ESSEX AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 29 



cut a frame for a good-sized house from land from which 

 the previous owner cut nearly all the wood he consid- 

 ered worth cutting in 1838." Dr. George B. Loring de- 

 livered the semi-centennial address in 1868, filled with 

 interesting reminiscences of the past and with deserved 

 tributes to the founders and supporters of the Society. 

 Benjamin P. Ware, son of Erastus Ware, of the great 

 Pickman farm, himself a farmer of exceptional breadth 

 of mind and friendliness to new methods, made a valuable 

 summary of the progress in farming in his address in 

 1869. 



With Raymond's Hay Elevator, he [the farmer] may 

 store away his hay in his barn with comparatively little 

 labor and a great saving of time. . . . The potato 

 crop can now be grown entirely without hand labor. 

 True's Potato Planter cuts the potato, drops, furrows 

 and covers in one operation. With Holbrook and Chand- 

 ler's Horse Hoes, the labor of hoeing is wholly performed 

 by horse power. . . . With Willis's Seed Sower, the 

 Danvers Truckle Hoe, all of the root crops can be grown 

 with about one-half the labor formerly required. 



We need not leave Essex County to find that within a 

 few years there has been introduced by skill and careful 

 cultivation, the Hubbard Squash, the Stone Mason and 

 Marblehead Mammoth Cabbages, Emery's Early Cabbage, 

 a superior early Tomato and Lettuce, the Danvers Onion, 

 all better in some respects than before existed ; and to the 

 list of fruits have been added Allen's two hybrid grapes, 

 and those of Mr. Rogers, possessing qualities superior to 

 those of any others. 



Who ever heard, until within a few years, of seventy- 

 four tons of mangel-wurzels being grown upon one acre 

 of land; of thirty-six tons of carrots or nine hundred 

 bushels of onions per acre? Such crops as these are 

 facts that can be proved. 



Illustrating the value of home grown, carefully selected 

 seed, thorough-bred as he termed it, he instanced the 

 experiment of a Salem farmer who planted his own 

 thorough-bred seed, then seed grown by his neighbor, as 

 good as the average, and supplemented this with seed 



