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wood, for our wood lands amount to only 22 per cent of 

 the whole. And will any one say that it is because the 

 land already produces all it can bear, when the farmers 

 themselves admit that for every acre of improved land 

 they owned, there were .41 of an acre of unimproved land 

 upon which the}^ did not cut a ton of hay per acre, upon 

 either marsh, meadow, or English sward ; that their corn 

 would not measure more than 30 bushels per acre ; that 

 their potatoes, both large and small, did not exceed 78 

 bushels ; that an acre of oats although selling at one 

 dollar per bushel, cash, would give onlj'- 23 1-2 bushels ; 

 and while all other grains were bringing unprecedented 

 prices, rye yielded 16 1-3 bushels, barley 17 1-3, and 

 wheat 19 bushels per acre. Can it be claimed that the 

 land is well stocked, when there are 9.3 acres of improv- 

 ed land to every cow and heifer ; or in still another form, 

 only one cow for every 14 persons ; when the sheep av- 

 erage one and a small fraction to every farm ; when 

 1,039 farmers kept neither oxen nor steers, and if all 

 the horses in the County were owned by farmers, they 

 would have only 2.3 each. At that time pork brought 

 prices that put Western farmers in high fever to multi- 

 ply greatly the porcine race, but an equal division of all 

 the swine in the County gives two hogs and a very 

 small pig to each farm. What could be done to meet 

 the deficiency when to work this hard, rough, rocky 

 New England land, the persons employed were 1.6 for 

 every 57 acres, which is the average size of our flirms. 



The returns further show for that decade, that there 

 was an increase in horses of 539 ; sheep 1,150 ; swine 

 4,542 ; cows and heifers 1,235 ; and a decrease in oxen 

 and steers of 3,986. The tillage and mowing of all 

 kinds amounted to 40 per cent of all the farming land 



