10 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



business of the people ; and under the influence of such minds 

 as I have alluded to, and, more than that, under the stimu- 

 lating influence of agricultural prosperity here, the primitive 

 farming of Essex County became one of the most advanced 

 and prosperous branches of agriculture in the whole Com- 

 monwealth. The soil here was filled with virgin fertility; it 

 was not necessary, then, to resort to those artificial modes 

 of agriculture which are now so necessary in order to grow a 

 crop. The whole business was simple, and the great crops 

 were brought forth here almost spontaneously by a bountiful 

 nature. I remember one of the records kept in this county, 

 less than a century ago, in which it was stated that under the 

 ordinary cultivation of the soil, 750 bushels of potatoes had 

 been raised upon one acre of land, and 650 bushels of carrots, 

 850 bushels of ruta-bagas (Swedish turnips) and 1,050 bush- 

 els of mangold-wurzels ; and upon ten acres of land, for 

 thirty years, there had been produced an average of three 

 tons of hay to the acre, — land that had not been broken by 

 the plough in all that time, but had received at the hand of the 

 cultivator a fair and proper top-dressing from year to year. 

 That Avas the agriculture of those times. It was simple, 

 economical, primitive, prosperous, profitable ; and the market 

 of those farmers was of such a description throughout this 

 county and the neighboring counties of Suffolk and Middle- 

 sex, that prosperity attended the agriculture of this part of 

 the State with more constanc}' and reliability than prosperity 

 now attends any more active and vigorous branch of busi- 

 ness or any commercial occupation now known in this Com- 

 monwealth. It was primitive, as I say, because there was no 

 necessity for the application of that skill and care which we 

 now depend upon. Why, gentlemen, you know well, that 

 the condition of pasture-lands here in the early days was 

 such that any man who fed his cattle upon those pastures 

 could absolutely defy all the laws of breeding and all those 

 physiological laws which are now considered so important to 

 the cattle-breeder. It was in this county, for instance, that 

 the ftimous Oakes cow, known in the early annals of agri- 

 culture, reached her distinction. The Oakes cow, the queen 

 of all cows in those early days, was fed and made her record 

 within the limits of this county. She made a great record 



