574 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Dec. 



lime to the acre. This can be procured in almost 

 every part of the country at a cheap rate, and will 

 supply elements that may have been exhausted 

 by long-continued cropping, and secure a profit- 

 able result- 

 After devoting several pages to the interesting 

 subject of reclaiming meadows, and touching, as 

 he naturally would, upon the matter of draining, 

 Mr. Choate says : 



t The query now arises whether changes in soci- 

 'etymaynot some day occur which shall make 

 water power unnecessary ? Is not steam power 

 already unharnessing the horse and turning him 

 out to pasture ? Has it not long since commenced 

 its triumphs on the ice-bound rivers of the New 

 England States, driving the million wheels which 

 M'ould otherwise yield to the icy king for four 

 months in the year? Is there not something un- 

 natural in the idea of even a vested right out- 

 lasting the need of that right ? What becomes 

 of it in case of a milldam where the river has 

 ceased to run at all, as is already in numerous 

 instances the case ? Or of what value is that 

 dam to the owner, when other power can be 

 brought in to drive machinery so much cheaper 

 and better that the water is not wanted for any 

 such purpose ? A change like this, draining the 

 13,400 acres of fresh meadovv', at present known, 

 because sometimes out of water, and also drain- 

 ing the balance under water, rarely seen, and 

 never measured, — what an addition to the agri- 

 cultural wealth of Essex county ! These mead- 

 ows now yield 10^000 tons a year. But drainage 

 would probably double the acres, and treble the 

 price. What may be the result of the long con- 

 troversy respecting flowago on the Concord and 

 other rivers can hardly yet be foreseen, but event- 

 ually ilie meadows, it is believed, will be drained, 

 and nobody hurt by it. 



Under the head of "changes and improvements 

 in farming," he says the quantity of milk "re- 

 turned by the officers, in the county," in 1845, was 

 201,744 quarts ; in 1855, it was 1,811,936 quarts ; 

 being an excess of over fifteen hundred thou- 

 sand quarts ! This was mainly owing to the 

 rapid increase of population in Gloucester, Law- 

 rence, Newburyport, and other manufacturing 

 places. The number of apple trees in the 

 county, cultivated for their fruit, would give an 

 average of eighty-eight to each farm. The au- 

 thor quotes Mr. C. P. Preston, of Danvers, who 

 says : "In my neighborhood, I think within for- 

 ty years, but two farmers raised grafted fruit, 

 which they picked by hand, possibly 200 barrels. 

 Others had more or less natural fruit, with pos- 

 sibly two or three grafted ti'ees. Now, within 

 the range of a square mile of this, in a bearing 

 season, there are picked some 2500 to 3000 bar- 

 rels of apples, worth say $1,50 per barrel." 



Mr. Choate has devoted considerable space to 

 the subject of manure, under the head of Lime 

 and Ashes, and Sea Sand as a Manure. Then 

 follow remarks upon the Changes effected by the 



action of the Sea, and Salt Marshes in connec- 

 tion with such changes, and the effect of location 

 in relation to the sea ; Sheep Husbandry ; Neat 

 Stock ; Raising of Horses ; Market Days, and 

 Farms and Farmers, 



In most of the closing heads, the important 

 question is asked, "Does the County advance in 

 Agricultural Wealth ?" but we are not able to an- 

 swer it ourself, or to give the writer's own opin- 

 ion. It is true that he gives some tables, and 

 shows the increase or decrease in certain crops 

 during a special period, but a conclusion from 

 them can only be arrived at by an investigation 

 that we have not opportunity to make. 



We are glad the writer so fully appreciates the 

 importance of our system of collecting the statis- 

 tics of the people. He says, "when the volume 

 for 1837 appeared in London, Mr. Webster was 

 struck with the effect it had upon English capi- 

 talists. Massachusetts could obtain loans on the 

 strength of that book, u-hen no other State could T' 

 Mr. De Bow said— "This State (Mass.) is in ad- 

 vance of every other, in the extent and accuracy 

 with which it presses statistical investigationsj 

 and is worthy of all praise. Nothing is too mi- 

 nute to escape attention, and many of her citizens 

 are the very first statisticians of America." 



A few pages are devoted to geology and agri- 

 culture in the common schools, to the subject of 

 meteorology, the county, or Treadwell farm, and 

 to concluding remarks. 



Following upon the very heels of these — and 

 as though it formed a part of the Survey itself — 

 is a "Prize Essay on Farm Management," by Al- 

 exander Simpson, a Scotchman, copied from the 

 Journal of Agriculture, and the Transactions of 

 the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scot- 

 land. 



The next article is entitled "Agricultural Mis- 

 cellany." This, we suppose, was prepared by the 

 Editor of the volume. He says : 



"We know no more satisfactory method of 

 measuring our actual progress in agriculture, than 

 by comparing the amount of the principal pro- 

 ducts per acre of the two periods, half a century 

 ago and at the present time, and also the value of 

 land, as nearly as it can be ascertained, at the 

 same peri;-ds. If, upon this comparison, we find 

 an increased agricultural production, and an en- 

 hanced value ia our farming land, we may safely 

 conclude that we have made a decided progress ; 

 if we could show that every acre produced thirty- 

 three per cent, more in food than it did fifty years 

 ago, while the value of the land has increased, 

 during the period which has elapsed, twenty-eight 

 per cent., as is stated to be the case in England,* 

 we sliould unhesitatingly assert these tacts as 

 conclusive evidence of increased agricultural pros- 

 perity. Passing by the system of cultivation, 

 which has varied in no important particulars in 



* The Farmers' Magazine. London. Jan., 1861. p. CI. 



