208 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



"Within tlie past twenty years there has been an immense 

 increase in the dairy products, from 851,000 to over 8110,000; 

 this has been mostly in milk, the annual reported sale of which 

 amounts to 871,219, much of which goes by rail to Boston and 

 Lowell. 



A very large amount of " garden stuff" is in the same way 

 marketed, which does not appear in the returns. 



Fruit has just about doubled in amount, being now 866,302 

 against 833,512 in 1845. 



These changes appear as strongly in the numbers of the 

 domestic animals. More milch cows are kept and fewer work- 

 ing oxen ; fewer cattle are fed for beef, more horses are worked 

 and driven. The horses are now 2,649 against 1,782. Li 1840 

 there were over 2,000 sheep, which with the wool were worth 

 16,000 ; now there are 460. 



Probably there is a much higher state of cultivation now than 

 formerly, great quantities of manure and fertilizing substances 

 are taken from the towns and villages on to the farms, which 

 more than supply the loss of what is carried away. As the 

 soils lying on micaceous and other slates usually prove the best 

 grazing and grass lands, we find that those towns making the 

 largest dairy products are largely on that geological formation. 

 Burlington, a small town almost wholly slate, sends 818,500 

 worth of milk and butter ; Westford, with almost 820,000 

 worth of dairy products is half on slate, so with Chelmsford, 

 Tyngsborough and Dracut. A noticeable fact is, that while the 

 value of all the cows and heifers in this territory is 8145,894, 

 those of their products which are sold off the farm amount to 

 8110,674 ; now, adding to this last sum the amount consumed 

 at home, and deducting from the first sum the value of the 

 heifers which give no milk, it would show an equalization of 

 the figures, proving the profitableness of dairy farming there. 



The crop of Indian corn has been very largely increased 

 there, being 72,000 bushels grown, and of hay 17,366 tons of 

 all kinds ; but as there are to be fed during a term of not less 

 than 150 days 7,469 head of neat stock, and 2,649 horses, being 

 in all 10,118, to say nothing of their 460 sheep, it would seem 

 as if the farmers there would have to import feed to see them 

 through the winter. 



