312 BOAED OF AGEICULTUEE. 



The past season has been, in many respects, propitious, and 

 the farming of the Commonwealth reasonably prosperous. 

 The crops of hay and fruits have been better than usual. As 

 I have already shown, in the earlier part of this Report, the 

 returns of the United States census of 1870 are so defective 

 that it is impossible to arrive at any near approximation to 

 the comparative condition of our agriculture at the present 

 time. The large number of farms entirely overlooked in 

 sratherinsr the statistics of the census, vitiated all the agricul- 

 tural returns of every description. That such is the case 

 appears from the fact that the total number of acres recog- 

 nized in the census, including woodland and all improved and 

 unimproved land of every kind, is but little more than half 

 the actual acreage of the State. The area of this State, for 

 instance, is about five millions of acres, or more accurately 

 4,992,000 acres, while the number of acres covered by or em- 

 braced in the census is only 2,730,283, a discrepancy of over 

 two million two hundred and sixty thousand acres, altogether 

 too large to be accounted for on any other supposition than a 

 failure to find a large number of farms, a fact which appears 

 also plainly enough on a comparison with the official returns 

 of this Commonwealth. It is believed, however, that our 

 agriculture, like all the other industrial interests of the State, 

 has made a reasonable degree of progress, and that more 

 trustworthy statistics will give sufficient ground for hopeful- 

 ness and prosperity in the future. 



CHAELES L. FLINT, 



Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture. 



BosTOX, January, 1873. 



