waste of time and much less work is oftentimes accomplished than with fewer men and more careful arrangements; but where on the other hand a team must be kept, which ought to be constantly employed, and with the team the necessary appendages of carts, ploughs and farming implements; and where also no extra labor, house rent, or fuel will be required for the support of the men than if there were fewer of them, there it would seem to be proper to cultivate as much land as you can manure and cultivate well, and to employ as many hands within the above limits as can possibly be made to work to advantage. Your Committee therefore would deem it proper on their part not to inquire with how little labor a farmer can get along, but to compare the labor employed with the extent of the farm, the quantity of land under cultivation, and the amount of produce grown; and to pronounce that the best husbandry where the labor employed, be it more or less, has been applied with the best judgment and profit.

Your Committee avail themselves of the present occasion to call the attention of their brother-farmers to the importance of keeping accounts. Let any farmer make the experiment and he will find it as interesting as it is useful, and both interesting and useful to know from year to year the actual produce of his farm. Let every thing therefore, which can be measured and weighed, be measured and weighed ; and let that, which cannot be brought to an exact standard, be estimated as fairly as if he himself was about to sell or purchase it. Let him likewise, as near as possible, measure the ground which he plants, the quantity of seed, which he uses, and the manure, which he applies. The labor of doing this is nothing compared with the satisfaction of having done it and the benefits which must arise from it. Conjecture in these cases is perfectly wild and uncertain, varying often with different individuals almost a hundred per cent. Exactness enables a man to form conclusions, which may most essentially and in innumerable ways avail to his advantage. It is that alone which can give any value to his experience; it is that which will make his experience the sure basis of improvement. It will put it in his power to give safe counsel to his friends, and it is the only ground on which he can securely place confidence in hiniself.

Your Committee congratulate themselves and the Society in the belief that the agriculture of the County is in a state of improvement. It is very far from being what it should be; yet some ex

amples of its farming and many instances of crops raised in the county will hold an honorable comparison with the farms and the crops of counties and countries much more highly favored by soil and climate. The County of Essex enjoying many advantages from its proximity to good markets and possessing an industrious, temperate, moral, and intelligent population, may find in these blessings some compensation for the sterility of much of its soil; and in its general improvements, and its agricultural and commercial facilities and advantages it presents to industrious, frugal, and enterprising citizens ample occasions for honest pride and grateful contentment. Respectfully submitted,

JESSE PUTNAM,
HENRY COLMAN,
JOSEPH KITTREDGE,
MOSES NEWHALL,
JEREMIAH COLMAN,
WM. P. ENDICOTT,
J. W. PROCTOR.

January 4, 1831.

ERASTUS WARE'S STATÈMENT.

To the Committee of the Essex Agricultural Society on Farms.

GENTLEMEN-The farm, known by the name of the Pickman farm, of which the subscriber is at present, and has been tenant for nearly eleven years, is situated in the south-easterly part of Salem, and contains four hundred twenty-eight acres of pasturage, tillage, and mowing. The pasturage includes about three hundred acres, much broken, of every description from wet pond-holes to barren rocks. No attempts have been made to improve this pasture other than clearing the bushes and draining some low parts, as there is no prospect of a remuneration for such labor. The amount of land under tillage, the present year, has been about twenty-one acres, and the amount of upland or English mowing, is sixty-three acres. Of the tillage and mowing lands, a considerable part consists of thin gravelly soil, of better than a medium quality, and favorable to most grain crops and another part consists of a clayey soil, resting on a clay pan, retentive of moisture and yielding good crops of grass and potatoes under liberal manuring and cultivation. The farm is

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well watered. Much of the mowing and tillage, in the spring of the year, would naturally be overflowed; so that much labor has been necessary to prepare and lay it down to grass in beds, that the water may be carried off in drains.

Some of the most productive grass land on the place has been in this way reclaimed from an unprofitable marsh or swamp, and made to yield very large crops of English grass. We have no land on the place which is irrigated by any artificial process. There is of wet meadow land not more than five acres, which is never tilled, but drained and yields good crops of good stock hay. We have of salt marsh thirty-nine acres, generally yielding good crops of black grass. This is ditched, from which well known advantages arise; but no other labor is expended, other than taking the crop.

Of the cultivated land the present year,

Five and a half acres were sown with Barley,

About seven acres were planted with Indian corn,-
Four and three-fourths acres with Potatoes,-

One acre with Mangel Wurtzel,

One third of an acre with Onions,

And one half of an acre with crook-necked winter Squashes. Small parcels were cultivated with garden vegetables for the family, and supply for the retail market, the produce of which I cannot conveniently account for.

Many of the mangel wurtzel plants were destroyed by worms, and their places supplied by ruta baga.

The manure used on the place, has been principally made by the stock kept on it. I have carted into my barn yard bog mud, damaged hay, and obtained from the neighboring beaches, sea wreck and Eel-grass, which I put in my hog styes,-Kelp and rock-weed, &c. which I put directly on the grass land. For small grain crops no manure is applied by me, on the year of their being sown, unless the land is very wet and cold.

My Barley was raised on ground, on which the preceding year I had a very good crop of Chenango potatoes, which I manured with coarse manure spread and ploughed under the sward. My Indian corn this year, contrary to my usual practice, was raised on land which was planted the preceding year with Indian corn-spreading and ploughing under coarse manure both years. But the sward being so completely bound with twitch-grass I could not subdue it in one year. I have found a crop which shades the ground most perfectly

is the most effectual in destroying the twitch-grass;--and this was an inducement to plant corn a second time, in drill rows, and I have thereby effected my object in destroying that pernicious root. My corn was raised on a gravelly soil, as before described. In the former part of the season it appeared'small, but afterwards grew with great promise until a severe gale in August blew it down, so that it was necessary to cut it up green, and shock it in the field till it was dry. The crop was much injured, but I was satisfied that cutting it up green was my best way.

My potatoes, except a few raised on the borders of some of the fields, were raised on ground newly broken up, and the manure, at the rate of eight or nine cords per acre, taken from the barn yard, composed of litter and the deposits of the cattle, was spread and ploughed under the sod. The soil, on which the potatoes grew, was moist and clayey. The potatoes were ploughed, and hoed twice, and harrowed once between the rows,--the seed, of the Chenango kind, of excellent quality,

The corn was hoed three times, but not hilled as has been cus tomary; and upon a comparison of that not hilled, with a small piece, which was in some degree hilled, after a severe gale, I am satisfied that no advatage is gained by hilling as was formerly practised. My opinion is that there is no benefit derived by hilling corn, and corn raised on a flat surface, when the weeds are destroyed and the ground kept loose, is by no means so likely to suffer by the drought, or to have its roots impeded in the search after their proper nutriment, as where the ground is drawn up round the stalk in a high and steep hill.

The manure applied to my other crops was of the best kind I could procure, and applied nearly as can be ascertained at the rate of about ten cords to the acre; for crops of potatoes and Indian corn my experience leads me to apply my manure spread green and fresh, believing that by so doing its strength is best preserved and much labor saved.

For smaller crops, and tap rooted plants, I prefer manure that is fine and well rotted.

The amount of crops raised this season on the farm is as follows

Of garden vegetables the family have had an abundant supply, and we have had an assortment, and supply for retail in the market, since the first of August with some fruit which has been taken while growing and ripening, so that I cannot give an accurate account of the amount.

The severe gale in August very much injured the crops of corn; shook from the trees, nine hundred bushels of unripe apples, which were partly manufactured to very little advantage into cider, and lessened much the expected profits of the orchard.

Of the above crops, the grain, vegetables, and fruit are of nearly correct measurement; the amount of hay is given by as accurate an estimate, in each load, as could be made by an experienced and disinterested individual,

The hay on the farm is generally a mixture of herds-grass and red-top, with some clover. The amount of seed used in laying down land to grass is a peck and half of herds-grass and three pecks of red-top to an acre. There is usually enough of clover seed in the manure, and it cannot be sowed to advantage in rich moist land. When I sow grass seed in the spring I sow barley with the grass seed. I have been very successful in laying down land to grass in the fall, after taking a crop of potatoes, in which case nothing but grass seed is sown.

The number of bearing trees on the farm is as follows:-Of Apple trees (almost all engrafted and many with very choice fruit) mostly young, 763-Pear trees, 65-Cherry trees cultivated, 50. In addition, I have a nursery containing 3000 trees-most of which have been engrafted or budded. Of the apple-trees, some of them are in orchards, of which the ground about the roots is cultivated, and occasionally manured, when the condition of the tree re