PREFACE. v 



mental, and instructive, which through succeeding time would promote the interests of the agricultural 

 community, improve the tastes, and enlarge the knowledge of all. The useful and ornamental 

 character of trees and plants once illustrated by example, the enterprise of our own farmers, gardeners, 

 and seedsmen will make avail of their advantages, as those interested in the mechanic arts do from 

 useful mechanical inventions, and do so at their own charge. With such an organization a serial 

 publication might be advantageously connected, to give the results of its experience, and make record 

 of the current inventions and improvements in agricultural implements and machinery, at home and 

 abroad, which should be conducted with sufficient ability to command respect, and integrity to inspire 

 confidence in its representations. It may appear very easy to pursue a practice involving in its 

 administration no demand for enlarged views, or scientific attainments, but time will demonstrate that 

 the utility of such a procedure will not be found commensurate with its expense. If any dilFer from 

 us in these opinions, we are inclined to believe they realize but little of the disappointed hopes and 

 misapplied labor of thousands, and form their conclusions from results which should naturally follow 

 the vast expenditures so lavishly made by our government in behalf of agriculture, and the cheering 

 promises which have induced them, rather than from clearly ascertained beneficial results in any 

 degree comparable with their cost. It is obligatory upon the state, and beneficial to all, to present 

 periodical exhibits of our various productions, because this can only be done by the state, and this is 

 especially necessary in a country where there exists such a boundless expanse of unoccupied territory 

 adapted to agriculture, mining, and manufactures, which may be made available in increasing our power 

 and wealth as rapidly as may be consistent with healthy progress. When we shall have more nearly 

 attained to the conditions of some older nations, where production and consumption arc so nicely 

 balanced that the slightest failure in any one staple crop would endanger the security and happiness of 

 the people, or stability of the state, the direct active co-operation of the government with the people 

 may become judicious; but happily for us, such a contingency is far distant, as, apart from the general 

 spirit of inquiry and enterprise of our people, it will be long before population becomes redundant, 

 and the conditions of our climate arc such that what may produce failure in one crop promotes the 

 growth of others. 



With us but few of the prejudices have to be overcome which in older countries attach to the use 

 of improved agricultural implements, and to a system of culture obsolete where intelligence prevails. 

 Here we have no dull, lethargic confidence in the perfection of anything connected with agriculture, 

 because we cannot move without realizing the rapid, ever-varying improvement, such as must convince 

 even a man blind from his youth that nearly all the operations of the farm are conducted in a manner 

 different from what they were formerly. 



It has become the wise policy of the general government to take a periodical account of the 

 productions of agriculture, as well for the instruction of the people as for the information of the state, 

 and it is upon this &quot;account&quot; that all estimates of the productions of subsequent years are based, so 

 that really all we know of our annual productions from one decade to another, is deduced from the 

 decennial returns of the census. While such investigations are not of recent origin, it is believed that 

 we have entered into more general details than have other nations, of whom comparatively few have 

 found it practicable to obtain the results, while lamenting their want. The object of the present volume 

 is to represent the agricultural productions of our country for the year ending on the 1st of June, I860, 

 and the live stock on the day mentioned. In presenting these results, we shall at the same time repre 

 sent the growth and progress of some interests, and the proper method of culture as to others, in the 



