It may be justly said that the number of deserted farms is 

 no criterion of the prosperity of the farming community. 

 To a certain extent the presence of deserted farms indicates 

 an advance in agriculture. No doubt some abandoned farms 

 in the State ought never to have been cultivated. Some 

 farms are deserted because the land does not pay for the 

 labor of cultivation, or because they are so isolated as to 

 make them undesirable as homes. Improvements in farm 

 methods and farm machinery have had their influence, and 

 no doubt have added to the number in localities where the 

 soil is naturally poor or so rough as to preclude the use of 

 farm machinery. In some cases a portion of the land 

 belonging to a deserted farm is absorbed into the farm of a 

 more successful neighbor, while the house, being of little 

 value as a rent, is left unoccupied. The tendency is towards 

 an increase in the size of farms rather than in the number, 

 especially in districts remote from the centres of population. 



In the table will be found figures showing the averages 

 of crops by counties. On the last pages will be found an 

 extract from a lecture delivered before the Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Society, last winter, by Prof. W. O. Atwater 

 of Middletow T n, Conn. Copies of this bulletin will be mailed 

 on application. 



The Weather. 



The weather during the month of October was very much 

 like that of the preceding months. There was less bright 

 sunshine than usual, owing to the many cloudy and rainy 

 days. The rainfall was above the average. At Amherst, 

 foot of observatory tower, it was 4.58 inches ; at Monroe, 

 4.13 ; and at Leominster, 5.39 inches. The average rainfall 

 at Amherst for the month of October for the past twenty 

 years was 3.92 inches. At Milton the mean temperature 

 was nearly two degrees below the forty years' average. Snow 

 fell in Monroe on the 8th, 11th and 13th. There were no 

 severe gales. 



Through the kindness of the director of the Hatch Experi- 

 ment Station of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, we 

 are enabled to print the summary of the Meteorological 

 Observatory at Amherst for the month of October. 



