USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > The history of the Essex Agriculture Society of Essex County, Massachusetts, 1818-1918 > Part 2
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advised the culture of roots. One Essex County farm, he declared, was built on corn, carrots and ruta baga.
1830-1840.
The ox was still the farmer's chief reliance and he had a kingly place of honor at the Cattle Shows. At Andover, in 1831, the farmers made up a mighty team of about 150 yoke, a novelty in the Essex shows, though frequently seen in other centers. The ploughing matches with double and single yoke were the thrilling episodes of the annual fairs. But the horse was coming into his own. In 1829, Rufus Slocum of Haverhill appeared in the lists with a team of three horses and ploughed "with skill and dispatch, to wit in 45 minutes, and as well as the average of ox-teams." His time was noticeably shorter. In 1832 premiums for horses were given for the first time, and it was recognized with regret that insufficient attention was being given to breeding.
New inventions were calling for the horse each year. In 1831 the report was made that a revolving horse rake had been introduced lately in Pennsylvania and that a man and a single horse with this machine could do the work of six men with hand rakes. It was affirmed in 1835 that a boy with his horse rake could draw the hay into windrows as fast as eight men could put it into cocks. There were obscure allusions to a mowing ma- chine in some sections of the country, drawn by a horse, which could mow ten acres in a day, and a threshing machine operated by a horse which equalled in one day the work of a man with his flail in ten.
By the year 1834 the wooden plough had yielded to the superior efficiency of the iron. As early as 1820, Mr. Howard had taken out his patents and made the first iron ploughs, as he affirmed, in the Commonwealth. Many other patents had been granted, but Howard was recog- nized as the pioneer. The Committee on Agricultural
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Instruments rose to heights of enthusiasm in their Report in 1834.
The plough, for which more than a hundred patents have been obtained since the promulgation of that glori- ous document, the Declaration of Independence, has by late improvements arrived to such perfection, that could our oxen like Balaam's ass be endowed with the power of speech, they would shout "Howard forever," or in the more quaint language of late political times, "Huzza for Howard, the man who has relieved our necks of half their burden and aided the Harrow in its duties."
Speaking at Danvers, in September, 1835, Daniel P. King of Danvers extolled the Agricultural Societies as potent factors in securing new prosperity for the farmer, greater hay crops, finer results in the dairy, the rich fruit of better methods. But a year afterward, the orator of the day, Nathan W. Hazen, sounded a note of despond- ency and alarm. Beef and pork, packed in Ohio, he as- serted were being freighted in teams through the Notch of the White Mountains to the fertile intervales in the Connecticut River. A few years before Worcester County was producing 2,000,000 pounds of pork a year, now it was buying the western product. Farms were never more difficult to sell. Both speakers may have taken extreme views, we may believe, but in one particular the Essex County men were suffering great disappointment in this decade, through the failure of their golden dreams of wealth from the new industry of silk culture.
SILK CULTURE.
In his Statement in the Transactions of the year 1838, Rev. Gardner B. Perry, of Bradford, an enthusiastic ex- ponent of the new industry, stated that the pioneer in this experiment in Essex County was Enoch Boynton of Byfield, who planted some mulberry cuttings in 1822. His nursery was enlarged by trees raised from seed, graftings and cuttings, to more than 42,000 in 1832. He
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fed many worms upon the leaves and produced consider- able silk, for specimens of which he received several gratuities from the Essex County Agricultural Society.
A committee of the Massachusetts Legislature on the culture of Silk reported in January, 1829, recommending an extension of the grant to Agricultural Societies, made in 1819, to encourage the culture of silk, expressing great confidence in the simplicity of the process and the cer- tainty of success. The committee of the Essex Society reported in September, 1830, that nurseries of the white mulberry had been established by Mr. Boynton, Rev. Gardner B. Perry, of Bradford, Stephen Currier, Jr., Samuel Eaton and J. M. Grosvenor, and Dr. J. M. Gros- venor in Methuen. Premiums were paid to each of these.
In the Transactions for 1831, Dr. Andrew Nichols, for the Committee on Silk Culture, presented an exhaus- tive report with minute directions for the cultivation of the leaves and the care of the silkworms, with a large engraved plate. "At present," the report says, "nothing seems to promise better than the production of silk. . . . Like gold, it possesses an intrinsic value and will never cease to be in demand. . . Farmers of Essex, can you longer hesitate? White mulberry trees, seeds and eggs, together with the necessary directions for managing the whole business are now within your reach."
It proceeded to urge that women, boys and infirm peo- ple, every family, indeed, might rear a few thousand worms easily. Encouraged by this, many persons in dif- ferent parts of the County set out plantations, in size from a few hundred to as many thousand trees. Worms were raised in a great many families, from a few dozens by way of experiment, to many thousands for profit. Many of these efforts yielded a good profit. "Every cir- cumstance," Mr. Perry stated, "seemed to justify the expectation that the business, if followed with energy, would generally secure a competence and not unfrequently lead to wealth."
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Then came the disastrous winter of 1834, which utterly destroyed many orchards of tender fruit trees and did great injury to the young mulberries. Rust and scab and other diseases completed the work of ruin. The industry was checked at once. Many cut down their nurseries or allowed them to run to waste, and there was a general belief that the climate rendered the culture impossible. But Mr. Perry and a few other enthusiasts still had faith.
Temple Cutler of Hamilton made a detailed statement of his success with the Morus Multicaulis or Perotted Mulberry, a hardier variety than the Morus Alba or White Mulberry. His confidence knew no bounds.
Should silk one day rival all our other staple commodi- ties, it would not excite my surprise. Is it to be credited that a people so renowned for enterprise and industry as those of New England would shrink back from even a trial of their skill to raise silk? Should we make the trial and should we succeed in intro- ducing an employment that would tend to keep our young men from wandering away, leaving the tombs of their fathers, often to find an early grave among the infected prairies of the West; and our young women from flying to the manufacturing towns to be immured in loathsome prisons, where all improvements in household concerns with them must cease, a great and philanthropic pur- pose will be accomplished.
The industry made a brief recovery with the introduc- tion of the new variety of mulberry. Mr. Cutler, report- ing for the committee in 1843, remarked with much severity upon the multicaulis speculation, which had dealt the industry a well nigh fatal blow. Unprincipled agents had hawked the trees around and caught the un- wary with dreams of extravagant profit. The tree itself was brought into disrepute and odium cast on silk cul- ture, so that it became a subject of ridicule. Many aban- doned it for this reason alone. Morus Multicaulis became a by-word and a jest, and silk culture took its place be-
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side the Merino sheep mania in the limbo of exploded fancies. A few silk purses and several pairs of silk stock- ings seem to have been the only visible fruits of the experiment.
The most remarkable story that has been preserved is the tale of the silk gown, which was exhibited in the Cattle Show of 1840. Mrs. Burbank of Bradford, then ninety-five years old, stated that she had made it twenty- three years before. She had obtained some eggs in 1815, which had been brought from India, and secured some mulberry leaves from trees planted on her land by a former tenant. In two years she raised the silk, carded it, spun it on a linen wheel, wove the fabric in a common loom and made the dress.
1840-1850.
The decade opened with a Prospectus of an Agricul- tural Seminary at Andover. Twenty years had elapsed since Dr. Andrew Nichols had voiced his hope that such an institution might be established. Some years later an attempt had been made to introduce an agricultural course at Dummer Academy, but it failed. Prof. Alonzo Gray, of the Teachers' Seminary in the South Parish of An- dover, now presented a course of study contemplated in that school. It was planned to introduce Scientific Agri- culture as a regular department. Botany, Physiology, Mineralogy, Geology and Chemistry were included, and the opportunity of witnessing practical farming under the direction of a teacher. No labor would be required, but if any chose to work a fair remuneration was prom- ised. Nothing came of this scheme, though the Prospectus was accompanied by a strong essay on Scientific Agri- culture by Dr. Nichols.
John W. Proctor, the Secretary, and later President, in his address in 1844 alluded to these frequent demands, and made an eloquent appeal for a course of instruction
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in the common schools, to teach the elements of the science of agriculture, the constituents of soils and manures, the physiology of plants and the philosophy of vegetation. A notice had come to him that the State of New York had made a liberal appropriation for a State Agricultural School. He deplored that Massachusetts should be out- done in a work so essential to her best interests.
The Cattle Shows were very popular at this period, taking the place of the former training days of the militia as an autumnal holiday. Year by year new ex- hibits varied the familiar series. Fruits and flowers had appeared in 1835, bees and honey in 1844. Home indus- tries in infinite variety made a fine display. As Mr. Gregory had begun the cultivation of the tomato in 1841 this novelty probably had a place of honor. The new breeds of cows were contending for supremacy. Col. Moses Newell of West Newbury, one of the finest farmers of his day, favored a cross of the Ayrshire and Alderney, and the North Devon for oxen. Daniel P. King of Dan- vers, farmer and statesman, and John W. Proctor claimed that the Ayrshire was best adapted to this climate.
But tree culture was perhaps the most engrossing theme. The apple orchard, it was claimed by some, was a neglected asset on most farms. But there were bril- liant exceptions to this rule. William Thurlow of West Newbury was gathering a thousand barrels a year, worth $1,200, as early as 1824, from his 2,500 trees, the largest and most productive orchard in the County. In 1843 George Thurlow received the first premium for his West Newbury nursery, with 20,000 apple trees on a single acre, and Joshua H. Ordway's nursery in the same town received a premium the year before.
The building of the railroad had facilitated competition, the price of butter was depressed, farm products did not find so ready a market. Allen W. Dodge of Hamilton, lawyer and farmer, discussing the outlook in 1843, saw great promise in the growing of the apple. "The apples
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of Essex may yet be as widely celebrated as the oranges of Havana. Great credit is due to our Manning and Ives for their indefatigable zeal and judicious skill in stocking their gardens with such choice descriptions of cherries, plums, peaches and pears. Thanks, too, should be awarded them and other gentlemen in Salem and its vicinity for the excellent Horticultural Society, which they have so successfully established."
Robert Manning of Salem, "the great pomologist of America," had gathered into his own collection nearly 2,000 varieties of fruit. From that collection, 240 varie- ties of the pear were shown at an exhibition of the Massa- chusetts Horticultural Society. The Essex County Nat- ural History Society invited displays of fruit in its weekly exhibitions from Spring to Autumn. John M. Ives of Salem, one of the most skilled pomologists of his time, in his enlarged edition of Manning's New England Fruit Book, recommended the finest varieties of pears and ap- ples in 1842. His essay on The Apple, in the Transactions of 1847, was a valuable contribution to the literature of the orchard. He was a constant exhibitor at the Cattle Shows.
Renewed attention to Forestry was also apparent. Al- lusion has been made to the State grant in 1819 to pro- mote the raising of ship timber. Dr. Andrew Nichols had urged the cultivation of the locust in the bare and rocky pastures. But the offer of premiums had elicited no response. At the Lynn meeting in 1847, Richard S. Fay of Lynn made an offer of a hundred dollars for the best acre of white, black or yellow oak, planted from the acorn, that should be entered in 1852. In the same year, Rev. Gardner B. Perry of Bradford, one of the wisest and strongest members of the Society, contributed an essay on The Cultivation of the Oak. Mr. Fay, as chairman of the Committee on Forest Trees, made a report of great value, regarding the profit of tree culture, in 1848, and appealed to the farmers to plant.
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Upon the death of Henry Colman, on August 14, 1849, by his bequest the Society came into possession of his valuable private library of agricultural works, European ยท as well as American, 518 volumes and many pamphlets. Pickering Dodge, the Salem merchant, donated 53 vol- umes, and 37 volumes had been received in purchase. This library was kept at the City Hall in Salem for a time, then removed to the Court House, and some years since was deposited with the Essex Institute in Salem.
John W. Proctor's statement, in his Address in 1844, regarding the abolition of the drink habit on the farm, is of especial interest :
Twenty-five years since, and nine-tenths of our farmers were more or less in bondage to alcohol. I do not mean so many of them were intemperate, in the ordinary sense of the term, but that they were in the habit of using that which was not necessary to be used-to the great detriment of themselves and their estates. Where will the farmer now be found, who will unblushingly say, before he commences his haying, that he must lay in as many gallons, or even quarts of spirit, as he expects to cure tons of hay? Or that his men cannot commence mowing in the morning without their bitters ;- proceed at eleven o'clock without their grog ;- or load in the afternoon without their bumper ;- not to mention the grosser indulgences of the evening. Time was when these customs, by whatever name they were called, were as familiar as househould gods. But manners have changed with times.
1850-1860.
During this decade the Transactions, which had been gradually increasing in size, reached a maximum of some 224 octavo pages annually at its close, with an occasional exception, the largest size ever attained. In addition to the Address, which was given usually in some church, with appropriate religious exercises, generous provision was made for the detailed reports of the various commit-
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tees, the statements of the contestants for premiums for the management of farms, the reclaiming of waste or wet lands, experiments with manures, and the like, and for elaborate essays on special topics.
The Addresses of this period were of notable quality. Caleb Cushing, orator and statesman, delivered an elo- quent oration in 1850. Gen. Henry K. Oliver, Salem schoolmaster and Lawrence mill agent, spoke in 1852. Richard S. Fay in 1854, Dr. James R. Nichols of Haver- hill in 1855, Major Ben: Perley Poore, the famous war correspondent during the Civil War, in 1856; Dr. George B. Loring, the elegant and cultured farmer, politician, future Commissioner of Agriculture and diplomat, in 1858. Edward Everett was a speaker at the dinner in 1858, taking the same part that fell to him in 1836, when he was Governor of the Commonwealth.
The Reports of this period vied with each other in unique and grotesque peculiarities. Fitch Poole's report on "Poultry" was a broad burlesque, entitled "The Con- vention of the Domestic Poultry." Gen. Oliver followed with a humorous deliverance on "Bees and Honey," and as these literary novelties proved attractive, no doubt, he contributed a long poetical and classical essay on "Flow- ers,' and in 1854, reporting on "Poultry," already cele- brated in Fitch Poole's masterpiece, he produced a mar- vellous compound of poetry and prose, embellished with quotations from Virgil and Anacreon, Shakespeare and Milton, Dryden and Gray, the New England Primer and Mother Goose. Whereupon Fitch Poole launched into poetry in 1858, with the humorous "Ballad of 1692-The Second Dream of Giles Corey." This seems queer diet for the everyday farmer, and it is in no wise surprising that it was remarked in 1857 that not more than a third of the thousand members of the Essex Agricultural So- ciety were exclusively tillers of the soil. But though it bore the earmarks of a literary club, or a coterie of fine gentlemen, the old Society was still true to its ideals.
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There were essays of a more practical sort, Samuel P. Fowler's on "The Destruction of Insects Injurious to Vegetation," and David Choate's report of his elaborate experiments with the Chinese sugar cane. At the Cattle Shows there were evidences of notable advancements in farm methods. The Michigan sod plough, which turned two furrows at once, was exhibited in 1850. In 1852 a two-day session was adopted. In that year there was a particularly fine display of Suffolk swine, and Charles A. Stetson offered a premium for the encouragement of horse teams in plowing.
The address of the President, Richard S. Fay, in 1854, sounded a warning note. Wages had doubled in twenty years, and the return was only half. The farmer must either resort to machinery or give up the unequal con- test. He has much to learn from the English and Scotch farmer. The mowing machine, he states, has been intro- duced into our fields during the past summer. So the year 1854 must be written down as the year of transition from the Old to the New Era, the Old Era of the scythe and the slow-moving ox and the heavy, unaided toil of man, to the New Era of machinery, revolutionizing the work of the farm and lightening its toil.
The mowing machine met with the same captious crit- icism that always obstructs the progress of a great in- vention. It was objected that the expense put it beyond the reach of the average farmer, that the fields were too small and rough, that it required a skillful hand to operate it. The Essex Society moved rapidly. The President offered a special premium for the best machine. A committee on mowing machines was appointed, which visited Dr. Loring's farm on July 16th, 1855, to see sev- eral machines in operation, and on the 17th went to Col. Moses Newell's farm in West Newbury. These exhibi- tions drew great crowds of spectators, as many had never seen a machine in operation. Many accidents hap-
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pened and one machine was put out of the race, but the trial was instructive and helpful.
A few of the more progressive farmers made practical test of the value of the new invention on their own farms in the same summer. William F. Porter of Bradford cut 116 acres with a mowing machine; Horace Ware, 541/2 acres with one of the same make. Dr. Loring cut 58 acres with a Ketchum machine, and made successful experiment with his machine drawn by oxen on his salt marsh. As a matter of fact, the committee favored the use of oxen rather than horses with the mower. A hay-tedder of English make, which had been imported by Mr. Fay, was exhibited by Dr. Loring in 1858.
The time-honored ploughing match, with the competing double yokes of mighty oxen, was still the most exciting event of the Cattle Show, and in 1858 it was held up for two hours, waiting the arrival of their expected guest, George Peabody, the London banker and philanthropist, then revisiting his old home in Essex County. But there were those who called for more modern accessories, which gave popularity to other County Fairs, though once and again their covert demand was silenced by the scornful query of the elder men: "What have military companies, and fire engines, horse races and female equestriennes to do with farming?"
The Society became heir to the Treadwell farm in Tops- field in 1856, under the will of Dr. John G. Treadwell of Salem. He devised the farm after the decease of his mother, to the Society, "for the promotion of the science of Agriculture by the instituting and performance of experiments and such other means as may tend to the advancement of science," with an eventual reversion to the Massachusetts General Hospital if the Society de- clined to accept the gift on these terms, or failed to ob- serve the conditions of the gift. Two schemes for the use of the property were considered. One was the estab- lishment of a school of practical agriculture, which might
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be instituted in case some person be found competent to take the farm and teach young men the essentials of successful farming, receiving the rent for his remuner- ation. The other plan was to place it in the hands of an experienced and intelligent farmer on a long lease, subject in lieu of rent to various duties and experiments. The latter was adopted, the transfer of the farm was made, and it was leased at once.
1860-1870.
The Civil War period brought no interruption in the activities of the Society. The orators made eloquent ref- erence to the new and larger duties of the time. Gail Hamilton contributed a stirring Original Ode for the exercises in 1861.
"Ho, freeman of Essex! Stout sons of the soil! What meed to your labors, what rest to your toil, While the tread of the traitor pollutes the wronged earth And Liberty faints in the land of her birth !"
And when the war was done, John G. Whittier wrote "The Peace Anthem," which was sung at the anniversary, Sept. 26, 1865.
"Thank God for rest, where none molest And none can make afraid; For peace that sits as Plenty's guest Beneath the homestead shade.
Bring pike and gun, the sword's red scourge, The negro's broken chains, And beat them at the blacksmith's forge To ploughshares for our plains."
Dr. Jeremiah Spofford made a careful study of the Forestry problem, and encouraged the attempt by chap- ters from his own observation and experience, illustrat- ing the growth of white pine seedlings. "I can now
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cut a frame for a good-sized house from land from which the previous owner cut nearly all the wood he consid- ered worth cutting in 1838." Dr. George B. Loring de- livered the semi-centennial address in 1868, filled with interesting reminiscences of the past and with deserved tributes to the founders and supporters of the Society. Benjamin P. Ware, son of Erastus Ware, of the great Pickman farm, himself a farmer of exceptional breadth of mind and friendliness to new methods, made a valuable summary of the progress in farming in his address in 1869.
With Raymond's Hay Elevator, he [the farmer] may store away his hay in his barn with comparatively little labor and a great saving of time. The potato crop can now be grown entirely without hand labor. True's Potato Planter cuts the potato, drops, furrows and covers in one operation. With Holbrook and Chand- ler's Horse Hoes, the labor of hoeing is wholly performed by horse power. With Willis's Seed Sower, the Danvers Truckle Hoe, all of the root crops can be grown with about one-half the labor formerly required.
We need not leave Essex County to find that within a few years there has been introduced by skill and careful cultivation, the Hubbard Squash, the Stone Mason and Marblehead Mammoth Cabbages, Emery's Early Cabbage, a superior early Tomato and Lettuce, the Danvers Onion, all better in some respects than before existed; and to the list of fruits have been added Allen's two hybrid grapes, and those of Mr. Rogers, possessing qualities superior to those of any others.
Who ever heard, until within a few years, of seventy- four tons of mangel-wurzels being grown upon one acre of land; of thirty-six tons of carrots or nine hundred bushels of onions per acre? Such crops as these are facts that can be proved.
Illustrating the value of home grown, carefully selected seed, thorough-bred as he termed it, he instanced the experiment of a Salem farmer who planted his own thorough-bred seed, then seed grown by his neighbor, as good as the average, and supplemented this with seed
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