No. 112.] 545 



wheat, 4,000 bushels; t\hile the produce of our orchards is esti- 

 mated at §2.880, an amount, I am confident, quite too small. 

 The produce of our market gardens is valued at §14,412. For 

 the accuracy of this estimate I cannot answer, but am quite sure 

 that if the amount of our garden produce is not, it should be 

 much larger. It is true, we have given some attention to this 

 branch of business ; and more would have been bestowed but for 

 the want of proper facilities for reaching market early. But sure- 

 ly this is an evil which, will correct itself whenever the farmers 

 of any considerable section of the county shall unitedly determine 

 to engage in this business, they will find no lack of means of 

 reaching a market in time to compete with their neighbors of 

 Long Island and New- Jersey. Our close contiguity to tlie city of 

 New- York would seem to impose it upon us almost as a necessity, 

 to convert our farms into gardens. That it is a most profitable 

 sy>tem of farming, needs no further proof than is to be had by 

 crossing the Narrows, where land is selling for gardening pur- 

 poses at rates as high or higher than those obtained here in those 

 localities best suited to the demands of taste or wealth. 



To return; the butter made in the county sells for $34,792; 

 the product of the ladies' department, as is usual, exceeding all 

 others in value, in proportion to the capital invested. Our Jive 

 stock is valued at $81,215, and our farming implements at §46,- 

 480 ; strong evidence of the enterprise of our farmers ; for we 

 may safely venture the assertion that in few places could be found 

 such perliection and variety in agricultural tools as to render them 

 equal in value to half tlie live stock of the farm. If any are dis- 

 posed to cavil at lliis, or place it to theaccountof idleness, or a de- 

 sire for novelty, we will endeavor to show that we fully under* 

 stand and appreciate that perfect tools and machinery save time, 

 which to us is not only money, according to the proverb, but the 

 means of enabling us to obtain what mone}' alone cannot — taste, 

 knowledge, and a correct appreciation of life and its purposes. 



\Vith the scientific and mechanical iniproveraents of the day, 

 as connected with agriculture, all now before me are acquainted. 

 In no place are imi>rovements in machinery, in seeds, in stock, in 



[Ag. Tr '53 ] K K 



