102 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



more than one himdrccl dollai-s for the use of one acre of land, I call an aver- 

 age crop five to six hundred bushels ; a large crop, eight hundred to the acre. 

 I see it stated sometimes that from ten to fifteen hundred are raised from one 

 acre. These cases are very rare, and upon a very small piece of land, and 

 they should be no guide ; neither sliould it induce any man to attempt to grow 

 the crop for market, as he surely will be disappointed, if he is obliged to pay 

 the price for labor that is demanded at the present time. The most profitable 

 kind for cultivation is the long orange. I have grown this kind and the long 

 white on meadow land that had been well drained, to a very large size, and a 

 large crop per acre, but found the manure that was harrowed in nearer the sur- 

 face would bring in the weeds. I prefer this kind of land to any other. My 

 horses are doing better this winter, as I am feeding them with less grain than 

 ever before. I give them one pint of meal each morning and night with dry 

 hay, half a peck of carrots at noon and a little hay. They are not at work 

 much now, but they will be in much better condition in the spring, when the 

 hard work upon the farm comes on, and the grain then will do them more 

 good than if they had been eating grain all winter and no work. One of our 

 best livery stable men told me he preferred giving carrots to his horses that 

 were hard at work every day — half a peck every other day at noon, omitting 

 their grain those days — than to give them all grain. He found by several 

 years' experience that this practice Avas a great advantage to his horses in the 

 way of keeping them in better health, better appetite, and their hair showing 

 evident signs that this kind of feeding was preferable to his former practice of 

 giving grain entirely and no change of food. 



I don't intend to discourage any one from growing carrots ; they had better 

 have some land sowed with them for their own use. If farmers could always 

 be sure of the seed coming up well, when sowed on good land, they then could 

 be made a profitable crop ; but there is so much uncertainty about it that I 

 consider it a very hazardous business to attempt to grow them for a market 

 crop on a large scale. 



FLAX 



Is flax in its various uses more profitable than other farm products ? Of the 

 value of its fibre for cloth the civilized world from the earliest dawn of civiliza- 

 tion is sufficient evidence. For strength, for beauty, and durability, it so far 

 surpasses cotton as to be indispensable for certain uses in defiance of all com- 

 petition. It is grown in a wide range of temperate climates in various soils, 

 while cotton is circumscribed in climate, soil, and conditions of labor. Flax 

 has met with royal encouragement and protection for centuries in Europe, 

 while cotton assumed kingly prerogatives of its own. Yet flax has not rapidly 

 advanced in production, though it has been .and is a source of wealth in its 

 fibre, the oil of its seed, and the expressed refuse, so useful in the feeding 

 economy of the farm. 



Ireland has long been a prominent flax-growing country. It has long been 

 the home of pauperism, but the two facts have no connexion as cause and 

 effect. The flax of the "Green Ii^le" is one of its most valuable and profitable 

 products. Scotland produces little of it, and England less ; yet the few who 

 do grow it find that it pays liberally. It is not that England desires flax the 

 less, but that she needs bread the more. With her dense population, while 

 ilour is a necessity, beef and mutton are indispensable. 



