AGRICULTURE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



EARLY FARMING OF ESSEX COUNTY, 



From an Address before the Essex Agricultural Society, Oct. 1, 1856. 



BY ben: perley poore. 



Thanks to the iucliistrious antiquarians, who have gleaned 

 from manuscripts, traditions and old publications, almost every 

 detail of the domestic life of the first settlers, we can consti- 

 tute ourselves a " committee on farms " and in imagination 

 visit one of the early yeomen. Riding along a " trail," indi- 

 cated by marked trees, we find his house and cattle-shed 

 standing near an old Indian clearing, encircled by a high 

 palisade, which also includes the spring, that water may be 

 brought without danger from the " bloody salvages." The 

 house, vdiich is over a small, deep cellar, is built of logs, 

 notched where they meet at the corners, with a thatched roof, 

 and a large chimney at one end built of stones cemented 

 with clay. The small windows are covered with oiled paper, 

 with protecting shutters, and the massive door is thick enough 

 to be bullet proof. Pulling the " latch-string," we enter, and 

 find that the floor, and the floor of the loft which forms the 

 ceiling, are made of " rifted" or split pine, roughly smoothed 

 with the adze, while the immense hearth, occupying nearly an 

 entire side of the house, is of large flat stones. There are no 

 partition walls, but thick serge curtains are so hung that at 

 night they divide oft" the flock-beds upon which are piles of 



