77 



cality, he farms principally for that crop, generally mowing his grass 

 lands six years in succession, obtaining at least two tons per acre, an- 

 nually, throughout this entire period. He crops about one hundred and 

 forty tons of hay — oue hundred and ten tons of English hay, the rest 

 meadow hay of varying quality — and sells from sixty tons to seventy- 

 five tons annually, the price averaging for the last fire years 820 to $25 

 per ton. The reinaiuder of the hay he feeds to his farm stock. This 

 stock consists of four large Devon oxen, eight cows, and young stock of 

 different sexes and ages, making a total of twenty -five head, besides two 

 large horses. His cows and young stock are chiefly full-blooded Dur- 

 hams. The manure from his stock, with the addition of about S200 

 worth of stable manure, purchased annually, enables him steadily to in- 

 crease the fertility of his farm, which has been under cultivation for one 

 hundred and forty years, having been for the entire period owned by his 

 family in the persons of himself and three generations of his ancestors. 



Besides the arable lands already mentioned, the farm contains forty 

 acres of pasture, and oue hundred acres of timber and wood land. In 

 cutting his timber and fire-wood he cuts clean as he goes, leaving the 

 land to an entirely new growth of forest. He has recently sold the 

 growth on twenty-nine acres at the following prices: Timber squaring 

 six inches and over, $10 per thousand fe«t, board measure ; under six 

 inches, $G per thousand ; tops, limbs, and defective trees not suitable 

 for timber, $1 per cord. The purchasers take the lot standing, and are 

 to clear it off within a stated time. Careful estimates put the timber at 

 twenty tiiousand feet per acre, and the tire-wood at fifteen to twenty 

 cords per acre. 



The foregoing statement is condensed from data furnished to the de- 

 partment by Mr. Levi Bartlett, of Warner, New Hampshire, who re- 

 marks that Mr. Walker has expended more money in draining than any 

 other farmer of his acquaintance in the State. 



TAX ON FARMERS AS PRODUCE BROKERS. 



The municipal regulations of cities often bear with severity upon the 

 producers of meats, fruits, and vegetables, and by unnecessary taxation 

 and restriction t^nd to increase the number of hucksters and interme- 

 diate tradesmen, and to enhance the prices of produce to consumers, 

 ■while the farmers are subject to the rapacity of these organized bands of 

 middle-men, who are generally aided and protected by city author- 

 ities. 



The wrongful construction of the revenue law, taxing farmers as pro- 

 duce brokers, when they only sell their own produce, has drawn large 

 sums of money from the i^ockets of farmers contrary to the evident 

 intentioTi of the framers of the law and to the si)irit of our revenue sys- 

 tem. Hon. Henry A. Reeves, a member of the Committee on Agricul- 

 tiu-e of the House of Representatives, apprised of the fact that three 

 hundred farmers of Queens County, New York, (in his district,) had 

 been compelled wrongfully to pay this tax, introduced the following 

 resolution into the House of Representatives : 



Whereas the Actin<T Commissioner of Internal Revenue has construed the act of June 

 30, 1864, as amended hy act of July 13, 1866, to authorize and to re(iu?re the impoaitioa 

 of the special tax paid by produce brokers upon fanners and market-gardeners, who sell 

 the produce of their own farms or gardens from stalls or stands, thereby levying a 

 direct tax upon the production of the prime necessaries of life : Therefore, " 



