19 



The average product of well managed salt marshes is from f of a 

 ton to li ton. The hay is valued at half the price of English hay. 

 In Salem and Boston markets, where it is purchased for a change of 

 diet or to be mixed with English, it usually brings two-thirds of the 

 price of English. 



The farmers in the interior of the county, even at a distance of 

 fifteen miles or more from the sea-shore, are glad to own or hire a 

 piece of salt marsh, considering a portion of this fodder of great ser- 

 vice to the health of their stock. A shrewd farmer in Lynn con- 

 siders salt hay as worth five dollars a ton merely to spread upon his 

 grass land for manure. His judgment is to be relied on. It is 

 stated likewise that those farmers, who carry it into the interior in a 

 green state and cure it in their fields, find this process almost equal to 

 a top dressing of manure. This comes undoubtedly from the salts, 

 which it deposits. The quantity of salt hay, which is cut, enables 

 the farmers to sell much of their English hay, without injury to their 

 farms. These lands according to their situation are valued at from 

 ten to fifty dollars per acre. Tiieir value is likely to be much in- 

 creased in many places from improvements of which I shall speak 

 presently. 



Considerable quantities of fresh meadow or swale hay is cut ; but 

 it is composed of aquatic plants, which contain little nourishment ; 

 and is of comparatively little value. The manure of cattle fed upon 

 it or littered with it is of inferior quality. 



INDIAN CORN. 



The next valuable crop in the county is Indian corn. This plant 

 delights in a warm, rich soil, inclined to sand ; and no plant, if prop- 

 erly managed, affords a better compensation for labor and cost. A 

 good deal of land in the county is favorable to it. The two last 

 years are by no means proper test years of the value or amount of 

 this crop. The accounts, which I subjoin, are of crops raised in 

 many cases in former years, or the judgment of the farmers of the 

 average yield of a town. 



