248 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



Beyond New Haven, the road passes through several 

 miles of a poor sandy plain, which looks as though it be- 

 longed to the "piney-woods" region of South Carolina, 

 rather than to Connecticut. This is perhaps too sterile 

 to be improved with profit; yet, it is a question with me, 

 whether more profit, if we count long life and good 

 health anything, might not be made from this sandy 

 waste, than from some of the rich prairies and bottoms, 

 of the great west, California included. In fact, notwith- 

 standing that agriculture, in general, seems to have been 

 conducted in Connecticut for a century or two, upon the 

 same identical "American system" of skin, shave, and 

 waste the soil, and "do as father did," yet every now and 

 then we pass a spot where everything around shows that 

 the light of science, yea, agricultural science, has pene- 

 trated far enough to show that, if men would, they might 

 make all of these old, sterile, fields not only productive, 

 but actually more surely profitable than any other em- 

 ployment. But the truth is, and cannot or should not be 

 disguised, the farmers of Connecticut, as a body, have 

 not, do not, and I fear will not, even read anything that 

 is calculated to inform their minds upon the subject of 

 improving and renovating their old worn-out soil. 



I left the cars at Meriden, and took a tour through the 

 state eastward, making many stops during a week, and 

 in all the time I never saw nor heard of but one sub- 

 scriber to an agricultural paper, and he was a gunsmith 

 instead of a farmer. I saw many men mowing many 

 acres that would not produce 500 lbs. of hay to the acre ; 

 and at the same time, it was self-evident to me, that a 

 moderate expenditure of labor in underdraining, grub- 

 bing up bushes and bogs, straightening channels of 

 streams, carrying muck from swamps to gravelly knolls, 

 and a little outlay for manure, lime, guano, &c., would 

 make the same land produce two tons to the acre; and 

 that of a far better quality — though the blackberry crop 

 might be lessened. My attention was particularly drawn 

 to one "meadow," (swamp,) which I have known for 



