806 



it could grow, and the com of his next neighbor, upon the same kind of 

 soil by nature, hardly worth the harvesting. It may be asked what 

 made this diflference in the two crops growing side by side. The an- 

 swer is obvious. One man, who had learned something from books 

 and agricultural papers, drew an abundance of manure upon his land, 

 plowed it up deep, made it mellow, planted it in the right time, kept 

 out the weeds when it came up, and the result was, his corn grew 

 right along, for it could not help it. The other man, opposed to book 

 farming, thought manure was of no use, plowed over the top of his 

 ground, and dragged it perhaps in the rain, planted it in the mud, 

 slightly hoed it once ; the corn got stuck on its way coming out of the 

 ground, and has been stuck ever since, and the result, as might be ex- 

 pected, is, the man has not a crop worth the raising. 



How was it that the Hon. Jesse Buel, a notorious book farmer, suc- 

 ceeded in making one of the best farms in the State of New York 

 out of some pine barren lands, which for more than a century had 

 been abandoned as entirely worthless ? He went to work in the first 

 place, and analyzed the soil, found out exactly what ingredients were 

 necessary to make it productive, he plowed his land deep, he enriched 

 it by the best manure, added to it the elements wanting, such as lime 

 and carbon, enclosed it with good fences, introduced the system of rota- 

 tion of crops, and in a very short period he had made out of these 

 worthless barrens a model farm, to the wonder and astonishment of 

 thousands who had laughed at the undertaking as the chimera of a 

 diseased brain, the working of a fantastical imagination. The farm of 

 Mr. Buel, in his life time, was not only a model one, where its illustrious 

 occupant for the benefit of mankind made countless experiments in the 

 science of agriculture, and gave them, without charge, to the world, as 

 the fruit of his most glorious and philanthropic undertaking, but it was 

 a farm of profit, justly regarded as scarcely equalled for its productive- 

 ness by any farm upon the continent. 



Mr. Duel's operations were not confined to making his soil productive. 

 He was deeply engaged in raising the improved breeds of horses, cattle, 

 r,hc?p v.nd sivinci, jind of sending «iit into the country every kind of choice 

 seeds then to be found anywhere in the States. Mr. Buel was by pro- 

 fession, if we mistake not, a printer. The early part of Lis life was de- 

 voted to the publicatiop of a weekly newspaper. His farming 



