294 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



regretted that so many arc chary of small risks. Perhaps a 

 better way of putting the case would be to say that too many of 

 us arc so attached to the old beaten track that it requires much 

 talking, coaxing, and very often more convincing arguments to 

 drive us out. Be that as it may, we are confident that if some 

 of our agricultural brethren who arc now raising scrubs at hap- 

 hazard would expend a few hundreds of dollars in the purchase 

 of animals adapted to their location — animals whose pedigree 

 could be traced, and reliance placed in them for producing like 

 — they never would return to the helter-skelter practice of 

 scrub-breeding again. We discard the idea of treating the sub- 

 ject in the light of an experiment, for it is a fixed fact. Many 

 have succeeded in raising blood stock after their own pattern, 

 and what has been clone can be again. The fact that some do 

 not succeed does not militate against the theory or the practice. 

 There are some who never succeed in anything they under- 

 take, unless we except the building of air-castles, thus rendering 

 themselves ridiculous, which they seem to do as naturally as a 



dog seeks for offal. 



Asa Clement. 



This Report was also accepted, when the following was 

 submitted upon the 



AGRICULTURE OF MIDDLESEX SOUTH. 



BY J. JOIIXSOX, JH. 



In the commencement of the following statement in regard to 

 a portion of the county of Middlesex, I cannot but feel some 

 degree of hesitation and embarrassment, considering that a 

 minute and interesting report was made so lately as last year 

 upon this section by Capt. John B. Moore, of Concord. 



The Middlesex South Agricultural district comprises eleven 

 towns, with a populatian of forty thousand six hundred and 

 fifty-four. The soil is varied, and generally well adapted to the 

 cultivation of grass, Indian corn, oats and rye. "Wheat crops, 

 in some parts, are frequently raised, which well compare with 

 those in our Western country, while in others they have proved 

 a complete failure. It is a conceded fact that this crop is a 

 great exhauster of certain elements of the soil, and, if it is 

 desirable to continue its culture, we must supply the soil with 

 those materials which go directly to nourish this plant and 



