7, 



in 1825, favoring for a domicile the Switzerland of this 

 region, Topsfield, the scene of all their earlier successes, 

 for it was, in old stage days, the metropolis of Essex 

 county : — then deferring action because two other towns, 

 Newbury and South Danvers, both had their advocates : — 

 then, in 1860, again proposing Topsfield, for the Treadwell 

 Farm had then come into the Society's possession ; and 

 now at last, after a migratory, nomadic life of two com- 

 pleted generations, comfortably housed under a roof-tree 

 of its own at Peabody. 



But I set my face against all these temptations because 

 I wish to say a word on one or two topics of present inter- 

 est to the agriculture of the county. 



Massachusetts has always been the most thickly settled 

 of the States except Rhode Island. Amongst the fourteen 

 counties of Massachusetts, Essex County has for many 

 years ranked as third in wealth, population and impor- 

 tance, yielding precedence in these respects — outside of 

 Suffolk County which is practically Boston — to Middlesex 

 alone. It became a county in 1643. There are in Massa- 

 chusetts thirty-nine towns which were settled before 1650. 

 Twelve of these towns, — about one-third of the whole, — 

 are in Essex County. You are not unprepared to hear 

 that agriculture is an ancient craft in Essex County. No 

 county in the State is older. In an old historic section 

 agriculture is a tradition and not a new experiment. But 

 had we time to look together at the census tables, they 

 would disclose other facts to some of which you are not 

 quite so well prepared to listen. 



Essex County held, from the taking of the first census 

 in 1765 and I know not how long before, down to the for- 

 mation of this Society in 1817-18, the first rank — not the 

 second nor the third — amongst the fourteen counties of 

 Massachusetts, in population and wealth and all that makes 

 a people strong and great. Essex County then paid one- 



