FARMS. 165 



where there is so large a proportion of comparatively unpro- 

 ductive swamps. They consequently recommend that the first 

 premium of a diploma and thirty dollars be awarded to Daniel 

 F. Appleton of Ipswich. 



Dr. James R. Nichols kindly invited the committee, with the 

 trustees and a number of prominent Essex County agriculturists, 

 to visit his "Lakeside Farm," although it was not entered for 

 premium. Had it been brought before the notice of your com- 

 mittee officially, they would probably have simply reproduced 

 Dr. Nichols's own comprehensive accounts of his experimental 

 agriculture, published in his valuable " Journal of Chemistry," 

 and also those given in the agricultural address which he de- 

 livered at Amesbury in September. Applying chemical science 

 to agriculture, Dr. Nichols has made inquiries into the causes 

 of the fertility and barrenness of the earth, the food and nutri- 

 ment of vegetation, the nature of the soil, and the best means 

 of meliorating its condition. Recognizing the fact that it is 

 as necessary for a good farmer <o feed his fields as it is to feed 

 his cattle, he has endeavored to ascertain what elements have 

 been abstracted from the soil of his farm, and to restore them 

 or their chemical equivalents. Your committee recommend 

 that he should be rewarded for the experiments which he has so 

 carefully made, and encouraged to continue them, by an award 

 of the diploma of the society. 



In conclusion, the committee must express an earnest wish 

 that the working farmers of Essex County may be induced to 

 compete for the premiums of the society for " the best managed 

 farms." Our wealth owes its origin to productive labor, and if 

 some of our thrifty yeomen would tell how they manage their 

 farms, often small in extent, and what their profits are on the 

 amount of capital invested therein, it could but increase the 

 number of cultivators of the soil. It may be safely asserted 

 that every industrious, temperate farmer in Essex County who 

 scatters the seed in faith, reaps the harvest in joy ; and that 

 although manufacturers and merchants occasionally draw prizes 

 in their lotteries of life, the farmers enjoy health, contentment, 

 independence, and a competence — the true earthly elements of 

 human happiness. 



Ben Perley Poore, Chairman. 



