120 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



creased. The hay crop, we may safely estimate, has been 

 doubled in fifteen years, if not in ten, as some estimate. 

 Swamp lands have been reclaimed, and uplands by cultivation 

 and manure, have been converted into productive grass land." 

 In Middlesex, a farmer writes : " Three-fourths of our farmers 

 live by farming alone. The number has not increased, but 

 most of the old farmers are improving in their modes of hus- 

 bandry." 



A farmer of Worcester county says : " The large farms have 

 been cut up into smaller ones. The population has increased, 

 the products of the land have increased, the number of cows 

 and horses has increased ; but the number of sheep and oxen 

 has decreased." 



The prices of all the products of the farm have risen so 

 much within a few years as to induce many to turn their atten- 

 tion in this direction; and though the wages of the laborers, 

 who must be employed, have increased somewhat in propor- 

 tion, it is yet true that, with good management, farming will 

 pay as high a percentage on money invested in it as any other 

 occupation in which there is so little danger of ruinous loss 

 taken into account. 



Probably the agricultural associations have been among 

 the most efficient instruments in raising the standard of Mas- 

 sachusetts agriculture. These societies are now seventeen in 

 number. The oldest of them, the Massachusetts, founded more 

 than sixty years ago by individuals residing in different sec- 

 tions of the State, has now a permanent fund of more than 

 twenty-four thousand dollars ; the youngest, the Middlesex 

 South, has started into life since my last report was presented, 

 and is exercising a marked and widely-felt iniluence. 



The exhibitions held by the several societies during the last 

 year were unusually successful. The articles exhibited were 

 generally more numerous than on previous occasions, and the 

 attendance was larger than it has usually been. It was a very 

 common remark, that the societies seemed to have gained new 

 life and vitality. These exhibitions, indeed, have become the 

 grand holidays of the State; and the county fair is now gen- 

 erally regarded as the most useful and agreeable occasion 

 of the year. 



