6 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



dogs has been enforced with apparent good will, and though the 

 number of sheep is still far less than it should and must of 

 necessity be in every profitable system of farming, the enthu- 

 siasm for sheep husbandry has received such an impulse that a 

 revolution in this respect may be said to have begun. 



Nor is the change in our farming less apparent in the largely 

 increased application of machinery and labor-saving implements 

 to all the operations on the farm. The introduction of the 

 larger and more expensive machines is naturally rather slow. 

 Men require time to observe and consider them. But the last 

 year or two has witnessed the progress in this department 

 which, under ordinary circumstances, would hardly be ex- 

 pected in ten. The hay tedder, for example, has gained as 

 strong a hold upon the attention of practical farmers in the 

 last two years as it would in other times have gained in a 

 much longer time, and the same may be said of other important 

 machines. The result has been to stimulate mechanical inge- 

 nuity and to increase production with a less amount of wearing 

 physical labor. 



The manufacture and application of concentrated manures 

 has also been largely on the increase in certain sections of the 

 State, while greater system in making and economizing stable 

 manures has been more widely introduced, and the buying and 

 feeding of store cattle or sheep for the winter, mainly for the 

 sake of their manure, which, before the war, was confined to a 

 few, has become by no means uncommon in those portions of 

 the State where the want of manure has been mostly seriously 

 felt. When the price of ordinary farm-yard manure rises to 

 ten dollars a cord and more in a district remote from market,' 

 it becomes a pretty strong incentive to effort and economy in 

 its production. 



Another evidence of increased enterprise and activity among 

 the farming population of the State, may be seen in the largely 

 increased numbers in attendance at the county fairs in all parts 

 of the Commonwealth. So far as my observation has extended, 

 these fairs were never, as a whole, so fully patronized by the 

 public as during the past year. On one of the days of the New 

 England Fair at Springfield no less than twenty-two thousand 

 people were in attendance. On another day, which opened wet 



