122 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



of moisture surely counterbalances any evils which may arise 

 from occasional droughts in this country. Our crops are more 

 sure than English crops, and our animals subject to fewer 

 diseases. English winters are milder, but the best farmers 

 stall feed throughout the winter months. There are no winter 

 crops in England, and the only advantage of a milder winter 

 is the additional labor in some departments of agriculture, 

 which may then be performed. But no good farmer here can 

 be idle in winter ; he has enough to do in Massachusetts. 

 During the four last years not an hour has passed, except an 

 occasional day, when it was too cold for out-of-door work, when 

 the farmer could not work upon his meadows and swamps, his 

 peat bogs and his ditches, and could not improve the best land 

 upon his farm. The English farmer pays from five dollars to 

 twenty dollars an acre for rent of arable land, and he makes 

 money. How is he enabled to do this ? and why is our agri- 

 culture less lucrative and productive ? It is owing to the 

 difference in the market system in the two countries, more than 

 to any other cause. It may be said that it is owing to want 

 of capital, ignorance of system, the necessity of planting a 

 little of every thing, size of fields, want of thoroughness of 

 culture, or various other wants and defects, which all our 

 farmers experience, and all this may be true. But your com- 

 mittee believe that the organization of stated markets through- 

 out the Commonwealth will do more, not only to bring the 

 crop economically to market, but to do away with these wants 

 and defects, than any other single influence. 



Let us look at the methods usually resorted to among our 

 farmers for the disposal of their products. Except upon dairy 

 farms, and upon those which supply some neighboring city with 

 fruits and vegetables, our system of husbandry has become a 

 very mixed one, from the want of a ready and open market. 

 Farmers, as a general rule, raise a little of every thing, and 

 have of course a little, and but a little, of every thing, to 

 sell. At one time it is a cow, at another a calf, at another a 

 few bushels of potatoes, or a firkin or two of butter, and so 

 through the catalogue of agricultural productions. Now any 

 business man, any one who has been concerned in manufac- 

 tures or trade, knows well enough that the more varied the 

 product, the greater is the amount of skill and economy 



