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large commercial and manufacturing towns of Salem, Lynn, New- 

 buryport, Marblehead, Danvers, and Lowell, furnish a ready demand 

 for whatever the farmer will produce. Of the whole population in 

 Essex, there is reason to believe that not one fifth part are engnged, 

 properly speaking, in agriculture. The remaining four parts are con- 

 sumers not producers. The County of Essex is essentially a com- 

 mercial and manufacturing district. Besides what may be called 

 marketing, including the selling of hay, she sends no agricultural 

 produce away ; and she imports largely of bread-stuffs, vegetables, 

 dairy-produce, mutton, beef, and pork, together with a great amount 

 of oats and corn for horse-feed. Rye is cultivated to a small extent, 

 and the bread of the population is almost entirely composed of the 

 superfine flower of western New York and the middle States. 



Size of Farms. The average size of the farms in Essex will not 

 exceed one hundred acres, and farms of three or four hundred acres 

 are scarcely to be found. The population of the county be- 

 coming daily more numerous, the land is continually undergoing 

 subdivisions ; and a large proportion of the persons engaged in the 

 manufacturing and mechanic arts, are anxious to secure to themselves 

 small parcels of land, for the sake of keeping a cow or raising their 

 own fruits and vegetables. 



Farming in the county is scarcely pursued as a distinct or exclu- 

 sive profession ; but as subsidiary to some other business or pursuit. 

 In this way it has been eminently conducive to health, and productive 

 of innumerable comforts ; but no fair experiment has been made of 

 it under the fair advantages of capital and labor and exclusive 

 enterprise and attention, as matter of pecuniary income and profit. 



The Crops produced in Essex County are Hay, English, Salt, 

 and Fresh Meadow ; Corn; Wheat ; Barley ; Rye ; Oats ; Buck- 

 wheat ; Potatoes ; Onions ; Ruta Baga ; Carrots ; Turnips ; and 

 Garden Vegetables. The Beet has been cultivated extensively for 

 feeding cows ; and on a small scale for an experiment in sugar. 

 Attempts were made to cultivate the sunflower for oil. The mul- 

 berry has been attempted in some places for silk. 



