160 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



England are not inferior in natural intelligence to any other 

 class of the community, they possess as a body less of that ac- 

 quired knowledge which specially relates to the art by which 

 they live, than those occupied in manufacturing or commercial 

 pursuits. In Essex County, however, our yeoman have, during 

 the past fifty years, been able to profit, when they so desired, by 

 the visible teachings of their neighboring " fancy farmers," 

 who, with no small outlay- of money (and often for their own 

 amusement rather than from any desire to educate others) have 

 diffused valuable knowledge by experiments, generally profitless 

 in a pecuniary point of view to themselves. As a general thing, 

 a thrifty, industrious, working farmer, pays little heed to the 

 theoretical harangues of any soft-handed man of leisure, but if 

 he can witness, year by year, the results of a practical operation 

 of these same theories, either good or bad, his sterling Yankee 

 good sense leads him to adopt or to reject the example thus set 

 him. In this way, the often sneered-at " fancy farmers " of 

 Essex County have done great good, either by practically demon- 

 strating that it is profitable to leave the same old ruts that have 

 deepened year by year, for the highway of progress ; or by con- 

 clusively proving how worthless are many of the much talked of 

 fashionable agricultural theories. 



Your committee, instructed to examine one of these so-called 

 " fancy farms," witnessed its improvement and its management 

 with great interest ; and it is to be hoped that the following im- 

 perfect sketch of it may induce many of the farmers of Essex 

 County, especially those owning low unproductive land, to make 

 a personal examination for their own instruction. 



The " Appleton Farm" is in Ipswich, about two miles south 

 of the village, and on the line of the Eastern Railroad. It is a 

 homestead, having been in the possession of the family whose 

 name it bears since 1635, and it is now owned by Daniel P. 

 Appleton, who is also engaged in successful business operations 

 elsewhere, but who directs its management, much of which he 

 personally superintends. The good results of his mercantile sys- 

 tem, and of the methodical employment of capital in improving 

 the estate and the stock upon it, are plainly visible, and demon- 

 strate that it would be well for many of our successful working 

 farmers to invest more of their gains from their farms in blooded 

 stock, manures, labor and ditch-tile, rather than in bonds or 



