FARMING REMINISCENCES. 13 



to the top-clressing of flattery which most speakers spread over 

 every thing agricultural, — but there the statistics are. There is 

 not a variety of crops, I regret to say, of which our average 

 yield to the acre is not surpassed by some other county, and we 

 cannot therefore lay the slightest claim to agricultural pre- 

 eminence. In Indian corn, rye, barley, oats, onions and 

 turnips, we are just above the average taken throughout 

 the State, and in each other crop, other counties surpass us. 

 Worst of all, in wheat and potatoes, the Anglo-Saxon and the 

 . Celtic staffs of life, we are below the mark. This, too, at a 

 time when " the increase of vegetable food in the United 

 States, has rather fallen behind, than kept up with the progress 

 of population." * 



Some may find comfort by discovering a great increase over 

 the productions reported in 1845, but if they will but read — as 

 every man in this assembly should read — the agricultural sur- 

 vey of the county, made nearly twenty years back, they will 

 again find a sad falling off. Then, we had 6,252 sheep ; now, 

 we have but 2,217 ; although experienced agriculturists have 

 recommended sheep growing as a profitable branch of husbandry, 

 well adapted to our soil and our climate. f Then, the average 

 yield of oats was thirty-three bushels to the acre ; now, it is 

 but twenty-four ; and the wheat crop, most important of all, has 

 diminished down to the average of fourteen bushels per acre. 

 In 1817 the farmers of West Newbury raised 1,325 bushels of 

 wheat on fifty-eight acres of land — an average of over twenty- 

 two bushels to the acre — though our worthy president produced 

 eighty-one bushels to two acres and a half, or thirty-two bushels 

 to the acre. Last year the same town only produced one hun- 

 dred and one bushels on eight acres, or thirteen bushels to the 

 acre. In 1822, the Messrs. Little, of Newbury, raised one 

 hundred and sixteen bushels and nine quarts of sound shelled 

 corn to the acre ; last year, the average yield in the same town 

 was but thirty-eight bushels to the acre. 



This is not as it should be. It will never do for Essex county 



* " Statistics of Agriculture." Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, July, 1856. 



f It has been stated as a reason for this falling off, that our fanners find hay, 

 milk and fruit, more profitable ; yet, in these products, Essex is behind Wor- 

 cester and Middlesex counties. 



