8 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the interest and enterprise which have since changed the whole 

 face of the kingdom. 



It sliould be mentioned, however, that in 1747, the Rev. 

 Jared Eliot, of Connecticut, began the publication of a series 

 of essays on farming, full of valuable suggestions, and marked 

 throughout, by a degree of intelligence and good sense far in 

 advance of his time. His experiments in draining, and in the 

 improvement of salt marsli, are among the earliest attempts at 

 real progress in the country. 



But with very few exceptions, there was no spirit of inquiry 

 to give a charm to agricultural labor, and it was performed 

 by the farmer as an evil which must be endured, from stern 

 necessity. Having no love for his occupation, he paid no 

 attention to the selection of the best stock, and tlie best 

 seeds. Owing to the imperfect provision for schools for the 

 great body of the people, the boy was trained up to a narrow 

 routine of labor, as his fathers had been for a century before. 

 He often affected to despise all intelligent cultivation of the 

 soil, and not only scrupulously followed the example of his 

 fathers, but also advised others to do the same ; thus transmit- 

 ting to us in the line of succession, the very practices which 

 had originally been derived from the uncivilized Indian. 



The manner of settling new lands being such as has already 

 been described, it will be seen that the population must have 

 been scattered over a large extent of territory by the middle 

 of the last century. Ten counties had been incorporated, and 

 one hundred and forty towns. The proportion of the popula- 

 tion collected in the great centres at that time, was compara- 

 tively small. Boston contained less than fifteen thousand 

 inliabitants, and next to that stood Marblehead ; but it might 

 almost be said, that in neither of these did the houses quite 

 shut out the woods and the fields ; for in the former, — ^l)y far the 

 largest town in the State, — the space now occupied by the Com- 

 mon and the western slope of Beacon Hill, including all the 

 western part of tlie city, was used as a pasture for cattle. 

 The spots where some of our most flourishing towns and vil- 

 lages now stand, were then covered with a dense forest. 



Few of the rural population of that day saw a newspaper or 

 a journal of any kind. At the commencement of the last cen- 



