TWELFTH ANNUAL REPOUT 



OF THE 



SECRETARY 



OF THE 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Common- 



ivealth of Massachusetts : 



Notwithstanding the high price of labor during the past 

 season, and an excessive drought almost unparallelled in the 

 history of our agriculture, the year has, as a "whole, been one of 

 great prosperity for the farming interests of the Commonwealth. 

 The war, so disastrous in many respects, having led to the dis- 

 arrangement of the system of labor in the border States and 

 throughout large sections of territory in other parts of the 

 country, has stimulated the production of some of the crops 

 over which those sections had, to some extent, a monopoly, and 

 thrown whatever advantage that monopoly possessed into the 

 hands of our own farmers. Rapid changes have taken place, 

 therefore, in our own crops, as statistics will show, and these 

 changes wall be more apparent in the returns of the past year 

 than in those of any year previous. The area devoted to 

 broom corn has been much less than heretofore, and that 

 devoted to tobacco vastly increased. 



The high price of wool has had the effect to multiply the 

 number of sheep in the State, and thus that most profitable 

 branch of farming has been been stimulated to a greater degree 

 than ever before. The law for the protection of sheep against 



