INDIAN CORN. 163 



Cost of 254 loads manure, at $1.50, 

 " compost, ashes, <fec., 

 " cultivating and harvesting, 

 " interest on value of land, 



Balance in favor of crop, $509 40 



Agawam, November 23, 1853. 



BERKSHIRE. 



From the Report of the Committee. 



Your committee are not alone in believing that in no season 

 since Berkshire ceased to be the hunting ground of the red 

 man, have her fields presented a state of so high and judicious 

 culture, or returned to their owners so large a remuneration 

 for their cares and their toils. " Old and worn-out soils," 

 " degenerated and fruitless soils," " inhospitable skies and 

 sterile grounds," are epithets which may do for poetic figures, 

 to grace a stump speech or Fourth of July oration; but the 

 crops shown to us, in our survey of the county, have taught us 

 that this language belongs not to those farmers with whom we 

 have had intercourse, or the grounds which they occupy. If it 

 is true in reference to those who are not active members of 

 this society, our language to them would be, come with us, 

 adopt the modes of culture which the observation and experi- 

 ence of the age has shown to be judicious, and the same skies 

 and the same fruitful fields shall be yours. 



To the same class of "poetic figures" would we assign the 

 language we often hear, that little has been done for the pro- 

 motion of agriculture ; that while every thing else has advanced 

 with rapid motion, agriculture has remained comparatively sta- 

 tionary. Now when you place the reaping machine by the 

 sickle ; the threshing machine by the flail ; the plough of to-day, 

 with that of former years ; the cultivator and harrow with plate 

 steel teeth, by the old drag and bush; the beautiful, light, elas- 

 tic two, four, six, eight, ten and twclvc-tined fork of a Partridge, 

 with the old bug horn; the barn and barnyards, the stables 

 and sheds of a Leavitt, a Harrison, a Colt, a Joiner, and many 



