320 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



greater or less extent been under cultivation for a period of 

 about one hundred and seventy years This cultivation at first 

 was very rude, and in consequence of the circumstances of the 

 people, was a struggle to wring subsistence from the soil without 

 any regard to the preservation of its fertility. Necessity at first 

 compelled to this course, but although the pecuniary condi- 

 tion of the farmers was soon much improved, but little change 

 was made in their system of cultivation for a hundred years. 

 Their staple products were wheat, rye, corn and cattle. In the 

 wooded portion of the country the dense forests were felled, and 

 most of them burned on the land, after which, with very poor cul- 

 tivation, it for several years annually produced crops of grain of 

 from thirty to forty bushels per acre. A large proportion of these 

 lands, which from their rocky or precipitous character it was 

 difficult to cultivate, were then devoted to the growing of stock 

 and the feeding of milch cows. Other lands which could be 

 readily ploughed, were, from father to son for generations, kept 

 under triennial rotation with cattle or sheep, and grain, two 

 years in pasture, and one in grain, blindly trusting in Provi- 

 dence, and their sheep, to keep up the laud while they sent all 

 its products away. After the settlers had become secure in their 

 possessions, and prosperous, large quantities of their grain prod- 

 ucts were transported down the river to Hartford and across 

 the country to Boston and thence to a foreign market. They 

 always sent to market large numbers of cattle, and eventually 

 dairy products, but during the first fifty years of the present 

 century kept most of their grain at home, using it to stall-feed 

 cattle. At different times their system of cultivation has been 

 varied by the introduction of other crops. Flax was cultivated 

 early and for a long time, and hemp and teazles have been grown 

 to some extent. About the commencement of the present cen- 

 tury began the cultivation of broom corn, both as a money crop 

 to be sold and to produce stock feed. Its cultivation was prof- 

 itable, and as its seed and stalks were left, it was not exhaust- 

 ing to the land. With the exception of hay it was the leading 

 crop from 1830 to 1850, and was largely cultivated several years 

 later. In 1855 the town of Hadley cultivated about a thousand 

 acres of broom corn, but in 1865 it had decreased to less than 

 one hundred, and at the present time its cultivation has practi- 

 cally ceased. The causes which led to a cessation of this busi- 



