Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 333 



With such bountiful crops of grass, we were somewhat surprised 

 that grazing was not more general. We were told that the fly, so 

 annoying to stock, was so troublesome in the latter part of the 

 summer as to prevent cattle from fattening. This fly is common 

 to all parts of the country; it is about the size of the common 

 house-fly, rather darker colored, and having a cutting apparatus 

 that enables it to draw the blood of domestic animals. Still, we 

 saw several good-sized dairies, and a few farms that were chiefly 

 devoted to the feeding of beef cattle. On these farms we saw pas- 

 ture fields that had not been plowed for thirty or forty years, and 

 densely covered with the natural grasses — green or blue grass and 

 white clover. 



Fruit. — Peach orchards were seen on some of the less valuable 

 lands; but, as in other parts of New Jersey and the Middle States, 

 the disease called the "yellows," is here. The first crop of trees 

 on new land will produce three or four crops; but a second orchard 

 on the same laud, or even in the neighborhood, will frequently not 

 produce a single crop. 



Apple trees are grown by all the farmers, but very few of the 

 orchards are large ones. The trees are large and vigorous, and 

 occasionally the crops are abundant. One farmer, David Petit, 

 told us that last year an orchard of his, of two hundred trees, pro- 

 duced an average of twelve bushels to the tree, and as the sorts 

 were all good, that was his best crop of the season. This year he 

 is almost without apples. There was a thin crop early in the 

 season, but it all fell oif. Here we also saw a large number of 

 pear trees, and producing a full crop; many kinds, and especially 

 the Seckel, very fine. We found some traditional knowledge of 

 plums and apricots, but the insect enemies are here as in other parts 

 of the country, and although these insects find occasionally more 

 apples than they want in Salem, the}'- are in most seasons com- 

 manders of the situation. 



Clover Seed. — One thousand bushels of this seed is an annual 

 crop, and we were told that one season ninety thousand bushels, 

 worth about one dollar a bushel, of herds grass or red top, were 

 sold from this county. This last is all gathered from the marsh 

 meadows, and is half that is raised in the United States. 



Timber. — The original growth is nearly gone. We heard of 

 sales of the timber alone at the rate of from one hundred dollars 

 to two hundred dollars an acre. As this land is now so valuable 

 for agriculture, the timber will be soon all sold off. As the size 



