GO MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



purchased by farmers in other parts of the State, but tlie choicest 

 rams imported by him fi'om Oxfordshire, are passed l^y unheeded 

 at our exhibitions. If there is pi'ofit in sheep husbandry, let 

 those of our farmers wlio iiave tried it give us the balance made 

 l)y rearing and feeding ; let tliem ascertain the most profitable 

 animal to feed, whether fine-woolled or coarse-woolled, whether 

 Merino, or Cotswold, or Oxfordshire Downs, or South Downs, 

 or Leicesters. If the profits and advantages of sheep husbandry 

 are what its advocates assert, there is no reason why three thou- 

 sand farmers in Essex County should not reap their proportion 

 of these profits, nor why the three thousand farmers should not 

 be benefited by these animals. 



We have hastily referred to some of the topics in which our 

 farming community is concerned for the purpose of awakening 

 if possible an interest in them, sufficient to insure that amount 

 of experiment and information which always grow out of indus- 

 try and honest emulation. A well-managed farm — a farm devot- 

 ed to one crop in the main, or devoted to " mixed husbandry" — 

 is a study v^orthy of every farmer. The details of a successful 

 operation in growing corn, or wheat, or rye, or barley, or roots, 

 or grass, or fruit, are always interesting and profitable ; but 

 they may be given by a farmer who witli the exception of this 

 one crop, has come very far short of good farming. His general 

 system of husbandry may be very deficient. His buildings may 

 be badly arranged. His manures may be unskilfully aj)plied. 

 His system of feeding may be careless and extravagant. His 

 farm accounts may be loose and inaccurate. How much more 

 valuable, therefore, are the details of a well-conducted farm in 

 the whole — a statement of the preparation and application of 

 manures, of the time of planting, of the mode of cultivation, 

 of the choice of animals, of the profits on the crops, of the 

 expense of labor, of the method adopted to bring the farm up 

 to the standard of good agriculture. We would urge upon our 

 farmers an increased interest in the entry of their farms for 

 premium, confident that they will derive a benefit from it, com- 

 pared to which the ])remium is a mere triile, and assuring them 

 that while they benefit themselves, they will also benefit the 

 community in which they live. We have many good farmers 

 among us, skilful, prosperous, thriving men, who manage their 

 farms well ; and whose example and information ought not to 



