16 HAMPSHIRE AGEICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ly important to the art of cultivation. We refer to the necessity and 

 the utility of a proper division, and individualization of labor. The 

 importance of this in other pursuits is generally admitted. It is not 

 less necessary for the farmer. Some have already practised upon this 

 principle with the greatest advantage. It has relieved those fears 

 which many entertained, lest the farms in the vicinity of our large com- 

 mercial cities, would be ruined by rail roads which have only changed 

 the crops and arts of cultivation. They have induced the owners of 

 those farms, to devote them to a single crop, or at most to a few pro- 

 ducts for which their soil was especially adapted, or Avhich their prox- 

 imity to the market rendered profitable. For instance, look at West- 

 borough in this State, or many other toAvns in the vicinity of cities 

 which formerly raised a great variety of crops, but Avhich are now al- 

 most entirely devoted to the production of milk or vegetables. Oth- 

 er cultivators near the market have devoted their attention to the apple, 

 the pear, the grape, the strawberry and other fruits, which they raise in 

 great perfection, and with satisfactory profit ; and from the exhibition 

 of to-day, we see no reason why Hampshire County maj' not make the 

 cultivation of fruit as profitable as any other branch of farming. 



A gentleman of our acquaintance raises and sells annually in 

 the market of one of our commercial cities, a large quantity of na- 

 tive grapes, at prices so satisfactory, as already to have induced in 

 him a resolve to plant vineyards near all the principal cities of our 

 country. The cultivation of foreign grapes is carried on extensively 

 in the vicinity of Boston. One cultivator produces annually five 

 thousand pounds ; another four thousand, and the whole crop in 

 that neighborhood is estimated at more than forty thousand pounds, 

 or twenty tons. The fame of the domestic wine, manufactured from 

 native grapes in the neighborhood of Cincinnati, is co-extensive with 

 the land. From the Secretary of the American Wine Growers As- 

 sociation, Dr. Warder, we have been favored with the following in- 

 formation. There are about one thousand acres now devoted to the 

 culture of the grape for wine within twenty miles of that city. The 

 profits are estimated at one hundred dollars to one hundred and fifty 

 dollars per acre in a series of ten years, — the present crop at fifty 

 to seventy-five thousand dollars annually ; and the prospective crop, 

 at one hundred to two hundred tliousand dollars per annum. The 

 worthy President of the Cincinnati Horticultural Society, writes us, 



