FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE. 17 



being gained by increasing the weight of iron, and the use 

 of steel being restricted to the maintenance of a cutting 

 edge where that was indispensable. Four-wheeled farm 

 vehicles were unknown. Seeds were sown, orchards 

 pruned and fire wood and timber cut with regard to the 

 phases of the moon and the contingency of the new 

 moon's lying upon its back or standing upon its horn. 

 With fire places everywhere in use, suited to produce and 

 handle with facility the largest quantity of ashes, its value 

 as a fertilizer was unknown and its use confined to the 

 annual household leach. To plough shallow was the only 

 rule, lest the manure spread on the surface (the moving 

 of barns noted above being exceptional) should be car- 

 ried below the reach of the roots of corn and vine and 

 there be soaked down to unknown depths and lost. 

 Neither neat cattle, horses or swine could be said to be of 

 any breed, being the progeny of creatures brought by the 

 first settlers, originally good no doubt, according to the 

 standard of that early day, and still showing by chance 

 here and there a meritorious specimen. Cattle were left 

 over night in the pastures far into the autumn and some- 

 times were exposed to wintry blasts that they might 

 " toughen." The use of salt in curing hay, rotation in 

 crops, the ploughing in of green crops were unknown. 

 Fruit cultivation among the generality of farmers was 

 restricted pretty closely to the production of cider apples. 

 As late as 1823 the president of the Society officially 

 lamented that farmers still continued the practice " of 

 slicing up summer apples and suspending them in front of 

 the house to dry that they might have a comparatively 

 insipid and tasteless provision for winter,'' and he de- 

 clared that, " till every farmer can lay up ten barrels of 

 excellent winter apples, for his own use, we shall not ex- 

 pect much progress in other branches of gardening." 



Manifestly there was a field for missionary work such 

 as the new society proposed to engage in. They had en- 

 couragement in the fact that important and satisfactory 



