36 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



THE PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE IN AMERICA. 



If tliere is one country more than another, to which 

 the agriculturists of the United Kingdom have looked 

 with some feeling of apprehension, it is to the United 

 States of America. Indeed apHmd facie view of the 

 subject might seem to justify their fears. When we 

 look at the vast amount of fresh land of the most fertile 

 quality continually brought under cultivation, coupled 

 with the increased facilities for bringing the produce of 

 those lands to market in Europe, there appears good 

 ground for supposing that increased quantities of cereal 

 food will annually be exported from thence to Europe, to 

 the injury of European agriculture; subject as the latter 

 is to heavy expenses from which the American farmer is 

 exempt. 



A nearer view, however, of the system pursued in 

 the cultivation of the virgin soils of the United States, 

 and of the acknowledged consequences of that system, 

 will show that such apprehensions are groundless; and 

 that although fresh land, to a large extent, and of great 

 fertility, is continually being brought under tillage, the 

 aggregate produce of cereal food, adapted to the Euro- 

 pean market, does not more than keep pace with the 

 requirements of the growing populations. 



We have now before us a work on the agriculture of 

 the eastern part of the Uuited States;* and although 

 we are bound to admit that great efforts are put forth 

 to induce the American farmers to adopt the European 

 system of agriculture, the quantity of land cultivated 

 in an efficient manner is infiuitesiraally small, com- 

 pared with that which is farmed upon the old and 

 normal plan adopted by the first settlers. We would 

 give the Boards of Agriculture of the United States 

 every credit for the efficiency with which they perform 

 their part in laying down the true principles on which 

 the land o?<gr/i^ to be cultivated; but, with all defer- 

 ence to their local knowledge and experience, we are 

 convinced that as long as fi-esh land is cheap and ac- 

 cessible, so long will the scourging system of cultiva- 

 tion be pursued by an overwhelming majority of the 

 farmers, by which so much of the land in the old 

 States has been reduced to sterility, and the aggregate 

 acreage produce so much lessened. 



It has been said that a sterile soil is usually better 

 cultivated than a fertile one; and that the principal 

 reason why England exhibits features in farming almost 

 equal to gardening, is that the soil, generally speaking, 

 is so inferior that it awakens all the energy of the cul- 

 tivator to raise a remunerating produce. This rule, 

 however, does not hold good in New England or Mas- 

 sachusetts. The re. the soil is certainly inferior in quality 

 to most of the States ; notwithstanding which, the 

 scourging system has been at work there to such a 



* Fourth Annual Keport of the Secretai-y of the Massachu- 

 setts Boai-d of Agriculture, with the Reports of Committees, 

 &c., with an Appendix, &c., &c. Boston, U. S. : William 

 "White, printer to the State. 1857. 



degree as to extort the following statement from a 

 speaker at the Massachusetts Agricultural Society's 

 meeting: "One thing is certain, that under the in- 

 fluence of practical farming, as it is called, the land 

 of New England has notoriously deteriorated to such 

 an extent, that it is estimated that at least a thousand 

 millions of dollars (£■'200,000,000 sterling) would be 

 required to repair the effects of a wasteful and exhaust- 

 ing system of cultivation." 



Again, in the report of the committee on farms of 

 the Essex (N. E.) Agricultural Society, it is stated that 

 notwithstanding premiums are offered of fifty dollars 

 for the best-managed farms, only two competitors 

 presented themselves, and one of these afterwards 

 withdrew. Similar admissions are made by the com- 

 mittees for other societies. But a more striking proof 

 of the hostility of the farmers generally to improve- 

 ments, is the fact, that when a comparatively small sum 

 was required to conduct a farm for experimental 

 objects by the State, it was refused by the House of 

 Representatives, although the tax individually would 

 have been of the most homceopathic amount. 



Now, when we consider that New England is the 

 foremost State of the Union, in the encouragement of 

 agriculture by the authorities; and that notwithstand- 

 ing this, the produce of wheat has decreased in forty 

 years oO per cent, per acre, oats 40 per cent., Indian 

 corn 70 per cent., sheep 70 per cent., &c., &c. ; we 

 may conclude that in the other States tlie same process 

 of deterioration is going on ; and that the accession of 

 new land to the cultivation of cereal crops does not 

 more than compensate for the falling off of production 

 on the old land, and the increased consumption conse- 

 quent on the increase of the population. We know 

 from universal admission that in the State oi" Virginia, 

 the drastic character of the tobacco cultivation, as 

 conducted there, has reduced that fertile soil to 

 such hopeless sterility, that a large portion of it is 

 no longer cultivated, and the State itself is now what is 

 called " a breeding State "—that is, chiefly devoted to 

 raising negro slaves for the Southern market ; the most 

 degrading and ignoble purpose that can be conceived. 

 It is also admitted that not only in all the old States, 

 but even in those new ones that have been cultivated 

 the past twenty years, the same process has produced 

 the same effect, and after a few years the yield of corn, 

 wheat, oats, &c., falls off; no manure, generally 

 speaking, being applied to make good the waste of 

 materials. 



When therefore we hear of prodigious crops in tiie 

 United States, ready to swamp all the European 

 markets, we may conclude that it is nothing more 

 than that boasting for which our transatlantic re- 

 latives are so much noted. We have heard much of 

 this gasconade the last few years, but have felt little of 



