36 



onion field. We should be sorry to see women in our country 

 subjected to the severe and degrading services and toils, to which 

 the wives and daughters of the agricultural laborers of the old coun- 

 tries are accustomed. But exemption from all necessity of bodily 

 exertion is usually a curse not a blessing ; and many of the lighter 

 kinds of agricultural labor would be as proper for women as for men, 

 did not custom forbid it, a custom of at least questionable utility. 

 Rather than engage in this many of our young women quit their pa- 

 rental homes, and prefer passing months and even years in heated 

 rooms amid the dust and confinement and deafening din of ma- 

 chinery, to the light but cheerful and invigorating labors of gardening 

 and agriculture, in the pure and bracing air and the green and open 

 fields. The culture of silk promises to afford a healthful and pro- 

 fitable occupation for female labor. 



Of the other crops there can be said to be no general cultivation. 

 Ruta Baga, Carrots, Beets, and Cabbages have been sometimes 

 extensively, and continue in some degree, to be cultivated, but not 

 to any noticeable extent. In this respect we believe the Essex 

 farmers have not yet come to a perfect understanding of their true 

 interest. There are three sorts of farming. The first, where 

 agriculture is pursued as subsidiary to something else, and is a 

 mere accompaniment to a trade, business, or profession. The se- 

 cond, where a bare living is sought for ; and men are satisfied with 

 the ordinary supplies and comforts of a farm without any view to 

 improvement or gain. These two classes may be said to compre- 

 hend the greater part of the agricultural population of Essex ; and 

 their situation is almost universally comfortable and independent. 

 The third class is, where agriculture is pursued like any other busi- 

 ness in the community with a proper outlay of capital and labor, 

 and with a main view to pecuniary advantage. From the number of 

 markets accessible in the county, and the amount of manufacturing 

 population within and in the vicinity of the county to be sustained, 

 this class is destined to arise ; and when this is the case the cultiva- 

 tion of green crops and esculent vegetables will form an essential 

 part of the rotation of products. 



I shall here subjoin a list of remarkable products, which have 



