46 



REPORT OF VISITING COMMITTEE. 



The Committee upon the general condition of Agriculture in 

 the countj, are obliged, from circumstances beyond their control, 

 to make a limited and imperfect report. 



The high prices of all agricultural productions last spring, in- 

 duced the farmers to bring into cultivation as much land as their 

 means would allow. Some went beyond this limit, and reaped 

 disappointment. Nothing is harder than to convince men that the 

 course they and their fathers have long followed, may not be the 

 best in the present circumstances ; or that the profit from three 

 acres may be equal to what they have usually received from five. 

 No theory of farming, however cunningly framed, can disturb the 

 convictions of education and experience. It is only by noticing 

 the results of their neighbor's efforts, that they can appreciate the 

 importance of a method different from that to which they have 

 been accustomed. We have seen this season two fields separated 

 only by a road — the situation and soil of both the same. One 

 produced seventy-five bushels of corn to the acre ; the other was 

 judged by its appearance before harvest likely to yield twenty-five 

 bushels. The former belonged to a man whose whole land com- 

 prised but a few acres ; the latter to a farmer who counts his 

 acres by the hundred. 



This is a specimen of what is seen in every part of the county ; 

 although it would be wrong to deny that a manifest improvement 

 is in progress. There is no doubt that a hundred bushels of corn 

 can be raised on one acre with no more expense and labor than 

 are originally laid out to raise the same amount on three acres. 

 Intelligent farmers Avho see this, are not slow to appreciate the 

 advantages of a process that saves so much labor. The same or 

 a similar remark may be made of other crops. The pith and 

 marrow of the improvement now most desirable, and now in fact 

 beginning to be made, consists in concentrathig all the energies 

 and means of the farmer upon narrow limits and practising the 

 highest and most thorough kinds of culture. In other words, the 

 nearer farmers approach to the practices of gardeners, the greater 

 probability of success. 



In our intercourse with farmers, we have usually found a ready 



