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General View of the County

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In other respects the general features of the County are pleasant, and happily diversified. The soil is above medium character for all agricultural purposes; and while the agriculture of the County is above mediocrity, the soil may be considered worn out and exhausted, as respects growing large or profitable crops of wheat, without manuring too expensively. That article must be purchased of the Western farmer, who yet drives his ploughshare through a strong and virgin soil. That this crop must be abandoned for the present, and the land employed to raise grass, or other grains, is a dictate of common sense, and we trust our farmers are wise enough to see it, and not struggle in an unequal contest against the easy culture and large crops of the West.

The following is a table of grains, &c., taken from last census, with their estimated values, and farmers who grow wheat are requested to examine it.

	NO. ACRES.	NO. OF BUSHELS.	AVERAGE PER ACRE.
Wheat,	9,483	82,881	8 2-3	bushels.
Rye,	19,896	191,864	92-3	do.
Corn,	18,442	603,167	33 1-4	do.
Oats,	14,000	417,000	29 2-3	do.
Potatoes,	3,202	173,018	54000	do.

The value of these products, estimated at the market price, is less than $800,000. We are not skilled in farming, and are therefore surprised.

The County abounds with all the variety of natural grasses, with but little intermixture of noxious vegetables. This condition of things combined with abundant supplies of good, pure water, is productive of a fine quality of milk; and great skill, with long experience superadded, in the manufacture, have rendered this County famous at home, and celebrated for many years all over the Union, for the best and finest quality of butter. This, of itself, is no mean praise of the County at large, and of her mothers and daughters in particular. This product of which we speak, however fine its quality and agreeable its taste, is now rapidly on the decrease, and will continue to diminish in quantity for some years to come, as the farmers find it more profitable to send their milk to New York than to make it into butter. Those, at least, are pursuing this course of husbandry who reside within a convenient distance of the Hudson, and the track of the N. Y. and Erie Rail Road. The quantity of milk produced is as great as at any other period. During the year 1845, 6,138,840 quarts from Orange and Rockland found a market in the city of New York by the Rail Road. This converted into butter would make 500,000 lbs. to be supplied from other counties. If to that quantity we add one-fifth for the number of quarts which went to the same market by steamboats on the river, we may have some adequate idea of the quantity of milk produced in the County. The last estimate, of one-fifth, is thought to be far too low. In one week, from the 6th to the 13th of June, 1846, 219,312 quarts were carried to New York by the Rail Road.

According to the census of the County for 1846, the number of milk cows was 42,256; the number of pounds of butter, 4,108,840, the average per cow is 90 lbs.; the value of the whole at 18 cts., $739,471; the value per cow, #16,20. No. of cattle, 59,712; sheep, 45,819; hogs, 57,263. The above statement shows the large quantity of butter still made in the County, notwithstanding the millions of quarts of milk carried to the city. By comparing the estimated value of this butter with the value of wheat, rye, corn and potatoes, as the quantity of each appears in the same census, it will be found that the butter of the County, alone, equals them in value. In this comparison, the reader will be forcibly struck with two things—the great value of the butter interest in the County, and the comparative small yield, per acre and value, of the grains raised; the latter justifying our remarks, that the wheat culture must be abandoned.— We have been chided on that point, since our newspaper publication, and we refer the gentleman to the table, showing an average of 82/3 bushels per acre.