USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > The story of Essex County, Volume I > Part 33
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THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
ing parties provided the occasion for a social gathering, which brought all the neighboring farmers and their families together. Joel Barlow celebrated these events in 1793 in a poem called "A Yankee Husking":
"And now, the cornhouse filled, the harvest home, The invited neighbors to the husking come ;
A frolic scene, where work and mirth and play
Unite their charms to chase the hours away. Where the huge heap lies centered in the hall,
The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall,
Brown, corn-fed nymphs and strong, hard-handed beaux,
Alternate ranged, extend in circling rows, Assume their seats, the solid mass attack ;
The dry husks rattle and the corn-cobs crack ;
The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound, And the sweet cider trips in silence round."
Second in importance only to corn were beans, which likewise were taken over directly from the Indians and which today are one of the staple foods of New England. The Saturday night baked bean supper has been an institution for generations, the best method of preparing them still being the ancient custom of baking them in earthen pots. Like corn, beans were preserved after shelling, so that they would last through the winter months. They were planted in between the hills of corn and were used with it in the preparation of succotash. Among the other early products were squashes called "squanter squashes," cucumbers, known as cow-cum- bers or cow-combers, and water and musk melons, or millions. Vari- ous types of crude dishes and utensils were made from the gourds which were cultivated. The pumpkin, which required little trouble in growing, keeping, and cooking had many uses and, like beans, was planted among the corn, a custom which is still preserved among New England farmers. It could be cooked for eating, used for sweetening, and made into bread after grinding. The pumpkin was then known as the "pompion," which was called by Johnson, in his "Wonder-working Providence," "A fruit which the Lord fed his people till corn and cattle increased." A poet of the time versified their use and need in these lines :
"We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon,
If it were not for pumpkins we should be undone."
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They were eaten stewed, cured in the sun for winter use, and made into the celebrated pumpkin pie, which, however, is not so common at the present time as the justly famous squash pie.
An excerpt from the poem, "A Descriptive and Historical Account of New England," by Governor Bradford, of Plymouth Colony, gives a fairly complete idea of the early agricultural products of the colonies :
"New plantations were in each place begun
And with inhabitants were filled soon.
All sorts of grain which our own land doth yield
Was hither brought and sown in every field,
As wheat and rye, barley, oats, beans, and pease.
Here all thrive and they profit for their raise.
All sorts of roots and herbs in gardens grow,
Parsnips, carrots, turnips, or what you will sow.
Onions, melons, cucumbers, radishes,
Skirets, beets, coleworts and fair cabbages.
Here grow fine flowers, many and 'mongst those,
The fair, white lily and sweet fragrant rose.
Many good wholesome berries here you'll find Fit for man's use of almost every kind.
Pears, apples, cherries, plumbs, quinces and peach
Are now no dainties, you may have of each,
Nuts and grapes of several sorts are here If you will take the pains them to seek for."
Native edible roots such as turnips, parsnips, carrots, and onions complete the list of farm products produced by the Indians before the settlers planted English seeds and added to the types of New England crops.
During the winter following Endicott's arrival in Salem, the Mas- sachusetts Bay Company sent various supplies there, the list consisting of : "a hogshead each, in the ear, of wheat, rye, barley, and oats, beans, peas, woad seed, madder roots and seeds, potatoes, and hemps and flax seed." The general court enacted a law, May 13, 1648, to the effect that "no wheat, rye, barley or Indian corn should be trans- ported into any foreign parts, or put aboard any vessel with that intention, under penalty of twenty shillings per bushel, one-half of the penalty to go to the informer." Later, in 1662, the exportation of
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THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
corn was again forbidden. These various commodities were accepted as payment for taxes, different allowances being made on each type of crop. "Corn was received for taxes at the following rates per bushel : in 1650, three shillings per bushel; in 1654, two shillings and eight pence ; and in 1655, two shillings and six pence. In 1650 and 1654, wheat and barley were received for taxes at the rate of five shillings per bushel, and rye and peas at four shillings. In 1655, wheat and barley were received at four shillings and six pence, rye at three shill- ings and six pence, and peas at four shillings per bushel. May 23, 1655, the General Court authorized towns to appoint men to measure corn in cases of dispute that might arise."
Once the colonies were really established, farming and fishing were the two main occupations of the people; and at first a mere existence was all that they wished from the land. Each family had its own garden, while poultry and cattle were gradually introduced from England and the other colonies. No large farms were estab- lished at the start, but the various families traded and exchanged products other than the bare necessities of life. Cotton was imported from the West Indies early in the history of the county, while sheep were brought in for their wool. Mention is made of a spinning- wheel in 1638, and premiums were offered for the raising of hemp and flax. At the time of the Stamp Act the colonists pledged them- selves not to eat any lamb in order that the wool might be saved for clothing material. The common pasture system was used by each township, each person being permitted to graze a number of cattle in proportion to the amount of work done in preparing the walls or with the amount of taxes paid for its upkeep. During the eighteenth century agriculture advanced to such an extent that some of the surplus products such as barreled beef and pork and lumber were being shipped from Salem and Newburyport to the West Indies and the southern colonies in exchange for such luxuries as sugar and molasses. However, notable progress was not really made in com- mercial agriculture until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
From the early years of the nineteenth century to the present day the development and progress of agriculture in this county coincide with the ever-increasing activity of the Essex Agricultural Society. Following the founding of the Massachusetts Society for the Promo-
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tion of Agriculture, in 1792, a professorship of natural history was founded at Harvard, the botanical garden was established, animals were imported to improve the domestic stock, and the establishment of county societies was promoted. In ISI8 the society was conduct- ing a series of lectures by eminent men in behalf of county organiza- tions. The Western Society of Middlesex Husbandmen, the Berk- shire Agricultural Society, and the Worcester Agricultural Society were all incorporated in February of that year. On February 6, ISIS, the following notice appeared in the Salem "Gazette": "The Farmers and others in the County of Essex, who are desirous of pro- moting the Agricultural interests, are requested to meet at the Hotel in Topsfield on Monday the 16th of February current at eleven o'clock A. M. for the purpose of forming an AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY FOR THE COUNTY OF ESSEX, in aid of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society." At this meeting a set of rules and regulations was adopted, and it was proposed to "suggest objects of improvement to the atten- tion of the public, publish such communications and offer such pre- miums in such form and value as they shall think proper, provided the "
premiums offered do not exceed the funds of the society. . . " On February 20 the Salem "Gazette" published the following edi- torial: "It will give pleasure to the friends of the county to observe that a Society is formed in the County of Essex for the promotion and improvement of Agriculture, the real basis of individual and national wealth and prosperity, and that that scientific and practical farmer, the Hon. Timothy Pickering (who assisted many years ago in the formation of the Agricultural Society of Philadelphia and of which he is still a member), has been elected its first President. It will be recollected that at Brighton the exhibitions of our Essex farmers have made no mean figure and in some instances borne away the prizes. The celebrated Oakes Cow of Danvers has been commemorated in the art of the engraver." The choice of Pickering proved to be an excel- lent one. After graduating from Harvard, in 1763, he was admitted to the bar and later distinguished himself in the Revolutionary War. After some years of retirement in Pennsylvania away from his native Salem, he became Postmaster-General, in 1791, in the cabinet of Washington, and Secretary of War in 1795. In December of the same year he accepted the post of Secretary of State. Seven years later he was appointed Chief Justice of the County Court of Common
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THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
Pleas in Essex County, in 1803 he was elected a Senator of the United States, and later he served as Representative from 1813 to 1817. Finally, he retired to a small farm in Wenham and devoted the remainder of his life to agriculture. The Essex Agricultural Society has had many prominent men such as Pickering among its members; in many many instances these people have pursued agricul- ture for their own pleasure as an avocation, not as a means of livelihood.
The birth of this society came at a time when the farmers were in great need of help and encouragement. Twice, in 1812 and 1816, the autumn frosts had ruined the corn crop, so that the farmers had begun to lose confidence in this staple product. A ship broker of Newburyport had imported a flock of ninety Merino sheep from Lis- bon in 1810; so the Essex Merino Sheep Company was formed, and sheep and shepherds were brought in from Spain. Local farmers disposed of their own breeds in favor of the Merinos, only to have these foreign flocks ravaged with foot-rot and scab. As a climax to a bad affair, some of the company officials proved to be dishonest, thereby ending it all in bankruptcy. No progress in agriculture had been made in a very long time. The tools were mostly homemade, and were inefficient because of their weight and the fact that the soft iron of which they were composed was easily bent out of shape. Patents were taken out for the sheet-iron shovel in 1819, the cast steel shovel in 1828, the cast steel hoe in 1827, and the steel spring pitch- fork in 1831. Although the iron plow had been invented long before, the farmers still persisted in employing the "old plough, with its wooden mould board covered with thin strips of iron, with an iron coulter." It was so constructed that the plowing of heavy ground required three or four yoke of oxen. There was great need for a clearing house of agriculture where the farmer could learn about new experiments with crops and tools so that he would know how to "make his head help his hand."
Publication was the first method used by the Essex Agricultural Society, beginning with the first paper read by Colonel Pickering on the subject of the famous Oakes cow. His paper, in 1820, dealt with the great carrot crop raised by Erastus Ware in 1817, the flat culture of corn in preference to hilling, the Arbuthnot iron plough, and extracts from English farming authorities. The cattle show was
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another means of instructing the farmer; so the first one was held at Topsfield on October 5, 1820. Topsfield at the time was the most central point in the county, due to its location on the old stagecoach route. Dr. Andrew Nichols delivered the address, in which he emphasized the need of an agricultural academy. Years later, when the Essex County Agricultural School was founded, it was almost on the land of this same Dr. Nichols. In closing he voiced an opinion that was held by society members until comparatively recent times, in appealing "to prevent our annual cattle show from becoming scenes of riots, drunkenness, gambling, cheating, and dissipation." At that time premiums went to Tristram Little, of Newbury, for "raising 1031/2 bushels of corn on an acre," and to John Dwiniell, of Salem, for "3981/2 bushels of potatoes on an acre." Probably the most interesting part of the show was the plowing match: "The Commit- tee agreed to award the first premium to the Hon. Timothy Pickering on account of the superior performance and superior utility of his plough." In 1821 prizes were awarded for "The Management of a Farm, Crops for Cows, Cider, and on Sumac." This last premium was offered to learn about the possibilities of raising sumac for use in the curing of morocco leather. By the Act of Legislature, February 20, ISIS, premiums were offered "To increase and perpetuate an adequate supply of ship timber"; so awards were given for the plant- ing of locust, larch, and hickory trees.
Information on dairying was published from the very beginning of the society. The record of the Oakes cow was published in the "Fourth Report of the Agriculture of Massachusetts," and a circular written by Pickering called the attention of the farmers to the Eng- lish bull, Admiral, which had been placed for breeding purposes on the farm of E. Hersey Derby, Esq., of Salem. In 1826 the Nourse cow, bought from Nathaniel Nourse, of Salem, by Colonel Picker- ing, won the first prize at the cattle show. Colonel Jesse Putnam, of Danvers, published the result of his experiments with five kinds of potato seed in 1829. He had worked with the Long Red, the Speckled Blues, the River La Plate, the Richardson Whites, and another variety of white potato.
During the first years of the society many papers were written by the Rev. Henry Colman, who, through his work as an experimental farmer and student of agriculture, later became the State Commis-
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THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
sioner of Agriculture. He supplied detailed facts about his work on the dairy, breeding, and the comparative values of crops. He sum- marized the maximum output per acre of the standard crops of the county in his "Hints Addressed to the Farmers of Essex County," published in 1829":
"Wheat, 26 bushels to the acre. Indian corn, 11714 bushels to the acre. Barley, 52 bushels to the acre. Potatoes, 5181/2 bushels to the acre. Carrots, 900 bushels to the acre.
Mangel wurtzel, 1,340 bushels to the acre.
Ruta bagas, 688 bushels to the acre. Beets, 183 bushels to the acre. English turnips, 814 bushels to the acre. Onions, 651 bushels to the acre."
In regard to the famous hay of the Ipswich salt marshes he said : "The Ipswich farmers have for years found a profit in transporting vast quantities to Boston market by land, in spite of the competition of the neighboring towns and the screwed hay from Maine."
Up to the time of the eighteen thirties the ox did all the heavy farm work, but at the cattle show of 1829 Rufus Slocum, of Haver- hill, entered a team of three horses in the plowing match and plowed "with skill and dispatch." Three years later premiums were offered for horsedrawn plows, and it was remarked that the farming possi- bilities of this animal had been neglected to the disadvantage of the farmer. In 1831 the report came from Pennsylvania that a revolv- ing horse rake, which would do the work of six men, had been invented. The iron plow, patented by Howard in 1820, finally super- seded the old wooden one, as may be seen from the report of the Committee on Agricultural Instruments : "The plough, for which more than a hundred patents have been obtained since the promulga- tion of that glorious 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.'"
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However, by the next year this enthusiasm had changed to dis- appointment due to the importation of Ohio beef and pork through the Notch of the White Mountains. Worcester County, which up to that time had been producing two million pounds of pork annually, was now buying this meat from the West. Added to this troubling affair was the failure of the attempted silk culture in Essex County. Grants had been made to promote silk growing in 1819, and Enoch Boynton had raised a nursery of 42,000 mulberry trees in the decade of 1822-32. The Essex Agricultural Society had awarded him sev- eral gratuities for the silk produced by him. In 1829 a committee of the Massachusetts Legislature recommended an extension of the grant and encouraged silk culture. Dr. Andrew Nichols reported for the Committee on Silk Culture that "At present nothing seems to promise better than the production of silk." For a short period silk culture seemed to have found a permanent place for itself, for the worms and trees multiplied and grew rapidly. The severity of the winter of 1834 did great harm to all types of young orchards and to the mulberry trees especially, but this was not all. Rust and scab followed to such an extent that many of the farmers did away with the orchards themselves or let them go to waste. Temple Cutler, of Hamilton, attempted to rescue silk culture by changing from the Morus Alba type to the more hardy Morus Multicaulis. He claimed that the silk industry would prevent the county from becoming an industrial section with all the evils and temptations of the city. How- ever, as in the case of the Merino sheep, unscrupulous agents selling the trees had deceived the farmers with their dreams of wealth. Although a Mrs. Burbank, of Bradford, exhibited a silk dress made from the silk raised on her own land, a small number of purses and silk stockings were the only tangible results of the disastrous experiment.
A few years before 1840 an attempt to found an agricultural course at Dummer Academy, in Byfield, had failed, but at the opening of the new decade a "Prospectus" of an Agricultural Seminary at Andover appeared. Professor Alonzo Gray planned to introduce a regular scientific agriculture department with botany, physiology, mineralogy, geology, and chemistry as the curriculum. Although no immediate result was obtained, the need for such instruction was brought to the minds of the people interested in agriculture so that there was hope for the future.
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With the introduction of new exhibits each year, the cattle show was becoming increasingly popular. Flowers and fruits appeared in 1835, followed by bees and honey in 1844. Mr. Gregory, of Dan- vers, introduced the cultivation of the tomato in 1841. Stock breed- ing was coming to the fore with each breeder favoring his own special type. Colonel Moses Newell, of West Newbury, backed the cross between the Ayrshire and Alderney stocks, while Daniel P. King, of Danvers, and John W. Proctor maintained that the Ayrshire was best adapted to this climate. Tree culture was coming into its own at this time, even though it had been claimed that the apple orchard was an asset which had been too long neglected. As early as 1824 William Thurlow, of West Newbury, was getting a thousand barrels a year in the most productive orchard in the county. In 1843 George Thurlow received the first premium for growing 20,000 apple trees on a single acre at West Newbury. That same year Allen W. Dodge, of Hamilton, remarked: "The apples 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." In the collec- tion of Manning, "the great pomologist of America," were nearly 2,000 varieties of fruit. Ives had enlarged Manning's "New Eng- land Fruit Book" and, in 1847, written a valuable essay on "The Apple." The same year a prize was offered for the "best acre of white, black, or yellow oak, planted from the acorn, that should be entered in 1852."
An interesting light on the society's attitude toward temperance is revealed in the address of John W. Proctor, in 1884: "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 mow-
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ing 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 household gods. . . . . But manners have changed with times."
During the eighteen-fifties the transition between the old type of farming and the modern farm machinery occurred. The Michigan sod plough, turning two furrows at once, was shown at the cattle show of 1850. The fact that wages had doubled with only half the return was stressed by President Richard Fay, in 1854. He also remarked that only the previous summer the mowing machine had been introduced into Essex County. Thus the ox, the scythe, and the heavy work of man alone had to give way to the enlightened processes and machin- ery of the new era. As usual, the farmers were at first cold to the advantages of the mowing machine. They claimed that it was too expensive and that the fields of Essex County were too hilly and rough for the machine to work well. A premium was offered for the best machine, and a committee on mowing machines visited the farms of Dr. Loring and Colonel Moses Newell in West Newbury to see various types of machines in operation. This group, however, still favored the machine drawn by oxen rather than by horses. An Eng- lish hay-tedder was imported and exhibited by Dr. Loring in 1858. With the advent of faster and more modern equipment came the desire for faster and more exciting events such as were found at other county fairs, but the old school ruled these ideas out in saying : "What have military companies, and fire engines, horse races and female equestriennes to do with farming?" However, at that time only one-third of the society was made up of men who earned their living by farming. Many of the wealthy members took an interest in breeding, floriculture, and orcharding for their own pleasure only. In fact, the "Transactions" of that period were sprinkled with humorous burlesques and literary attempts. Such were Fitch Poole's "The Con- vention of the Domestic Poultry" and General Oliver's "Bees and Honey." The latter made a more classic and literary attempt in "Poultry," where he quotes Vergil, Anacreon, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Gray, "The New England Primer," and "Mother Goose."
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The society, in 1856, inherited the Treadwell farm in Topsfield from Dr. John G. Treadwell, of Salem, "for the promotion of the science of Agriculture by the instituting and performance of experi- ments and such other means as may tend to the advancement of science." Although it was suggested that a school of practical agri- culture be set up, the decision was to lease the farm to competent farmers, with the provision that the land revert to the society when- ever the latter might be in a position to take it over.
The activities of the society did not cease with the Civil War; and, in 1861, a member of the society, Gail Hamilton, offered this "Ode" for the exercises of that year :
"Ho, freemen 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 !"
The program in Essex County is well summarized in the address of Dr. George B. Loring, 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 Chandler's Horse Hoes, the labor and hoeing is wholly performed by horse power. With Willis's Seed Sower, the Danvers Trickle Hoe, all the root crops can be grown with about one-half the labor formerly required.
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