212 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



May 



REVIEW OF THE PAST AND THE PRES- 

 ENT CONDITION OF AGRICULTURE. 



I propusi', in my first Report, to review the past 

 and present condition of tlie Agriculture of Mas- 

 sachusetts. The past will be found, it is thought, 

 full of interest and instruction ; the present, full 

 of encouragement and hope. The discussion of 

 epeeial suhjects will l)e left to a future occasion, 

 with the exception of sucli suggestions as seem to 

 spring naturally from the facts stilted. This seems, 

 indeed, to be the only course which can be pursued. 

 Previous to the organization of the present Board, 

 there has been no permanent department or public 

 officer, whose special duty it was to collect the fticts 

 necessary for the guidance of the Legislature, and 

 the various societies in their efforts to advance the 

 cause of Agriculture among us. The principal 

 object of the Board, during the past year, has ac- 

 cordingly been to procure the desired information. 

 It is these doings, which I now have the honor to 

 report for your consideration. 



We cannot, without some little reflection, make 

 full allowance for the difficulties which surrounded 

 the early settlers of New England. We must re- 

 member that they exchanged a country far ad- 

 vanced in civilization, — and notwithstanding its 

 rude tillage and its large tracts of uninclosed 

 moors, probably better cultivated than any other 

 on the globe, — for one entirely new to them, with 

 a climate and soil unlike any which they had 

 known before. They were to begin a life in'which 

 their previous experience could afford them little 

 or no aid, in a wilderness which was to be sub- 

 dued by their own hands in the midst of a thous- 

 and ol)>taeles. The system of cultivation which 

 they had learned and practised in their own land, 

 would not serve them here. They were to start 

 anew, and acquire, painfully and laboriously, the 

 knowledge which was applicable to their new sit- 

 uation. If wo find their progress to be slow, let 

 us not wonder that it was so ; we should rather 

 wonder that they advanced at all, or even that 

 they did not perish in the wilderness amid the pri- 

 vations and the sufferings of winter. 



For many months after their arrival, they had 

 no beasts of burden ; when at last a few cows were 

 brought over from the mother country,* they were 

 poorly fed on coarse meadow hay, and often died 

 from exposure and want of suitable food, or fell a 

 prey to the wolves and the Indians. Owing to 

 the difficulties and expense of importation, the 

 price was so high as to put them beyond the reach 

 of many, even in moderate circumstances. A red 

 calf soon came to be cheaper than a black one, on 

 account of the greater probability of its being mis- 

 taken for a doer and killed by the wolves. When 

 cows were so high as to sell in 1636, at from twen- 

 ty-five to thirty pounds sterling, and oxen at forty 

 poutids a pair, a quart of new milk could bo bought 

 for a penny, and four eggs at the same price. 



It should be borne in mind, also, that the cattle 

 of that time, even in England, were not to be com- 

 pared with the Iteautifvil animals now seen there. 

 The ox of that day was small, ill-shaped, and in 



*The first cattle were imported by Edward Winslow, in the 

 ship Charity, March, 1624. Having been sent out as ngent by 

 the I'lymiiuth Colony, he brought over four animals, tliree o 

 which were heifers. One authority says they arrived in the ship 

 Ann, the first voyage of wlijch was ma<le in 1623 ; but there can 

 be no (lonlit tliut the cattle referred to, at the time of the distri- 

 bution of cattle in 1627, came in u subaeuuont voyage made by 

 that vessel '^ ' 



every way inferior to the ox of the present time. 

 The sheep has, since then, been improved to an 

 e({ual, or even greater extent, both in form and 

 size, and the fineness and value of its wool. The 

 draught horse, so serviceable on the farm, long 

 the pride of liOndon, and now equally of Boston, 

 and the noble breed of race horses, so celebrated 

 for their fleetness, were not then known. It is dif- 

 ficult to appreciate fully the changes, which the 

 increased attention to agriculture has effected in 

 domestic animals, even within the la!<t century. 



Dui'ing the early part of the last century, the 

 average gross weight of the neat cattle brought for 

 sale to the Smithfield market, was not over three 

 hundred and seventy pounds, and that of sheep, 

 twenty-eiglit pounds. The average weight of the 

 former, is now over eight hundred pounds, and of 

 the latter, over eighty pounds. On account of the 

 high price of cattle at that period, and the risks 

 to which they were to be exposed, it is not proba- 

 l)le that the settlers purchased even the best spe- 

 cimens of the animals then known in England, 

 Such being the state of things, we may easily im- 

 agine that the first cattle imported into New Eng- 

 land, were of a very inferior quality. 



Nor was the difficulty of procuring agricultural 

 implements the least of the obstacles which the 

 early settlers had to encounter. Some wore im- 

 ported from the mother country, but all could not 

 obtain them in this way. The only metal to be 

 had was made of bog ore, very brittle, and liable 

 to break and put a stop to a day's work. The im- 

 plements of agriculture seem, for the most part, 

 to have been made from this metal, and with com- 

 paratively little fitness for the purpose for which 

 they were designed. Even those imported from 

 the mother country were not only of the rudest 

 construction, but were also extremely heavy and 

 unwieldy ; for the men of that time had not dis- 

 covered the art of diminishing weight without lee^ 

 sening strength. The process of casting steel was 

 not invented till more than a century later, (1750) 

 and then it was kept a secret in Sheffield for some 

 years. The number and variety of implements 

 have been infinitely increased, even within the last 

 half century, to meet the wants of a moreadvanced 

 husbandry, to which, indeed, tliese mechanical im- 

 provements have, in their turn, largely contribu- 

 ted.* 



It is true that the Pilgrims, on their arrival in 

 this country, had the benefit of the plants at that 

 time cultivated and used as food by the Indians, 

 yet they were wholly unaccustomed to these, and 

 were ignorant of the mode of using them as food, 

 and of the manner of their cultivation. Indian 

 corn, the staple product, and the pride of Ameri- 

 ca, had never been seen by them. Pumpkins, 

 squashes, potatoes and tobacco, were almost equal- 

 ly strange to them.f 



* Tlie colonists do not soem to have been provided with plows ; 

 for we find that twelve years after the landing at IMyniouth, the 

 furrmers about Boston, having no plows, were obliged to break up 

 the bushes with their hands and hoes, to prepare their lands for 

 cultivation ; ami eyen so late as 1637, there were but thirty- 

 »even plows in the whole State. Jt was the custom, even to a 

 much later ilcriod, for one owning a i)low, to do most of the plow- 

 ing in a town ; going alxiut from one part of the town to another. 

 The town often paid a bounty to one who would buy and keep a 

 plow in repair, to do work in this way 



t The potato was so rare in England at the beginning of the 

 17th century, as to be served up only in very small quantities. 

 It was sold at two shillings a pound, for the queen's table, and 

 was used as a fruit, baked into pies, seasoned with spices and 

 wine, and sometimes eaten with sugar. 



