326 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



time in running the New Bedford boat, I could not attend 

 it. Both days passed pleasantly, and in all that large, but 

 orderly assembly, I saw no instance of intoxication or unbe- 

 coming behavior. 



From what I saw and heard, 1 should think the Vineyard far- 

 mers generally, did not pay sufficient attention to the accumula- 

 tion and preparation of that indispensable basis of farming — 

 manure. I must think that it would pay to enclose and feed, 

 under warm and comfortable sheds, tlieir cattle and sheep, 

 rather than to allow them to run at large, dropping their 

 dung about the fields, to waste. 



By littering their barnyards with straw, sea-weed, or swamp- 

 grass, and hauling in a few loads of peat, muck, or swamp-mud, 

 they- would save all the manure, the liquid, the most valuable, 

 as well as the solid, and be able largely to increase their crops. 



I think, too, if they should feed to their fat cattle, their 

 milch cows and sheep, a little cotton-seed meal, which they can 

 easily get from Providence, they would find their account in 

 the largely increased value of the manure, as well as in the 

 flesh, milk and wool of their animals. Perhaps if the Vine- 

 yarders had less other material wealth, and were obliged to 

 depend entirely on their farms for support, they would farm 

 more closely ; if the money on hand and at interest, on the 

 Island, were equally divided among the entire population, each 

 man, woman and child would receive twenty dollars more than 

 the population of Franklin County, on a like division of the 

 money in that county ; and twelve dollars more than those of 

 Hampshire County under similar circumstances ; and twenty 

 more than those of Berkshire. 



While some of those whom I met were most intelligent and 

 progressive farmers, they complained that most of their class 

 pursued the path their fathers trod, distrustful of science, and 

 slow to venture into any new fields of experiment. 



As the delegate of the State Board I was cordially received, 

 and treated with the greatest kindness and courtesy. For 

 opportunities to see the Island and for information and civili- 

 ties, I am under obligation to Charles B. Allen, Esq., Dr. 

 Peirce, the acting jjrcsident, and to R. L. Pease, Esq., the 

 learned and accomplished Clerk of the Courts at Edgartown. 



James S. Grennell. 



