Meadows and Pastureland.

1

The New England region was by nature better fitted for grazing and pasturage than for agriculture in the strict sense of the word. Its soil, although of a good quality, was thin and the fields were much encumbered by stones and boulders, varying in size from small pebbles to huge rocks and ledges. Hence the farmer's meadows and pasture lands tended to assume more importance than his tilled fields. The natural grass, which sprang up and grew abundantly as soon as the land was cleared, was of excellent quality. On the uplands it furnished good pasturage and from the meadows, which were almost always watered by a small stream, fair crops of hay could be secured with the labor only of harvesting. Grass was also cut on the tilled lands in the years in which they were lying fallow. Occasionally these fields were seeded down with clover or with timothy, sown in with a previous grain crop. This occurred only at long intervals, however, and the seed used was not only full of impurities but was insufficient in quantity. For the most part, in the intervals between its years of tillage the land was left to "seed itself." Just at the end of the period under consideration the sowing of clover seems to have spread quite rapidly. Livingston, writing in 1813, says: "The introduction of clover, has within the last 10 years made a very sensible improvement in the agriculture of the country Indeed it is only within the last twenty years that any grass seed has been sown; and it will be no exaggeration to say, that more clover seed has been put in, within the last eight years, than has ever been sown since the country was inhabited."4

The pasturage furnished subsistence for the farmer's cattle, sheep,

' President Butterfield of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, has written: "It is sometimes asserted that the soil of New England is a drawback. On the contrary it is an asset. True there are many square miles consisting of ledges, others almost plastered with boulders; but wherever there is clear soil it is good soil—the very best." Art. N. E. Agriculture. In New EnglandWhat It Is and What It Is To Be. (George French, ed.) Boston. 1911. p. 115. "Dwight wrote: "Grass is undoubtedly the most valuable object of culture in New England.' Travels, I. 22. The excellence of the natural grass was commented upon in American Husbandry, I. 57. It was this grass which was later introduced into England, receiving the name timothy. After its re-introduction into New England it was known as English grass or spear grass.

3 Clover was sown at the rate of about six pounds to the acre; of grass seed six quarts were used on the same area. Mass. Agric. Soc. Papers, II. 1807, 29. 4 American Agriculture, p. 335.

and horses during the summer months; the hay, supplemented to some extent with corn stalks, rye and wheat straw, and potatoes, supplied their winter fodder. Grain was rarely fed, except to hardworked horses, or to beef cattle which were being fattened for slaughtering. A typical inland farm of 100 acres was able to support in this manner 10 or 15 cows, including young stock, one or two yoke of oxen, one or two horses, a flock of from 10 to 20 sheep and about as many swine as cows.2

The Native Cattle.

The beef cattle were the descendants of the Devonshire breed originally imported by the earliest settlers, but had received considerable intermixture from the Danish breed imported into New Hampshire and probably also from the Holstein breed brought by the Dutch colonists to New York. These influences, as well as lack of sufficient winter fodder and inattention to selection in breeding, had developed in New England a breed known as "the native cattle," more remarkable for their hardiness than for the production of beef or dairy products. In a few sections, however, such as in the towns of the Connecticut Valley and along the shores of Narragansett Bay, where the pasturage was especially rich and a market for salted beef could be reached, some improvement in the breed was remarked. The dairy products from the farmer's cows were an

1 The most reliable writers tell us that cattle were "housed" from the beginning or the middle of November until the middle or latter part of May. The neglect of live stock in this regard, about which travelers had complained at an earlier period (see La Rochefoucauld, I. 495–496; 513), seems to have been caused not by pure inhumanity but by reluctance, perhaps inability, to invest capital in barns and sheds.

2 These figures are taken from the answers received by the Massachusetts Agricultural Society in reply to their questions of 1806. Papers, II. 1807, 35. They agree in general with those given by Livingston, American Agriculture, p. 335. Occasionally advertisements of farms for sale in the columns of the country weekly newspapers yield information on this point. In Mansfield, Connecticut, the live stock on a farm offered for sale consisted of 10 cows, one yoke of oxen, six three-year-old steers, four two-year-old steers, two horses, 20 sheep and four hogs. Windham Herald, April 10, 1806. A Windham farm had two oxen, two two-year-old steers, five cows, five yearlings, five calves, 16 sheep and two horses. Ibid. November 3, 1808.

'Morse considered the cattle in the latter region the finest in New England. They would weigh, he thought, from 1,600 to 1,800 lbs. Gazetteer, 1810, art. Rhode Island.

An improvement in the breeding of cattle was one of the primary objects of the Berkshire Agricultural Society, established by Elkanah Watson in Pittsfield in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, in 1810.

important article of his diet. In cheese, moreover, an article was found for which the demand in the Southern states and in the West Indies was considerable. Cheese had also enough value in proportion to its weight to bear the expense of transportation by land for some distance. A few towns in Litchfield and Berkshire Counties, on the western edge of New England, and a few others in Rhode Island along Narragansett Bay, and in Windham County in Connecticut, exported large quantities of cheese and grew prosperous in consequence.1

Oxen and Horses.

The cattle not only supplied the farm with beef and dairy products but also furnished a part of its labor force. Oxen were from the beginning the favorite, and, in fact for many years, the only draft animal on New England farms. Although horses were steadily coming into more general use, they did not seriously compete with the slower-moving steers for general farm work for many years after 1810.2 In 1784 there were about 45,500 horses in Massachusetts and over 162,500 oxen and draft cattle.3 In 1792 in New Hampshire the proportion of horses to neat cattle was only one in twenty.1 By 1812 this ratio had increased to about one in seven. In spite of their slowness of gait the oxen had certain advantages which justified the farmers in their use. These are succinctly set forth by President Dwight as follows: "The advantages of employing oxen are, that they will endure more fatigue, draw more steadily, and surely; are purchased for a smaller price; are kept at less expense;

1 The town of Goshen, in Litchfield County, was noted for its cheese. Dwight wrote of this town: "It is, perhaps, the best grazing ground in the state; and the inhabitants are probably more wealthy than any other collection of farmers in New England, equally numerous. The quantity of cheese made by them annually, is estimated at four hundred thousand pounds weight. Butter also is made in great quantities." Travels, II. 355. Pease and Niles give the amount exported from this town in 1819 as 380,266 lbs. Gazetteer, p. 248. A neighboring town, marketed 100 tons of cheese in 1811, besides 6 tons of butter. Morris, Statistical Account of Litchfield, p. 122.

2 One writer puts the date of the beginning of such competition as late as 1870. See Marquis, J. C. An Economic History of Agriculture in New England since 1840. Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Purdue University for the degree of Master of Science in Agriculture. 1909. Ms. p. 148.

3 These figures are given in the American Museum, VII. 54. Belknap, History of New Hampshire, III. 144.

5 Merrill, Eliphalet and Phinehas, Gazetteer of the State of New Hampshire. Exeter, N. H., 1817, p. 16. The figures are 32,000 and 211,500, respectively.

are freer from disease; suffer less from labouring on rough grounds; and perform the labour better; and, when by age or accident they become unfit for labour, they are converted into beef. The only advantage of employing horses instead of oxen, is derived from their speed."

4

The use of horses for travel and light transportation increased rapidly with the introduction of wagons and the building of turnpike roads in the first decade of the new century, the oxen being still retained for the heavier tasks of ploughing and of hauling crops, stone and timber.2 In fact, as Livingston points out, the typical horse of New England, the Narragansett, was much too high spirited and lightly built for farm work. The horses, which were largely raised either by the farmer himself or in the vicinity, had suffered the same degenerating tendency as the cattle. Dickinson wrote: "Our horses are mostly of an inferior kind. Little attention has been paid to them, and it is believed that they have rather declined within fifteen or twenty years. When one casts his eye upon the saddle horses of Virginia, or upon the draft horses of Pennsylvania, he must be strongly impressed with the great improvement of which our comparatively diminutive breed of horses is susceptible."5

Swine were kept on every farm, furnishing the salt-pork which was a staple article of diet. They required but little attention; in the fall they were ringed through the nose as a precaution against rooting, and turned out into the stubble fields, as gleaners after the harvest. In the winter they were fed on anything which happened to be superfluous, hay, chestnuts, apples, potatoes, dairy and kitchen

1 Statistical Account of New Haven, p. 22. See also American Museum, II. 85; VIII. 24–25. Tudor believed thoroughly in the superior efficiency of oxen. He wrote: "An advantage to the farmer, individually, and a very important benefit in its general results, is owing to the use of oxen, instead of horses, in almost all agricultural labour." Letters on the Eastern States, p. 241.

2 Horses and oxen had in earlier years often been used together as the following quotation shows: "Our teams used for transportation and the several branches of husbandry have been generally composed of oxen and horses together and our vehicles for carriage have been carts and sleds, but within a few years past waggons drawn by horses have greatly multiplied and the cart harrow and plow are more frequently drawn by oxen alone." Goodrich, Statistical Account of Ridgefield, p. 8.

3 American Agriculture, p. 336.

4 Breeding horses and mules for the West India market had become an industry of some importance in a few towns. Advertisements of stallions and Spanish jacks at stud were frequent in the newspapers in Worcester and Windham counties. 5 Geographical and Statistical View, pp. 11–12.

refuse. For a few months before slaughtering they were fed on Indian corn. They thrived under this treatment and seem to have been the most successfully developed animals on the farm. Harriott wrote of the swine which he saw in Rhode Island: "Hogs they have as good and as large as can be bred in any part of the globe." In the Newport market he observed several weighing about 600 lbs. each, and on inquiry was informed that such weight was not unusual. The average size in other regions was, however, probably considerably under this figure.2

Sheep of the Common Breed.

4

The flock of 20 or 25 sheep regularly found on every farm was a characteristic feature of the self-sufficient agriculture. So vitally important were they as the source of supply of wool3 that in spite of the constant discouragements of colonial days, the sheep had increased steadily in numbers in proportion to the growth of population. No feature of the farm economy shows more clearly than the management of sheep the neglect and want of progress which the lack of a market brought about; and on the other hand, no department of the agricultural industry responded more promptly in improvement when once the market was supplied. Up to 1800 no attempts had been made to improve the breed of sheep. They had, probably, in common with the cows and horses, degenerated since their introduction by the first settlers. They were long-legged, narrow in the breast and back, and slow in arriving at maturity. When fully grown, they yielded only 40 or 45 pounds of mutton, and about three or three and one-half pounds of coarse wool at each shearing.5

'Struggles through Life. II. 39.

2 In the papers of the Mass. Agric. Soc., II. 1807, 38-39, the weights given are from 250 to 400 lbs. See also Belknap, History of New Hampshire, III. 245. 3 The value of the sheep as meat producers seems to have been quite subsidiary. This was due in large part to a prejudice among the farmers against mutton as an article of diet. See U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. Special Report on the History and Present Condition of the Sheep Industry of the United States. Prepared under the direction of Dr. D. E. Salmon. Washington. 1892. 52 Cong. 2 Sess. Misc. Doc. No. 105, p. 74.

4 Among these discouragements were the ravages of wolves and later of dogs. It was the desire to escape the former danger which first led to the pasturage of sheep on the islands in Boston Harbor and later on the larger islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. The flocks on these islands had in 1810 increased to very considerable size (supra p. 290 and note), furnishing a surplus of wool for export. See Wright, C. W., Wool Growing and the Tariff. Harvard University Economic Studies. Vol. V. Cambridge. 1910. pp. 2 ff. 'See Sheep Industry in U. S., p. 51; Mass. Agric. Soc. Papers, II. 1807, 38.