9 
10; Washington 7 per cent. Occasionally a wealthy gentleman will purchase 
a farm at a price exceptionably high for amateur or fancy farming, the advance 
being limited by the demands of the seller or the fancy or wealth of the pur- 
chaser. 
2. There is necessarily but little unimproved land in Rhode Island. In the 
southern part of the State are swamp or bog lands that can be obtained at $10 
per acre. There are rough lands in Kent of little value but for wood, worth $15, 
There is a little rocky or swampy land in Bristol and some woodland, nearly 
all of which is pastured. No wild lands are reported in Newport. 
3. Few peculiar resources exist in this State. An inferior quality of anthra- 
cite coal is found in Kent and Bristol, offering no inducements for working. A 
mine is worked in Newport and found useful for smelting purposes. The soil 
of Bristol county is dark, heavy, with a stiff sub-soil deficient in sand, but strong 
and productive when properly manured and cultivated, and it does not leach. 
The soil of Newport is kept fertile by fish and seaweed fertilizers from the 
waters of Narragansett bay, from the shores of which the extreme borders of 
the county are scarcely three miles distant. A mixed husbandry is practiced 
to meet the demands of the home market. 
4, The grass and hay crops are reckoned of most value, and generally used 
on the farms in the production of milk, butter, beef, and mutton. Potatoes and 
onions are in some localities cultivated for the West India market, with less 
profit of late than usual on account of the potato blight and onion maggot. 
Gardening on the borders of the Narragansett bay is found remunerative for the 
supply of neighboring manufacturing villages in Rhode Island and Massachu- 
setts. Thirty tons of good manure, costing four dollars per ton, will secure, 
with proper care, five hundred bushels of onions and four hundred of carrots 
if not injured by smut and maggot. The onions are planted the first of April 
in rows twelve inches apart; the carrots on the first of June between the bills 
of onions, every third row. The onions are harvested about the first of August, 
when the carrots have ample time to mature. A crop of 10,000 bushels of 
potatoes and onions in 1867 are reported from Bristol county. : 
5. Very little wheat culture is attempted. Other crops are. more remunera- 
tive as well as more abundant and certain. The White Flint, Tappahannock, 
White Mediterranean, and other kinds have been tried in Newport, but with little 
success. A red variety, which succeeded best, in the hands of the reporter, 
gave 16 bushels per acre on soil that would yield 50 to 60 bushels of corn or 
oats or 40 to 50 of barley. 
6. Pasturage for the season of six to seven months is far more expensive in 
the more populous and improved portions of the State. It is estimated at $20 
for Newport; Bristol $15; Washington $10; Kent $9. 
7. Fruit culture is becoming precarious. Insects are more numerous. The 
canker worm and other insects are doing much injury to orchards and vines, 
especially near the salt water. Extremes in temperature in spring are injurious. 
Small fruits are fine and remunerative. The Rhode Island Greening, once the 
glory of all orchards, is not now produced in perfection. 
CONNECTICUT. 
1. Little change in the prices of lands is noticed, further than is caused by 
the difference in value of currency, except in proximity to growing manufac- 
turing villages. In Windham county, it is claimed, prices of lands have varied 
little in fifty years. 
2. A very small extent of swamp or peat lands are found in Hartford county. 
Their value is from $15 to $40 per acre. Muck is extensively used as a fertil- 
izer. Small tracts of woodland sell for $25 to $150 per acre. A larger area of 
uncultivated land is found in Windham county, partly wooded, of some value 
