372 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



POULTRY. 



Perhaps the most remarkable showing is in the poultry 

 and eggs, which in 1840 were estimated at $178,157, and 

 in 1875 at $1,789,000, the eggs alone being worth nearly 

 $1,000,000. 'Tis but a few years since the only fowls we had 

 were the common dunghill fowls, so-called : they laid their 

 eggs where they chose ; and those which were not discovered 

 by the farmers' children or the hired men were hatched 

 where they were laid, and such chicks as escaped the perils 

 of skunks, hawks, rats, and other vermin, were sacrificed at 

 Thanksgiving, illy-grown and carelessly fattened. Now our 

 fowls bred for a purpose are very commonly confined in 

 convenient houses : they lay their eggs in appointed places, 

 their chickens are cared for, their manure almost as much 

 valued as grain, while the dressed poultry and eggs, though 

 in amounts individually small, when collected and summed 

 up, show an aggregate that is wonderful. 



HAY. 



Of hay, we cut, in 1840, 569,395 tons, valued at $4,908,184, 

 appraised at $8.50 per ton : in 1875 we mowed 671,130 tons 

 (over 6,000 more than we ever cut in any year), worth 

 $10,660,268 at $15 per ton, —a gain of over $6,752,000. 



The improvement in our hay-crop is one of the most 

 healthy evidences of our advancement in agriculture. It is 

 certain that good, sweet, well-cured hay, of one kind or an- 

 other, is the strength, the main stay, of our New-England 

 farming. Corn, wheat, rye, oats, or potatoes may fail by 

 blight, mildew, rust, insects, or any other of the plagues 

 which the farm has to encounter ; but, with good hay, every 

 animal on the farm cannot only live, but thrive, if its capa- 

 bility be not over-taxed : and one of the greatest gains we 

 have made in our farming is in improving our mowing-lands, 

 and in getting our hay early and quickly, as taught us by 

 the chemistry of the farm, and accomplished by means of, 

 and through the perfection of, our agricultural machines and 

 implements, which are a blessing not vouchsafed to the 

 i'armers of fifty years ago. 



