2 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



By the use of the side-hill plough, the harrow and the drag, 

 that any farmer can make in two hours, costing not more than 

 two dollars for materials, — than which no greater labor-saving 

 implement has yet been invented for the farm, — and with Wil- 

 lis' seed-sower, the Danvers truckle-hoe, all of the root-crops 

 can be grown with about one-half the labor formerly required. 



The changing of an inferior variety of apples or pears for a 

 superior one, is now so simplified and made easy, by the use of 

 a liquid grafting-was, applied with a brush, that no one need be 

 without the choicest kind of such fruit who has healthy, vig- 

 orous trees, of whatever size they may be. Nor has improve- 

 ment stopped here. We need not leave Essex County to find 

 that within a few years there have been inti'oduced, by skill and 

 careful cultivation, the Hubbard squash, the stone mason and 

 Marblehead mammoth cabbages, Emery's early cabbage, a su- 

 perior early tomato and lettuce, the Danvers onion, all better, 

 in some respects, than before existed ; and to the list of fruits 

 have been added Allen's two hybrid grapes, and those of Mr. 

 Rogers, possessing qualities superior to those of any others, 

 while other parts of the State have added Dana's Hovey and 

 Clapp's Favorite pears, the Concord grape and the President 

 Wilder strawberry. 



Other fruits and vegetables might well be mentioned. The 

 neighboring State of Vermont has made such vast strides in the 

 improvement of the potato as to cause those who have lived 

 through the morus muUicaulus, Rohan potato and hen-fevers to 

 stand aghast, waiting for the excitement to abate, to see if 

 Bresee's No. 4 is really two hours earlier than the Early Rose. 

 But all may be assured that great improvement has really been 

 made in the potato. And yet there are persons among that nu- 

 merous class, who, because they lived upon a farm until seven- 

 teen years of age, and so, forsooth, " know all about farming," 

 are asking what improvement has been made in agriculture. 



Who ever heard, until within a few years, of seventy-four tons 

 of mangel-wurzel being grown upon one acre of land ? of thirty- 

 six tons of carrots or nine hundred bushels of onions per acre ? 

 Such crops as these are facts that can be proved. Such crops 

 have been grown and can be grown again. 



Several French and German chemists have estimated the 

 value of English hay in comparison with other kinds of food for 



