: Public Document No. 4 SLXTY-THIRD ANNUAL REPORT MASSACHUSETTS State Board of Agriculture. PART I. REPORT OF SECRETARY AND OTHER OFFICERS. 1915. BOSTON WRIGHT & POTTER PRINTING CO., STATE PRINTERS, 32 DERNE STREET. 1916. 77< 3 <? pj^^ I Approved by The State Boaed of Publication. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Part I Introduction, 5 State Board of Agriculture, 1916, 7 Report of the Secretary, 9 Fourteenth Annual Report of the State Nursery Inspector, . 65 Eighth Annual Report of the State Ornithologist, .... 77 Sixth Annual Report of the State Inspector of Apiaries, .109 Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Dairy Bureau, .... 139 Report on the Encouragement of Dairying Contest for 1915, 167 Second Annual Report on Boys' and Girls' Club Work, . .179 Returns of the Incorporated Agricultural Societies, .199 Directory of Agricultural Organizations, 215 Index, 247 INTRODUCTION. The annual report of the jNIassachusetts State Board of Agriculture, known as "Agriculture of Massachusetts," is this year offered to the public in two parts, of which this volume is the first. The circulars which are published by the Board from time to time during the year, including the lectures and discussions at the Public Winter Meeting, are of interest to a much larger public than the routine reports of the various phases of the Board's activities. Hitherto, people who wished the informa- tional matter obtained in the circulars have been obliged to take with it routine statistics which they often did not care for. For this reason, beginning with this number. Part I. will comprise the annual report of the secretary, the annual reports of the State Nursery Inspector, State Inspector of Apiaries, State Ornithologist, the Dairy Bureau, the specialist on boys' and girls' agricultural club work, the returns of the agricultural societies and the directory of agricultural organizations. Of Part I. only 1,500 copies will be printed. Part II. will contain the lectures and discussions given at the Public Winter ^Meeting and such circulars as may have been issued the previous year. Beginning with this volume, the annual report of the State Forester will not appear with the report of the State Board of Agriculture. It is desired to call the attention of persons wishing any particular one of the routine reports to the fact that they are also published as separate pamphlets, and a person desiring the report of the State Inspector of Apiaries, for example, is advised to apply for it in separate form rather than for the whole of Part I. Libraries wishing to keep a complete set of these volumes since their institution in 1852 may still do so by getting both parts. Editor. State Board of Agriculture, 1916. Members ez Officio. His Excellency SAMUEL W. McCALL. His Honor CALVIN COOLIDGE. Hon. ALBERT P. LANGTRY, Secretary of the Commonwealth. KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD, President, Massachusetts Agricultural College. LESTER H. HOWARD, Commissioner of Animal Industry. F. WILLIAM RANE, State Forester. WILFRID WHEELER, Secretary of the Board. Members appointed by the Governor and CouncU. Term expires' FRANK P. NEWKIRK of Easthampton 1916 HENRY M. HOWARD of Newton (P. O. West Newton) 1917 EDWARD E. CHAPMAN of Ludlow 1918 Members chosen by the Incorporated Societies. Ameshury and Salisbury {Aoricidlural and Horticultural), A. WILLIS BARTLETT of Salisbury, . 1917 Barnstable County, . JOHN BURSLEY of Barnstable (P. O. West Barnstable) 1918 Blackstone Valley, JACOB A. WILLIAMS of Northbridge, . 1917 Deerfield Valley, DAVID T. BARNARD of Shelburne, . 1916 Eastern Hampden, OMER E. BRADWAY of Monson, . 1917 Essex, FREDERICK A. RUSSELL of Methuen, . 1916 Franklin County, GEORGE E. TAYLOR, Jr., of Shelburne, . 1918 Hampshire, HOWARD A. PARSONS of Amherst (P. O. North Amherst) 1918 Hampshire, Fra?iklin and Hampden, CLARENCE E. HODGKINS of Northapipton, 1917 Highland, .... JOHN T. BRYAN of Middlefield (P. O. Ches- ter, R. F. D.) 1916 Hillside, . HAROLD S. PACKARD of Plainfield, . 1916 Hingham (Agricultural and Horticul- tural), . URBAN S. BATES of Hingham, . .1917 Hoosac Valley, .... NATHAN B. FLOOD of North Adams, . 1917 Housaionic, ..... CHARLES W. FREEHAN of Great Barring- ton 1917 Lenox Horticultural, ALFRED H. WINGETT of Lenox, . 1916 Marshfield (Agricultural and Horticul- tural), . 1917 . WALTER H. FAUNCE of Kingston, Martha's Vineyard, .... JAMES F. ADAMS of West Tisbury. .1918 Massachusetts Horticultural, EDWARD B. WILDER of Dorchester, . 1917 Massachusetts Society for Promoliiio Agriculture, . NATHANIEL I. BOWDITCH of Framing- ham 1917 Middlesex North, .... GEORGE W. TRULL of Tewksbury (P. O. Lowell, R. F. D.) 1916 . 1916 Middlesex South, . JOHN J. ERWIN of Wayland. ' First Tuesday in December. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. No. 4. Term expires' Nantucket, ..... HERBERT G. WORTH of Nantucket, . 1917 Oxford JOHN F. FREELAND of Sutton, . 1918 Plymouth County, .... ERNEST LEACH of Bridgewater, . 1916 Quannapowitl, .... CALVERT H. PLAYDON, D.V.S., of Read- ing 1918 Union {Agricultural and Horticultural), EDWIN F. GOODWIN of Chester (P. O. Huntington), 1918 West Taunton, .... CHARLES I. KING of Taunton, . 1916 Weymouth (Agricultural and Horticul- tural), ..... HOWARD H. JOY of Weymouth (P. O. South Weymouth) 1917 Worcester, ..... EDWARD A. WATERS of West Boylston, . 1916 Worcester East, .... ARTHUR C. HAWKINS of Lancaster, . 1917 Worcester North {Agricultural and Driv- ing Association), .... HENRY D. CLARK, D.V.S., of Fitchburg, . 1917 Worcester Northwest (Agricultural and Mechanical), .... ALBERT ELLSWORTH of Athol, . 1918 Worcester South, .... WILLIAM E. PATRICK of Warren, . 1918 Worcester County West, JAMES A. RICE of Barre 1916 1 First Tuesday in December. ®t)e ^ommoxitoealtl) of iila60acl)U6ett5. SIXTY-THIRD ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Massachusetts State Board of Agkicultuke. PART I. EEPOET OF THE SECRETARY FOR THE YEAR 1915. To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Agricultural tendencies have undergone great changes within the past few years. We have seen the attention of the world brought forcibly to the food supply question by the increased cost of living, and in consequence we have seen the position of the farmer change from one of obscurity to that of consequence and power in the country. We have seen all sorts of theories advanced as to the way we may increase our food supply. Governments, States, big business corporations, individuals, have given much attention to the subject. We have seen the government through its agricultural department increase its work enormously, adding department after department of research, field experiments, education and markets, and constantly, through a system of county agents who are in touch with the central authorities, spread its work to meet the most distant farmers' need. We have seen the Agricultural College expand, increasing its student body, and through a system of extension work reaching out to all sections of the State in which it operates. We have seen city as well as country people affected by this great change, so much so that the country-to-city movement has almost been checked in some sections, and we are balancing on the line 10 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. between urban and rural population increase. Which way this increase will go depends much upon how this great agricultural problem is handled. If we are to allow this great prospect to be made a fad of by the theorist, if we are to stand idly by and see the high ideals of agriculture brought down by those who have no more than a passing interest in the business, the recovery of the prestige which agriculture has attained will be long and painful. No business is secure unless it is economically sound. No business can long remain secure unless it can show a balance on the profit side of the ledger. We may in agri- culture transfer the crops from one section of the country to another, and there, by the process of feeding to animals, produce fertilizing elements to grow crops in this new section; but every ton of such plant food shipped, and not replaced, leaves the section from which the crop was shipped so much poorer. We are doing just this in our country, and agriculture founded on this basis cannot long endure. Our problem of keeping up soil fertility and still feeding our ever-increasing population, and, further, exporting large quantities of agri- cultural products, is an enormous one. Few of us realize that every pound of cotton, every beef animal, every bushel of wheat that leaves our ports carries with it some store of American soil fertility which will have to be replaced sometime. The east has realized tiiis longer than the west, and has perhaps profited to a greater extent by this transfer of soil fertility. Western grain and hay has come east to feed our animals, whose manure has in turn gone to enrich our fields, but now that the west has come to realize what she has been doing, undoubtedly she will retrench in this wholesale shipping of her natural resources, and the east will in consequence have to consider more seriously the question of raising more of her own crops. Indeed, the problem is an ever-present one with us now. Our farmers should grow more of the agricultural products that are used here. Lands now undeveloped should be brought into cultivation, and a section admirably adapted to supporting a large population in prosperity should not be marked by large areas of idle and unused land. This question of developing idle lands has received great attention in the west and south, so much so that in some places great companies No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. 11 have been formed, and, through a widely conducted campaign of advertising, people right from our own section have been induced to go and settle on these lands, not paying much money down, but in reality bonding themselves for a long term of years, during which time they receive little for their labor, and often have to live under conditions which they would not put up with in their original homes.