96 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



dred dollars per acre, I believe. This cost may be too great ; 

 wlietlier such labor can be accomplished for less, remains a 

 problem for Yankee brains and Irish muscle to solve. 



There is a great deficiency of good pasturage in our county, 

 with the exception of Hull and Hingham, which are quite 

 favored in this respect ; indeed, greener fields than those among 

 the rocky liills and valleys of Hhigham are seldom seen. This 

 fact renders cattle-feeding possible there. Many farmers, no 

 doubt, are engaged in this business, but I have visited only two, 

 Hon. Albert Fearing and Mr. A. C. Hersey. These gentlemen 

 own large farms, and feeling the necessity of greater supplies 

 of manure, each purchases between twenty and thirty bullocks, 

 two or three years old, in the autumn, feeds out during winter 

 all the products of the farm, hay, roots, and grain, pastures the 

 cattle the following summer, and sells again in the fall. In 

 order to pay, they think the cattle must double in value in one 

 year. Tliey are amateurs in agriculture, owning farms in the 

 city of Boston, which, it is to be presumed, are more profitable 

 than those in Hingham. It would doubtless be interesting to 

 others who have to win their bread from the soil, to know how 

 much, if any thing, the farms in the city contribute towards 

 the support of those in the country. 



I visited another farm in Plingham, which interested me 

 much, not from its superiority to ma)iy others that I saw, but 

 from the fact that it was won by the hardest knocks, from the 

 most rugged nature, by the man who owns it, Mr. Charles A. 

 Gushing ; his house, barn and farm are an honor to him. 

 During the day I spent in Hingham, by the kindness of friends, 

 I was enabled to see more agricultural improvement than I 

 could have seen, in the same time, in any other part of tlie 

 county. It is true, much of this is what is called fancy farm- 

 ing, but the mission of fancy farmers is a worthy one, to make 

 costly experiments which poor men cannot make and to adorn 

 the earth. 



The farms of the Bridgewaters present, in many places, a 

 very good appearance from the road, but for want of exact 

 information, I cannot speak of any one of them in detail. It 

 is evident, however, to tlie casual observer, that the soil has 

 never produced what it is capable of doing, and only awaits 

 greater intelligence in the cultivators, to become a garden. 



