FARMS. 5 



No account is made of butter and milk, garden vegetables 

 fruit, &G., used in the family. 



Original cost of the farm, .... $2,900 00 



Cost up to the present time about, . . 10,000 00 



Farm expenses for 1853, .... 516 00 



Elm Vale Farm, North Andover, Nov. 15th, 1853. 



MIDDLESEX. 



In the discharge of their duties, the committee have visited 

 the remotest sections of the county ; they have, therefore, had 

 excellent opportunities to observe the general aspect of our 

 agricultural towns, and to ascertain, somewhat critically, their 

 condition and prospects in regard to agriculture. One opinion 

 and the same feeling, seem to have been common to us all while 

 engaged in our investigations. Taste and labor combined are 

 every year making our beautiful county still more beautiful; 

 so that ere long the poet will cease to be quoted when he says, 

 " God made the country." The traces of enterprise, skill and 

 perseveranse, are becoming as manifest in the fields and around 

 the rural homesteads, as in the cities ; so that neither city nor 

 country can now claim to be, exclusively, God's work. His 

 sunshine falls on both, and in both alike the blessing assumes 

 many beautiful shapes. 



It may be said that with a liberal outlay of wealth any farm 

 may be made beautiful. Very true, provided the money be 

 judiciously, and not foolishly expended. And this leads us to 

 throw in a remark based upon what we have repeatedly seen. 

 We are persuaded that farmers still need to learn where to 

 spend, and where to pinch, in conducting their operations ; in 

 other words, to ascertain the point up to which money spent 

 for the farm is good economy, and beyond which, expense 

 becomes extravagance. It is no economy at all to save the 

 expense of a good plough, for instance, and to lose twice its 

 cost, in a crop made scanty by poor ploughing. 



By such economy, the poor farmer is made still poorer; his 

 " poverty " as the Scripture says, " is his destruction." 



We were pleased with the combination of the useful and 

 ornamental which we saw in Mr. Wheeler's cornfield. It sug- 



