250 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



our clothes cleaned and washed by chemical and mechanical 

 combinations, there will still be need of head and hand labor, 

 sufficient to tax the strongest mind and hardiest frame. It will 

 ever be true as in the days of Poor Richard, that 



" He, who by the plough would thrive, 

 Himself must either hold or drive. " 



Levi Stockbridge, Chairman. 



Hadley, Oct. 15, 1857. 



NEAT STOCK 



ESSEX. 



From the Report of the Committee. 



Milch Cows. — The milk business in the county of Essex, is 

 of considerable importance to the farmer. Large quantities are 

 raised in the immediate vicinity of our cities and large towns 

 to supply the inhabitants with this delicious beverage ; conse- 

 quently the making of butter has comparatively diminished, and 

 the making of cheese, in many cases, is entirely dispensed with. 

 Most of the cows that produce the milk are raised in the adjoin- 

 ing States and purchased by oiir farmers from the droves. 

 Many of them are purchased about the time of calving. The 

 better ones are selected for future use, and those of indifferent 

 character are well fed, for about a year, more or less, as the case 

 may be, then tui'ned to the butcher ; consequently little or no 

 improvement has been made in the breed of our cows. Of late, 

 however, the price of cows has become so exceedingly high that 

 farmers are raising more calves, and there probably have been 

 more raised the present year than for several years previous. 

 This may make a slight improvement in the stock, as most 

 farmers are likely to raise the best calves. But as the custom 

 has heretofore been to turn nearly all the calves to the butcher, 

 little exertion has been used to secure good bulls ; a little runt 

 and many of them when they are but two or three days old, but 



