No. 112.] 843 



promote its procluctivne=s, were borne into the forests and there 

 consumed. At tlie approach of spring, the settlet* leturned 

 to his farm, himself and his team, prostrated by the severe la- 

 bors of the winter, and illy prepared to perform the recurring 

 duties which pressed upon him. He conducts his forming 

 operations imperfectly and without skill. He has no deposits 

 of manner to apply to his wasting soil. Tlie earth, by con- 

 stant tillage, without renovation, becomes impoverished. Each 

 succeeding year witnesses a decrease in the harvest. The land, 

 exhausted by this improvident management, is denounced worth- 

 less in its soil, and without fertility, and abandoned to briers and 

 desolation, or is sacrificed to some shrewd purchaser, and its own- 

 er, emigrates to new^ scenes, to pass through the same alternations. 

 In this stage of society, agriculture is the secondary and subor- 

 dinate occupation. 



The lumbering business closed, the farmer resumes his first 

 duties, and yields to the land the labor and care required for 

 its successful cultivation. In a manufacturing district, and such 

 is pre-eminently Essex county, the teaming upon the road, which 

 abstracts so much of the time of the farmer, and the lertilizing 

 riches of the farm, from his land, exercises a similar, although 

 far less disastrous etfect, upon its agricultural prosperity. 



Other causes of the slow progress in the agricultural im- 

 provement of this County are suggested by an intelligent co> 

 respondent,* in reference to Crown Point, but its traces are ex- 

 hibited in various other parts of the county. " Conflicting titles 

 have cast a shade over some large tracts," and in other districts 

 " much of the land has been occu[)ied under contracts, in their 

 terms liable to constant forfeiture." Tenures of property so frail 

 and contingent in every region, paralyse the dlbrls of industry 

 and enterpiiae. 



No uniform system of tillage seems to have been observed, 

 immediately succeeding the clearing and burning of the ialK>w8. 

 Wheat, rye and oats were often, paiticuhirly on tie adhesive and 

 clay soil dragged in upon the burnt surface. In other parts of 

 the c( unty, potatoes or corn were the first cro]). This hus!>andry 



• C. Fcnton, Esq. 



