the county is situated more than six miles from either a railroad or an accessible harbor, so that manures can be cheaply transported by water, and the products of the farm or garden rapidly carried to an ever open market. Much of the bad repute in which Long Island lands have fallen, especially in this county, is due more to the want of enterprise of the inhabitants of the county, and to the absence of capital in the cultivation of the land. But capital properly applied will nowhere reap a greater returu in farming and gardening, than here. The great facilities furnished by the fisheries along its shores, and the rich rewards received therefrom, discourage the improvements of the land as rapidly as would be expected from their peculiar location.

The large fires which caused the destruction of so much property in the timber lands of the county, were taken into consideration by the assessors in fixing the valuations upon the farm lands.

The county is gradually improving and will increase slowly in its population and wealth, but its valuations will require a revision not oftener than once in three or four years.

AREA, POPULATION, AGRICULTURAL VALUATIONS, COMMERCIAL ROUTES OF TRAFFIC.

AREA.

This group is 2.1-10 per cent. of the whole State, and embraces an area of 1,011 square miles, whereof there are

Reduced to acres at the rate of 640 to the square mile and there are:

The improved is 48 per cent. of the whole area, or the improved to the unimproved is 48 to 52.

The proportion of the improved land in the group to that of the aggregate improved land of the State is 2.02 per cent.

Thirty-two per cent. of the whole population of the State is in this group. The high percentage of the city population is to be accounted for by the fact that the cities of New York and Brooklyn are included in this group. The small percentage of the rural population sufficiently indicates the ten

dency of the urban and suburban to absorb the available territory embraced within the group. Of the 331,893 acres of unimproved land, about onehalf or 165,947 acres are susceptible of ultimate improvement, and will be brought to yield human food, but the balance must always contain a waste, and it will only be by slow degrees that these lands will be brought into cultivation. Small as the proportion of the rural population now is, it must decrease rather than increase.

The density of population is-total population to total area, 1,215 to the square mile, or two persons to the acre.

The aggregate population to the aggregate improved land, is 2,473 to the square mile, or 4 persons to the acre.

Of the rural population there are 52 to the square mile, or 12 acres to the inhabitant.

But the aggregate rural population to the square mile of improved land is 107 persons to the mile, or 6 acres to the inhabitant, which gives 36 acres as the average number of improved acres to each farm.

VALUATIONS.

The cash value of farms, stock, tools and implements is:

The average value of farms, stock, tools and implements per acre of improved land is:

The aggregate value of all the real estate of the group is:

The incorporated cities are New York and Brooklyn, each of which have numerous elements for progressive increase in population and wealth.

The total number of artificial miles of routes for commercial traffic are, railroad 129 miles, and the proportion of such routes to the square mile of area is 8 square miles of area to 1 mile of traffic route.

The valuation of real estate by the State Assessors, and of personal estate by the town assessors, whereon the report of the board of equalization was based for the years 1862 and 1863, are as follows.

The details are tabulated in table B, of the appendix to this group.

The banking capital in 1861 was $73,080,605.

The details are tabulated and shown in table C, of the appendix to this group.

The percentage of acres in grass to the whole area of improved land is:

Total acres in cultivation, exclusive of pasture and meadow, 111,885

which is 35 per cent. of the improved land.

There is yet some 12 per cent. of the improved land unaccounted for, which must be included in vacant lots and towns, and in the errors of the

The average annual value of the vegetable products, exclusive of straw, on improved land, is, exclusive of pasture, equal to $17. The aggregate annual grain product is six bushels per acre.

Reducing sheep to a cattle equivalent, at seven to one, and they equal cattle,

5,397

Whole number of cattle or their equivalent......

81,651

The aggregate of improved land to cattle is four acres to one. But this group is not to be compared with the other groups in its agricultural products. Large numbers of cows are kept in the cities of Brooklyn and New York, that are stabled during the year; and others are kept in the suburbs of each city, and the grain and hay to support them comes from other lo calities. The large proportion of horses to cattle is also owing to the fact that all the horses used in the two cities are included in this census, and no distinction made between horses on the farm, or for farm labor, or those kept exclusive for the road.

This whole group is a cattle, sheep, hog and horse importing group, with small exceptions, in regard to Suffolk and a portion of Queens counties. Therefore, the rules whereby we are to judge of the agricultural pros perity of the people, must be different from those applied to a more rural population.

The lands can be most profitably occupied as market gardens, and all its agriculture tends to that direction, and will be profitable, as it assimilates that condition.

Heavy manuring, and at large expense, requires crops that will pay largely for their cultivation. As a general rule the farms in this group are prosperous, but not so by adopting any system that would be found feasi ble or profitable in either of the other groups. Few animals are kept which do not yield an immediate profit either in labor or produce.

The supply of manure is principally from the town, and that is paid for by the vegetables it stimulates the soil to produce, and animals are only kept to consume the offal of the farm which cannot be sold in the city.

Farming, as understood and practiced in other portions of the State, would be an unprofitable occupation here.

The surplus from the land in this group is principally in vegetables and milk for the inhabitants, and forage and bedding for the stables.

To this sum should be added the value of swine over 6 months, which
represents the surplus 15,581, at $12....

186,962

One-half of cattle over 1 year old, 5,953 head.

119,060

One-third of sheep 12,593, at $3...

37,779

Of the horses kept in this group there are in the counties of Queens,
Richmond, and Suffolk, 15,910 head. Of these perhaps one in twenty

is sold annually-say 795 head at $30................

23,850

Total value of animal surplus.....

.$1,220,194

To this should be added the surplus derived from hay, straw, wheat-
indeed, nearly or quite all their vegetable products are sold.
Total value of vegetable produce...

Add for straw.

3,842,882
500,000

Total value of surplus products of agriculture.....

$5,563,076

Or $17.65 per acre for the improved land of the groups, or an average annual income to the farm of $635.40, which is not far from ten per cent upon the capital invested.

But as the expense of cultivation is much greater here than upon a different soil and farther inland, the annual income of the farms does not much if any exceed that of the average of the farmers of the State,

It is the opinion of well-informed persons living upon the island that the income from the waters around them furnish an annual revenue equal to if not superior to that from the land, at any rate a very large item of the animal food of the inhabitants is drawn from this source.