best location of a
road, are those arising from the nature of the travel it is pro-

208 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

posed to accommodate ; that is, from the admissible grades,
radii of curves, &c. Given two points it is desired to connect,
vrith no intermediate point where the road is to touch, that
route is the best which will cost least to build and maintain, the
grades and curves being kept within bounds ; and to find this
location constitutes the whole problem of the engineer.

The Romans built all of their roads in perfectly straight lines,
up hill and down, at a very great expense, as being absolutely
the shortest distance between two points. At a later period in
history, it was argued that a road must be winding to be agree-
able, and many were so built only for this reason. The modern
road-builder or engineer in general, ignores any such consider-
ations, and has for his aim only to achieve the most, at the least
present and future expense.

As regards curves in roads in a hilly or mountainous district,
we have then the rules never to make a smaller radius than
20 feet, and that only in extraordinary cases. On roads where
long logging or other wagons may be expected, the smallest
radius ought to be 50 or 60 feet ; and, in general, 40-45 feet is
none too much.

A rule sometimes followed in constructing mountain roads,
is, where the inclination is 1 or 2 in a hundred,* heavy teams
require 40' and light ones 30' radius ; with a grade of 2 or 3 in
a hundred, heavy teams require 65' and light ones 50' radius.
Where a reverse curve (shaped like the
letter S) occurs, there should be a straight
piece connecting the two curves, (Fig. 1.)
On the contrary, where the
two curves to be connected ,
FIG. 1. ^i"G concave in the same di-

rection, the connecting link should be curved
also, and not straight, (Fig. 2.) On the length
of the curves the grade should be made easier
than on the parts of the road immediately ad-
joining. ^'^^- 2-

As regards grades, to start with mountain paths, we find
pedestrians able to walk up an inclination of 100 in 120 ;

* In describing grades, tlie first figure gives the vertical height which is
ascended in a horizontal distance given by the second figure. Both figures
must of course be taken to refer to the same unit of length, thus : 100 feet

GRADE AND CLASSES OF ROADS. 209

mules, ponies, &c., 100 in 173. For roads, Telford's rule was,
that for horses attached to ordinary vehicles to trot up a hill
rising 3 in one hundred, was equal to walking up one, of a 5 in
a hundred grade.

Experiments have shown that, —

1. On a road falling 2 in a hundred, vehicles would run down
of themselves.

2. On the same kind of road, but having an inclination of 4
in a hundred, light vehicles had to be held back lightly, loaded
ones, with considerable force.

3. On a road having a fall of 5| in a hundred, light vehicles
had to be held back with considerable force, or if a brake was
applied they had to be pulled, whereas heavy or loaded vehicles
had to be braked to keep the horses from being speedily
exhausted.

On inclinations steeper than 5 in a hundred, the rain-water
running down the road is apt to do some damage to the road
surface.

The regulations of different countries having a long experi-
ence in road building, such as France, Prussia, Baden, &c., vary
somewhat, but the following is the general result.

In treating of roads, it often renders the subject much clearer,
to divide them into three classes : first, second and third class
roads, or, as we might also say, state, county and town roads.
Accepting this nomenclature, we have this : for first class or
state roads, the greatest inclination should not exceed 8-5 in a
hundred ; second class or county roads, 5-7 in a hundred ;
third class or town roads, 7-10 in a hundred. A road rising 10
in a hundred is not supposed ever to have any heavy teams upon
it. In ascending a hill it is well and proper to decrease the grade
as the top is reached, and in the same measure as the horses get
tired. Thus, if a first class road starts up hill with a grade of
4^ per hundred, it should gradually diminish to 4 and 3^ in a
hundred, and end near the top with a grade of 3 in a hundred.
If a grade of 4 or 5 in a hundred must needs be kept up for
some distance, then it is well to have resting places 40 or 50 feet

in 120 feet, 100 inches in 120 inches, or 100 miles in 120 miles, all express
the same inclination to a level plane, and are more general in their appli-
cation than the ways of expressing grades in so many inches to the foot,
or feet in one mile, &c., &c.

27*

210

MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

long, having a grade of only 1^ or 2 in a hundred, in the line
of the road at proper intervals. An expedient adopted by
Telford, the eminent English engineer, in order to avoid making
a piece of road a mile long, on a less grade than 5 in a hundred,
on account of the increased cost this would have occasioned,
and yet not have this part of the road too much more tiresome
for the horses than the rest, was to make the road-surface on
this mile of a much better quality than on the remainder ; the
additional cost required for the improved road-bed amounting
to only about one-half of what it would have cost to reduce the
grade to say 4 in a hundred, as will be again referred to under
the head of trackways. In sharp curves the grade should be
only 1 or 2 in a hundred or level.

The following table gives the effects of various grades on the
amount a horse can pull, and is based on calling the load a horse
will pull on a level, one : —

Then, on a

grade

of 1:100,

a horse

can pull

0.90

1: 60,

u

u

0.81

1: 44,

u

a

0.75

1: 40,

((

a

0.72

1: 30,

a

a

0.64

1: 26,

i(

u

0.54

1: 24,

u

a

0.50

1: 20,

ii

ii

0.40

1: 10,

a

u

0.25

To determine whether it is most advisable to go over or around
a hill, all other considerations being equal, we have this rule :
Call the difference between the distance around on a level and
that over the hill, d, the distance around being taken as the
greatest, and call A, the height of the hill.

Then in case of a first class road, we go around when d is less
than 16 h.

And in case of a second class road, we go around when d is
less than 10 h.

When the height of a necessary embankment gets to be more
than 60 or 65 feet, a bridge or viaduct will be found cheaper, and
the same measure, 60 feet, applies in case of tunnels, they being
cheaper at that depth than open cuttings.

LAYING OUT A ROAD. 211

Under the head of laying out roads, something should be said
of their width. Speaking only of such roads as are not apt to
turn into streets from their proximity to towns and cities, it is
well not to make them too broad, for the less the width, the less
the cost of construction and maintenance, and a good 23 feet
road is much better than a poor one 40 or more feet wide. Each
rod (16|^ feet) in width adds two acres per mile to the road.
An agreeable form of road is to have on each, or on one side of
the same a strip, 5 or 6 feet wide, sodded, and then a sidewalk
equal in width to one-eighth the width of the roadway. The
intervening strip above mentioned, is planted with trees and at
intervals of 200-250 feet furnishes storage places, 80 or 40 long,
for the materials used in the road repairs. The width of first,
second and third class roadways may be given as 26, 18i- and 13
feet, with a tendency during the last ten years to have none,
except in the vicinity of cities, wider than 24 feet, and the rest
correspondingly narrower. In view of the changes constantly
going on in this country in the value and settlement of land, it
would probably be well always to lay out a road 50 or 60 feet
wide, but to bvild the road proper of the widths above indicated.

With all these rules and data in mind, the real work of actu-
ally laying out the road on the ground and on a map is next in
order, and this comes so entirely within the province of the civil
engineer, and is a matter requiring so much explanation and
study, that it cannot well be introduced within the limits of this
treatise. It is in this part of the work that a little skill and
labor well spent may be productive of very great saving in the
cost of the whole work and it should not be left to the inexpe-
rienced or unskilful.*

* Gillispie, in Ms treatise on " Roads and Eailroads," gives two forcible
instances of the amount those roads which might properly be called chance
roads, can be improved by a road-maker of skill and understanding. An
old road in Anglesea, England, rose and fell, between its two extremities,
twenty-four miles apart, a total perpendicular amount of 3,540 feet; while
a new road, laid out by Telford between the same points, rose and fell only
2,257 feet ; so that 1,283 feet of perpendicular height is now done away
with, which every horse passing over the road had previously been obliged
to ascend and descend with its load. The new road is besides two miles
shorter. The other case is that of a plank-road built in the State of New
York, between the villages of Cazenovia and Chittenango. Both these
villages are situated on Chittenango Creek, the former being eight hundred
feet higher than the latter. The most level common road between these

212 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Making the Road-bed.
Under this head are included, earthworks, drains, culverts,
bridges, stay walls, &c., &c., all matters requiring a special kind
of skill to construct properly. The writer believes it impracti-
cable to write a book which shall at once be interesting to and
therefore valued by thd public, and of value to the professional
man, and thinks an attempt so to do results always in a failure
in both directions. True to the determination expressed in the
introduction, he proposes, therefore, to treat under this head
mainly with those parts of the subject in which the public at
large is most interested, for example, the data for the cost of
earthworks, general information relating to drainage, bridges, &c.

Eaethworks.

The basis of all values is the daily wages of a common un-
skilled laborer, and in the data given below, this figure, what-
ever it is from time to time and in various places, must be taken
as unity, or the standard measure.

The cost of earthworks may be divided into three parts — (1)
cost of loosening the earth, (2) cost of transport, and (3) cost
of forming the transported earth into the desired shape. The
cost of the first part depends materially on the kind of earth to
be handled. The cost of the second, mainly on the distance the
earth is to be moved.

We find by experience, that in digging and loading or throw-
ing 5-10 feet horizontally with a shovel, we obtain for difierent
materials the results of the following table : —

villages, rose, however more than 1,200 feet in going from Chittenango to
Cazenovia, and rises more than four hundred feet in going from Cazenovia
to Chittenango, in spite of this latter place being eight hundred feet lower.
That is, it rises four hundred feet where there should be a continual descent.
The line of the plank-road laid out by George Geddes, civil engineer, as-
cends only the necessary eight hundred feet in one direction, and has no
ascents in the other, with two or three trifling exceptions of a few feet in
all, admitted in order to save expense. The scenes of similar possible im-
provements are scattered all over this and the rest of the States ; and these
facts are still more or equally to be borne in mind in laying out new roads,
where the ounce of prevention may take the place of the pound of cure.

COST OF SHOVELING EARTH.

213

•Biooj 3n!J!«d
-91 puB Suidaa^i aoj
pappB aq o? ^unoaiy

•suo

-3VM. 10 SJiBO
ni pBOI 0% pJBjf

oiqno aad ?soo

1« I"

'i-'

JO

^Ic.

^lo

J^ J^

J^

HS

'BAOJjBqiaaqM.

U{ pBOI 0} pjBiC

oiqno aad jsoq

^l«>

HS ^2

•aasooi 0^ piB^

S]qnO J3d }800

^Ilt-

--+0

K>

1

1

-■li

H-

,-N>

J^

J°

<«

•jaqmnii

O -js

.2 s

^
^

•a

rid

'ft

•^ - .

•Sa

9^

d) to

<+-. a>

bo ••

•5S

.9

a

c3 m

3 .

TS

^^ a

2

M a

^

C en

c« O

^^

.H o

S-i *^

-^ a

^ a

o o)

to >>

0-9

> „

W w

a-^
a. 2

3 o?J

CO

5= a

" .2

a> >

^ 2

M ^

211

MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Teansport of Earth.

Throwing with a shovel. — This is to be done only from 5-12

feet in distance or from 5-6 feet vertically. To throw 5 feet

vertically, costs as much as 12 feet horizontally, that is to say,

if 30 feet horizontally cost per cubit yard, ' day's ^wages ^j^^ ^^^^

distance vertically will cost about 2^ times as much, or more
exactly, ^ "^"^'^^^^^^^ whence is seen the economy of using wind-
lasses, &c., instead of " stages,"* in shovelling earth vertically.
The table gives the cost of shovelling earth certain distances, ex-
pressed in the number of cubic yards a laborer's day's wages
will pay for.

3

t one
neans
ages."

yards
trans-
ost of
day's

o o

Distance of

tc

1"^

'2 a 2 '"
g c5 £

Remarks.

Theow, in Feet.

o

u ^ "a

Q o a o
^- j3 -a .2 m

S

£ 2 o

j= .2 -2 S)

>

a a. K.
^ o o

gf o c 2

'A

0-10, .

Horizontally,

No " stages."

23 5

10-20, .

u

1 stage.

12.6

I Wheelbarrow

20-30, .

l(

2 stages.

8.4

f cheaper.

0-5,

Vertically,

No stages.

14.1

5-10, .

((

1 stage.

8.8

Wlieelbarrows. — The usual distance of transport suitable for
the use of wheelbarrows is 100-200 feet. In exceptional cases
it may be more, but perhaps never above 500 feet, and then only
for moderate quantities. In going up hill, the greatest inclina-
tion is to be not more than 1 in 10, and a man can push only f
as much on this inclination as on a level. 3 feet vertical trans-
port costs as much as 90-100' horizontally. Whenever possible,
planks should be laid for the wheel-barrows to run on. The
best timber for this purpose is beech wood and the cost of keep-
ing such planks is only about -^^ or ^^j per cent, of the cost of
transport per cubic yard.

* By a " stage," is meant the operation of one shoveller lifting and throw-
ing what another has thrown in front of him.

PORTABLE HAND CARS.

215

Distance op Tkanspoet, in Feet.

Number of trips per
day of ten hours,
made with one man
at barrow, and one
to load.

Contents of wheelbar-
row load in cubic
feet.

Number of cubic yards
which can be trans-
ported at the cost
of one laborer's day's
wages.

10-20,

120

^

23.5

20-50,

110

2i

16.9

50-70,

100

^

14.4

70-100,

98

n

13.8

100-150,

96

2i

13.3

150-200,

94

^

12.8

200-250,

92

n

12.4

250-300,

90

^

12.0

300-350,

88

^

11.6

350-400,

86

2i

11.2

400-450,

84

^

10.9

450-500,

82

2^

10.5

500-550,

80

^

10.2

Patent Portable Raileoad and Hand Cars.
These have lately been introduced in this country and appear
to be coming into general use and favor. The company owning
this improvement, as it seems to have a right to be called, claim,
that by means of their track and cars, which can be used every-
where that a wheel-barrow or a horse-cart can go, and in a great
many places where these vehicles cannot go, they effect a very
large saving, as much in some cases as -| of the cost by the other
means of transport. There are no data published as yet to make
tables from similar to the foregoing ; from the company's pam-
phlet, however, one given case which occurred on Staten Island
in 1867, may be analyzed and tabulated as follows: —

Distance of transport, in feet,

550

216

MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Number of trips per day of ten hours, with one man at

two cars, and two to load, ...... 150

Contents of car, in cubic feet, ..... 11.34

Number of cubic yards which can be transported at the
cost of one laborer's day's wages, .... 60

One-Horse Carts.
The table for this kind of transport may be stated about as
follows. 1 foot vertical costs as much as 14 horizontal.

Distance or Teamspokt, in Feet.

6 2 - -fe

•?S 5 5 5.

■2 c oV,

a a a a

ie -, S "

3 '^ " S

%- « 05 2

o o •§

S; ^ ■a - oi

S » S OS g,

Sf »<- S

a ? a o ?

300,

500,
1,000,
1,500,
2,000,
2,500,
3,000,

67
43
31
25
21
18

17.1
13.6
8.6
6.4
5.0
4.3
3.6

Ox-cart transport is 10 or 12 per cent, cheaper than the above,
but takes more time.

Other methods of transport, such as horses or engines on tem-
porary tracks, would hardly ever be applied to road-building,
but belong more properly under the head of railroad construc-
tion.

Shrinkage.
In calculating the cost of earthworks, the so-called shrinkage
of earth must not be overlooked. Earth occupies on the average
^^ less space in embankment than it did in its natural state, 100
cubic yards, shrinking into 90. Rock on the contrary, occupies
more space when broken, its bulk increasing by about one-half.

DRAINAGE OF THE ROAD. 217

The shrinkage of gravelly earth and sand may be taken at 8, of
clay 10, loam 12, surface soil 15, and of " puddled " clay 25 per
cent. The increase of bulk of rock is 40 to 60 per cent.

To make use of all these data in calculating the probable cost of
a piece of road, there is of course still wanting the equally es-
sential factor which gives the number of cubic yards to be dug
and moved and the distance of transport. These are got from
the plan, profile and cross-sections of the proposed work, an
engineer's knowledge being requisite to make the necessary
drawings and calculations.

Drains and Culverts.

The drainage of roads is of two kinds, surface and sub-drain-
age. The first provides for a speedy removal of the rain-fall on
the surface of the road and the cutting and embankments on
which it is carried ; the second, for the removal of that part of
the rain-fall which nevertheless does penetrate into the body of
the road-covering. With a perfect sub-drainage the winter's
frost, having no water to act upon within the body of the road,
is robbed of its great power to destroy the same, and it also pre-
vents the road-surface from becoming soaked and thence destroyed
in the summer. The need of surface drainage is self-evident.
This last named is to be provided for at this stage of the build-
ing of the road, the sub-drainage being more properly a part of
the building of the road-covering or top. For this purpose
ditches, one on each side generally, are absolutely necessary, both
when the road is on a level with the surrounding country and
when it is in a cutting. They may become necessary also in the
case of embankments ; for example, when an embankment is
built across low ground. Where these side ditches cross under
the embankment we have a culvert ; also whenever any small
valley, having a constant or intermittent stream of water, is
crossed by such an embankment. It is very bad policy to make
such culverts of wood, unless indeed they are so situated as to
be constantly under water ; the cost of replacing them after the
embankment and road has been built over them is dispropor-
tionately great. They should be made of stone, or brick ; lately,
cement drain-pipe, oval or egg-shaped, has been used to advan-
tage in their construction.

All ditches, drains and culverts should have a fall throughout

28*

218 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

their entire length. Their size will depend on the amount of
water they may be expected to carry and this again on the rain-
fall that may occur on the area which they drain. Extraordinary
showers have occurred of 2" in half an hour but only over a very
limited area and 2" in an hour may be taken as a large allow-
ance. This is the basis of the Central Park drainage calcula-
tions and is larger than usually taken, none too large however
for safety. As culverts grow larger and wider with the amount
of water they are to pass under the road, they develop finally
into

Bridges.
Bridge-building is a life's study, taken by itself, and in some
of its parts it is not half appreciated and known as yet among
the public. Prominent among these is beauty of design and
appropriateness to the situation. There is perhaps nothing else
that will so much improve the appearance and attractiveness of
a road as a beautiful bridge. So also in cities we find that a
street will of its own accord, seemingly, improve in appearance,
when a good and handsome bridge has been erected on its line,
the owners and builders of the adjoining buildings taking the
bridge for their pattern and model. Nor must it be supposed
that a handsome bridge must necessarily cost more than an in-
appropriate or homely, uncouth structure ; it need never be the
case. Very often the chief beauty of a structure lies in the fact
of its carrying the most with the least expenditure of material.
No one bridge is proper in every situation and herein are many
mistakes made. The correct way to build a good bridge, is the
same or a similar way to that followed in first-class buildings,
namely, to have plans drawn for the same and receive estimates
and offers to build according to these plans. It is not well to
allow the offices of designer, superintendent and contractor to
be united in one person or firm, and is expecting too much from
human nature.

Making the Road Surface.
There are two subordinate kinds of road surface, if the term
road can properly be applied to them, namely, that of foot and
riding paths ; these may be disposed of first, before proceeding
to the more important consideration of the road surfaces proper,
those used by vehicles of all descriptions.

FOOT AND RIDING PATHS. 219

Footpaths. — For the surface of a footpath little solidity is nec-
essary, except in city sidewalks wliich are not supposed to be
treated of here, but we do need a material that shall become
and stay compact soon after it is laid. Coarse sand, screened
gravel, stone chips and dust, make good paths ; should these
materials be too free from any earth or clay, a little of the same
may often be added to advantage to act as a binding material.
Wherever the ground underneath the surfacing is not porous
or likely to remain porous enough to let all the water that may
soak through, drain away, a layer of such porous material must
be filled up before the top surface is put on. Oyster shells, or
large stone chips, gravel stones or pebbles, &c., make a good
foundation of this sort. The top covering should have a slope,
best in both directions from the centre of the path towards each
side of about 1 in 16 ; the thickness of the foundation course
to be 3-5, and that of the top 3-4 inches. Heavy rolling will
save much time in finishing the whole process ; the roller should
be used unsparingly and throughout the whole construction of
the path, on the foundation, as well as on the top.

Riding-Paths. — From the nature of the travel these are in-
tended to accommodate, their surface is of a peculiar nature.
Inasmuch as a horse, in galloping, tends to throw the soil he
treads on backwards with his hind feet, the surface must be
kept somewhat loose and soft to make riding on it easy and
agreeable. This requirement makes it impossible to have any
slope on the surface (the loose material would wash away if
there were any), and hence we must rely here wholly on sub-
drainage, and not attempt any surface drainage. The top is
made of coarse ssind, free from clay or other binding material,
laid on two and one-half to three and one-half inches thick, and
spread out level. Under this is a solid foundation, about four
inches thick, made of coarse gravel and clay, and having a slope
of about 1:20, so that the water will run off along its top sur-
face to either side, where it must further be disposed of by
drains or ditches. In case of riding paths too wide to be so
simply built, the sketch shows the method to be used. The

foundation is made in several slopes, at the lowest parts of
which are placed drains, running in the direction of the path,

220 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

but communicating from time to time with the side ditches or
drains. Should, however, the ground underneath be porous
enough, the drains may be dispensed with ; and if in their stead
holes be dug along the lowest -lines, marked o, a, and these filled
with large stone, the water will, through them, drain away into
the ground.

Roads. — To make a good road surface is a very simple oper-
ation after it is only once understood, and, the fundamental
principles thereof once comprehended, they can hardly be for-
gotten. Everything connected with the construction, the use
and maintenance of roads, was, in times past, before the inven-
tion of railways, the subject of exact observations and experi-
ments, many and varied in their character. Besides this, we
have the results of a great number of years of experience in
older countries, and there would seem to be little to invent, but
much to learn, in this branch of construction. Though less
progressive than other branches, there are nevertheless improve-
ments in road-making, especially in road-making machinery and
tools ; and no treatise on this or any other living subject can be
considered complete a very few years after it is written.

Ancient roads were made with a surface as nearly resembling
the solid rock as possible. So, in China, roads were made of
huge granite blocks laid on immovable foundations. In time
these became worn with ruts, especially in the joints or seams
of the stones, and the surface generally so smooth that animals
could hardly stand, far less trot on it. They are now for the
most part deserted, and left to be covered up by land-slides,
&c., to one side of the new roads of travel.

The invention of McAdam consisted in having no large stone
at all on the roadway, but having it all pounded into small frag-
ments and spread over the road-bed. This has, without fear of
efiicient contradiction or shadow of doubt, been proved by trial
to be a worthless proceeding, though at one time popular, and
even now only too often done, either from ignorance or laziness.
The separate fragments of stone, having no bond among them-
selves, are liable to sink into the underlying ground or road-
bed, evenly or unevenly as it may chance, more in one place
than in another, and thus never come to rest or to an even top
surface. Between these two extremes of an ancient Chinese
solid rock road and that of McAdam, lies the true principle of

FOUNDATION AND TOP SURFACE. 221

road-making, which consists in giving every road two component
parts ; one, — the foundation, — to be solid, unyielding, porous,
and of large material ; the other — the top surface — to be made
up of lighter material, and to be made to bind compactly and
evenly over the rough foundation. This constitutes the whole
principle to be followed ; and let it be repeated, that to dump
the road material directly on the ground, without first prepar-
ing a foundation for it, as is so frequently done, is a waste of
time, labor and materials, by no possibility resulting in a good
road. On this one fundamental idea, which is never abandoned,
however, there are a number of variations. Besides these
roads, whose characteristic is the foundation they are all built
on, we have paved roads, or pavements, of a great many kinds,
and roads with trackways, also of various kinds.

Foundation Roads.

The roads of this kind, with macadam for the top surface,
are called Telford roads by English writers, from Telford, who
first built them in England. The Central Park " gravel roads "
belong under this head, gravel taking the place of the macadam
of the Telford roads. These foundation roads are of far greater
importance than any other kind for State, county or town roads,
also for parks and driveways. The top surface of all these
roads must have a certain inclination, to cause efficient surface
drainage. Various authorities give various rules for the
amount of this inclination or side-slope. It would seem just
that it should depend on the nature of the top covering, being
less for more solid than for looser or softer materials, and also
on the grade of the road.

In Baden, one of the smaller German States, but which is
worthy to be taken as a model in matters of road-building, and
in France, the rise at the centre is given as ^q-^q of the width
of the road, according to the nature of the material; that is,
inclinations of 1 in 20, and 1 in 30. The rules in Prussia pre-
scribe inclinations of 1 in 24 for roads falling more than 4 in a
hundred ; 1 in 18 for roads on a grade of between 2 and 4 in a
hundred ; and 1 in 1 2 for those on a grade of less than 2 in a
hundred. When first built, the centre should be made some
four inches too high, to allow for after settling.

222 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Macadam Top. — The cross section of such a road is about as
<^J^awii '■> "^'^"'i 7. y^^^' the

thickness of the foundation 6=a, the thickness of the top cov-
ering at the centre, and is six, four or five and three and one-
half inches in thickness for first, second and third class roads.
If the stone for the foundation — for which most anything will
do, and that kind should be taken which is cheapest to procure
— happens to be got out cheapest in larger pieces than the
above dimensions, it will do no harm. This foundation course
is sometimes set so as to present an inclination on top, and the
cover then put on of a uniform thickness over the whole
breadth. This is perhaps best, but is somewhat more expensive.
It will do, in nearly all cases, to set the foundation course on a
level, or as near so as the stones will allow, and then make the
top crowning, by making the covering say three-quarters of an
inch or an inch less thick at the edges than in the centre. The
stones forming the foundation should not be set in rows, nor
ever laid on their flat sides, but set up on edge and made to
break joints as much as possible ; that is, set up irregularly.
After they are set up, the points that project aboye the general
level may be broken off, and the interstices generally filled with
small stone. More or less care and work are necessary in this
part of the operation, according to the importance of the road
and the depth and character of the material used for the top
covering. To roll the road at this stage is to be recommended ;
afterwards it becomes a requisite. The point never to be lost
sight of, is that this foundation course must remain porous,
must be pervious to water, so that all rain-water that shall
soak through the top covering will find, through it, means of
escape to the ground underneath ; thence, according to the na-
ture of the subsoil, it is left either to soak into the ground,^ or
must be further led away by appropriate drains.

Of very great importance is the material used for the top or
road covering. In the order of their value for macadam, we
have.

I. Basalt.
II. Syenite and Granite.

III. Limestones.

lY. Sandstones.

THE STONE BREAKER. 223

It will be evident, that a very much greater quantity of the
soft stones would be required to repair a certain road, than of a
harder kind, and on a road lying out of the way of a hard stone
quarry or deposit, the question will arise which is cheapest, to
pay more for the raw material and get good stock, or pay less
and use the worse. There have been some interesting results in
places where this matter has been the subject of experiment,
continued for a number of years. Thus on a road in Baden
which was formerly macadamized with rock costing only fifty
cents per cubic yard, it was finally found cheaper, to take harder
rock from a distance costing one dollar and seventy-eight cents
per cubic yard, the saving being both in less quantity of mate-
rial used and less labor required in repairs. Just where the
limit is, must be found in each case by long continued experi-
ment, which it is well worth the trouble to make, both to save
expense and also to have the best possible road, the harder ma-
terial making a road better at all times, at the same or less cost.
After the right kind has been determined, none other should be
mixed with it, and should any inferior piece accidentally or de-
signedly get into the stock to be broken up, it should be picked
out and thrown aside. The stone is broken up into macadam,
either by hand or machinery. Wherever any considerable quan-
tity of macadam is in present or future demand, a stone-breaker
is certainly a saving over hand-labor, though it is difficult to
draw the line exactly, where hand-labor or machine labor is
cheapest. Probably no town that pretends to keep thirty or
forty miles of road in good repair, ought to be without one of
these labor-saving machines. Those most in use are made by
Blake Bros, of New Haven, Conn., and the following is taken
from their circular.

Their machine has been patented in the United States and in
several foreign countries, and is now in use in almost every
country on the globe. It is simple and compact, and being com-
plete in itself, requires no extraneous support or fixtures.

Description. — Figure 3, is a perspective view of the machine,
entire. The frame A, which receives and supports all the other
parts, is cast in one piece, with feet to stand upon the floor or
on timbers. These feet are provided with holes for bolts, by
which it may be fastened down if desired ; but this is unneces-
sary, as its own weight gives it all the stability it requires. B,

224

MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

B, are fly-wheels on a shaft which has its bearings on the frame,
and which between these bearings, is formed into a short crank.

C, is a pully on the same shaft, to receive a belt from a steam-
engine or other driver.

Figure 4, shows a side view or elevation of the other parts of
the machine in place, as they would be presented to view by re-
moving one side of the frame. The parts of this figure which
are shaded by diagonal lines, are sections of those parts of the
frame which connect its two sides, and which are supposed to be
cut asunder, in order to remove one side and present the other
parts to view. The dotted circle D, is a section of the fly-wheel
shaft ; and the circle E, is a section of the crank. F, is a pit-
man or connecting rod which connects the crank with the lever
G. This lever has its fulcrum on the frame at H. A vertical

THE STONE CRUSHER.

225

piece I, stands upon the lever, against the top of which piece
the toggles J, J, have their bearings, forming an elbow or tog-

gle-joint. K, is the fixed jaw against which the stones are
crushed. This is bedded in zinc against the end of the frame,
and held back to its place by cheeks L, that fit in recesses in the
interior of the frame on each side. M, is the movable jaw.
This is supported by the round bar of iron N, which passes freely
through it and forms the pivot upon which it vibrates. 0, is a
spring of india-rubber, which is compressed by the forward move-
ment of the jaw and aids its return.

Every revolution of the crank causes the lower end of the
movable jaw to advance toward the fixed jaw about \ of an inch
and return. Hence if a stone be dropped in between the con-
vergent faces of the jaws, it will be broken by the next succeed-

29*

226 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

ing bite ; the resulting fragments will then fall lower down and
be broken again, and so on until they are made small enough to
pass out at the bottom. The readiness with which the hardest
stones yield at once to the influence of this gentle and quiet
movement and melt down into small fragments, surprises and
astonishes every one who witnesses the operation of the machine.

It will be seen that the distance between the jaws at the bot-
tom, limits the size of the fragments. This distance, and conse-
quently the size of the fragments, may be regulated at pleasure.
A variation to the extent of f of an inch may be made by turn-
ing the screw-nut P, which raises or lowers the wedge Q, and
moves the toggle-block R, forward or back. Further variations
may be made by substituting for the toggles J, J, or either of
them, others that are longer or shorter ; extra toggles of differ-
ent lengths being furnished for this purpose.

This machine may be made of any size. The builders have
patterns for several sizes, and are ready to make others as called
for. Each size will break any stone, one end of which can be
entered into the opening between the jaws at the top. The size
of the machine is designated by the size of this opening ; thus,
if the width of the jaws be ten inches, and the distance between
them at the top five inches, we call the size ten by five.

The product of these machines per hour, in cubic yards of
fragments, will vary considerably with the character of the stone
broken. Stone that is granular in its fracture, like granite and
most kinds of sandstone, will pass through more rapidly than
that which is more compact in its structure. The kind of stone
being the same, the product per hour will be in proportion to
the width of the jaws, the distance between them at jthe bottom
and the speed. The proper speed is about one hundred and
eighty revolutions per minute ; and to make good road metal
from hard compact stone, the jaws should be set from 1^ to 1^
inches apart at the bottom. For softer and for granular stones,
they may be set wider.

The following table shows the several sizes of machines for
which patterns are on hand, — the product per hour of each size,
of fine road metal from the hardest materials when run with a
speed of one hundred and eighty, — the power required to per-
form this duty, the whole weight of each size, in round num-

SIZE FOR MACADAM ROADS.

227

bers, and the weight of the heaviest piece when separated for
transportation : —

SIZE.

Product per
hour.

Power re-
quired.

Total
Weight.

Weight of

Frame and

parts attached.

Cost,
Jan'y, 1870.

10X5, . .

4 cubic y'ds.

6 horse,

6,600 lbs.

3,200 lbs.

1800 00

10X7, . .

4

6 "

7,600 "

4,100 "

900 00

15X5, . .

6 "

9 "

9,100 "

4,700 "

1,050 00

15X7, . .

6

9 «

10,200 «

5,600 "

1,200 00

15X9, . .

6

9 "

11,600 "

6,800 "

1,250 00

Since steam-engines, as usually rated by their makers, do not
work economically to more than one-half their given horse power,
an engine of double the power given in the table had best be
bought.

The whole length of the machines to the backside of the
wheels, is from eight to eight and one-half feet ; height to top of
wheels, five feet ; width, from four to five feet.

The machine may be driven by any power less than that given
in the table, yielding a product per hour smaller in the same
proportion.

The proper sizes for making macadam, are the fifteen by seven
and fifteen by nine for towns and parks. Public institutions and
others requiring less quantities to be got out, can use the ten by
seven size.

When broken by hand and for country roads, the stones should
be broken on the storage places already mentioned, which are to
be established along the side of the road every 200-250 feet.
The laborer is not to pound the stones on a heap of such, but to
use one large stone as a sort of anvil to break the others on.
He is to use a light hammer, except for pieces containing more
than four or five cubic feet, and may use a ring with a handle
attached to hold the stone he desires to break.

In order that the road shall get an even surface the macadam
must all be of one size, and the proper size for the macadam de-
pends on the degree of hardness of the rock. If too small it

228 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTUEE.

turns to dust, if too large the top will not pack even. The size
is regulated by the use of a ring as a gauge, — every stone being
obliged to be capable of falling through this ring in any direc-
tion it may be dropped. Hard stones should be one to one and
a quarter, softer ones one and a half and the softest two inches
in diameter. Larger sizes give less perfect roads. In loading
and otherwise handling macadam, a many and close-pronged
pitchfork should be used instead of a shovel, so as not to mix
in any earth or sand and to sift out the stone dust and chips.

The macadam being properly prepared and loaded up, it is
spread over the foundation in two or three successive layers.
Each layer should be rolled, but the top and last one must be
rolled to make a good road. Nor will rolling alone do the work.
Two other helps are needed : the use of a binding material, to
act as a cement between the broken stone, and sprinkling. It
is difficult to prescribe in words just what to use as binding ma-
terial and just how much to sprinkle and roll ; common sense
will in most cases be a safe enough guide. In the macadamized
streets of Paris the rule is to roll till a single piece of macadam
placed under the roller, will be crushed, without being pressed
into the road surface. Gravel somewhat mixed with clay by
nature, but not too much, is probably best as a binding material.
Clean coarse sand is very good. Other substances will doj where
it would cost too much to procure either of the above.

The subject of rollers is one demanding some attention. In
general, people are apt to over-estimate the value of a roller
with respect to its weight. It will be evident on reflection that
a roller should be as heavy per inch in length of roller, as a
loaded wagon wheel is per inch of tire ; or in other words, if we
have a wagon with tires two and one-half inches wide and on
each wheel a load of say one ton, the roller should weigh two-
fifths ton for every inch in length, or a roller three feet long
should weigh about fourteen and one-half tons, or else a wagon
as above described would exercise more pressure on the road-
bed per square inch than the roller and consequently would cut
into the rolled surface and produce ruts. Road-rollers are of
two principal kinds : those pulled by horses and those propelled
by steam. The latter are for many reasons the best. In the first
place they can be made as heavy as desired, without proportion-
ally increasing the cost of propelling them, and being self-pro-

ROAD ROLLERS. 229

pelling, the only track they make is that of the roller, whereas
with horse rollers, the hoof-marks of the horses are a great ob-
jection. Then again in the amount of work they will do at a
certain cost, they excel horse rollers. They may be briefly de-
scribed as a sort of locomotive mounted on three or four very
broad and heavy wheels, these latter being the road-rollers.

There are several varieties in use in France and England and
two at least of the English kind have been imported into this
country, one for the New York Central Park, the other for the
Arsenal Grounds in Philadelphia. The cost of the Central Park
steam road-roller made by Aveling & Porter of Rochester, Kent,
England, was about $5,000, set up in New York, and the amount
of work it will do in one day at a running expense of $10, has
been given as equal to that of a seven-ton, eight-horse road-
roller in two days at $20 per day, or in other words, it will do
the same work at one-quarter the running cost and in one-half
the time, of a first-class horse road-roller.

The best horse road-roller of which the writer has any cogni-
zance is the one shown by the annexed drawings in plan, eleva-
tion and in perspective. (See pp. 230-2-4.) It originates in
Chemnitz, Germany, but can of course be easily made by any
machine-shop or foundry. The hollow roller is made of cast-iron
and is so arranged that it may be filled with water when it is to
be used in heavy rolling; when not in use and about to be moved
from place to place, the water is allowed to run out, thus mate-
rially lessening the load. A circular cast-iron frame A, sur-
rounds the roller, and carries the axle bearings of the same. The
outside of this frame is turned to form a groove in which a strong
wrought iron ring is fitted in such a manner that it will turn
easily around the former. This wrought iron ring consists of
two semi-circular parts, at whose junction the pole is attached
on one side, and on the other an extension bar, carrying the
balance weight c, which may be shifted by means of the set
clamp rf, or turned up by means of the hinge b. Pins going
through the holes at e, fasten this ring or allow it to be turned
for the purpose of pulling the roller in the contrary direction,
when desired. The brake is shown at/,/, and consists of four
wooden brake-blocks, attached by iron shoes to a bar behind
them and having rubber packing between the shoes. The screws
shown and the handles A, are used to operate these brakes.

230

MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTUKE.

GRAVEL TOP ROADS. 231

The cranks m, working the screws w, operate the scrapers I,
which are used to keep the roller clean in muddy weather.
The frame A, is made heavier at o, so as to have increased weight
there to balance the whole frame-work in turning around. The
support p, and the guide wheel k, might be dispensed with. A
great saving in time and in movements hurtful to the road is
effected by making the frame circular as described, this allowing
the roller to be turned with the greatest ease. The dimensions
are figured on the drawing. A roller of this kind four and one-
half feet in diameter and three and one-half feet long, and
weighing some four tons when empty, would cost perhaps |560-
1600 ; one 5 feet X 3' 8", weighing about five and one-quarter
tons (empty,) some $700-1750. Leaving off the break would
diminish the cost about $50.

Before leaving the subject of macadam top roads, it ought to
be mentioned, that a bed of rubble stone 10" or 12" deep, merely
spread uniformly over the road-bed as a foundation, is better
than nothing at all, but can never make the same quality of road
as the rough paving described above.

The following data are to be used in estimating the cost of the
kind of readjust described. Rough foundation paving, pieces
6"-6" long, filling up crevices and ramming the whole with hand
rammers, costs after the material has been brought to the spot,
one day's work of a common laborer for every four square yards,
this assuming that the paver gets one and two-thirds common la-
borer's wages. Same kind of paving if set in sand will cost one
day's work of a common laborer for every two and one-quarter
square yards.

To make macadam by hand costs, for sizes from l^-l^" of
very hard rock, one day's work for every 0.6-0.44 cubic yards,
for less hard rock, one day's wages will make 0.7-0.6 cubic
yards, and of soft rocks 1.76-1.17 cubic yards.

To spread 14-12 cubic yards of macadam is also about a day's
work.

Gravel Top. — Instead of the macadam top described in the
preceding articles, screened gravel may be used. These roads
are the favorite ones in Central Park, New York, and are prob-
ably the best road there is for pleasure drives. It is a matter
of some doubt yet whether they do as well for heavy trucking as
they do for light vehicles. The foundation for these gravel roads

232

MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

KEEPING ROADS IN REPAIR. 233

should be the same as the rough paving for the macadam road ;
some pieces were built in the Central Park, having a rubble
stone foundation but they are not recommended by their build-
ers. The gravel to be used for the top must be selected witli
some care ; it should be of a hard kind of stone, clean, that is,
free from clay, &c., of the right color, <fec. It is put on in two
layers, each rolled, and the top one made compact and firm, by
spreading and mixing in some good binding material, sprinkling
and rolling. There need be no fear of making a poor road by
using the smoothest, most water- worn pebbles, free from all sand,
&c., in making a road-top. The upper portions of the river
Rhine are remarkable for the clean, smooth pebbles that form
its bed to a very great depth. These pebbles are dredged up
and used in road-building, making an excellent road-covering at
a small expense. There are many miles of such roads in Baden
and in the Bavarian Rhine Provinces.

Keeping Roads in Repair. — This subject properly finds its
place here, being a matter of skill and a thing of debate only in
the case of what we have called foundation roads ; pavements
and trackway roads, to be considered after this, need no special
directions as regards their repair or maintenance.

After a road has been properly rolled, and the surface made
compact and smooth, it should always be maintained in that
condition, no matter how great is the amount of travel on it.
" A stitch in time saves nine," here as well as elsewhere. The
tendency is to produce ruts ; these gather water ; this soaks up
the road-bed and spoils the whole. The problem can be put in
this way : To have a good road, it is necessary that there be no
dust or mud on the same, and that there be no ruts ; therefore
remove the dust and mud as fast as they are formed, and fill up
the ruts as fast as they are made. The whole matter is here in
a nut-shell. It may be thought, at Uie first view, that this is too
expensive a system. Its principal beauty lies, however, in the
fact that it costs less per mile of road kept one year than the
pernicious system of annual or semi-annual repairs, as will be
shown and proved. The above two rules — sweep off the mud
and dust as fast as they are formed, and fill up the ruts and
bad places with new material as fast as they appear — are all
that is necessary to be carried out in order that there be contin-
ually a good road. Without continual repairs, there can be no

30*

234

MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

I
hi

Hi
O

rt

fi
<t

o

m

«
O

w

CONSTANT REPAIR— LESS EXPENSE.

235

such thing as a constantly good road — a proposition that can-
not too often be repeated. By repairing a road annually, or
twice a year, it matters not which, the result is, strictly speak-
ing, 2^ good road at no time during the whole year. The road
is wretched just after repairs ; it becomes passable after a
while, and deteriorates from that day forward, until it is again
made wretched ; and so on, ad infinitum, according to the pres-
ent only too commonly followed system. By the other method
is offered us a road as smooth as a floor, year in, year out, and,
let it not be forgotten, at a less expense.

A French engineer, named Tr^saguet, was the first, in 1775,
to call attention to this proper method of making road repairs.
His system — the above described one — was adopted in Baden in
the year 1845, and has been long in universal use in all the ac-
tive European countries. The two tables below give, the first,
the actual average quantity of road macadam used per mile of
road in Baden to make the repairs in one year, and show the
decrease after 1845. The second gives, in the first column, the
cost of materials and labor required to repair one league for
one year according to the old way, — this column being calcu-
lated for the years following 1845 from the cost of the preced-
ing years, and allowing for the increased value of labor and
materials, — while in the second column we have the actual cost,
as it was with the system followed at the time : —

Table I.

Cubic yards used per
mile in one year to re-
pair roads.

1832,
1839,
1851,
1855,
1856,
1860,

218.6

198.7

127.2

91.4

89.4

93.4

236 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Table II.

Cost of Kepairs of one league of Road.

Bj' old way of so doing,
in florins.

By system of continual
repairs, in florins.

1835, .
1840, ,
1845, ,
1850, ,
1855, ,
1860, ,

1,002
1,086
1,170
1,254
1,339
1,423

1,002

1,086
975|e
965||
835^6^

eTT

978|$

These figures are taken as given by the chief engineer of the
Baden Public Works, Mr. Keller. He quaintly adds : " These
tables give clear evidence in favor of the reduced cost by the
adopted system. That roads are better now than they formerly
were, everybody knows." Another German engineer expresses
himself to the same effect in a little different way. " It costs
no more," says he, " to keep the roads in repairs now (1864,)
than it did twenty years ago, when this method (of continual
repairs) was not in use, although labor is now three times and
materials are twice as dear as they then were." There seems
to be no doubt of the superiority of the continual repair system
in every respect, producing very much better roads, and at the
same time costing less. It need only be tried with us to be
thenceforth adopted.

How TO Repair Roads on the Continuous System.
We suppose the material for the road-covering to lie in reg-
ular measured heaps, all ready to be used, at the storage places,
once or twice above mentioned, as being 200-250 feet apart
alongside of the road, but not encroaching upon it. Then, for
every two or three miles of road, a so-called road-keeper is em-
ployed to do the necessary work and repairs. An enumeration
of his duties will comprise at the same time an essay on the art
of road repairing.

CONTINUOUS REPAIRS. 237

1. The road-keeper is to remove the dust formed in dry
weather by sweeping with a brush broom. This is done to
greatest advantage just after a slight shower. In muddy
weather, it is essential that the mud be removed by means of
brooms or hoes. A little mud on the surface causes ruts, and
much mud softens up the whole road-surface. The mud is to
be raked up in heaps alongside of the road, there left to dry and
then carted off. To hinder as much as possible the formation
of any mud, the surface drainage must remain unimpaired ;
should it be out of order, the water standing on the road is to
be swept off. To diminish the wear of the road in dry times,
the road should be sprinkled.*

2. Inasmuch as the covering gradually wears off, notwith-
standing all precautions, it must be renewed, and should be so
renewed gradually, in the same measure as it wears off. The
best time to put on new road metalling is during continuous
wet weather.

3. In filling up holes, the bottom of the same is to be swept
clean of mud, then filled up level with the remainder of the
road, not in a heap so high above it as to obstruct travel.

Every care should be taken to have the new material join as
speedily as possible with the old portion of the road, and it
should be so well laid that it will give the least possible hin-
drance to vehicles, which will then not avoid the patched places.

4. When many ruts occur in a short distance, the deepest
only are to be filled at first. After the patching in these has
become solid, then the rest are to be attended to. Long ruts or
wheel tracks are not to be filled up the whole length at once,
but only short pieces at a time. If this precaution is neglected,
vehicles avoid such places, and new ruts are formed elsewhere.

5. Inasmuch as more material is worn off in a dry season than
can be put on, there are then, when wet weather comes, large
places to be repaired. These must be mended by degrees, never
filling up a piece larger than 8-10 feet X 4-7 feet, at a time
and not having these pieces too near together ; when these have

* Bowles, in his book, " Our New "West," mentions the case of the stage
road from Sacramento to Virginia City, via Placerville, one hundred and
fifty miles long, and having an annual traffic of seven or eight thousand
heavy teams, and whose proprietors found that the simplest and cheapest
way of keeping it in repair during dry weather was to sprinkle the whole
of it, — one hundred and fifty miles of mountain road.

238 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

become solid, then some more may be fitted in and so on till the
whole is done.

Should it however become absolutely necessary to repair a
piece of road in dry weather, the place where the new macadam
is to be deposited must be loosened up with a pick, then the
new material put on and a solid top formed by the judicious use
of stone dust or other binding material and sprinkling with water
and pounding down with tlie shovel, or by what may be called
" puddling " until the whole be solid. Should a frost or very
dry weather occur immediately after macadam has been put on
the road in wet weather so that the same will not join on the
rest of the road surface, the whole must be removed, cleaned
and returned to the storage heaps for future use. A layer of
macadam over the whole road should never be put on, without
treating it immediately afterwards in the manner described above
for building new roads, that is, mixing in binding material with the
top course and rolling it in wet weather or after sprinkling.

The road-keeper is naturally also the person to see to the
proper delivery on the part of the contractors, if such there be,
of the road material in the prescribed places and to attend to
the measuring of the same.

In short and to sum up, it is his business to keep the road in
good order, and with proper men and surveillance the desired
result is achieved easily and at a less cost, than by any other
system. The quantity of macadam required to keep a certain
length of road in repair varies very much ; it depends as we have
seen on the care with which the repairs are made, naturally also
on the kind of stone used and on the amount of travel over the
road. For a width of road^twenty feet, the average quantities
required per year to keep a length of ten feet in repair, on the
system of continuous repairs, has been given as follows : —

Cubic ft. Cubic yds.

1. Good material and heavy travel, .... 15-20 = .55-.74

2. Good material and medium amount of travel, . . 10-15 = .37-.55

3. Good material and light travel, 5-10 =: .18-.37

4. Medium material and heavy travel, .... 20-25 = .74-.92

5. Medium material and medium amount of travel, . • 15-20 = .55-.74

6. Medium material and light travel, .... 10-15 =. .37-.55

7. Third rate material and heavy travel, .... 25-30 = .92-1.01

8. Third rate material and medium amount of travel, . 20-25 = .74-.92

9. Third rate material and light travel, .... 15-20 = .55-.74

REPAIR OF CITY STREETS. 239

These are the quantities as given by one authority, but from
a comparison with the amounts actually used during a period of
ten years on thirty-nine roads, having very various amounts of
travel upon them and being repaired with all kinds of road metal,
it would seem that the above figures are very ample.

Repairs op Macadamized and much frequented Streets in

Cities.
In this case, where the amount of travel in one day is often
greater than that of a month or more on the town road, the sys-
tem of continuous repairs ceases to be the best available, on ac-
count of the incessant throng of vehicles not giving any repaired
place a chance to become solid before it is again ploughed up
and scattered. Thus in the city of Paris on the Boulevards, &c.,
the continuous system has been abandoned and the practice now
is to let the street gradually wear down three to four inches, then
close half of it (divided " fore and aft") to travel, loosen it all
up with picks and put on a layer three or four inches [best not
to put on more than that] spread a thin layer of sand over
this, sprinkle and roll heavily. It often happens that the men
put too much of the sand on ; in that case, the road, after it is all
done, is finally well watered and the roller again passed over it
a number of times. This operation causes the superfluous bind-
ing material to come to the surface in the shape of thin mud
and leaves the road covering as hard and smooth as mosaic,
making a most excellent drive-way. It emits a sonorous, ring-
ing sound on being driven over and remains clean and without
mud throughout the heaviest rain-storms. The rolling of the
streets in Paris, is done by a company owning a large number of
steam rollers ; in paying them for work done, the city was obliged
to go back to first principles for a measure of such work, it being
found impossible to estimate correctly by the square measure of
surface rolled to such and such a degree of hardness. The
measure adopted is that of weight multiplied into the distance
it has been moved, or " feet pounds " as we should say. It has
been found from many years experience that to roll one cubic
meter of macadam requires 4-5 " Kilometer-tonnes " and this
is true whether the layer of macadam be three and one-quarter
or ten inches thick. Expressed in our measures this is 11,020-

240 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

13,775 feet tons @ 2,000 lbs.=2.09-2.61 mile tons per cubic yard
of macadam.

Pavements and Trackways.

No essay on roads would be complete without some mention
of these two species of road-surface, though the use of the
former is confined principally to streets, and that of the latter is
out of date.

Pavements are either of stone, wood, iron, various concretes,
asphalt, and may be of still other substances.

Stone Pave7nents. — The modern sizes of paving stones may
be seen from the following cases. The Boston size is 4^"X3|^"
X7" deep; New York Belgian, 6-8"x5-6"x6-7" deep; new
Broadway pavement, also called Guidet pavement, 3|-4|"XlO-
14"x7^-8-|-" deep. This last is laid with the long sides of the
stones across the street ; and, as far as the author's judgment
goes, is the best size for stone pavement there is. The Boston
size is too small, and allows of no bond between the separate
paving stones. Further, the weakest part of each stone being
its edge, it follows that the more edges there are in a given sur-
face of pavement, the speedier will it wear out, each stone be-
coming rounded and slippery. It is only the excellent work-
manship and great care displayed in setting these stones in
Boston that prevents these facts from being at once apparent to
all. When it is added that in setting pavements, the natural
soil, except it be sand or fine gravel, is in all cases to be exca-
vated 12-19 inches, and then filled up 5-12 inches, according
to the solidity of the subsoil, with clean, coarse sand or fine,
clean gravel, and the paving stone set in this and well rammed
down with hand rammers, about as much is said on this topic
as can be said without going into long details.

From four and one-half to six cubic feet of sand are required
for every square yard of paving. In setting two different pave-
ments, the same written rules may be exactly followed in either
case, yet one be much better than the other, so much depends
here upon good, careful, conscientious workmanship.

Wooden Pave?nents. — There are so many kinds of these, that
it would be out of place to enumerate and describe them all
here. Their advantages are, less wear on tires and horses, less
noise and smooth traction ; a disadvantage, is their slipperiness

PAVEMENTS AND TRACKWAYS. 241

in the "winter. There seems to be a sort of notion that wood
pavements and coal tar must go hand in hand ; but there cer-
tainly is no necessity for this. Coal tar is applied as a preserv-
ative to the wood ; but it must be acknowledged that many
better ones are known and indeed are used, to the utter exclu-
sion of coal tar, in all cases where it is desired to preserve wood,
except in this of wood pavements. No wood should be used in
paving that has not been first subjected to some approved method
of preservation, or impregnation, as it is frequently called. The
best manner of setting the same is still a mooted point, which
it would be presumptuous at present to decide.

Cast-iron pavements are out of favor on account of their
great cost, and concrete pavements are a matter of experiment
as yet.

Asphalt pavements are chiefly used in Paris. They are slip-
pery in wet weather, and produce a very disagreeable, pene-
trating dust in dry weather. It is necessary to prepare a bed of
macadam to lay them on, and they are not used in Paris except
in streets where the gas- pipes are carried either in the sewers or
under the sidewalks, as any leak of gas would destroy them.
Their use is a matter of doubtful economy.

Trackways are, as has been mentioned, out of date. Where
a common road does not suffice now-a-days, a railroad is built ;
but time was when trackways were of considerable importance.
They consist, if of stone, of large, flat stones, say 12" deep and
4-6 feet long by 14"-16" wide, solidly bedded in two parallel
rows, at such distance apart as to make of each row a track for
the wheels. The space between is paved. They are of course
very expensive, but cost little to repair, and enable a horse to
pull a very great load. As has been mentioned, Telford made
use of such a stone trackway, to avoid cutting down a hill, on
his Holyhead road. There were two hills, each a mile in
length, with an inclination of 5 in a hundred. It would have
cost ilOO,000 to reduce this grade to 4^ in a hundred, but
nearly the same advantage, in diminishing the tractive force re-
quired, was obtained by keeping the 5 in a hundred grade, with
moderate cuttings and embankments, and making stone track-
ways, at a total expense of less than half the former amount.

" Plank roads," once so much in vogue in the United States,
may not improperly be classed among roads with trackways,
31*

242 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

and, with them, also among the things that were. From their
perishable nature, they can never advantageously do more than
help the development of a new country, and in this, as well as
other States, are yearly becoming more and more impracticable
on account of the constantly increasing price of lumber.

On the Resistance to Motion or the Force required to
MOVE Vehicles on different Kinds op Roads.

Before, as well as since the introduction of railways, engineers
in England, Germany and France made many experiments on
the force necessary to pull different vehicles, at various speeds
over various surfaces. To enumerate the details of all these ex-
periments would be perhaps useless ; a few general results only
are here given.

Experiments, as above indicated, were made by Edgeworth,
Count Rumford, Bevan, Macneill, Minard, Navier, Perdonnet,
Poncelet, Flachat, Morin, Kossak, Umpfenbach, Gerstner, and
no doubt others, a list of authorities that proves the subject to
have been well nigh exhausted. The experiments of Morin,
made in 1838-41, appear to have been made with a degree of
care and accuracy, leaving nothing more to be desired, and the
following table is an extract from his results,* and gives that
fraction of the weight of the vehicle and load, which is required
to move them on a level road : —

* A full account of Morin's experiments on the resistance to motion of
vehicles, on the wear caused by different vehicles on roads and on the loads
different vehicles should carry so as to pi'oduce the same wear, may be
found in Morin, Experience sur le tirage des Voitures, Paris, 1842.

POWER EEQUIRED ON DIFFERENT ROADS. 243

Chakactee of the Vehicle.

CHARACTER OF THE KOAD.

•a

Trucks, 4--wh.,
three and
four horse.

4 horse stage-
coaches, on
springs.

2-horse carri-
ages, body
on springs.

Firm soil, covered witli gravel 4"-6''
deep,

Firm embankment, covered with gravel
l^"-li" deep,

Earth embankment, in very good condi-
tion,

Bridge flooring of thick oak plank.

tV
tV

tV

i

Broken Stone Road.

In very good condition, very dry, com-
pact and even,

A little moist or a little dusty,

Firm, but with ruts and mud,

Very bad, ruts A"-i^" deep, thick mud,

Walk.

Trot.

Walk.

tV

Trot.

Good pavement, | ^H^^;^^ ^[^^ ^;^^ ;

i

S

To take an example, suppose we have a truck weighing with
its load 9,000 lbs. How many pounds traction will be required
to 'move the same ?

Ans. — On jfirm soil, gravel 4"-6" deep, that is, a newly repaired
road, as we often find it, (^ by table,) 1,000 lbs. ; on best kind
of embankment, (^^ by table,) 310.3 lbs. ; on broken stone road
in good condition, (^^^ by table,) 166.6 lbs. ; on broken stone
road, deep ruts and mud, (J^ by table,) 643. lbs. ; on a good
pavement, (gig by table,) 138.5 lbs. Or, since the tractive force
of a medium horse when working all day is said to be about 125
lbs., we need in the first case, 8 horses ; in the second case, 2^
horses ; in the third case, about l^^ horses ; in the fourth case,
about 5 horses ; and in the fifth case, only one good horse to
move the same entire load all day.

244 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

These facts expressed in the preceding page or two in striking,
yet perhaps dry figures, can be nearly as well given in popular
language.

Says a correspondent (Dr. Holland,) of the " Springfield Re-
publican," writing from England, after describing the kind of
horses in use there : —

" Now with all these horses the rule follows that every pound
of muscle does just as much work on the road as two pounds do
in America. The cab and omnibus horse does twice as much as
the same horse does in America. The draft horse does as much
at the dray as two ordinary dray horses in America, and the
little horses, which are driven mainly in butchers' carts and
grocers' carts, will tire a cab horse to follow them with no load
at all.

" In connection with these statements it should be recorded
that the speed of all vehicles in the streets of London, whether
the localities be crowded or not, is at least a third faster than it
is in corresponding streets in American cities. The ordinary
speed of vehicles in London, in which passengers or light loads
are transported, is one which is considered not entirely safe in
Main Street, Springfield, Mass., and one which, in some streets
of Boston or New York, would be at once checked by the police.
A man who sits in a ' Hansom' finds himself driven at an un-
precedented pace through crowded thoroughfares, and Yankee
though he may be, he will often wonder whether he is going to
bring up at last without a broken neck.

" I mention this matter of speed, particularly, because it shows
that even more work is done by one horse in London, than by
two in New York. He not only draws as large a load, but -he
travels with greater rapidity. The streets of London present
such a spectacle of headlong activity as no American city can
show, in consequence of the rapid passage of all sorts of vehicles
through the streets. I might add to this statement, touching
the superior speed of the London horses, a word about the greater
weight of the carriages which they are obliged to draw behind
them. All carriages are built more heavily in Great Britain
than in America. They are built to last, and many of them
seem to me to be superfluously heavy.

" The point which I wish to impress upon my American reader
is simply this : that the English horse, employed in the streets

ECONOMY OF GOOD ROADS. 245

of a city, or on the roads of the country, does twice as much
work as the American horse similarly employed in America.
This is the patent, undeniable fact. JS[o man can fail to see it
who has his eyes about him. How does he do it ? Why does
he do it ? These are most important questions to an American.
Is the English horse better than the American ? Not at all. Is
he overworked ? I have seen no evidence that he is. I have
seen but one lame horse in London. The simple explanation is
that the Englishman has invested in perfect and permanent roads
what the American expends in perishable horses that require to
be fed. We are using to-day, in the little town of Springfield,
just twice as many horses as would be necessary to do its busi-
ness if the roads all over the town were as good as Main Street
is from Ferry to Central. We are supporting hundreds of horses
to drag loads through holes that ought to be filled, over sand
that should be hardened, through mud that ought not to be .per-
mitted to exist. We have the misery of bad roads, and are ac-
tually or practically called upon to pay a premium for them.
It would be demonstrably cheaper to have good roads than poor
ones. It is so here, A road well built is easily kept in repair.
A mile of good macadamized road is more easily supported than
a poor horse."

Other results of Morin's experiments are as follows : —

1. The force required to draw a vehicle, is directly propor-
tional to the load and inversely so to the diameter of the wheels ;
in other more common words, the tractive force increases in the
same ratio that the load increases, and the diameters of the
wheels decrease.

2. On a paved or well built macadam road, the tractive force
is independent of the width of the tires, provided the same is
more than three or four inches. On compressible roads, such
as new gravel, on a meadow, &c., the tractive force diminishes
with an increase in the width of the tires.

3. Other circumstances being equal, the tractive force is the
same for vehicles with and without springs as long as the horses
are not moving faster than a walk.

4. On paved and well macadamized roads the tractive force
increases with the velocity, according to the law, that beyond a
velocity of 2^ miles per hour (23.31 feet per second) the in-
crease of the tractive force is in direct proportion to the in-

246 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

crease in velocity ; this increment is however less, the softer
the track or road and according as the vehicle is best provided
with springs.

5. On soft earth embankments, or on sand or sods, or on
streets newly covered with gravel, the tractive force is indepen-
dent of the velocity.

6. On a well made pavement of regular shaped stone, the
tractive force, horses on a walk, is about three-fourths of that
on a good macadam road, but with horses on a trot, the two are
about equal.

7. The wear on the road is greater the smaller the diameter
of the wheels and greater in the case of vehicles without, than
for those with springs. Most road-rollers, as now in use, have
too small a diameter besides being too light and consequently
do not properly compress the road surface.

8v The tractive force, as well as the wear on the road, is
greater in the case of vehicles that have their wheels placed at
an angle with the vertical by reason of the ends of the axle-trees
being bent down, than for those that have their wheels set plumb
and the centre line of the axle-trees level.

SYSTEM TO SECURE GOOD ROADS. 247

P AET II.

ON THE "BEST METHODS OF SUPERINTENDING THE CON-
STRUCTION AND REPAIR OF PUBLIC ROADS IN THIS COM-
MONWEALTH."

In looking for a solution of this question the people of the
Commonwealth may turn as tliey choose, either to the West or
to the East, to see a guiding star ; to the city of Chicago, or to
the city of London, both under a republican form of govern-
ment, alike or similar to that we live under. It lies in the es-
tablishment of a Board of Public Works, composed of a number
of able men, well paid for their services, gradually changing in
their membership in the Board who shall have this and only this
as their occupation and who can therefore be held responsible
for their acts. This is the system tliat has been adopted both in
London and in Chicago and with remarkable success and result-
ant benefits. There are many other systems in use in foreign
countries all of which however seem to be inapplicable here,
placed as we are, under so different forms of government ;
hence, though well acquainted with the systems adopted in
France and in Germany, the writer has not described them
here.

The history of " the Metropolitan Board of Public Works of
the City of London " is about as follows : —

What is known as the city of London consists in reality of a
great number of what we should call towns, there called parishes,
and of which the " city of London " is only one single member.
Each one of these parishes had, and still has in most respects,
its own local government and in consequence, took care of its
drainage, its streets, &c., &c., as seemed best and as it liked,
some better, some worse and some not at all. This state of
things in the matter of drains and sewers finally led to a most
deplorable condition of affairs ; there was not nor could there
under these conditions be such a thing as a system of sewers
and consequently a proper and adequate drainage ; the death-
rate increased to an alarming extent and matters came to be
universally regarded as past all endurance. What could be the
remedy ? No well grounded complaint could be made against
the majority of the men composing the various local govern-

248 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

ments, since they were good and honest citizens and hence no
change in the separate governments could ever bring relief. The
fault lay not in the men, but in the system of ruling they were
called upon to fulfill, that is, in the incompetent and faulty tread-
mill of government they were annually called upon to keep in
its usual operation. It was then seen that by having an elected
power to supervise and regulate the sewage affairs of the whole
metropolis, a complete system of drainage could be carried out,
and thus only. Such a regulating power is exercised by the
metropolitan Board of Public Works, chartered by Act of Parli-
ament and composed of members elected from all parts of Lon-
don. It is perhaps in place here to explain what is meant by
a system of sewers as the same definition will hold good in other
matters ; as for a system, of roads, of drainage and irrigation of
lands, &c. Perhaps the best illustration would be to refer one
to the veins and arteries in the human body, or to the body of
a tree, from its trunk through the branches growing smaller and
smaller down to the smallest twig that may be on it. It will be
at once seen how different any arrangement, in which may be
detected the wisdom to contrive, the strength to uphold and the
beauty to adorn, like this, is from a miserable patchwork such
as cannot but arise where the separate parts of one whole are
each left to guide themselves without any unity of action or de-
sign, as to their final resultant. The London Board of Public
Works had some extraordinary powers conferred upon it, such as
the right to levy assessments on real estate benefited by their
improvements, and others. Originally constituted merely to
plan and execute a system of sewerage for the metropolis, this
Board of Public Works soon showed itself so useful and bene-
ficial in its actions that other matters were placed in its charge,
such as the laying out of new streets, the building of the
Thames embankment, — a work of exceeding great magnitude
and importance, — and there seems to be no doubt that in all
public works London will find it advantageous to employ its
Metropolitan Board of Public Works.

In the city of Chicago there has been a Board of Public
Works almost from the very start. It arose there from the
union of the water supply and the sewerage commissioners, and
has existed since May, 1861. No less than in London, it has
proved to be of great benefit to the community ; and it would

BOARD OF PUBLIC WORKS. 249

have been impossible, under any other system, to have executed
in so satisfactory a manner the many and useful public vrorks
for which Chicago is famed. At the risk of introducing in this
place some very dry reading, a general synopsis of those parts
of the city charter which relate to the Chicago Board of Public
Works is here given. The whole may be found in a copy of
" Laws and Ordinances, Chicago, 1866."

Sect. 1. Establishes a body known as the Chicago Board of
Public Works, to consist of (3) three members, chosen by the
people, one from each division of city.

The first three chosen for one, two and three years ; after
that, one each year for three years.

Sect. 2. Each member of board shall receive annual salary
of three thousand dollars (by Act of February, 1866) ; give
bonds for faithful discharge of duties ; pay over all moneys, pa-
pers, &c., at expiration of his term, or when ordered by city
council.

Sect. 3. Board to elect president and treasurer, and make
by-laws.

Sect. 4. Majority constitutes quorum ; records to be kept of
proceedings ; copies of all plans, estimates, &c., to be kept ; re-
port (annual,) to be rendered on or before each
year, or when required by city council. Each member author-
ized to administer legal oaths.

Sect. 5. Board shall have special charge and superintend-
ence, subject to the laws and ordinances of city council, of all
streets, lanes, alleys, &c., in the city of Chicago, and of all
walks and crossings in the same, and of all bridges, docks,
wharves, public places, landings, grounds and parks in said city,
and of all halls, engine-houses and other public buildings in
the city belonging to city, except school-houses, and of the
erection of all public buildings ; of lamps and lights in streets,
&c., and in public buildings, and repairs of same ; of the harbor
works and improvements ; of the city sewers and drains and of
the water works ; of the fire-alarm telegraph, and all public
works and improvements hereafter to be commenced by the
city, as well as such other duties as may be prescribed by the
city council by ordinance.

Sect. 6. All applications or propositions for improvements,

32*

250 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

or new works of kind specified in section five, shall hereafter
be first made to Board of Public Works, or if made first to city
council, shall be by them referred to board. Upon receiving
application, board shall investigate the same, and if they find
such work necessary and proper, shall thus report to city coun-
cil, with an estimate of the expense thereof. If they do not
approve of such application, they shall report the reasons for
their disapproval, and the city council may then, in either case,
reject said application or order the doing of work or making of
public improvement, after having first obtained plans and esti-
mates thereof. The board may also in like manner recommend,
whenever they think proper, any improvement of the nature
above specified, though no application has been made therefor.

Sect. 7. Shall be duty of board to procure for city full
plans and estimates of contemplated improvements, when so
ordered by council.

Sect. 8. Whenever any public improvement shall be ordered
by city council, and money appropriated, board shall advertise
for proposals for doing work ; plans and specifications of same
first placed on file in office of board, which plans and specifica-
tions shall be open to public inspection ; advertisement to state
work to be done, and to be published ten days at least. The
bids shall be sealed bids, directed to board, and accompanied by
bond to city, signed by bidder and two responsible sureties, in
sum of two hundred dollars, conditioned he shall do work if
awarded to him ; in case of his default to do so, &c. Bids to
be opened at time and place mentioned in advertisement.

Sect. 9. All contracts shall be awarded to lowest reliable
bidder, and who sufficiently guarantees to do work under su-
perintendence and to satisfaction of board : provided, that the
contract price does not exceed the estimate, or such other sum
as shall be satisfactory to board. Copies of contracts to be filed
with city comptroller.

Sect. 10. Board reserves right, in contracts, to decide ques-
tions as to proper performance of work and meaning of con-
tracts ; in case of improper construction may suspend work and
relet same, or order entire reconstruction ; or may relet to other
contractors and settle for work done, &c.

In cases where contractor properly does work, board may, in
their discretion, as work progresses, grant to said contractor es-

DUTIES OF THE BOARD. 251

timate of amount already earned, reserving fifteen per cent,
therefrom, which shall entitle holder to receive amount, all
other conditions being satisfied.

Sect. 11. In case prosecution of any public work be sus-
pended, or bid be deemed excessive, or bidders be not responsi-
ble, board may, with written approval of treasurer, where ur-
gency of case and interests of city require it, employ workmen
to perform or complete any improvement ordered by council :
provided^ that the cost and expense shall in no case exceed the
amount appropriated for the same.

Sect. 12. All supplies of materials, &c., when costing over
five hundred dollars, to be purchased by contract, subject to
same conditions as letting out work.

Sect. 13. Whenever board think necessary for interests of
city, to protect same from damage or loss, shall report thus to
aldermen, and reasons for same, asking power to give contracts
without notice required above, and aldermen may grant request :
provided, three-fourths vote for it.

Sect. 14. Whenever board is of opinion work may be better
done without contract, shall so report to council, and same may
authorize board to procure machinery, materials, <fec., hire
workmen, &c. : provided, a three-fourths vote be in favor of
granting authority.

Sect. 15. All contracts and bonds by board to be in name of
city.

Sect. 16. No member to be interested in any contract ; all
contracts made with any member interested, city may declare
void ; any member so interested shall forfeit his office and be
removed therefrom ; the duty of every member of board and of
every officer of city to report delinquency, if discovered.

Sect. 17. All existing contracts executed by city, by water
or sewarage department, &c., to be carried out by board.

Sect. 18. Board shall nominate each year the various offi-
cers, now provided for by ordinance, which serve in the depart-
ments under their special charge, the city engineer, superintend-
ent sewers, streets, &c. Shall be empowered to employ from
time to time such other superintendents, clerks, &c., as they
may deem necessary, subject to ordinance as regards pay, <fec.

Sect. 19. Board to have charge and superintendence of
works made for city, and paid for by private individuals or by
State. Plans for same to be approved by board.

252 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Sect. 20. Board shall, on nr before every year,

submit to auditor, by him to be presented to council with an-
nual estimate, statement of the repairs and improvements
necessary to be undertaken for current year, and of the sums
required by board therefor ; report to be in detail ; report, hav-
ing been revised by council, sums required shall be provided for
in annual tax-levy. All moneys to be paid to any person out
of moneys so raised, shall be certified by president of board to
auditor, who shall draw warrant on treasurer therefor, stating
to whom payable and to what fund chargeable ; such warrant
to be countersigned by president of board.

Sect. 21. Board to keep accounts, showing moneys received
and spent, clearly and distinctly, and for what purpose. Ac-
counts to be always open for inspection of auditor or any com-
mittee appointed by city council.

The object of introducing this synopsis here has been to give
a complete picture of just what such a Board of Public Works
is. It will be seen upon a little examination how entirely dif-
ferent a thing it is from the usual and only too customary
" committee." Perhaps the greatest fault of a committee is its
entire lack of what might be called body and soul. If corpora-
tions, as has been said, have no souls, a committee may be said
to have neither body nor soul. It is alive to-day, wields great
power, decides vital and important questions, and yet is nowhere
to-morrow, and seemingly even its component atoms have van-
ished from the face of the earth. It is amusing and yet sad, when
the action of some such committee has caused trouble to read
some time after, that it all " is exceedingly discreditable to who-
ever is responsible for it," How much better to have a conser-
vative, expert and reliable body, the members of which have no
other business than to attend to their duties as such, who are
well paid for it and consequently can at any time be held strictly
responsible for their actions. With such a power, wisely govern-
ing and regulating the roads of this Commonwealth, it would be
an easy matter to make thorough improvements in the legisla-
tion concerning roads and in the roads themselves.

These are two changes the need of which is generally felt at
present and has found expression in various ways.

It may be well to quote one at least, notable for saying very

STATE, COUNTY AND TOWN ROADS. 253

much in little compass, — of these calls for improvement, in this
connection, and adding some more as belonging to this subject
in the form of an interesting appendix. Says Gov. Claflin in
his Inaugural : " Few things are of greater importance to a
community, or a surer test of civilization, than good roads.
Those of our citizens who have visited Europe are unanimous in
the opinion that our public roads are far inferior to those of
other countries, where the means of easy and safe communica-
tion are better appreciated. The science of road-making is ap-
parently not well understood ; or, if it is, the present modes of
superintending the construction and repair of roads are so de-
fective that the public suffers to an extent of which few of us
are aware. It may be found upon investigating the cause of our
miserably poor and ill- constructed roads, that the laws relating
to this subject need revision, so as to give more uniformity in
their construction and the repair of our highways. It is evident,
also, that the science of road-making should have a prominent
place in the course of applied mathematics at the Massachusetts
Agricultural College."

We stand then in this matter of roads at precisely the same
point that the good people of London did ten or a dozen years
ago in the matter of their drainage, and our remedy is the same.
The fault lies in the machinery of government ; originally built
up to cater to the wants and needs of a newly settled country, —
a colony breaking a path through the wilderness, — it has long
since ceased to satisfy the demands of the present State in no
matter so essentially as in that of its government and laws relat-
ing to common roads and highways. This is a subject requir-
ing special knowledge, to be acquired only by long experience or
the shorter method of imbibing the experience of others, which
on analyzing it, is all that any study amounts to ; formerly
it was not so, and most any one sufficed to make improve-
ments on Indian paths. We need then an expert government
on this point.

There should be a distinction made between first, second and
third class, or between, as they might be called. State, County
and Town roads ; the first two should not be left to be dealt with
as it is the pleasure of each town. A chain cannot be perfect
unless every link in it is so ; no more can a road. The State
must attend to the State and County roads and set a proper ex-

254 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

ample at least to be followed by the towns in the case of their
roads. We need then a higher power than that of the towns.

It has been previously shown how we need a power that can
be held responsible and is somewhat permanent, and to put it all
together, we need, to order and maintain our highways, a Massa-
chusetts Board of Public Works. For some years it would have
its hands full in improving the existing main roads and laying
out some new ones, but in course of time, as in the older coun-
tries of Europe, its principal business would be the maintenance
of the roads. It must be remembered that the Board of Public
Works is merely the intelligent servant and adviser of the leg-
islative and executive ; whatever sums the legislature appro-
priates for certain objects, that is taken by the board and made
to yield its most in the shape of work accomplished. Beyond
this and keeping its accounts, it has nothing to do with money
or taxation.

The small state of Baden, a part of Germany, has been here-
tofore mentioned as a model in road construction and the care
of the same. From a brief history of the roads of that country
and their present management, we may take some useful notes.
The account is that of the Chief Engineer of the department of
" Roads and Hydraulic Engineering," which has this matter in
charge and is therefore reliable.

" In Baden the condition of the roads has been a subject of
great care. Within the last forty-five years many millions have
been spent upon them and experience has shown this expendi-
ture to be one of those most advantageously spent. As most of
the roads are well laid out and as there are plenty of them,
there remains now (1863) mainly the keeping in repair of the
roads to be attended to and not to build any new ones. Our
endeavor now is, to do this at the minimum of cost. Statistics
gathered on this subject, show good results and point out to us
the means of arriving at still better ones. The present road
law was made in 1810. That part of the old law which relates
to the maintenance of roads is still in force, but that part requir-
ing labor as a road-tax was abolished in 1831, and likewise most
of the road police regulations. The appropriation for roads had
to be increased 250,000 florins to pay for the abolished road-tax
labor and to make up 170,000 florins previously received from
tolls, which were also abolished in 1831. The system now is as

SYSTEM OF ROADS IN BADEN. 255

follows : All town roads are taken care of by the towns. The
State merely appoints and pays a road-master, so called, who
superintends fifteen or twenty road-keepers and reports on the
state of the roads, the reasons for their bad condition, if that be
the case, what is needed, &c. The law for second class or county
roads was formerly, that when they were of importance to several
towns, they had all to help maintain the same. As this gave
rise to continual bickering and quarrelling, in which the road
suffered most, it was changed in 1856. They are now taken
care of under the direction of the State and paid for partly by
the State and partly by the towns in which they are situated.
Most of the roads under this head are those which have risen in
importance since the building of railroads, and are generally
those that lie perpendicular to the direction of the railroad they
are influenced by. The towns not having the means very often
to properly improve and repair such, it was found necessary and
expedient to give them the aid of the State, and in order to pro-
cure the necessary funds, all roads that run parallel to railroads
and all those that had lost their importance by the construction
of railroads, were in 1855 stricken from the list of state roads.
These latter as the name implies, are wholly under the care and
kept up at the expense of the State.

In 1835, the total length of the State roads was . 1,430.8 English miles.

In 1855, " " " " was . 1,500.8 " "

In 1855, by excluding several State roads, this last

length was reduced to 1,142.4 " "

In 1861, it had increased to 1,190.0 " "

Second class roads, (keeping partly paid for by State.)
In 1835, the length of these was .... 467.6 English miles.

In 1861, the length of these was .... 630.0 " "

" So that the State had, in 1861, in all, 1,820 English miles of
road to maintain, the towns helping to pay on six hundred and
thirty miles thereof.*

* According to Chambers Encyclopaedia, Baden has an area of about
5,900 square miles, and had a population, in 1858, of 1,335,952. It is prob-
ably this, or a little less, at the present time. Massachusetts has an area
of about 7,800 square miles, and, according to the average of the computed
populations in the supplementary tables of the census of 1865, it is, in 1870,
1,343,604.

Or, population per square mile in Baden, .... =226.43
" " " in Massachusetts, . . =172.26

By the same tables, accompanying the State census of 1865, we find that

256 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

"The statistics of the road repairs are kept in the following
manner. The road-keepers are required to keep a record of all
draught animals that pass in either direction. Horses that are
being ridden, animals not before a vehicle, and teams going to
and from the fields, are not counted. These records are kept
only during the working hours. Likewise, not during the
whole year, but only four months in each year, so selected as to
give an average amount of travel. The travel on the road on
Sundays and out of working hours is taken from a few observa-
tions ; it is a very small percentage of the whole. At the end
of the year these records and observations are collected and
graphically represented on a map of the whole State. The dif-
ferent roads are drawn of a different thickness of line, according
as the amount of travel on them is greater or less. The quan-
tity of road metal used per yard of road, and the kind of metal
used, give the data for another such map, in which the different
colors of the roads represent the different materials used in
their repair, and the figures on them and their thickness show
the number of cubic yards per mile required to keep the road
in order. Finally, we have a third map, which indicates, by
the thickness of the several lines representing the roads and
by the figures on them, the total cost per mile of repairing the
road one year."

With this picture of a country happy and prosperous, in the
possession of good and well-kept roads, it may be well to leave
the subject.

Massachusetts wants, for her proper development, much bet-
ter roads than she now has ; and, reckoning for a period of say
fifty years, she can have these good roads, and have them kept
in order, at a less cost than that of keeping up the present poor
ones for the same time. Besides this, we should see in the one
case a healthy state of internal communications and trade ; in
the other an absence of both. Let each citizen so act and do
his part, that these benefits may accrue to the Commonwealth.

the population per square mile of Massachusetts will equal that of Baden,
above given, somewhere between 1890 and 1891. It exceeds that of Prussia,
and probably equals that of France at the present day, both of which coun-
tries have systems of roads and road-repairing but little, if any, inferior to
those of Baden.

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY. 257

APPENDIX.

CONTAINING SOME EECENT EXPRESSIONS OF PUBLIC OPINION

ON THE SUBJECT OF BETTER ROADS AND ROAD

MANAGEMENT.

[From the " Boston Daily Advertiser," April 25, 1869.]
Probably the heaviest tax paid by the people of Massachusetts,
is that which they pay, in one form and another, for the privilege of
maintaining some of the worst roads in existence. At this season,
one may see anywhere in the country the full process of paying this
tax. Indeed, within ten miles of this city, where we are in the
habit of thinking that the arts of civilization are tolerably well un-
derstood, the traveller will find great county roads, like that leading
through Somerville to Medford, for example, over which there is
constant and important transportation, which are in such disgrace-
ful condition that they might reasonably be the subject of indict-
ment. Whoever complains will be informed that the trouble comes
from the frost and from the season ; but whoever takes pains to
learn how far we of New England are behind other parts of the
world — saving and excepting the rest of our own country — in the
art of road making, knows that the real trouble is that we neither
build our roads in the first place nor keep them in order afterwards ;
and that we thus continue to pay, directly and indirectly, a tax
which, if we could have it assessed in the regular way, would cause
a political revolution among us.

Undoubtedly we should be obliged to make a considerable orig-
inal otitlay, in order to secure the drainage of our roads and their
construction of proper material. By drainage, we mean, of course,
not the " crowning " of the road and the digging of a ditch for sur-
face water, but the laying of proper drains under the road itself, so
as to keep the ground free from the moisture with which the frost
works its mischief; and by proper material we do not mean the
solid filling of gravel or even loam with which matters are now an-
nually made worse, but the broken stone, of various degrees of
coarseness, with which a road-bed is made permeable by water be-
low, and smooth on the surface. Certainly all this costs at the
outset. But the road built as the road makers of the old world, —
33*

258 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

and we are glad to say of one or two towns in this vicinity, — build
them, scarcely shows the effect of " the frost coming out of the
ground " in the spring, or of the early freezing in the fall ; and in
subsequent expense it is by far the cheapest. The traditional high-
way surveyor expects to find his roads badly cut up by the spring
travel, and repairs the damage at a heavy cost to his neighbors ;
the regular road maker provides a highway which is never cut up
while ordinary care is taken of it.

The experience of the one or two towns to which we have re-
ferred,— of which Waltham is the best example, — has shown that
in the matter of annual expenditui-e, as a mere method of economy
to the town treasury, it is cheaper to have roads well built, and then
to keep them in high condition, than to undertake the annual re-
pairs which are so familiar throughout New England. That is, it
is cheaper to have a few men to watch for the beginnings of any
wear upon the roads, and to mend a defect when it first appears,
than it is to wait until the trouble becomes serious, and then set a
large force at work. One man, with a shovelful of broken stone,
can prevent what it may require half a dozen, with a team, to cure
after a few months' neglect.

But the heaviest part of our highway tax is no doubt that which
is levied upon us by the destruction of horseflesh, the impeding of
public travel, the wear of vehicles, and the increased cost of trans-
portation over our poor roads. This is a tax which, without any
assessor or collector, is inexorably exacted from every barrel of
flour, every bag of grain, every box of goods, and every person,
passing over our travelled roads. As it is levied indirectly, and
more than all, as we have always paid it, nobody thinks of it. But
it is one of the heaviest burdens resting on the people of Massa-
chusetts and of New England, borne by those who rank among the
most thrifty and progressive jDCople on earth, and who, nevertheless,
in this every-day matter, are demonstrably rather more than two
thousand years behind the world.

EXTRACTS

From a Report of the Committee on the Appointment of Road Engineer, to the
Town Meeting in Newton, held May 3, 1869.

Your Committee consider that the question of the employment
of a road engineer largely involves the question whether the roads
of the town of Newton shall continue to be repaired in the old-fash-

APPOINTING A ROAD ENGINEER. 259

ioned, temporizing manner, or whether the work shall be done thor-
oughly. And they are satisfied that the true interests of the town
will be best promoted by employing the best attainable engineering
skill ; by having the roads over which heavy teams travel macadam-
ized with broken stone, and also by having the gravelled roads, as
well as the broken stone roads, underdrained in all places where
springs manifest themselves, or where higher land adjacent to the
road makes it wet and muddy. The test of a road is its condition
in bad weather and its power of sustaining heavy teams without be-
ing cut up in ruts or pounded full of holes ; and certainly some of
the roads in Newton, although in fair condition in dry weather are
not able to resist rains nor sustain heavy teams. Should the town
purchase a stone-crusher, and decide to repair with broken stone, it
will still be no less necessary to underdrain, or, in some suitable way,
relieve the road-bed ol water, or the macadamizing will not be effec-
tual. A good engineer has the gathered and recorded experience of
communities and nations. He knows, or should know, the relative
qualities and degree of adaptation of different kinds of rock for the
purpose of macadamizing ; he can detect anything in the subsoil
which renders it unfit for a road-bed, and suggest a remedy. He
can calculate the area of rainfall in a given precinct and determine
the amoimt of drainage, and the necessary size of culverts and
bridges. He can grade drains, both surface and concealed, at the
proper angle, and select the most feasible route for their construc-
tion. He would know about different crushing machines, their
prices and relative value. His knowledge and suggestions would
save the town many times his salary by enabling the town to avoid
useless and perhaps costly expense. And it may be hoped that in a
conple of years our present superintendent, or some other person,
would have thus received such hints and information as would en-
able him to manage our roads without the supervision of an engi-
neer.

The town of Waltham macadamizes its principal streets. It keeps
ten to fifteen men under constant employ, and much of the time on
the roads ; one of these men has thus been engaged for twenty
years. Their superintendent of roads has held his situation twelve
years; his salaiy as road master is $800; he is also paid $100 as
highway surveyor. Waltham, in 1865, had fifty-one miles of road,
and for the previous seven years its roads had cost the town an
average of $3,357 a year, or about $66 a mile. It cost that town the
past year for repairs of roads and clearing off snow $6,000 for sixty
miles of road. The town of Newton expended for repairs and clear-
ing of snow in the same time on eighty-two miles the sum of $14,523

I

260 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

or $176 a mile. It will thus be seen that our system of partial or
incomplete repair is almost twice as expensive.

But this is taking the most narrow view of the subject. An edi-
toi'ial in a recent Boston paper says : " The heaviest part of our
highway tax is no doubt that which is levied upon us by the de-
struction of horseflesh, the impeding of public travel, the wear of
vehicles, and the increased cost of transportation over our poor
roads. This is a tax which without any assessor or collector is in-
exorably exacted from every barrel of flour, every bag of grain,
every box of goods, and every person, passing over travelled roads.
As it is levied indirectly, and more than all as we have always paid
it, nobody thinks of it. But it is one of the heaviest burdens rest-
ing on the people of Massachusetts and of New England, borne by
those who rank among the most thrifty and pi-ogressive people on
earth, and who nevertheless in this every-day matter are demon-
strably rather more than two thousand years behind the world."
That this is not imaginary, statistics show. General Morin found,
by careful experiment, that " carriages on springs, drawn upon a
new road covered with gravel five inches thick, required in tractive
force one-eighth the load ; upon a solid causeway of earth, with
gravel one and a half inch thick, one-tenth the load ; upon a cause-
way of earth in very good condition, one-twenty-sixth the load ;
upon a broken stone road, very smooth, one-forty-fifth the load ;
upon a broken stone road, moist or dusty, one-thirtieth the load ;
upon a broken stone road, with ruts and mud, one-twentieth the
load ; upon a broken stone road, with deep ruts and thick mud, the
tractive force required was one-tenth the load," It will thus be seen
that the smooth causeway of earth, in very good condition, required
but one-twenty-sixth of its weight in tractive force to draw it, while
the smooth broken stone road required only one-forty-fifth the
weight of the load in tractive force.

Before the invention of railroads the attention of engineers in
Great Britain and on the continent of Europe was largely given to
the construction of common roads and turnpikes, upon which the
heavy travel of those nations depended. Telford built, more than
fifty years ago, 800 miles of road in the highlands of Scotland, still
admirable and in constant use. The roads built by the French
engineers of the first empire are still among the finest in the world.
No one that has travelled over the Simplon road, or the Mt. Cenis
road, or from the St. Bernard pass to Martigny, or all around the Bay
of Naples to Sorrento, on a road built by Murat and which the lazy
Italians have had the grace to let alone, can possibly resist the claims
of a good, smooth, hard road. It adds new charms to scenery and

MARK THE DIFFERENCE. 261

imparts a fresh zest of life. But to come back again to statistics.
MacNeill constructed a machine to test the amount of tractive
power required on different roads. This was carefully tested by-
many very eminent engineers. Their experiments showed, uni-
formly, that the force of traction is, in every case, nearly in exact
proportion to the strength and hardness of a^^road. They found that
on a i-oad made with a thick coating of gravel, a load, which re-
quired the power of one hundred and forty-seven pounds to draw
it, could be drawn on a broken stone road with a power of sixty-
five pounds ; and on a road of broken stone of gi-eat hardness, laid
on a foundation of large stones set in the form of a pavement, the
power required to remove the same load was but forty-six pounds ;
and this last road effectually resisted frosts.

On the 6th inst., your Committee visited Waltham, and found the
broken stone road there dry and hard. It will sustain loads of six
tons without being cut into ruts. Returning, we came down through
Waltham street, and, observing the instant of passing from town to
town in the changed character of the road, we passed on to New-
ton ville over our fine old avenue ! The first road required scarce
any mending. The last was cut up with ruts and full of mud, and
workmen were dumping gravel four to six inches deep upon it.
On the Waltham road it required not more than one-fortieth the
weight of the load (say 20 lbs.,) in tractive force to draw it, while
on the main road of the good, rich old town of Newton, it would
have required one-eighth the weight of the load (100 lbs.,) in trac-
tive force to draw it. That this criticism is not especially in the
interest of persons driving in light carriages and for pleasure, may
be seen from the fact, — as demonstrated by careful and extended
experiment, — that resistance to the onward motion of the carriage
or cart, arising from roughness of the road, is always in proportion
to the weight of the carriage. A double weight will offer double
resistance, and a triple weight triple resistance, and so on. In truth
the principal objection of some, who have had little or no experience
with the broken stone road, is, that it is unfit to drive horses rapidly
upon ; such a road improperly made, or imperfectly hardened, is in-
deed unsuitable for rapid driving ; but it requires only a journey of
three hundred miles * to see millionaires driving the finest trotters
in the world, upon roads as smooth as a floor, made entirely of
stone.

Can any measure be more likely to increase the popularity of our
town, or add to its population, than to construct roads as solid,
smooth and perfect as the nature of the case will admit ?
* To the Central Park, New York.

262 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

[Correspondence of "Advertiser."]

It is recorded of the Rev. Mather Byles, that he saw one day a
chaise, containing the town clerk and a selectman of Boston, stuck,
before his house in School Street, in a quagmire which he had long
tried to induce the town to mend. He pulled off his hat and cried
to them that he was heartily glad at last to see the authorities
" stirring in the matter." The writer is as glad as the reverend
doctor was, to see so good an authority as the " Advertiser " stir-
ring in the matter of our roads, though by no means in so muddy
a style as the worthies referred to. A month or more ago you pub-
lished extracts from the report of the committee appointed by the
town of Newton, recommending the employment of " a road engi-
neer, to have supervision of the roads in connection with the select-
men, and to survey the town with reference to laying out new
streets." This report was adopted by the town. A number of
your readers in our beautiful suburban towns wish that you could
find space to publish the whole report, or that the selectmen of
Newton would circulate it as a tract throughout the environs of
Boston, where our excellent authorities are contented to believe
that roads, which are well nigh impassable during seven months of
the year, are good roads, because they are in fair order through the
summer months.

It would seem that in such rich towns as those which surround
Boston, the public had a right to demand as durable, solid and
smooth highways as lead into any city in the world. But we are
told that they have worse roads in Little Pedlington, or the frosts
in New England are so severe, or there are horse railway tracks in
our streets, or we have such heavy travel over our roads, that we
ought to be proud of the roads instead of grumbling at them. So
the " seelic-men " continue to dump big rocks and loam, turf and
brickbats into the streets; and if the town owns a " stone-cracker,"
the sharp fragments are strewn along the ways, to be beaten down
by hoof and wheel, as if a layer of gi'avel and a roller existed only
in the heated dreams of condemned highwaymen. Next, the
autumn rains, the winter frosts and the spring winds do their work,
and the expressmen, and the farmers, and the doctors, and the
teamsters, and the milkmen, try to do theirs, over the torrent-beds
and springholes we fondly call our " streets," ruining their wagons,
killing their horses, and endangering their souls by consequent
profanity.

It is not those who drive for pleasure who are concerned in this
matter; it is the crowd of hard-working men we have just named.
Such men, if they could read the report referred to, would see that

. SAYING OF HORSE-FLESH. 263

" the heaviest part of our highway tax is no doubt that which is
levied upon us by the destruction of horseflesh, the impeding of
public travel, the wear of vehicles, and the increased cost of trans-
portation over our poor roads." That, while over a bad road " there
is required in tractive force one-eighth the load," over a properly
made one is " required only one forty-fifth the weight of the load
in tractive force." " If we encourage with good roads, we shall
speedily derive thei-efrom a great and permanent advantage."
" Can any measure be more likely to increase the popularity of our
town, or add to its population, than to construct roads as solid,
smooth and perfect as the nature of the case will admit ? "

But space will not allow us to quote the demonstrations of the
report. The public will have durable and smooth roads when it
has been pointed out that roads which are cut up and undermined
for more than half the year are had roads ; that what is spent in
making good roads, under the superintendence of an accomplished
civil engineer, is saved ten times over in horseflesh and carriages ;
and that by proper building of roadways, by under-draining and
macadamizing and rolling, we can have roads worthy of the name
even in frosty New England. The irrepressible Yankee builds the
best carriages, and breeds superior horses : what a pity it is he can-
not make roads for them to travel on that will not wrench the
former apart before the gloss is ofi" the panels, or lame the latter by
springholes, ruts and stones. The fact stands, however, that Amer-
icans are behind all civilized nations in the art of road makine:.
Will you continue to call the attention of your readers to this mel-
ancholy but true statement, in order that you may share the proud
eminence occupied by the great Highland road maker, of whom it
is sung : —

" Had you seen these roads before they were made,
You would hold up your bauds and bless Marshall Wade ? "

Stjbukbanus.

264 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

SECOND PEIZE ESSAY

CONSTRUCTION AND REPAIR OF ROADS.

By Samuel F. Miller, C. E.,

PROF. OP MATHEMATICS AND FARM ENGINEERING, MASS. AGR. COLLEGE.

A " treatise on the science of road making, and the best
methods of superintending the construction and repair of pub-
lic roads in this Commonwealth," being called for by a Resolve
of the last legislature, I submit these few suggestions, not as
exhaustive of the subject, — for my time will not allow me to at-
tempt such an essay as seems to have been anticipated by the
Act of the legislature, — ^but as the results chiefly of my own
observation and experience.

The first roads of a country usually follow the high lands
and ridges, when the intervening valleys are narrow, or the land
is wet or heavily timbered, — and military roads are not an ex-
ception,— for the obvious reasons of greater security, less water
to contend with, and being more easily built. Besides, roads
built by citizens are at first only improved foot or bridle-paths
leading from house to house ; and the earlier settlers live upon
the hills for good sanitary reasons. Hence, the problem of
changing the location of the old highways is sure to come.

An Indian trail is a better route to follow for a road than a
white man's path, for those great travellers, the Indians, learn
intuitively to economize their strength. But our farmers are
slow to learn that it would pay them back fourfold to make bet-
ter roads, for many of them might thus be cut off from the
travelled way, and they are not in the habit of figuring closely
on the value of time, the cost of " wear and tear," animal

THE SCIENCE OF ROAD MAKING. 265

strength and feed. They would not be greatly moved by the
statement that then- roads to " town " might be made, within a
reasonable cost, so that they could haul three times as much as
they now do at each load, and make the trip in one-half the
time. They are rery conservative, and greatly averse to having
their fields cut up again, especially in any other way than
" square across."

And it must be admitted that it is a serious matter to take
the travel from the doors of citizens, even though the public
are obliged to provide an outlet, or to change the road so as to
seriously impair the frontage of their buildings. And, on the
score of public expense, we would not advise this, except it
should be justified by the wants of travel.

But whether old roads are to be altered or new ones to be
laid, the principles of location and construction are substantially
the same. We will consider the whole subject under the heads
of Location, Grades, Road-Bed, Drainage, Bridges and Cul-
verts, Repairs, and Superintendence.

The science and art of road making have been carried to
great perfection in England and France, and we have many
books and statistics on the subject from these sources, as those
of Tredgold, Wood, Parnell, Morin, McAdam, Telfor(^, Ran-
kine, and a host of others ; while in this country, such manuals
as those of Gillespie and Mahan, giving a digest of foreign ex-
perience adapted to American wants, are eminently simple,
practical and suggestive ; so that there seems to be nothing
lacking except to notice the more important points as bearing
upon the necessities of our own State. It is believed that skil-
ful men to do the work will make up all the deficiencies of the
books, and without them the books will be of little use.

Location.
When a road is to be located, there are termini that are
fixed, and generally one or more points between. As a matter
of economy, there should be no deviation from a straight line
between fixed points without sufficient reason. But it should
be borne in mind that road distance is measured on the surface,
and not horizontally, as in land surveying ; and the old illus-
tration is to the point, that " a kettle bail is no longer when
lying upon the rim than when erect."

34*

266 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Where a line pretends to be straight let it be perfectly so, and
let the centre line of the road-bed, and side ditches, show this
when completed. Then in place of angles there should be
curves of definite radii, properly fitting the ground ; for these
shorten the distance, and are far more graceful, and more pleas-
ant to drive over. The principal exceptions to this rule would
be at cross roads, and perhaps in villages. While the tangents
may be described by needle bearings and distances, the curves
should be designated as to the right, or left, with such a radius,
and such a distance. Stones, three feet deep, should be set at
the tangent points, or in the fence lines opposite, and then the
line is permanently fixed, and maybe tested upon the ground at
any time by the aid of a description as above.

Where the stones are set and preserved the record of the bear-
ings of the needle is of little use, but otherwise it is of great
value, provided you know whether the true or the magnetic
meridian was meant, and, if the latter, what the variation was at
that date. The difficulty in the matter is, — and our ordinary
land surveying suffers still more, — most of our own surveyors
do not know what the local variation is, or how to obtain it ac-
curately ; and in fact it is a problem of considerable difficulty
with ordinary means.

Hence arises the great uncertainty in retracing many old sur-
veys where the corners are gone, and troublesome lawsuits have
arisen ; for the needle in this State has never, so far as known,
pointed within five degrees of north ; and it is constantly chang-
ing at irregular rates, varying from one to six months each year :
and the extreme difference of variation at the same time in dif-
ferent parts of the State is about three degrees. So that the
record of one place may not answer for another ten miles dis-
tant.

In view of these facts it may not seem out of place here to
state a very simple remedy. Let each town, or district of sev-
eral towns, be provided with a true meridian in its central part,
marked by three stones set securely in the ground two or three
hundred feet apart, and let a yearly record be kept of the mag-
netic variation at each place. Then let every surveyor be re-
quired to test his instrument yearly, and every survey that
goes upon record have appended a properly sworn certificate,
stating whether the bearings are true or magnetic, and what the

LOCATING A ROAD. 267

surveyor calls the variation at that date. The expense of fixing
these points, with sufficient accuracy for all surveying purposes,
would be trifling compared with the immense advantage gained.

Physical reasons chiefly, such as cost of construction and
maintenance, and proper grades, should cause deviation from a
straight line, but there are, in extreme cases, considerations of
" land damage " that may have weight ; but a most careful bal-
ancing of first cost, with permanent detriment to the line, should
be made.

In locating a road, the travel it is designed to accommodate,
the character of the ground to be passed over, and the money
that can be raised, are supposed to have been carefully consid-
ered in order to fix very nearly the maximum grade that can be
allowed ; and then the line must be made as direct as the nature
and surface of the ground, and the passage of streams, will per-
mit ; always taking into account subsequent cost of repairs, as
well as first cost.

In order to do this properly levels must be taken throughout
the line, and a profile made, to show to the eye on paper the
grades that can be obtained, with the " cuts " and " fills " at
every point ; and this, as finally established, should form a part
of the record. Then, in construction, let the cuttings and fill-
ings be plainly marked upon stakes set once in fifty or a hun-
dred feet to guide the workmen. This grading by the eye is ex-
pensive in the end, for materials are apt to be taken from, and
carried, to the wrong places.

It is a mistake, as often stated, that the cuts and fills should
balance each other ; on the contrary the latter should be usually
large in excess, because casting, scraping, and wheelbarrow
work, are so much cheaper than hauling, the road-bed is made
so much dryer by elevation, and proper drainage easier to obtain.

It is best to adopt such a route as ought to be built, on a line
of importance, even if at first unable to carry out fully the plan,
for, with a definite recorded plan to work to, the completion may
occupy several years, while, in the meantime, a good passable
road can be maintained. This is the American plan of building
railways, which has won for itself so high English commendation
that the East India Company has been considering the question
of employing our engineers to build railways in India.

The width taken for " right of way " should be designated at

268 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

every point on the plans of record. These should never be less
than fifty feet, and greater widths must be taken at some points
of heavy cutting or embankment ; and, in general, there should
be width enough for all purposes of drainage, and preservation
of the road-bed, and for obtaining materials for construction and
repairs ; except for ballasting, which must often be obtained
from gravel beds outside. It is better to have too much than too
little.

Grades.

There are two general classes of carriages to pass over roads,
one for freight, and one for passengers. The former wish to
carry the heaviest loads, and the latter to make the best time.
Undoubtedly where heavy loads preponderate, there is greater
need of light grades, but in general, the road that is best for the
one, is the best for the other class of travel.

We will designate grades in the usual way by a fraction hav-
ing unity for the numerator, and the distance required to rise
one foot for the denominator ; for the simple reason that this
fraction expresses the exact ratio of the draught to the load, as
it would be were there no friction. For instance, a grade of one
foot in one hundred is called -^Iq, three feet in one hundred 3^3,
and five feet in one hundred gV? ^tc.

It seems to be well established that undulating grades of ^^^r
are no detriment, but, on the contrary, are rather beneficial, as
giving better longitudinal drainage.

It is evident, too, that the grade should never exceed the
" angle of repose," if possible ; that is, the horse should not be
obliged to hold back his load in descent, but the friction should
be sufficient to counteract the force of gravity. This " angle
of repose," or limit of grade, for different road-beds will vary
from -^Q to -Jq- on ordinary roads. It is easily ascertained from
the draught upon a level with the same character of surface,
for this is just equal to the friction, which would be the same
upon an incline. For instance, if the draught upon a level, or
what is required to overcome friction, is 2V of load, then this
fraction would exactly express the maximum grade to be al-
lowed for same kind of surface, since, as stated above, the same
fraction gives the ratio of draught to load to overcome gravity
alone. So the " angle of repose " is the grade expressed by the

GRADING OF ROADS. 269

fraction wliicli indicates the ratio of draught to load upon the
same road-bed on a level.

Very many experiments have been made in Europe to find
this ratio upon every variety of surface, and we have full tables
of the results. We will only state briefly that upon such roads
as we shall have in Massachusetts, varying from those of earth
and gravel mixed, to those of broken stone, in good order, ac-
cording to these data, the draught would range from -^ to -^^ of
load on a level. Now, theoretically^ to find the power required
upon any given grade, we have only to add to this the ratio of
perpendicular rise to length of surface, i. e, the fraction ex-
pressing the grade. For instance, if the power on a level, with
the same road-bed, is 3^^ of load, on a grade of 2V ^^^^ power
required would be tj o'^2V=tV ^^ load. But, practically^ this
calculation for power required on grades from that on a level
would lead to wrong conclusions, for a horse does not pull at so
great advantage on an incline, on account of the position of his
body, not being able like a man, to throw the centre of gravity
forward at his will, and not having so good foothold, and the
load, too, being thrown more upon the hind wheels, there would
be increase of friction on a yielding surface. So we must resort
to experiment again, as upon a level ; and the general results
are, that a horse can haul about ^ as much on a grade of -g^^ as
on a level ; | as much on a grade of -^^ ; -| on a grade of 2V ;
and only \ as much on a grade of J^ as on a level.

These are condensed general statements from English and
French experiments ; but the State should at once institute full
experiments upon her own roads, with the vehicles in com-
mon use, and with such as shall prove the best.

Now the maximum grade upon any line being fixed from such
considerations as have been named, it still remains a question of
great importance how much you will increase the distance, or
the cost, to reduce grades that are within the prescribed limits.
No special rules for each case can be laid down, but they are
questions for the engineer on the ground, in view of all the facts
and principles that should control the decision. We will men-
tion a few general rules that are well established.

1. The capacity of a line of road should not be limited by
a portion which is a small percentage of the whole. If possible,
let the greatest load that can be drawn up the steepest part be a

270 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

fair one for the balance. It would be justifiable to make con-
siderable extra expense to reduce two or three hard points ; cer-
tainly, if in no other way, by making the road-bed there so much
better than the rest as to compensate for the extra steepness.

2. Where the difference in levels between two points on
your line is large in proportion to the distance, avoid, if you can,
any counter grades, as so much loss in your ascent. Within
certain limits, level portions interspersed with varying ascents,
always supposing that the line fits the ground, are no damage,
but they serve to refresh the horse in a small degree.

3. Do not go over a hill if you can help it. It is usually no
further around it, and if it is, the greater distance and cost may
be amply compensated by the saving in time, wear and tear, and
animal strength. Gillespie says it would be better to lengthen
a road twenty times the perpendicular rise saved than to go
over the hill ; which is to be understood as a popular, rather
than a scientific statement. When you must go over, the prin-
ciples of the second rule would apply to reach the summit on
either side.

4. It will not pay to make much more distance, or cost, to
reduce grades not exceeding gig that are not very long. This is
a general statement, to which there might be exceptions on some
very heavy freight roads. On lines of such a maximum driving
carriages will not usually change their average speed for level
except to go a little faster down, and a little slower up, the
steepest parts. But grades of -^ and upwards may fairly be
considered as worth reducing, according to their respective de-
triments. Gillespie, under the head of " Profits of Improve-
ments," illustrates a good method of figuring such a problem.

It is suggested that our public roads might properly be divided
into two classes, according to facts of traffic existing, or what
inay be expected from the greater facilities proposed ; and the
highest grade to be allowed in the first ^q, and in the second jL.
First class roads then would have no grades up which, with a
light carriage, a fresh team might not trot at moderate speed,
and down which the common speed would be that of the aver-
age on a level. And we submit the question whether all the
roads of the State might not in time be brought within the limits
of the second class.

MATERIALS OP A ROAD-BED. 271

Road-Bed.

Quite equal in importance to the grade is the surface to be
driven over.

Theoretically this should be unyielding, smooth, and impervi-
ous to water. It should be a roof, shedding the water each way
from the centre, from eighteen to twenty feet wide, except in or
near villages, where it may be thirty feet, or even fifty. An ele-
vation of six inches at the centre is required, and the lateral
slopes should be planes^ rather than curves as is usual, that the
water may be carried off more quickly. We mean by the " road-
bed " simply the drive-way, and this should be as narrow as per-
fect safety and convenience will permit, on the score of economy,
both of construction and maintenance. Bars across the road
for turning the water into the ditches are only necessary on the
heavy grades of inferior surface, or of such roads as are not
kept in good repair ; and when needed, should be built V shape,
with the angle up the grade, if practicable, that they may strike
both wheels at once. An exception to this rule would occur
when it is desirable to turn all the surface water to one side ;
and in that case the slope of the surface would fall one foot in
the width of road-bed to the same side. Such a shape of road-
bed is desirable in very short turns, as in zigzag roads up steep
mountains, and around sharp angles of hills, where the width
of driving surface should be a few feet greater, and the slope
inward.

The materials of the road-bed must be the best that can be
afforded to approximate as nearly as possible to the true theory
of a perfect road surface.

The importance of this is evident from the facts established
by experiments, that from two to three times as much can be
hauled on a broken stone road as on one of gravel, both being
in equally good order ; and from four to five times as much upon
a good pavement of rectangular blocks of stone.

The broken stone road, and the block pavement, have been so
long in use, both in this country and in Europe, and in fact
throughout the civilized world, and their modes of construction
and repair so fully discussed in treatises on road making, even
to the minutest details, that it would be superfluous to dwell
upon the subject here. It may be remarked however that the
Nicolson pavement of wood, or its essential principle which

272 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

lias been tried in this country now for ten years, bids fair to
largely supersede the stone blocks. It meets one great desider-
atum, among others, of furnishing a less noisy, and more elastic
surface than stone.

But most of the roads of the State must be built of loam,
clay, gravel, and sand, more or less mixed, and with these ma-
terials we must do the best we can.

A road-bed of clay is good in dry weather, and one of sand is
tolerable in a wet time, and the latter is but slightly affected by
the frost, but we need one which will be good at all seasons.

Not being able to make the surface " water tight," there must
be a substratum that will carry the water from above, and that
from below, as quickly as possible to the drains. Whatever may
be used for this under layer, pebbles greater than one inch di-
ameter should not be placed within ten inches of the surface, for
otherwise, when there is a compact foundation, they are sure to
work up, from the downward pressure of gravel, forcing itself
beneath them. Clean gravel, rejecting stones above an inch
diameter, put on in successive layers of three or four inches, to
the depth of ten inches, each layer being well worked down
with a heavy roller, assisted by the daily travel, with a small
admixture of finer gravel or loam upon the top, in some cases
will make as "good a surface as we can expect for the majority of
our best roads.

Pebbles, about an inch in diameter to two or three inches,
placed upon the surface, will not pack together, on account of
their hardness and smooth, round surface. It is well under-
stood that McAdam and Telford roads are made of broken stone
— angular fragments.

A pure sand road is improved by a topping of clay or loam ;
and it may be six inches in thickness, or more, according to the
depth of the sand.

Quite passable roads have been made in a region where a
vegetable mould and loam lay upon pure clay, and no sand or
gravel was at hand, by leaving the surface as nearly as possible
in its natural state, and flanking with deep ditches, throwing
the excavation from them out, and not upon the road-bed.

A very good use of stones, if they are abundant, is to place
them in a slough that must be crossed. But if it is deep, a
better method is to use poles or brush, in alternate layers, first

DRAINAGE OF THE ROAD, 273

across and then lengthwise, covering the whole with not less
than two feet of the best material at hand. If a layer of two
or three inches even of coarse gravel can be put upon an earthen
road once a year, it is a great improvement.

Sidewalks should be from four to six feet wide, sloping in-
wards with a fall of two inches, the top to the depth of six inches
being fine and clean gravel, with a very porous substratum like
that of drive-way ; there being no danger in this case of forcing
up the large pebbles from beneath.

The natural place for sidewalks in villages, and wherever they
extend into the country with light road cutting and filling, is by
the side of the fences ; but otherwise thay must be at the side
of the drive, and form a part of the road-bed, to lessen the ex-
pense of construction. In either case the walk should be a little
higher than the centre of the drive ; and in the latter, on gravel
roads, the best way is to give an extra width of road-bed, and
lay planks lengthwise upon 4" X 6" cross pieces, thus giving free
passage for the surface water at every point. But away from
the vicinity of villages the expense of sidewalks will usually be
saved, and the footman will take the drive-way.

Embankments must have a greater width where railings are
needed, and these should always be placed where the fill exceeds
three feet. The clear width between the railings should not be
less than twenty-two feet, and three to five more in case a side-
walk is required, and two feet additional on each side for the
strength of the railings. The following cross-section sliows the
plan upon embankments, with a plank walk on one side, and
railings, at minimum width: —

Drainage.
This part of road-building is really the most important of all.
A thoroughly underdrained road-surface will not be seriously
affected by the heavings of frost, will dry up speedily after rains,
and will be passable at all seasons of the year by the average
loads, though the materials composing it may be of an inferior

35*

274 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

character ; i. e., more depends upon the drainage tha.n upon the
materials of surface.

The first thing is to obtain a substratum which will drain the
surface like a sieve, either into tile drains beneath, or into open
ditches at the sides, which should be three feet below the crown
of the road, and have a fall not less than eight inches to the
hundred feet. This cannot be done thoroughly with less than
one foot of clean coarse gravel, or pebbles, rejecting all of an
inch diameter and less. The foundation for this should be
graded with a crown corresponding to the top, that the water
reaching it may pass off the more rapidly. The difficulty is
that this substratum becomes clogged, and the drainage pro-
ceeds too slowly ; or the side ditches become filled up, and the
surface is not drained at all.

The best remedy for this is a line of tiles, well laid directly
under the centre of the road, lengthwise, three feet deep, com-
municating with the side ditches where there is a sufficient fill,
with the ends properly protected from washing out, or filling up.
These should not be needed on banks of two feet and more, but
they are especially useful where the road-bed is near the natu-
ral surface, or in cuts ; and then the side ditches need not be
more than half so deep as otherwise.

Most cuttings have a wet and dry side, and in such cases it
would be better to lay the tiles nearer the wet side. The ex-
pense of this would not often exceed $1.25 per rod, and in many
cases it woiild be somewhat less ; and there would be a large
saving in the digging, and keeping open, of side ditches. There
is no doubt that, in very wet places, the tiles would be the cheap-
est in the end, and they would make by far the best road.

The side ditches should have from one to two feet width on
the bottom, the slopes on the inside not greater than two to
one, and on the outside an average of one and one-half to one.

The following cross-section shows a general plan for road-bed
and side ditches in cuts, and on fills not exceeding three feet.
Of course, as the bank rises, the ditches become less in depth.

SURFACE AND TILE DRAINS.

275

A great saving of water at the side is made by a ditch above
the slope of a cut on the upper side, taking the surface-water
to the side of the next fill. The dimension of these surface
ditches will depend upon the amount of water to be provided
for, and their depth may be diminished by depositing the earth
taken out on the lower side next to the top of the slope.

The following cross-section shows the plan of a cut, with
width of road-bed at twenty feet.

Cross-section, of same cut as above, without a substratum of
pebbles, and a line of tiles in the centre, showing a saving in
width of cutting and depth of side ditches.

Where no gravel or pebbles can be obtained, the under-
draining will undoubtedly make the best road at the least cost.

In cities and villages it is desirable to be able to drive to the
edge of the sidewalk ; and this will not allow a depression for
surface-drainage exceeding one foot below the crown, depending
upon the width of driveway, and in many cases it should not
exceed six inches. Hence, in such cases, a system of under-
drainage becomes indispensable, unless there is a very deep
substratum of clean gravel or sand.

An increased width of road-bed may make two lines of tile-
drains necessary, one towards each side ; and even in the ordi-
nary width of twenty feet it may be expedient in some very wet
places.

On the other hand, the under layer of pebbles will not gener-
ally be necessary on banks of three feet and upwards, though it
will diminish the heavings of frost, and make a dryer road in
the spring.

In side-hill cuts, where much water comes from the upper
side, culverts beneath the road should be placed at short inter-

276 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

vals to relieve the hillside ditches. All the ditches named
should communicate as quickly as possible with natural water-
courses, and special care be taken in their construction, that
they may not be washed or overtaxed in a freshet.

In general, no work upon a road pays better than that which
tends to secure a perfect system of drainage, keeping the water
level three feet below the surface of the road. And it may be
observed that the vicinity of the road should be kept clear of
trees and bushes, as they obstruct the sun and wind and pre-
vent evaporation. Hence shade-trees, set along the margins for
beauty and comfort to the traveller, should not be placed too
frequently, and only in dry and exposed places.

Bridges and Culverts.

Upon this subject abundant instruction has been published in
a multitude of works, both in a scientific and in a popular way,
and we will briefly state a few general principles.

The leading point in these structures is to make them perma-
nent. Ample provision for the severest freshets — like the one
last October — must be made by a careful and exhaustive study
of each locality. Above all, secure for these costly structures
foundations that cannot possibly settle beneath any pressure
they may have to bear, and which cannot be undermined. The
safest way is to place them very deep, and heavily timber the
bottom if it is at all yielding or treacherous in its nature.
Quicksand, the most fickle of all, will support the heaviest of
structures if it can be confined. Piling, topped with a platform
of timbers alternately crossing, or the tops embedded in a thick
layer of concrete, has never failed the engineer when the work
has been skilfully done, and properly protected by rip-rap or
otherwise.

In cases where a soft material lies upon rock, not many feet
below, the excavation must extend to the rock-bed, and this is
the best kind of a foundation.

Special attention should be given to the lower ends of cul-
verts to prevent their undermining. This may be effectually
done, if necessary, by transverse walls of masonry, or rows of
sheet piling, placed beneath the bed of the stream, and the
intervals filled with large stones.

A great thing is to give an abundance of water way. By

CONSTANT SUPERVISION. 277

compressing and raising water in its flow, its destructive power
is largely increased. Comparatively weak structures will often
outlive stronger ones simply by this wise foresight.

It seems more important that these works should be thor-
oughly built upon highways than upon railways, for the latter
usually have more competent supervision after completion.

For the same reason, the superstructure of bridges should be
of the simplest kind — that which will need the least care and
be most easily repaired. There is no difficulty in making firm
spans of twenty-four feet with stringers alone, without braces
or truss, provided good timber of that length, fourteen inches
deep, can be obtained.

For spans of forty feet and upwards, the " Howe Truss "
stands preeminent among wooden bridges ; and there are styles
of iron bridges, for spans of thirty feet and upwards, which
may be the cheapest in the end, if the first expense can be
borne. But since there is no danger of fire, we are inclined to
prefer the wooden bridge generally.

We will only add that on all bridges of a considerable span,
signs, forbidding fast driving, should not only be put up, but,
what is unusual, they should be enforced; for the vibration
caused by rapid driving is tenfold more injurious than the same
loads at a walk.

Repairs.

A great deal of money is washed away on our highways for
want of constant supervision and prompt repairs. A costly
culvert or bridge may be saved by observing the action of the
water in time, and applying the necessary remedy.

There is constantly forming in the centre of the drive a horse
path, and at the sides ruts, both of which prevent surface-drain-
age to the sides, and form excellent channels on grades for the
water in a rain-storm. Water stands in these at different
points, the surface is softened, and they are deepened more and
more rapidly ; for the blow of the wheel increases with the dis-
tance fallen. A great rain-storm comes, the road is gullied,
hundreds of yards of good ballast are wasted, and the charge is
made to the " dispensation of Providence."

Let the road be divided into convenient sections, and a man
constantly employed upon each, with cart, scraper and roller, to

278 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

fill up the depressions as soon as formed, keep the ditches open,
sharply watch the bridges and culverts, and keep the whole in
perfect order. After rains, let him drag his scraper, made of
heavy timbers, V shape and shod with iron, over the road-bed
to fill up the ruts, cart on the deficiencies in material, and fol-
low with the roller, throwing out the large and loose stones.
Thus the periodical repairs would be comparatively small affairs ;
and, with no more expense, we should have far better roads,
and of constant excellence. Noiv, a season of repairs is much
dreaded by travellers, and it often takes several weeks to get the
roads into as good a passing condition as before. One man, by
the aid of a team and the implements named, can " keep up "
from three to five miles most of the time, provided it is first
well constructed.

When general repairs are made, which should be in the
spring, and again in the fall, if needed, let the old surface be
disturbed as little as possible, as this is firmer than new mate-
rials, and let the best that can be obtained replenish the waste.
The customary way of scraping out the ditches, and placing the
wash of the roads and adjoining slopes in the centre of the
drive, is generally the poorest kind of road repairing, for it is
loam and sand chiefly that is washed into the ditches. The
fresh deposits on the road-bed should be selected, and placed,
and worked down, with the same care and labor as of first con-
struction, that the repairs may not for any time be a detriment
to the travel.

Superintendence.

It is a cardinal principle that all work should be managed by
experience and skill ; and this rule is seldom violated by men
of intelligence in the conduct of their own affairs.

In Massachusetts, on her fifteen hundred miles of railway,
we are told yearly how many passengers and tons of freight are
carried one mile, and the average cost of each per mile ; but we
are left to guess at the amount and cost of highway traffic,
though it is not much, if any, inferior in amount, and in which
the whole population are directly and personally active partners.
When this whole business can be reduced to a science, like that
of railways, and the results given in tables with approximate
accuracy, showing the cost of building and repairing yearly

BOARD OF ROAD COMMISSIONERS. 279

done for public travel, and the amount and cost of transporta-
tion on our highways per item, then we can tell how much
money should be expended in this way, and how to use it to the
best advantage.

When we consider the great expenditure of the people for
public transportation, not only in road taxes, but in time, expense
of vehicles, wear, and animal strength, an amount far exceed-
ing railway expenditure, and one borne more directly by all, it
certainly seems to be a matter worthy of legislative investigation
and supervision, ranking in importance financially above any
other public interest in the State.

To constitute an efficient superintendence of this whole inter-
est, making a complete system, operating uniformly throughout
the State, and founded upon the most enlightened science and
practice of the age, it is suggested that there should be a board
of highway commissioners for the State, who shall be appointed
simply for their fitness for such a charge, above any political
considerations, whose duty shall be, by the aid of a competent
corps of engineers, to take charge of the laying out, building,
and repairing, of all the public roads in the State ; to fix upon
the various plans and principles by which all this work shall be
done ; gather facts of traffic upon the different roads, and the
cost of the same upon those of different characteristics as to
grades and road-bed ; make re-surveys of old ways, with maps
and profiles, to show what they are, and how they may be im-
proved ; revise old fence bounds and place permanent land
marks ; perfect county records of all its highways, that every-
thing important may be shown there, both to the eye, and in ac-
curate description ; and make experiments upon different grades
and surfaces with faithfully recording dynamometers, to ascer-
tain with practical accuracy the draught due to grade and to road-
bed, at various speeds, and with vehicles of varied build, four-
wheeled and two-wheeled, single and double, with wheels of dif-
ferent diameters and breadth of tires, with and without springs,
and in short, under such a variety of conditions, both as to road
and to carriage, as to enable the public to advance towards per-
fection in the art of highway traffic.

It is not suggested to modify materially the present mode of
raising and appropriating money for highway purposes, but
only to provide a faithful and competent supervision of the ex-

280 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

penditure. The plans of the engineers must be approved by
the county commissioners, or the towns, as now, before they
can be carried out. It would seem, however, that existing laws
need to be changed in two particulars at least to carry out such
a plan as has been suggested. In the place of a jury, in cases
of non-agreement between parties, who have power, not only to
revise the award of damages, but even to change the plan of the
location of a road, the superior court should appoint a commis-
sion of disinterested men to examine the case, and simply revise,
or confirm, in the matter of damages, and nothing else. We
have found juries to be very unreliable in such cases. If they
can agree, they are almost sure to decide unfairly in favor of the
claimants for more damages.

It is also suggested that all the money, or means, raised for
highways should be collected like other taxes in " legal tender,^''
and none of it in labor. This " working out taxes," as some-
times allowed, is a challenge for shirk and laziness, and a very
poor financial scheme. Let the work be advertised, and given
to the lowest responsible bidder, so far as it can be done by con-
tract ; and put the day work under the charge of thorough and
experienced foremen, and the competent superintendent will
then make the most of the means at his command.

The importance of some such plan as we have suggested for
the skilful engineering and superintendence of our public roads
can hardly be exaggerated. The proof of bad management is
apparent everywhere in our poorly constructed, and more sadly
neglected, public ways.

We are confident that the plan would prove a financial econo-
mizer, rather than a bill of expense ; and that the people could
thus be gradually educated to appreciate better roads, and be
made willing to undergo still heavier taxation for the perfection
of the system.

It is not intended to suggest in detail the constitution of the
" board of commissioners," or the " corps of engineers," above
named, but simply that the State does not need any highly hon-
orable and dignified commission to make lengthy and very sci-
entific reports, or a corps of distinguished engineers to ride
through the country and give orders, but only a few sensible and
practical men, who will understand their work, and do it in the
best and most economical manner.

SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. 281

Other Reasons for Highway Improvement.

With the great lines of inland traffic taken up by railways,
no less important are the feeders of these, and the supporters of
numerous smaller centres of trade, which our highways must
ever constitute. Nothing more surely builds up a country town
than good roads radiating into a productive farming district.
The interest of the buyer and the producer are one in this mat-
ter.

Improved roads to market increase at once the value of farm
produce, for larger loads can be carried in less time ; commer-
cial fertilizers will cost less, as well as every article that is
bought for home use. Hence the value of farming estate is en-
hanced, the more remote from market sharing more equally
with the nearer, and the proprietors find themselves paid back
fourfold for their road taxes.

A few years since there was a great demand for branch rail-
ways, and they were built to some extent, of the same general
character as the main lines, and run by the same rolling stock*
Of course they have not paid the railway companies, and the
towns, or individuals, that helped build them, have not generally
received back an equivalent in other profits. All such facilities,
as a rule, increase the trade of large centres, and impoverish the
smaller ones. The present tendency to great monopolies, and
centralizations of trade, do not seem to be promotive of general
prosperity, intelligence, happiness, or good morals.

Now every town of importance demands not a branch, but a
through line, and they are obtaining authority to raise five per
cent, on their valuation for this purpose. We fear many of these
investments will prove sinking funds, without the hope of resur-
rection. But something must be done ; there must be approxi-
mate equalization of transportation facilities. If these cravings
are morbid, they must be satisfied in some way, rather than
denied.

Are we not overlooking the real cause of the difficulty ?
Supposing we had such roads as enlightened and practical sci-
ence, with a wise and prudent expenditure, might have given
us, would not the case be far different ?

But we are just at the dawn of a new era in railway con-
struction and steam road-traffic. On our main lines, even the
waste of carrying so much dead weight has for some time been
36*

282 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

discussed. But, without questioning the economy of such pon-
derous rolling-stock, and the need of hauling so many empty
cars on our main routes, or doubting the propriety of hauling
magnificent hotels, with kitchens, dining-halls, parlors and state-
rooms, at the rate of twenty-five or thirty miles an hour, from
New York to San Francisco, we simply wish to notice a new
system coming into use for branch lines and those of inferior
traffic. With light steel rails, or wooden ones, if the others
cannot be afforded ; with smaller and lighter cars and locomo-
tives ; with some idea of making the paying load contribute to
the adhesion of the engine, rather than so much dead weight of
iron, by combining the power and vehicle in the same carriage ;
with tracks laid at the centre or sides of our improved high-
ways, or with broad driving-wheel tires running directly upon
the road-surface, on grades as high as the maximum that should
be allowed for first-class roads ; and in short, using steam on
our public roads as familiarly, as safely, and with as little
annoyance, as we now use horses.

Already steam omnibuses are doing good service in the streets
of Paris, injuring the pavements less, and overcoming heavy
grades more easily, than other vehicles ; and steam is hauling
heavy loads with equal success, not only in London, but on
highways in benighted India ; and nothing prevents its use here
but our poor roads.

The speedy improvement of our public roads, then, not only
for ordinary traffic, but to prepare the way for the introduction
of steam on the more important lines, will best meet the wants
of the towns not on the great thoroughfares, and enable them
to put their money to better use than in stocks of expensive
railways, which are sure never to pay them dividends, from the
very fact that they are called upon to invest in them ; and there
are chances that the big iron way may prove a way out, rather
than m, for their business.

Amherst, January 28th, 1870.

PRESENT CONDITION OP OUR ROADS. 283

THIED PKIZE ESSAY

ON THE

MAINTENANCE AND REPAIRS OF COMMON ROADS.

By Henry Onion, Civil Engineer.

Introductory.

In order rightly to perform a piece of work, or to accomplish
a particular purpose, it is necessary, first, to have a clear un-
derstanding of the purpose intended, and then to consider the
means of accomplishing it.

There is an urgent demand for improvement in the condition
of the common roads throughout the country ; and in this
State, particularly, the demand is becoming imperative. To as-
certain what is required to effect this improvement, it is neces-
sary to look at the defects of the roads as they are now kept,
and to mark the difference, in point of construction and main-
tenance, between good and bad ones hi order to know what rem-
edies to apply ; also to examine the present system of manage-
ment to discover where its faults lie, so as to provide under-
standingly some plan which will secure the most useful results
with the best economy.

Present State of the Roads.

The public prints everywhere make frequent complaints of the
roads at all seasons, and upon the breaking up of the winter and
the roads together, the travelling is described as " horrible."
All sorts of suggestions, many of them impracticable or worth-
less, and some spasmodic efforts, are made to remedy the evil,
but generally with very little beneficial effect.

The roads are everywhere bad ; difficult to haul over and un-
pleasant to travel upon. Their defects are obvious to every one.

284 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Except in a few of the summer and autumn months, when they
are more or less dusty or littered with loose stone and rubbish,
they are muddy, deeply rutted, and frequently, after heavy rains,
badly washed and gullied. Water often stands in puddles in
the ruts and hollows, sometimes covering the whole surface for
considerable distances. They are more or less rough, stony
or sandy at all times, and when newly repaired, the material is
so applied, or is of such quality, that for long periods travelling
is more difficult and dangerous than before any attempt at im-
provement was made.

They are, moreover, often unnecessarily hilly or undulating,
sometimes too wide for economy, but more frequently too nar-
row for convenience or safety ; besides, the surfaces are gener-
ally so formed as to invite or compel the travel to follow a sin-
gle track, confining the wear to one part, instead of distributing
it over the whole breadth.

Importance of Good Roads.

We hardly need to urge the importance of good roads, for
they are almost as necessary to the existence of a civilized com-
munity, as houses are for people to live in.

Without roads we should never have emerged from barbarism ;
and every improvement upon them contributes to the advance-
ment of the people.

The common roads are the principal means of communication
between neighbors, more or less near or remote, of facilitating
an interchange of good offices and new ideas ; they also permit
of an exchange of commodities, and thus in all ways promote
the intelligence and prosperity of communities.

They are, besides, tributary to the railroads, carrying the sur-
plus products of industry to the nearest stations, to be trans-
ported to distant markets, and, in turn, distributing to us at our
doors the freights brought back for home use.

The area benefited by railroads and local markets is extended
within certain limits, in proportion to the goodness of the com-
mon roads. A man living four or five miles from a market or
a railroad station on a very good road is practically nearer than
one living two or three miles distant on a bad one.

At the West the writer has often seen two or three yokes of
oxen employed in hauling loads that would, on a good road, have
been light burdens for single horses.

MOST IMPORTANT REQUISITE. 285

Chaeacteristics of a Good Road.
The characteristics of a good road are hardness and eveness of
surface, with a degree of smoothness which will enable carriages to
move with the greatest ease, while affording a sure foothold for
horses ; the hardness being sufficient to resist the pressure from
loaded wheels and the hoofs of animals going over it, but not so
great as to prevent entirely an elastic yielding under moving
loads. The art of road-making consists, in a great measure, in
applying the best means to secure these qualities, and in such a
manner as to insure durability against the wear of use and the
action of the elements.

Drainage.

The requisite foremost in importance, attention to which can-
not be too urgently insisted upon, in the construction or im-
provement of roads, is thorough drainage ; for without this a
durable or even a temporarily good structure is hardly possible.
Neglect in this particular is one of the main faults of our method
of treating roads.

Provision must be made not only for the removal of surface
water, but of all excess of moisture from the substratum below
the roadway. Under-drains should be laid wherever the soil is
not sufficiently porous for self-drainage, and the water tables and
side ditches should be so arranged as to carry all surface water
quickly away.

The under-drains should be put down in the same manner as
for agricultural purposes — say about three feet below the sur-
face, and from eighteen to not more than forty feet apart, accord-
ing to the character of the soil and amount of water retained
by it. Generally, these drains would be arranged longitudinally
with the road, but in some cases they may be put across it, in
the form of a flat Y, the angular point highest, or up the in-
cline on descending grades. This work must be executed with
judgment and careful attention to details, to be effective and to
save unnecessary expense.

The side channels, or water tables, for receiving the water
from the road-surface, should have a fall of as much as 1 in
30 ; but the inclination should not be so great as to produce
violent currents, and at short distances means should be pro-

286 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

vided for discharging them of water, to prevent an overflow, or
too great a current to the hazard of the road.

Side ditches should be made wherever required, with suffi-
cient capacity and fall to carry away quickly all surface water
from the near vicinity of the road, and should have a depth of
three feet below the surface.

Catch-water drains are sometimes necessary to prevent en-
croachments of water from neighboring hill-slopes and the sides
of excavations. Suitable out-falls for the drains of every de-
scription must be provided, or they may become useless, or
perhaps destructive of the works they are intended to preserve.

Culverts.
Culverts for carrying streams under the roadway should be
of sufficient size, and be set deeply enough not to impede the
natural flow of the water, and, if needed, to help drain the soil
near and under the road. It would be better always to make
them large enough for a person to enter in a stooping posture,
so as to clear them of chance obstructions. Small culverts are
liable to become choked, when it often becomes necessary to re-
move their coverings to be able to clear them. A very common
fault is to build them in such a way as to form little ponds on
the up-stream side of the road, thus often keeping the embank-
ment saturated with water for long periods.

Effects of too much Moisture on Roads.

It may be thought that so much care about drainage is un-
necessary ; but when we consider that the effect of too much
moisture is to soften and loosen the soils and all kinds of mate-
rial used for road-covering, it will be perceived that to this
cause is mainly attributable the bad character of our roads.
The difference in their condition between spring and summer is
an evidence of this fact.

If kept dry at all seasons, the wear of the surface would be
very much diminished, and the cost of repairing material con-
sequently reduced.

When the covering of the road is compact and firm, so that
the fragments of which it is composed are held fast in place, the
wear is necessarily all on the surface, and, if made of good ma-
terial, it is very slow ; but let it become loosened and saturated

WIDTH AND CROSS-SECTIONS. 287

with water, the fragments will be displaced by the wheels of
carriages and the hoofs of animals, which will crush and grind
them together, so that tliey soon become rounded or reduced to
powder, and need to be replaced by new material.

If roads are thoroughly drained, the action of frost upon
them would be very much diminished, and the annual breaking
up of their surfaces, produced by spring thaws, would be pre-
vented. The effect of heavy rains, frequently so destructive to
water-soaked roads, would be the most efiiciently guarded
against by means of thorough draining.

Trees and Shrubs on the Roadside.

The roads should have a free exposure to the action of the
sun and the winds, in order that moisture may dry off quickly.
Hence, natural hedges and trees ought not to be allowed to line
their sides in a way to interfere with this object. The dripping
from branches, too, hanging over the road is injurious.

Besides overshadowing and sheltering the road, shrubs and
trees are often allowed to encroach in such a way as to discom-
mode the travel.

Width op Way.

The width of way between the larger towns, or where the
travel is considerable, should be thirty feet, increased, perhaps,
to forty feet at a near approach to the towns, but ought never
to be less than twenty-five feet.

The first cost is somewhat greater for a wide track ; but if
the width is not extreme, and the surface is properly covered
and shaped, the same amount of material will wear much longer
than upon a narrow one.

Upon narrow roads the travel is apt to be confined to one
part, thus producing ruts and unevenness, which hastens the
wear, while upon a wider one this is not so likely to occur.

Cross-Section of Roads.
The form of cross-section is very important, and one upon
which there has been much difference of opinion, some advo-
cating a flat surface, others holding that the surface should be
very crowning. These latter urge the necessity of making the
centre of the road much higher than the sides, because the

288 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

travel goes there, and consequently the wear is mostly in that
part. But it is because the surface is crowning that the travel
does go upon the centre, for the carriages can stand upright in
no other position.

The only useful purpose served by raising the centre is to
allow the water to run off at the sides.

If, however, too much inclination is given to the sides, the
travel will seek the centre, as before remarked, and that part
will soon be worn into ruts and hollows, making conduits and
basins for the water there.

For these reasons, practical engineers generally coincide in
the opinion that the centre should be but little higher than the
sides, and that the best form of cross-section is formed by two
straight lines inclined to the sides, connected at the vertex by
an arc of a circle of about ninety feet radius. The inclination
of the sides ought not to exceed 1 in 30.

The common practice with us is to give the surface a cylin-
drical form, making the cross-section nearly the arc of a circle,
with a short radius, so that the inclination increases from the
centre towards the. sides. This is the worst possible form, es-
pecially when the road is narrow, or, as is usual, the centre is
raised very high ; for, in order that vehicles may retain any-
thing near an upright position, they must go upon or near the
middle of the way, confining the wear to that part ; but if the
amount of travel is sufficiently great to compel carriages fre-
quently to turn, or to keep upon the sides, they are exposed to
accidents by upsetting, and the tendency to slide down the slope
increases the wear of the wheels and of the road.

Besides, the labor of the horses is increased by this tendency
of the wheels of carriages to slide in a direction at right angles
to the line of draught, and the chances of breakage are multi-
plied by the augmented strain upon their axles.

Gradients.

The longitudinal inclination of roads, where necessary, should
be as slight as possible, and ought never to exceed the angle of
resistance for the materials of which the surface is composed.

The results of numerous experiments to determine this angle,
or the angle of inclination, for different materials, which is just
sufficient to cause a carriage standing upon the inclination to

ASCENT OP GRADES. 289

commence moving down it on the slightest application of force
in that direction, — are repeated in nearly all treatises upon road
making, and need not be re-stated here. The useful deduction
from them and from practical experience, however, is that for a
well-made road, with a hard and compact surface, the inclina-
tion ought not to exceed 1 in 30, and for ordinary gravel roads
1 in 20.

These inclinations are sufficiently safe, but a vertical rise is
equivalent to an increased length of road proportional to the an-
gle of inclination. From calculations made by means of a for-
mula deduced from experiments tested by Sir John Macneill,
it is shown that a goods wagon of six tons burden, drawn three
miles an hour upon an inclination of 1 in 30, one mile is equiv-
alent to 2.7 miles level road ; and for a stage-coach of three
tons drawn six miles the equivalent level road for one mile is
1.62 miles.

The amount of force expended in conveying a given load over
a road from one point to another at a higher elevation, is equal
to the force of traction plus the force necessary to lift it up to
the elevation reached : thus if the load is carried two miles, and
the terminus is a hundred feet higher than the starting point, it
has to be lifted up that hundred feet, as well as hauled the two
miles.

Any intermediate descents will not compensate for the rise,
but will add, by carrying the load to a lower level, to the ascent
to be made.

The difficulty of making the ascent will be in proportion to
its inclination, and it will be necessary to start with a team of
sufficient strength to climb the hill, which would be greater than
would be needed on a level, or descending road.

The road-covering upon steep inclinations is liable to be torn
up by the hoofs of the animals making extra exertions to ascend
with heavy loads, and is more subject to injury from deluging
rains, in proportion to the pitch of inclination. Hence hills
should be avoided or reduced as much as possible.

These considerations are apt to be overlooked by persons
ordinarily having charge of improvement, or the construction
of roads, or otherwise they might be amended by material
reduction of grades, and generally with very little extra cost.

37*

290 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Grading of Roads.

The finished road consists of two distinct parts : the sub-road
or road proper, and the covering. The sub-road is first graded
up to within about a foot of the intended finished surface, and
its surface shaped and prepared to receive the covering.

It is also important that the embankments should be made in
a solid and substantial manner, care being taken not to put into
them vegetable matter, or decaying substances of any kind to
endanger their stability, or to cause unequal settling.

In cases where the sub-grade runs near the surface of the
ground, the sods must be taken off, and all roots and stumps
removed.

Mucky earths must be replaced by material fit for a solid
foundation.

Ledges should be excavated to a depth of one foot, at least,
below grade, and the surface dressed so as to leave no hollows
for holding water.

The sub-road should have the same cross-sections as the surface
of the finished way, so as to shed any water that may percolate
through the superficial coating, and in order that the covering
may have the same thickness throughout.

Foundations for Road Covering.

That part of the structure lying immediately under the road
covering may be termed the foundation, and upon it, in a meas-
ure depends the durability of the covering, and the ease of
travel.

As shown by Sir John Macneill's experiments, before men-
tioned, the force required to move a ton, on a broken stone sur-
face, on a bottom of rough pavement, is forty-six pounds ; while
upon a broken stone surface, laid on an old flint-road, it is sixty-
five pounds.

The covering may be laid directly upon the ground without
further preparation, than above indicated, or a foundation may
be made of concrete, or of rough-paving.

Many of the military roads of the Romans were constructed
upon a concrete foundation, some of which have endured to this
day without being entirely worn away.

The use of this foundation, was introduced into England not
many years ago by Thomas Hughes.

FOUNDATION AND COVERING. 291

It is made of gravel and lime in the proportion of five or six
parts of clean gravel to one of lime. The lime is finely ground,
the materials thoroughly mixed, and the concrete is made on the
surface of the road.

The depth of the concrete bed when applied is six inches ;
upon which a layer of stone or gravel three inches in depth is
spread, before the concrete has set.

Afterward, and before the travel is permitted to go over it,
another layer of material is spread, and the whole consolidated
by rollers.

In some instances the concrete foundation has been success-
fully tried in cases where no other means were effectual in mak-
ing the road solid.

The method of making a foundation of rough paving intro-
duced into England by Mr. Telford has been extensively used in
Europe, and to some extent in this country.

This is formed by laying down broken stone of not more than
twelve inches in their greatest dimensions, nearly parallel-sided,
and not more than seven or eight inches in depth.

The stones are laid close together broadest side down with the
longest way across the road, and then are wedged together with
thinner stones and chips, after which projecting points are broken
off with a hammer, and the surface evened by filling the hollows,
and crevices with stone-chips.

Road-coverings based upon foundations of paving, or concrete
are so superior, and so much more durable as to justify their use
wherever the traffic is large, and the saving in the wear of ma-
terial and the labor of repairs will, in time, more than compen-
sate for the extra cost of constructing.

They receive the pressure from loads, transferred by the frag-
ments composing the covering, without yielding ; thus checking
any tendency to movement amongst them, and prevent their be-
ing forced into the soil below, and the soil from working up, and
mixing with them.

With such foundations a less amount of material will be re-
quired for the covering, which need not exceed five or six inches
in depth, whether made of broken stone or gravel.

The covering placed upon the earthy surface, with no inter-
vening stratum, will need a depth of eight or ten inches, and

292 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

cannot be worn so thin as when upon an artificial foundation
without re-coating.

The purpose of covering roads is to obtain by the use of ap-
propriate materials a uniformly hard, even, and unyielding bed,
that will resist wear, and afford a smooth surface, which will
offer the least resistance to the motion of the wheels of vehicles.

Covering of Roads.

As the covering receives the shock, and suffers the attrition
from the hoofs of animals and the wheels of carriages, it needs
to be made of such substances as will best resist crushing and
abrasion.

The excellence of the road depends upon the characteristics
of the covering.

Tlie materials usually employed in forming it, except in large
cities, or where the traffic is very heavy, are broken stone and
gravel.

The foundations of concrete and stone, when completed, are
ready to receive the coating ; but it would be a great deal better
to prepare the earth foundations by compressing the surface as
much as possible with heavy rollers.

The stone used for covering should be selected with care, to
secure such as is both hard and tough, and broken into angular
pieces, such as may be passed through a ring two and one-half
inches in diameter and down to one-third of that size, but no
smaller.

The broken stone should be kept clean, and in handling, a
pronged shovel should be used, to prevent dirt from getting
mixed with it.

When used on artificial foundations, it is to be spread evenly
in layers over the whole breadth of the road, the bottom layer
three and one-half inches in thickness.

The first layer ought then to be compressed firmly with rollers
sufficiently heavy for two horses to drag, when the top coating,
of two or two and one-half inches, should be applied, and rolled
down in the same manner as the first.

Finally, a coating, of about an inch in thickness, of small
gravel should be spread over the surface, and the whole consol-
idated with rollers weighing from six to ten tons.

During the rolling, the surface must be kept even by filling

GRAVEL FOR SURFACE COVERING. 293

any hollows or rakiug down any bunches that may make their
appearance.

The object of covering the surface with gravel is to fill the
crevices between the fragments of stone, to help hold them fast
in place, and to reduce the shock upon the wheels from striking
the angular points of the stones, by preventing them from falling
into the cavities. When finislied, the surface should have
solidity and smoothness sufficient for a horse and carriage to
trot over it with ease.

The same process is required for covering a road-bed which
has no artificial foundation upon it, except that the thickness of
the layers should be increased, or the number greater. Gravel
consists of small fragments of stone, more or less rounded, and
as found inland, is generally mixed with sand or loamy earth,
while that obtained from sea-beaches is usually free from extra-
neous matter. It varies greatly in quality, and it is difficult to
find, in its natural state, suitable for road-covering. For this
use it should contain no pebbles of more than one and one-half
inches, or less than three-quarters of an inch in diameter. It
should be free from sand, but must contain a proportion of
binding material of a loamy or clayey character.

It is generally necessary to prepare it for use by screening, to
separate from it both the larger pebbles and some of the finer
stuff, when that is in excess. When gravel is of excellent
quality, or it is properly prepared, it makes a superior road-cov-
ering, for which purpose it should be spread in layers and con-
solidated in the same way as that described for broken stone.

The covering materials should be kept moistened, by sprink-
ling or by the state of the weather, while being compressed
under the rollers, but the rolling should not be done when they
are saturated with water.

It is usual to admit the travel upon the loosely spread mate-
rials, and make it do the work of binding them into place, which
it will never do so perfectly as might be done by rolling. The
wheels act as wedges, forcing themselves between and displacing
the fragments which are crushed and abraded under the loads ;
mud and dust works into the interstices, so as to prevent the
parts from wedging or being bound together ; horses' feet are
liable to injury from loose stones ; the rims of wheels are rap-
idly worn ; riding in carriages, too, is very uncomfortable, and

294 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

without extreme care, the surface will become rutted and uneven.
Thus, before the road has become settled, the discomforts and
disadvantages outbalance the cost of rolling.

The use of the steam stone-crusher and the introduction of
the steam roller would greatly reduce the cost of preparing and
applying road materials ; and the employment of these and
other machines of like character would be a step towards great
improvements in the common roads.

Relative Merits op the different Road Coverings.

Having briefly indicated the different methods of construc-
tion, it is proper, before considering the subject of repairs, to
compare the relative merits of each.

There are three points especially worthy of consideration in
determining what kind of road to build ; or rather, as that is
the important feature, what kind of covering to use, namely :
the first cost, the cost of maintenance, and adaptedness to the
use intended.

The fitness of a road for its use of course depends upon the
kind and amount of traffic going over it; for one much trav-
elled by heavily loaded teams will need a more substantial and
expensive covering than one used chiefly for light carriages ; and
consequently judgment is required to avoid deficiency of strength
and solidity, on one hand, and unnecessary expense on the other.

The comparative original cost of covering a road would de-
pend in some measure upon the kinds of material most procur-
able in the vicinity, or the distance to where the kind needed
must be sought ; but generally the broken stone covering, with
a paved or concrete foundation, is the most expensive. The
next in order, as regards the first cost, is a broken stone cover-
ing laid upon earth, though the difference of this from the first
mentioned, in that respect, is not great.

Gravel is the cheapest of all materials for finishing roads,
when it can be obtained, of good quality, from a reasonable dis-
tance, and can generally be most easily applied.

It would appear, however, from experiments made by Mr.
Wm. H. Grant, superintending engineer, upon roads constructed
by him in Central Park, in New York, that the relative cost of
them was for

COMPARISON OF VARIOUS COVERINGS. 295

Gravel upon a paved foundation, 1

Broken stone upon a paved foundation, . . . .1.65
Broken stone upon earth, ...... 1.70

Broken stone roads are designated, respectively, those having
paved foundations, Telford, and those laid upon earth McAdam
roads.

For general traffic, the Telford road is undoubtedly the most
durable, and can be maintained in high condition, at less cost,
than any other. The foundation is permanent, and, with a
proper depth of materials perfectly consolidated, the whole will
always remain intact, except from the wear upon the surface.

The macadam way is more liable to be broken up from the
yielding of the earth foundation on which the materials rest,
thus subjecting them to a tendency to motion among themselves
under heavy pressures. Any uneasiness of the fragments causes
the soil to work upward, so as to help loosen their bonds ; there-
fore the wear would not be confined to the surface, and the
necessity of replacing them would be more frequent.

Gravel upon a paved foundation, thoroughly consolidated be-
fore use, doubtless makes the best and least expensive of really
good roads for light carriages. They are well adapted to local-
ities where there is but little heavy traffic, and can probably be
kept in repair, in such situations, with as little cost as any other.

According to a statement made in the " Engineering and
Mining Journal," by Mr. Grant, before quoted, a sample road
made in Central Park in this way, remained in perfectly good
condition, after nearly five years constant use, during all of
which time it has required no repairs, except at a point where
the gravel became loosened and uneven by the turning of car-
riages about a short curve.

Roads made of gravel on earth foundations are less fitted for
general travel than any of those mentioned, and though cheaply
constructed are the least useful and most expensive in the long
run, requiring a frequent renewal, or constant patching of the
covering, to keep them in tolerable order.

Earth roads made and repaired with plough and scraper are
hardly worthy of mention except as temporary expedients in new
settlements, though they are not uncommon in the oldest parts
of the country.

296 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

In economy of repairs, the roads having artificial foundations
for the coverings, and otherwise thoroughly constructed, are
superior to any others. The saving in the expense of their
maintenance will generally in a little time compensate for the
excess of original cost. In economy of use they are superior in
offering less resistance to draught, thus allowing greater speed to
be made and heavier loads to be carried with the same animal
power.

Methods have been contrived for measuring with accuracy the
force required to haul loads over different kinds of road surface,
or up and down different inclinations at the various ordinary
speeds of travel for all sorts of vehicles used. With these many
experiments have been made, and the results generalized by
means of formulas so as to be applicable to any particular case.

Some of the results obtained from experiments made by M.
Morin at the expense of the French Government, are as fol-
lows : —

1. The traction is directly proportional to the load, and in-
versely proportional to the diameter of the wheel.

2. The width of the tire, if above three inches, does not affect
the traction upon paved or hard macadamized roads.

3. There is no difference of traction for carriages with or
without springs going at a walking pace on the same road.

4. Upon hard macadamized, and upon paved roads, the
traction increases with the velocity ; the increase of traction be-
ing directly proportional to the increase of velocity if greater
than two and one-fourth miles per hour. The increase of trac-
tion arising from an increase of speed is less in proportion to the
smoothness of the road, and the lightness with which the car-
riage is hung.

5. Upon soft roads of earth, or sand, oi turf, or roads fresh
and thickly gravelled, the traction is independent of the velocity.

6. The traction, at a walking pace upon a well made and
compact pavement of hewn stones is not more than three-fourths
that on the best macadamized roads.

7. Carriages without springs are more destructive to roads
than those with them, and the less the diameter of the wheels
the more destructive they are.

Sir John Macneill, with an instrument for measuring forces
required to haul loads over different surfaces, obtained, from

SKILFUL ROAD-MAKERS REQUIRED. 29T

many experiments, the results contained in the following table ;
inserted here for purposes of comparison. The wagon used
weighed twenty-one cwt., and the resistance to draught was : —

On a well-made pavement, . . . . . 33 lbs.
On broken stone laid on pavement or concrete founda-
tion, . . . 46 "

On broken stone laid on earth, . . . . 65 "

On a thick coating of gravel laid on earth, . . 147 "

These and many other like experiments made in France and
Great Britain point clearly to the great superiority of the best
broken stone roads, over those made of gravel and loam in the
ordinary way. More will be said bearing upon this subject
further on.

Suitable Persons to have charge op Roads.

To secure such kinds of structures as have been described, or
to make material improvements upon those in existence, it ought
not to be necessary to intimate that the work must be done under
the direction of practical road-makers, whose education and
training j&t them for such duties. But the common practice of
entrusting such work to those who are not only wholly ignorant
of the mechanical principles necessary for the achievement of
success, but who have had no experience useful for the duties
required, seems to indicate that this consideration is not appre-
ciated.

An extensive knowledge of scientific principles is necessary for
the successful practice of the engineering art, of which road
making is not the least difficult or important branch. An ac-
quaintance too, with the processes and expedients, whether suc-
cessful or not, employed by men who have achieved eminence in
their profession, is needful to help mark out the right path, and
to hint at the direction in which to look for resources in difficult
emergencies. No art can, however, be learned from books alone,
but the skill to execute, the ability to judge of the qualities and
fitness of materials, the ingenuity to overcome difficulities, and
the readiness to find and adopt methods of operation suited to
each particular understanding must be acquired from practice.

A cavalry man detects at a glance the good points of a horse ;
38*

298 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

no defects are concealed from his scrutiny ; he knows how to
correct his faults, how to feed, and groom him, so as to fit him
for service, and he can guide and manage him in a manner to
make him most useful. All this is a mystery to the foot-soldier
who can see none of the beauties, or faults of the horse ; lie
knows nothing of his qualities, and can hardly distinguish one
animal from another.

None but a farmer will undertake to breed stock, or grow
crops ; a blacksmith does not attempt to make glass ware ; then
why should an ignorant day laborer, as often happens, be employed
to make and repair roads ?

Impeovement and Repair op Roads.

It has not been thought necessary to state in detail the process
of doing the work, or to describe minutely the materials to be
used, to do which would require a volume, as there are many ex-
cellent treatises upon road-making, which are easily accessible to
those who wish to pursue the subject. The object here is, as
clearly as possible, in a brief space and limited time, to point out
the public needs in regard to roads, and to suggest the best
means of supplying them.

In pursuance of this purpose, we will now, at the risk of some
repetition, proceed to state, in a general way, what is required
for the improvement of the present roads, and to consider what
ought to be done to maintain them in first-rate working con-
dition.

Many of the old roads upon which reduction in grades, or
changes in direction are not needed, may be easily improved.
With some trimming of the sides, shaping, and evening of the
surface, being solidly compacted by years of travel, the beds of
these roads will serve as a good foundation for covering with
either of the kinds of materials mentioned. If gravel is used it
must be carefully selected, and a coating of the material as it
comes from the pit, only removing the larger stones, should be
spread evenly to the depth of three or four inches over the
whole surface. It should then be raked smoothly, and solidly
compressed by a roller drawn by two horses.

Over the first layer after it has been sufficiently hardened, a
second one two and one-half inches in depth, consisting of
screened gravel, is to be put on and treated in the same m.anuer,

BROKEN STONE COVERINGS. 299

when the whole should be thoroughly consolidated with rollers
of five or six tons weight. If then the drainage is properly at-
tended to, the roads will become nearly equal to the best, and
with watchful care, may be kept permanently so, with small cost,
in comparison to the present outlays for patching and repairs.
A saving might be made by putting on both layers unscreened,
but the road would not be so perfect or durable ; besides this, the
greater ease and comfort of travel upon the screened gravel, and
the difference of wear would doubtless repay the cost of screen-
ing.

Upon places where the old road is not sufficiently firm — being
either sandy or loamy — a foundation of rubble-stone may be laid
to the depth of eight or nine inches. The stones used for this
purpose should be angular, having no dimensions greater than
twelve inches or less than three inches, and should be carefully
and closely laid together, the longest way across the road.

The surface should then be evened by spreading stone chips
over it, when the gravel may be put on and treated as described
above, except that an additional layer will be needed to guard
against a movement among the loosely deposited stones below.

When the roads are already in tolerable good condition, with
a good gravel surface, nothing more perhaps will need be done
than to dress them into proper shape and to fill the hollows and
even the surface. If however the surface is much worn into ruts
and hollows, or the gravelly coating has become thin, a layer of
two or three inches of screened gravel should be spread evenly
over the whole of it and rolled solid.

In situations where gravel of suitable quality cannot be ob-
tained, or upon roads much frequented by heavily loaded teams,
broken stone must take its place in the work of renovation. In
such cases the surface of the road must be newly shaped, in the
same way as for gravel, taking care not to break it to a greater
depth than just sufficient to give it the proper form and to
make it even. The manner of applying this material to the old
joad-beds is the same as has already been described.

In all cases, the mode of proceeding and the precautions to
be taken are the same for the old roads as for the new. Wher-
ever the travelled part of the road is not of sufficient width, it
should be made so before being coated with surface-materials,

300 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

and the sides or centre, as the case may require, should be
reduced to obtain the proper cross-section.

Shrubs and trees growing upon the borders, not intended for
ornament, should be uprooted, and the heaps of stones and rub-
bish that so commonly offend the sight and sometimes obstruct
the way, should be removed.

The Cost op Improvements and their Benepits.

No one acquainted with the present wasteful and thriftless
way of dealing with the roads, can doubt that they might, under
a more effectual system of management, be gradually brought
to a high degree of excellence, without an increased outlay of
expense ; and some facts will be presented hereafter, going to
show that they can be maintained, in a superior condition, at
even less than the present cost.

The importance of bringing up the public roads to a high
standard of excellence, and of constantly keeping them in that
condition, has been sufficiently urged, and is perhaps gen-
erally well enough appreciated ; but the possibility of doing so
with reasonable economy, or without, as might be apprehended,
a largely increased expenditure, might, on the first thought, be
questionable.

But we have seen how a great saving from the present expen-
diture of money and labor upon the roads might be made by a
proper application of the work, and that any additional cost con-
tracted for construction would be, as well for their better adap-
tation for use as for the purpose of making them, very much
more durable, and consequently as much less expensive to keep
in repair.

Besides, the well-made and well-kept roads would be greatly
superior for the purposes of transportation and travel, since very
much heavier loads could be conveyed by the same expenditure
of animal power, and valuable time be saved by higher speed.

It would be safe to say that a saving of twenty-five per cent,
in animal power alone would result from the proposed improve-
ment of the roads. In these considerations, the gain from
diminished wear of vehicles and harnesses, and the incalculable
saving of oaths, impatience and ill-temper, have not been taken
into account.

There can hardly be a doubt, from these considerations, that

ROAD SYSTEMS OF EUROPE. 301

the people could afford to pay even an increased tax for exten-
sive improvements and the support of all the public roads, and
still be gainers by the reduction in the cost of traflfic that would
result.

Roads in Europe.

The advantages of improvements in public roads by skilful
reconstruction, and by watchful and unintermittent care for
their preservation, has been tested in several countries ; and on
the Continent of Europe systems of intelligent superintendence
have long been established, always with the best economical
results.

The following statements of facts are quoted by Gen. Sir John
F. Burgoyne, in his " Remarks on the Maintenance of Macad-
amized Roads," from papers written by Monsieur L. Dumas and
other French engineers of the Corps des Fonts et Chauss^es : —

" The following took place with respect to the high roads
(Routes Royales,) of the Department de La Sarthe, somewhat
less than two hundred and fifty miles in extent. In 1793, a
demand was made to put them in complete order, £15,280, or
£60 per mile ; in 1824, the demand was £9,000, or £36 per
mile; in 1836, the demand was £7,760, or £31 per mile ; in
1839, the demand was £6,640, or £26 per mile ; and the roads
have become better concurrently with the reduction of cost of
maintenance, from being, in 1793, in deep ruts, to 1839, when
they were in very good order.

" Part of the great road between Lyons and Toulouse, till
1833, was always in a dreadful state, and yet cost habitually
about £110 per annum per English mile for maintenance, when
M. Berthault Ducreux introduced a system of patching, instead
of general repairs, since when the road was greatly improved,
till it was in a very good state, and the annual expense reduced
by £13 or £14 per mile.

" Another instance is quoted, where, prior to 1837, the aver-
age amount of broken stone laid on thirty- three miles of road
was 6,000 cubic yards ; under the improved system in 1837,
6,000 cubic yards were applied, in 1838 only 1,350 cubic yards,
and 1839 none. In another instance the cost has been as follows
for the expenditure : —

302

MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

Materials.

Road Labor.

£548

£166

563

188

496

151

500

167

438

177

398

145

380

160

360

178

180

233

250

300

Total.

1830, .

1831, .

1832, .

1833, .

1834, .

1835, .

1836, .

1837, .

1838, .

1839, .

£714

751
647
667
615
543
540
538
413
550

" In 1837, when it was taken up in the new system, the road
required considerable improvements ; in 1840 two-thirds of it
were in perfect condition, and when the whole is reformed, it is-
calculated that from ^400 to £440 will keep it perfect.

" The road from Tours to Caen in La Sarthe was, in 1836, in
so bad a state as to be in danger of becoming impassable.

" In January, 1837, it was passed under the charge of M.
Dumas. The average annual expenditure for the five years prior
had been : for material, £736; for road labor, X242 ; total, £978.
From 1837 to 1841 the annual average for material was £375,
labor, £443 ; total, £818. In 1841 the cost of material was £163,
for road labor, £445 ; total, £608. In 1838 this road was report-
ed to be in a very good state, and since then has become better
and better.

" In 1834 the mail required always jive horses, and the road
was so bad that the postmaster lost eleven horses by the hard work
in one year.

" In 1838 the number of horses was reduced to three., and at
present there are only two of middling quality, and the post-
master loses none from that cause.

" In this same district, in consequence of improvements in these
roads since 1839, a number of lighter carriages have been estab-

CHANGE OF SYSTEM REQUIRED. 303

lished ; they have four wheels and are drawn by one horse, carry
nine persons, and go seven or eight miles an hour. Previously
the carriage for the same number of persons, had two wheels, two
horses, and went much slower."

At the time these statements were made, these French engi-
neers calculated that by maintaining the roads in the best possi-
ble condition, which they assert can be done without increased
expense, the cost of draft of merchandise over the roads in
France might be reduced one-third, or about 130,000,000, saving
that amount to the public. From the foregoing statements it
will be perceived that the cost of labor upon the roads is in-
creased, while the cost of material is diminished by the system
of constant care.

The inferences to be drawn from them, and from experimen-
tal tests, all point the same way as the suggestions of reason,
and from experience gathered from the practices observed in this
country, namely, that the best public economy and convenience
would require that the highways should be maintained in the
best possible condition. The cost of maintenance including im-
provements, would not be increased, the wear and tear of car-
riages and harness would be diminished, there would be a saving
of time, by increased speed, less cruelty to animals, and far
greater comfort in travelling.

Defective System op Management.

It is useless to attempt to improve the condition of the roads
except with a change of system, or rather by the substitution of
a system for the hap-hazard way the work is done. Constant care
and oversight is required, and workmen should be employed to
be on the road all the time, to keep the surface clean, and to
repair any injury or defect as soon as it occurs.

The importance of cleanliness is illustrated by some experi-
ments made by M. Morin, showing that the resistance to draught
upon broken stone roads is four times as great with deep ruts
and thick mud, as upon a good one, and is greatly increased by
the muddy or dusty condition of otherwise perfectly good roads.

The way Roads aee now Mended.
The laws of Massachusetts relating to the maintenance of the
highways, however well adapted to colonial times when the coun-

304 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

try was thinly settled, and money hardly to be had, are totally
unsuited to the present age with our dense population and abun-
dant means. The towns are required to choose annually one or
more surveyors to make repairs on the roads, and the custom is
to elect from one to twenty or more, according to the territorial
extent of the town, or the caprice of the voters.

To each surveyor is assigned a certain portion of the road-tax
either in money, or in days' labor, according as the town deter-
mines that the tax shall be paid, and he proceeds to expend the
same upon the roads allotted to him, exercising his own discre-
tion about the time and manner of doing his work, and using his
own judgment, if he has any, of the kind of work required.

Tlie time he chooses is generally when he has the most lei-
sure, and whether required or not, he frequently works out his
money at once, and gets done with it. The work is often per-
formed in the rudest manner, and the road is coated here and
there with thick patches of worthless stuff — better suited for top-
dressing for crops, perhaps, than for road material — to be washed
into the gutters on the occurrence of the first heavy rain. From
want of judgment, or want of interest, the money is wasted, and
the people are burdened with the heavier tax of struggling over
hard roads, made worse by the money they have paid for im-
proving them. Less frequently a man is chosen, who under-
stands better what is needful to be done, and with what means
he has, he commences some improvements, which if followed up
in after years would result in a public benefit, but his office
is only for a year, and he may be followed by a man to undo,
what was well begun.

Our people do not manage their private affairs in this thriftless
way, neither is any other public business conducted so loosely or
wastefuUy, and it is a wonder that these evils have been allowed
to continue so long as they have.

A few towns have tried to remedy these evils, with some
measure of success, by appointing a superintendent to have
charge of all the roads in the town, and keeping a corps of work-
men, with horses and carts constantly employed in making re-
pairs.

The public moneys are contributions from the surplus earnings
of the industrious brains and hands of the Commonwealth, and
should be expended in the best discoverable manner, to secure

NEW SYSTEM SUGGESTED. 305

the greatest public benefit. The people ought to require that
these important trusts shall be confided to none but such as are
fitted by skill, intelligence, and integrity, for the duties assigned
them ; and the laws should be so framed that the money pro-
vided for important public purposes shall not find its way into
wasteful and incompetent hands.

Pkoposed System.

For the efficient and economical maintenance of the public
roads, it is essential that there be a uniform system of manage-
ment common to the whole State. The first step towards a com-
plete reform of system would be the creation of a State depart-
ment of roads and bridges, to have general charge of all the
roads, to arrange and direct the carrying out of the details, and
generally to look to the effective working of the system.

The chief of the department should be a practical civil engi-
neer, thoroughly conversant with the art of road making. For
the purposes of proper supervision, the State might be divided
mto districts, say by counties, and these again into sub-districts,
larger or smaller as might be found expedient.

There should be a resident engineer or superintendent for each
district, to have charge and oversight of the roads and bridges,
within his district, and to be held accountable to the chief of
the department.

He will ascertain the condition of the roads in his district,
determine what improvements are to be made and in what order,
decide upon the kinds and amount of work to be done, estimate
the sums needed to carry it on, and at stated periods report the
same, with all other matters pertaining to his office, to the chief
of the department.

For each sub-district there will be required an assistant-engi-
neer or road-master, subordinate to the resident of the district,
to manage the working details, within the limits assigned.
As the improvements progress, these sub-districts may be enlarged
and the number of subordinates reduced, so that each and all
shall always have work enough to keep them occupied.

By some method of this kind the standard of excellence and
the manner of treating the roads would be uniform ; any sugges-
tions of experience could be taken advantage of ; the use of im-
provements in implements and machinery could be everywhere
39*

306 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

extended, and a system of strict accountability maintained
throughout the department.

The public could thus enjoy the benefit of the skill and inge-
nuity of educated talent, which under town management is
scarcely possible, and the people would be assured that their
money would bring them beneficial returns instead of being
wasted by mischievous incompetence.

Under a general system, stone-crushers, steam-rollers and
other costly machinery might be employed, and other means of
economizing labor adopted, that towns cannot command. Suita-
ble materials for road making could be prepared at the most con-
venient places, or where found of a superior quality, without
reference to town lines. Towns cannot individually provide for
a competent supervision of the roads, an advantage which a gen-
eral system insures.

The details of the system might be arranged as found most
expedient, or as would best accord with the prejudices and habits
of the people.

The tax levied for the roads might be paid into the State treas-
ury, and the money expended for the best advantages of the
general public, or allotted to the districts according to their rel-
ative needs, or it might be paid to the county treasurer, to be
expended within the county, or again it might be collected as
now, and expended wholly in the towns where raised.

Details of Working.

Either of two methods might be adopted for doing the work
upon the roads. Gangs of hands working together may be as-
signed to districts of such extent as they can go entirely over in
limited periods and do the work needed ; or men may be sta-
tioned singly along the line, each with the length of road that
he can properly look after.

The workmen, in either case, would be subject to the over-
sight and direction of the road-master or overseer of the sub-
district. Parties working in gangs would each require a horse
and cart for their use, and would do all the necessary work of
cleaning and repairing the roads ; but the duties of preparing
and distributing materials to depots convenient for use, of re-
moving the road-covering where worn out, of rolling the surface,
&c., would require to be performed by distinct parties. The

HOW IT WILL WOEK. 307

materials to be used for patching, after being carefully prepared,
should be hauled to points convenient for the use of the repair-
ers, and deposited in depots prepared in such a way as to pre-
vent earth or other deleterious substances from becoming mixed
with it. These depots might be formed by enclosing suitable
spaces by a wall of rough stone.

The men stationed singly, — the French cantonier, — under the
system of assigning to every repairer a certain length of line,
will each need to be supplied with a wheelbarrow, a pick, a
shovel and a scraper.

These suggestions of details are only made to indicate how
the proposed system may be made to work practically ; but the
experience that would be acquired under the system would in a
little time lead to the simplest and most effective plan of oper-
ation.

How THE System will Opeeate.

This system of management of the common roads which it is
proposed to substitute for the one now in operation, is doubtless
the best that can be devised to effect a permanent improvement
of the highest character upon the roads, with the most econom-
ical expenditure of labor and money.

It provides for the responsibility of every individual having
supervisory charge of the roads, by holding each in order ac-
countable to one next higher in rank, and with a provision for a
method of making payments at stated periods, upon pay-rolls
and written contracts, by officers assigned to such duty, which
should be included. Peculation and embezzlement would be
guarded against, and a draining leak of some magnitude in the
public purse would be stopped.

Under such a system, every officer of the department would,
from a care for his own official and professional reputation, re-
quire that his subordinates should all be men of capacity and
intelligence, who, from fear of dismission, if otherwise disposed,
would not dare to be remiss in duties. If, however, there
should be any hesitation about making all at once a change so
sweeping, and the adoption of a new system should be delayed
from any cause, it seems very desirable that a department or a
commission should be established to act as an advisory board,
helping the towns, if possible, out of some of their perplexities
in regard to the care of their roads ; to collect statistics and ar-

308 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

range them, and to gather facts and compare them, so as to fur-
nish information, in a systematic form, upon which to base
future legislation, and in such other ways, as may be found use-
ful, to promote the object of improving the character of the
roads throughout the State.

Reliable information upon nearly every particular in regard
to the roads is needed. It would be useful to know the number
of miles of roads there are in each town in the State, the cost
per mile for keeping them in repairs, and how made, what ma-
terials are used, the condition of the roads respectively, &c.

It would be well, too, to know, in this connection, what, in
the several parts of the State, is considered a load for a horse,
and. what is the average rate of speed, with fair driving, for
light carriages.

There occur other useful inquiries which might be made,
such as : what number of surveyors are usually chosen ? whether
steam-crushers or rollers are used ? what damages, if any, the
town has suffered from defects in roads and bridges ? &c.

Intelligent answers to these and like queries, which the com-
mission in question might be authorized to obtain, would natu-
rally help the judgment in deciding what legislation is necessary.

Good Workmen and Neatness.

A reason not before mentioned why the system here advocated
should be substituted for the present one, is that under it the
laborers would be selected for their intelligence or aptitude, and
those proving superior workmen would be retained permanently
in the service ; they would soon become expert in their duties,
and do their work with celerity and neatness. The performance
of a good workman will have a neat and finished appearance ;
or as the phrase is, a workmanlike look.

There is no excuse but stolid indifference, for the slovenly,
and unsightly appearance of the borders of many of our roads.
All rubbish, dead leaves, and loose stones should be removed
from thence, and not allowed sensibly to accumulate. This duty
should be strictly required, so that the track-way should be kept
in order. The waste matter from the surface of the road and
the gutters is valuable for manure, and if swept into heaps,
would be carried away gladly for its worth by people living near,
but in no case should it be thrown out upon the sides.

LAYING OUT NEW EOADS. 309

The slopes of the cuttings and embankments, ought to be
neatly trimmed, and grassed over, and not be permitted to wear
the ragged look now too common. The cost of keeping the bor-
ders of the roads in this way would be trifling, and would influ-
ence the residents upon them to keep their grounds, and dwell-
ings in a better condition. A man will dress better, and use
choicer language, when among gentlemen than when among
clowns.

This system is intended to apply only to the highways or
county roads. The care of the town roads, those established by
the town for local convenience, may be left, as now, if thought
best, in the hands of the town authorities.

County Commissioners.
The present method of laying out new roads, or altering the
lines of the old ones by the county commissioners need not be
changed, except that for a projected new road or alterations,
the surveys, maps, profiles, estimates of cost, etc., shall be made
under tlie direction of the chief of division, or resident engineer,
of the county or district, and when ordered the new road shall
be constructed, or the old one rebuilt under his charge. At
present the county commissioners are liable to make mistakes in
the location of roads, sometimes involving needless expense in
their construction, and do so by establishing inferior routes,
with steeper slopes than need be, or with greater deviations than
are demanded by public interests or required by the nature of
the ground. Not appreciating the importance of employing a
competent engineer to ascertain the best route, and therefore
not feeling justified in incurring a slightly greater expense, or be-
ing willing to gratify an importunate neighbor, they generally get
a land surveyor, who knows nothing of road making, to mark out
the line and to determine (rudely perhaps) the elevations along
it, as well as calculate in a rough way the cubic contents of the
cuts and fills, and reserve to themselves the duty of drawing up
specifications which vaguely indicate the manner in which the
work shall be done. It is next to impossible in this way, to
avoid making mistakes. No one with an unpractised eye can
select the best ground, where there is any choice, upon which to
build a road, nor can any one with the use of instruments, with-
out skill acquired from practice, fix upon the most feasible line

310 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE.

without mucli unnecessary labor. The commissioners are
usually men of other professions and share probably the mis-
taken estimation in which engineers are held by the public gen-
erally. The common impression that engineers are extravagant,
and that they look only to the achievement of ends, without re-
gard to expense, is exactly the reverse of the fact. Their great
aim and study is economy ; economy in every form consistent
with durability and adaptedness for use ; economy of money, ma-
terial, time and labor. This may be said to be the secret of the
profession. Without this economy very few of the great modern
works would have been accomplished ; for it is only by applying
labor and means to the very best advantage, and arranging costly
materials in structures with scientific accuracy, so as to secure
the greatest strength and durability, with the least possible ex-
penditure of materials, that such works have been made practi-
cable, or perhaps possible.

Should the system here proposed not meet at once with a
favorable consideration, it is to be hoped that some different way
of constructing new roads will be adopted. Let there be a resident
engineer appointed for each county, who shall be employed by
the commissioners to make the necessary surveys, &c., for pro-
jected roads, and superintend the construction according to a
standard fixed by law.

If the people were as clamorous for good roads as for new
ones, there would be less call for new ones, and the whole com-
munity would be benefited.

Another and final reason for the adoption of some system of
responsible superintendence in the construction and care of roads,
is that streams are often obstructed and their habits changed, by
the improper location or construction of bridges. Much injury
sometimes results from these causes. In flat lands, upon slow-
flowing streams, large tracks are sometimes flooded more, and for
longer periods, from a deficiency of water-way under a bridge, or
some other mischievous interference with the natural current by
the structure. In hilly regions, the bridges themselves are some-
times swept away and great injury is done to property on the
borders of streams, from ignorance or carelessness in cramping
a swollen torrent into too narrow a space by the misplacement
of the abutments and piers of bridges, in order to shorten the
span a few feet.

JUST TRY GOOD ROADS. 311

The drainage of lands, now held to be so important for agri-
cultural and sanitary reasons, is very commonly injured or
wholly prevented, from the want of proper culverts under roads.

The writer has often been told by Western farmers, living on
lines of railroads, that they had at first been opposed to the
roads crossing their lands as a serious damage, but that they
had found that the drainage effected by the cuttings in the soil,
more than compensated for the damage done by dividing up
their fields. The building of a road, if properly managed, need
at least be no injury to the drainage of lands, and in many case^
should be a benefit.

Any person who has ever had experience in travelling upon
our roads in their worst condition in the spring months of the
year, will be thankful for any plan, within the public means, of
making it comfortable ; and when the people of the State be-
come convinced that the evil of bad roads is not necessarily in-
surmountable, a remedy of some kind, more or less effective,
will be applied. If it were possible to present the contrast be-
tween the present imperfect roads and well-made ones to actual
view, no one would hesitate to accept any practicable method of
insuring the well-made ones. Could the people have a trial, for
a day, of perfectly good roads, they would never again do with-
out them, if means and skill within reach could command them.

The plan proposed in this paper is believed to be the best that
can be offered, and is submitted with confidence to the consid-
eration of the people and law-makers of the Commonwealth.

The State of Massachusetts is usually foremost in the march
of improvement, and it is to be hoped that she will head the
advance in this new way of progress, which so plainly leads to
an increase of prosperity and a still higher grade of civilization.

The work lies straight ahead ; and with the leadership of His
Excellency the governor, and the ready response of the leg-
islature, there is a fair promise that we shall soon achieve one
of the greatest and most needed of public improvements — a
grand and complete system of really good common roads.

Dedham, January 28, 1870.

INDEX

TO THE SECRETAET'S REPORT.

Action of coal ashes on soils, 46, 49, 51, 52

Aftermath, treatment of, ..... . 85, 87, 89, 93, 94, 160, 161, 166

Agassiz, Prof L., lecture by, 127,138,141

Agricultural College, its importance, 175, 176

Agricultural College, Report of Committee on, 205, 208

Agricultural Colleges, duty of, 73, 183, 184

Agricultural education, importance of, 184, 186, 187

Agriculture, development of in Massachusetts, 176, 177

Agriculture, uses of salt in, 18, 24, 30, 40

Analyses of different kinds of salt, 26, 27^ 30, 31

Animal life, salt as a promoter of, 31

Apple-bud moth, 235

Apple-trees, soils best adapted for growth of, 120

Apple-worm, a new and destructive variety, 110, 118

Apples, select list of for cultivation in Massachusetts, 233

Apples should ripen on the tree, 100

Ashes, effects of on certain soils, 43, 44, 45, 47

Ashes, leached and unleached, compared, 42, 44, 46, 47

Ashes, use of as a manure, 42, 45, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 60

Autumn feeding of cows, 84

Ayrshires, characteristics of, 83

Barnyard manures and their value, 57

Bean weevil, 251

Berkshire County, characteristics of, 13, 15, 16

Berkshire County, crops in, 11, 12

Board of Agriculture, annual meeting of, 192, 195, 208, 219, 229

Board of Agriculture, public meeting of, ... . 11, 61, 76, 95, 127, 141, 175

Black bass, habits of the, 133

Blood, human, analysis of, 34, 35

Breaking colts 204

Breeding and training of horses, essay upon, 202, 206

Breeding habits of the salmonidoe, 132

Breeding mares should possess certain qualities, 203

Butter and cheese, product of in the State, 77

Butter, characteristics of, 29

Butter, rules for treatment of, 30

Butter, salt for, 27, 28, 29

Cherry, insects infesting the, 238

Corn sphenophorus, 253

Cranberry vine, insects injuring the, 239

Cranberry weevil, 242

40*

314 INDEX.

Page.

Cranberry worm, 241

Currant, insects injuring the, 243

Dairy cow, characteristics of the, 79, 80

Dairy salt, description of best, 27, 29

Dairy salt, objectionable kind of, 28

Dairy stock, extent of in Massachusetts, 77

Dairy stock, discussion on, 76, 80, 90, 94

Decline of varieties of the pear, 104

Delegates to societies, appointment of, ■ . . . • 230

Difficulties in fruit raising in New England, 97

Domestic animals, salt for, 31, 32

Draining lands, importance of, 199, 225

Effect of salt on soils, 36, 37, 40, 43, 54, 56, 57, 60

Exhaustion of soils, 142, 143, 144

Experiments, 69, 70

Experiments are not always reliable, 69, 70, 155, 156

Experiments in Agriculture not without value, 70, 71, 155, 156

Experiments should be made carefullj' and repeatedly, . . . ■ . 68, 70, 71
Experiments, value of a series of in different States, 74

Facts needed for the guidance of the agriculturist, 64, 65

Fall feeding of mowing lands, 85, 86, 89, 90, 93

Farmer and the College, lecture on the, 175, 180, 190

Farmers' institutes, report on plan of, 192, 144

Feeding stock at a disadvantage, 79

Female education, importance of in agriculture, 188

Fern bark louse, 259

Fish breeding, lecture on, 127, 136, 141

Fish, as food for the brain, 129

Foote, Asahel, remarks by, 41, 111

Forests, influence of on the water-fall, 227

Forests, rotation in, 146, 147

Fruit culture, discussion on, 110, 115, 122, 127

Fruit culture, lecture on, 95, 98, 103

Fruit culture, report on, 232, 234

Fruit houses, management of, 102, 103, 124

Fruit houses, value of, 101

Fruit raising in New England, difficulties in, 97, 120

Fruit trees, care of, 97, 120

Fruits, early cropping of, 108

Fruits, methods for producing new varieties of native, .... 104, 105, 107, 111
Fruits, preservation and ripening of, . . . 100, 118

Gas lime, value of, 50

Grape culture profitable, 123

Grapes, list of varieties suitable for culture in Massachusetts, .... 234

Grass lands, treatment of, 85, 86, 89, 90, 93, 94, 160, 161, 167

Great Barrington, cattle disease in, 7, 9, 11

Goodman, R., remarks by, 15, 55

Goessman, Prof. C. A., lecture by, 18, 30, 40

Herbivorous animals, salt for, 33, 35

Horses, breeding and training of, essay on, 202, 207

INDEX. 315

Horse-fly, habits of the, 256

Hot-house thrips, 263

Hybridization as a means of procuring new varieties of fruit, , . . . 107

Hyde, Alexander, essay by, 11, 219-229

Insects injurious to agriculture, report on, 235, 250, 263

Insects injurious to the apple, 235

Insects injurious to the cherry, 238

Insects injurious to the cranberrj' vine, 239

Insects injurious to the currant, 243

Insects injurious to garden vegetables, 251

Insects injurious to the oak 245

Insects injurious to ornamental shrubs, 249

Insects injurious to the pine, 245

Insects injurious to the raspberry, 244

Jerseys, value of for butter making, 91,92

Loring, Dr. George B., lecture by, 175, 180, 190

Mangolds, cultivation of, 165

Manures, special for special crops, 147, 150, 198

Manures, treatment of, 213, 214, 215

Mares for breeding should possess certain qualities, 203

Meat packing, use of salt in, 24, 25

Methods for producing new varieties of native fruits, 104, 105, 111

Methods of rearing calves, 81, 82

Mineral manures, discussion on, 40, 50, 58

Moore, John B., essay by, 195, 198, 202

Mowing lands, fall feeding of, 85, 86, 89, 90, 93

Muck, essay upon, 211-218

Oak, insects injuring the, 245

Obstacles to the progress of scientific agriculture, 61, 67, 75

Onions grow best for successive years on the same land, 168

Orange bark louse, 259

Packard, Dr. A. S., report on insects by, 235, 250, 263

Peaches in New England, 123, 125

Pear, gradual decline of varieties of the, 104

Pears, list of varieties preferable for culture, 233, 234

Pears, methods and importance of producing new varieties, . . . 104, 106, 107

Peat compost, method of making, 215

Pine, insects injuring the, 245

Plant food, 42, 43, 44

Plant-house insects, 257, 261

Ploughing should be done carefully, 195, 196

Porter, H. S., essay by, 202, 205

Preparation of soil for pear-trees, 115

Preservation and ripening of fruits, . , 108

Raspberry, insects injurious to the, 244

Report of commissioners on contagious diseases among cattle, .... 6

Rotation of crops, discussion on, ....... . 154, 157, 158, 167

Rotation of crops, lecture on, 142, 154

Root crops, importance of, 163, 168

Roots, length of, 115, 125, 126, 160

316 INDEX.

Page.

Salmon eggs, time required to hatch, 138

Salmonidffi, habits of the, 132

Salt and its uses in agriculture, lecture on, 18, 24, 30, 40, 57

Salt, analyses of different kinds of, 26, 27, 30, 31

Salt as a promoter of vegetable growth, 36, 38, 40, 57, 59, 165

Salt, chemical constitution of, 18, 21, 23

Salt for domestic animals, 31, 32, 60

Salt for the dairy, 27, 29

Salt for mangolds, 165

Salt for meat-packing, 24, 25

Salt injurious to many field crops, 37,54

Salt, necessary quantity of for butter and cheese, 28

Salt, on different soils acts differently, 55, 56

Salt, proper amount and application of, 60, 165

Saltonstall, Leverett, essay by, 211-218

Seed, importance of selecting the best for planting, 200

Seeds, methods of planting different, 201

Seedling fruits, experiments with, 112, 113, 117

Shorthorns for beef, 81, 92

Shorthorns for milk, 86, 88

Soil, certain conditions of the, necessary for plant growth, 43

Soil, preparation of for pear-trees, 115

Soil, preparation of and planting of the seed, essay on, .... 195, 198, 202

Soils best for apple-trees, . . • 120

Soils, exhaustion of, 142, 143, 144

Soils of New England, elements needed in, 47

Special farming alone successful in New England, 153

Special manures for special crops, 147, 150, 198

Stassfurth dungsalt, analysis of, 39

Stockbridge, Levi, lecture by, 142, 154

Sunlight is of greatest importance to all living things, 223

Temperature affected by drainage, 225

Thatcher, T. D., report by, 209, 211

The farmer and the college, lecture on, ....... 175, 180, 190

Thompson, James, remarks by, 48, 49

Tobacco crop, importance of in this State, 152, 153

Tobacco in rotation with other crops, 153

Trout eggs, time of hatching, 138

Trout must be fed regularly and abundantly, 134

Turnip, characteristics of growth of the, 163

Turnip crop, importance of in England, 163, 168, 173

Turnip, cultivation of the, 163, 164, 172

Turnips for horses, 169, 170

Water, volume of in streams affected by forests, 227

Wheat growing in New England, 153, 159, 162

Wilder, Marshall P., lecture by, 95, 98, 103

Wilder, Marshall P., report by, 232, 234

Winter feeding of cows, 83, 84

Wood ashes and their value, 42, 44, 47, 50, 52

Worms in apples, . . . i 110, 118

INDEX. 317

INDEX

TO THE ABSTRACT.

Page.

Agricultural College, value of, 6, 7

Agricultural education, importance of, 80, 89

Agricultural fairs and their purposes, address on, 55, 62

Agricultural labor not benefited by association, 21, 27

Agricultural production, why it had not increased, 20, 21, 22

Agricultural schools in Europe, 73

Agricultural science is empirical, 68, 69

Agriculture, importance of study in, 47, 48

Agriculture in Massachusetts, decline of, 83, 84, 85, 92, 102, 104

Agriculture in Massachusetts, essay on, 83, 91

Agriculture of Massachusetts, address on, 1, 10, 16

American dairying, value of, 198

Animals and plants, their functions similar, 35, 36

Apple, cultivation of the, and its importance, 125

Artificial fertilizers should be used understandingly, 109, 110

Ayrshires and their value, 170, 171, 175, 177

Baden, system of constructing roads in, 221, 235, 254, 255, 256

Bascom, Prof. J, address by, 55, 62

Beets, cultivation of, 137

Bone meal for poultry, 188

Brahmas, standard of points of excellence in 189

Brahmas, value of, 185, 189

Breeds of cattle will adapt themselves to any locality, 3

Buds and their history, 33, 36, 39

Bulls, reports on, 166, 176, 178

Butler, Benj. F., address by, 17, 25, 33

Butter, manufacture of, 195, 198

Butter, product of, annually, 198

Cabbages, best varieties of, and their culture, 139, 140

Calves and their management, 173, 174

Carrots for the table, and for stock, 136

Change of system in management of roads required, 303

Cheese and its manufacture, 196, 197, 198, 199

Cheese factories, number of in New York and Massachusetts, .... 199

Circulation of the sap in plants, 42, 43

Committees at fairs, duties of, 58

Cranberry meadows, treatment of, 155

Crevecoeurs, characteristics of, 185

Crops in Massachusetts past and present, . 85, 87

Dairy products, report on, 193, 196, 198

Davis, A. B., report by, 186, 188

Decline of agriculture in Massachusetts, 83, 84, 85

Development of the bud and seed, 38, 39, 40

318 INDEX.

Page.

Discussion of the labor question, widely spread, 18, 19

Drainage in roads, importance of, 217, 273, 285

Drains and culverts in roads, 217, 273, 275, 285, 286

Early cattle shows in Berkshire County, 63, 64

Earths, cost of moving different, 213, 214, 243

Eggs and poultry, annual production of, 192

Essex County, crops in, in former years, 78

Experience of a practical farmer, 1, 10, 16

Experiments in roads and transportation, 245, 261

Fancy farmers, 104

Farmer's conflict, address on, 76-82

Farming in Essex County, does it paj', 8, 9

Farm implements, report on, . . . 168, 169

Farm labor, why there can be no strike in, 20

Farms, reports on, 92, 93, 97, 102

Fat oxen, report on, 168, 169

Fertilizers, artificial, are not always reliable, 109, 110

Fisher, Jabez, report by, 150-154

Foundation roads, 221

Fruit-growing is an art, 151

Fruits, reports on, 146, 148, 150

Game fowls, value of, 190

Gladden, Rev. W., address by, 45, 50, 54

Good farming is not niggardly, 99

Goodman, K., address by, 63, 70, 75 169, 173

Grades, report on, 164

Grades on roads, 209, 268, 288, 290

Grafts exert an influence on the parent stock, 5

Graham, E., report by, 156-160

Grape culture, profits in, 114, 117, 118, 123

Grape-vine, yield of a single, 114

Grape, management of the, 117, 119, 122, 147

Grapes will grow on almost any soil, 114

Grain crops, statements on, 126, 127

Grass, proper time for cutting, 37, 38

Green crops as fertilizers, 143, 144

Gregory, J. J. H., report by, 135, 138, 140, 143

Herds of cattle, reports on, 161-164

Highway commissioners, board of, recommended, 279

Horse-racing at fairs, 60, 61

Howard, James, statement of, 129, 130

Importance of study in agriculture, 47, 48

Improvement and repair of roads, 298

Improvement of meadows and swamp lands, statement on, 106

Indian corn, statements on, 127, 128

Influence of agricultural fairs, 56, 57, 62

Insects injurious to field crops, method for extirpating, 9

Jerseys and their value, 170, 171, 172, 175, 176, 179, 181

Jerseys, number of, in the United ^tates, 179, 180

INDEX. 319

Page.

Kelley, E. G., report of, 93-96

J. S., report by, 161-163

Labor question, discussion of the, is widely spread, 18, 19

Lane, Augustus, report by, 174-176

Laying out a road, 211, 217, 265

Legislative aids to agriculture, address on, 17, 25, 33

Leghorns, value of, 184, 185

Lincoln, A., report by, 198. 199

Loring, Dr. Geo. B., address by, 76-82

Macadamizing roads, 221, 222, 227, 235

Macy, Alex. Jr., report by, 143-146

Management of roads, proposed system of, 305, 307

Mangolds, cultivation of, 137

Mangolds, feeding qualities of, 3, 137, 138

Mangolds, statement on, 133

Manures, judgment should be exercised in their application, .... 103

Manures, report on, 108

Manures, statements on, 108-113

Meadow and swamp lands, improvement of, statement on, 106, 107

Milch cows and their management, 13, 18, 182, 194, 195

Milch cows are profitable only when good ones are kept, . . .13, 18, 182, 194

Milk, product of, in the country, 181, 182

Modern farmer, requisites of, 7

Moore, J. B., statements of, 116

Moore, J. H., statement of, • 184-186

Onions, best varieties of, 139

Onion blight and smut, 10

Onion crop, importance and value of, 2, 14, 15

Onion maggot, habits of, 9

Opportunities of the New England farmer, address on, ... . 63, 70, 75
Orchards and vineyards, reports on, 113, 116, 119, 121, 123

Parsnips, their culture and uses, 136

Pavements and trackways, 240

Pears, reports on, 148, 149

Perkins, C. 0., report by, . . 173, 174

Persistence in cultivating special crops usually succeeds, 15, 16

Plant life, address on, 34, 40, 44

Ploughing, proper methods of, 157, 158

Porter, J., report by, 149, 150

Pototo rot, cause of, ... 11

Potatoes, statements on, 131, 132

Poultry, feeding and management of, 184, 185, 187

Poultry keeping, profit in, 192, 193

Poultry, reports on, 186, 188

Poultry, statements on, 184, 193

Poultr}^, value of different breeds of, . . . 184, 185

Power required to move a load on different roads, 243, 245, 269

Propagation of plants effected in various ways, 35, 36

Proper time for cutting grass, 37, 38

Purposes of agricultural fairs, 55-62

Putnam, Wm. R., statement of, . . • 110, 111

320 INDEX.

Reed, J. P., report by, 166-168

Relation of soil culture to soul culture, address on, 45-54

Repair of roads, systems of, 233, 236, 237, 277, 298

Requisites for profitable farming, 12

Resolve concerning the construction and repair of roads, 204

Roads, grades and classes of, 289, 292

Road-rollers, their construction and use, 228, 229

Rodman, E., report by, 188, 193

Root crops, statements on, 131, 132, 133, 134

Rural life, advantages of, 47, 48, 72

Rural life favorable to study and culture, 46, 47, 48

Rural population of Massachusetts, why it has decreased 85, 86

Seed, the best only should be selected for planting, 14, 15, 142

Sheep, care and management of, 183, 184

Sheep, report on 182-184

Sherman, I. H., report by, 154-156

Shorthorns and their value, 170, 177

Soil of the older States has become exhausted, 78, 102

Soil culture and soul culture, relations between, address on, ... 45, 50, 54

Slow profits in farming, a stumbling block, 52,53

Special legislation, and its evils, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31, 90

Squashes, characteristics of different, 140

Stock exerts no influence on a graft, 5

Stock, reports on, 161, 170, 182

Stone-breakers, their description and use, 223

Stone, Eliphalet, address by, 34, 40, 44

Swedish turnips, statement on, 134, 135

Swedish turnips, varieties and culture of, 138

Thoroughbred dairy cows, report on, 166, 169, 173, 174, 175

Thoroughbred seed only should be planted, 14, 15, 16

Unimproved land of the State, 80, 124

Vegetables, culture of, 145

Vegetables, reports on, 135, 143

Vineyard, cost of setting one, 117, 118, 123

Vineyard, management of, 117, 118, 119, 122

Walker, Freeman, report by, 193, 198

"Ware, Benj. P., address by, 1, 10, 16

Wheat, statements on, 130

Why the rural population of Massachusetts has decreased, 85, 86

Working oxen, report on, 164-166

Yield of a single grape-vine, 114