Rural Economy in New England 333 



stone was done, except when there was snow on the ground, by means 

 of ox-carts, ponderous two-wheeled vehicles, constructed almost 

 entirely of wood. The carriage of goods for any distance was, if 

 possible, postponed until winter when sledges or sleighs could be used. 



The Yield per Acre of Various Crops. 



The best method of determining just how inefficient was the prac- 

 tice of husbandry outlined in the foregoing paragraphs, would seem 

 to be an examination of the yield of the various crops cultivated. 

 There are, of course, no government reports going back to those 

 early days^ nor are there any other official publications covering 

 this period. There exists, however, a considerable mass of informa- 

 tion on this point scattered through the various gazetteers and statis- 

 tical accounts of towns and in the writings of travelers. This ma- 

 terial refers to conditions in various parts of southern New England, 

 in general between the years 1790-1810. The following figures 

 have been compiled from a digest of such scattered information, 

 making allowance for exceptional conditions in certain localities 

 which would cause variations from the normal figures. Indian 

 com produced on an average 25 to 30 bushels per acre. Occasion- 

 ally crops of as high as 40 or 50 bushels were recorded, in the Con- 

 necticut Valley, and, on the other hand, on sandy soil such as that 

 of Cape Cod and of Nantucket the yield fell to 12 bushels per acre 

 or less. Rye was considerably less prolific, averaging about 15 

 bushels per acre. This crop was curiously uniform over the entire 

 area, hardly any cases being found where crops larger than this 

 were harvested, and only occasionally did the yield fall to 12 or 10 

 bushels. Potatoes are credited with 100 to 150 bushels per acre, 

 a figure which compares very favorably with those of the latest 

 censuses,^ but this is probably due to inaccuracy at the earlier date 

 in estimating the crop, since, as we have seen, potatoes were rarely 

 grown by themselves in fields of any considerable size. Barley 

 produced about 20 bushels to the acre, and buckwheat from 15 to 

 20 bushels. The yield of wheat, in the limited areas in which it 

 was cultivated, was miserably low, hardly ever rising above 15 bushels 

 to the acre, and averaging between 10 and 15.^ 



^ The census of 1840 was the first in which agricultural statistics were collected. 



2 In 1909 the yield for New England averaged 176.9 bushels per acre; in 1899 

 it was 130.3. U. S. Bureau of the Census. Thirteenth Census. 1910. Abstract, 

 p. 399. 



» For the best collation of figures for crop yields in any single work see Mass. 

 Agric. Soc. Papers, II. 1807, 14-19. 



