FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT 



OF THE 



SECRETARY 



OF THE 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Common- 

 wealth of Massachusetts. 



Another year has come and gone. Taking the State over, 

 to the farming as well as to other industrial interests, it has 

 been marked by a reasonable degree of prosperity. The price 

 of farm labor has increased about sixty per cent, since the 

 outbreak of the rebellion, while the cost of living has perhaps 

 advanced to a much larger extent ; but the prices of farm prod- 

 uce, though considerably higher than they were five years ago, 

 have not, probably, been enhanced in the same ratio. The season 

 has been in the main propitious, and, with few exceptions, the 

 labors of the husbandman have been rewarded by a generous 

 harvest, though the effects of the terrible droughts of the two 

 preceding years have been perceptible in the reduced crops of 

 fruit. 



Upon the whole, therefore, we may congratulate ourselves 

 upon our well-earned success in the practical labors of the farm 

 and the garden. "We have, moreover, been exempt from the 

 disasters which have fallen heavily upon the agricultural 

 interests of some other countries. "We may reasonably entertain 

 the hope that after a long series of well-meant and well-directed 

 efforts, that contagious disease among cattle, known as pleuro- 

 pneumonia, has been eradicated ; while the sad experience of 

 Great Britain in combating a somewhat analogous disease, the 



