THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



S7 



that, until my absence about five weeks at tlie 

 West soon after the examination of farms in Au- 

 gust, tile same premises were by myself kept in 

 like condition the present summer. 



It will be no disparagement to tlie soil or the in- 

 dustry of the American people, to allude to the fact 

 that tlie cultivation in the island of Great Britain 

 is much superior to ours. The proprietor and own- 

 er of the farm tiiere is not generally the occupant : 

 the farmer lives in his own hired house, and 

 cultivates his own hired ground. Tlie rent of the 

 ground and the ta.tes there would equal the price 

 of thi* entire ordinary crops raised here. Tka cul- 

 tivator is enabled to make liis way only hy the in- 

 creased amount witieh Tie raises on tlie same land; 

 and many fanners there who pay to their landlords, 

 and in ta.xes the almost incredible amount to which 

 I have alluded, live and grov/ rich under such a 

 system. The price of labor there is greatly below 

 tlie price here ; and this perhaps enables him to 

 carry his cultivation rnucii beyond our.s. Not on- 

 ly are no weeds suffered to grow in any ground 

 where the hoe is used here, but in England, Scot- 

 land and Ireland tlie wheal and other grains sow- 

 ed broad-cast or in drills are carefully divested of 

 the weeds and grasses which spring up. 



One principal means of bringing up our cultiva- 

 tion to the standard of British farming will be the 

 entire eradication of weeds, and useless vegetation 

 from our cultivated fields. This, in the progress 

 of agricultural improvement, I do not doubt, will 

 be done. The example of every individual farmer 

 may do much in this behalf. I cannot doubt the 

 labor will be much less than is generally supposed; 

 and when one man does it, all the neighbrtrs who 

 pass his field will be ashamed not to "go and do 

 likewise." It is now generally considered to be of 

 little consequence to cleanse the ground after the 

 month of July, the usual season of hoeing, shall 

 have passed. The practice of eradicating weeds 

 after this time, where the pulling will not affect tire 

 principal article in cultivation, would undoubtedly 

 be beneficial. 



In most of the towns near the sea-board, the gard' 

 ens and fields are of much neater cultivation than 

 further in the interior ; and consequently there is 

 a much greater crop, and better profits are obtained 

 from an equal quantity of ground. I am happy to 

 observe that there is improvement in this respect 

 in our own State ; and that the farmers here are 

 far in advance of the farmers of the famed fertile 

 West, where the land is so fruitful that the manure 

 accumulates as an incumbrance in the yards and 

 about the apologies for barns which are there so 

 common. The etfect there in a few years will be 

 to run out their lands witli a redundancy of the 

 growth of weeds. Much land where wheat has 

 long bCk'n raised has become comparatively barren 

 in places of as long settlement as that of New- 

 England from the circumstance alone that the use- 

 ful crop is choked out by the growth of weeds. This 

 is peculiarly the case in Maryland and Virginia, in 

 Delaware and parts of Pennsylvania. 



Cleanliness of the soil, as a means of improve- 

 ment of cultivation, is scarcely less requisite than 

 feeding of the soil with the appropriate manures. 

 Let every farmer present, who is not already as 

 perfect under this head as the nature of his case 

 will admit, go home determined that he will make 

 all proper eft'orls to arrest tlie enemy in his fields 

 who does them more real damage than his own or 

 the unruly cattle of his neighbor. Tlie greatest 

 profit from farming is produced on that land where 

 there is the greatest production ; and the increas- 

 ed production is only where the field is kept clear 

 of weeds. A rich soil increases the crop of weeds 

 as well as the more useful article wliich is the ob- 

 ject of cultivation ; and by so much as the expense 

 has been increased to make the land rich, so should 

 be the exertions to prevent the growth of every 

 thing useless that takes so mucli from the growth 

 of what is useful. 



The value of growth and profit upon a single a- 

 cre in one year may be made far to exceed the val- 

 ue of that acre. Mr. Whitney of Concord in a small 

 plat of ground raised this year Iweiily bushels of 

 onions, the land yielding at the rale of elevenhun- 

 dred bushels to the acre ; ho has partially lost the 

 use of one hand by an accidental gun shot — yet he 

 thinks he can very easily, by devoting a few hours 

 in each day at the proper season, prepare the 

 ground, sow and take care of an acre of onions. 

 Onions are now worth a dollar the bushel — deliv- 

 ered ou the bank of the river for the market at 

 Amoskeao-, Lowell or Boston, they will at all times 

 be worth seventy -five cents the bushel. Raising 

 such a crop, large pay must bo afforded for the la- 

 bor after paying for the use of the land. 



A small farm of fifty and even a hundred acres 

 is scarcely thought to be sufEcientfor an enterpris- 

 ing young man. Without improvinj, he continues 



to run over this quantity, ambitious, if he gains any 

 thing, to purchase additional land, and make his 

 farm larger. He raises not more tlian half a crop, 

 because he plants too miicli ground for his manure, 

 and from the hurry of going over too much ground, 

 the weeds usurp one fourth or perhaps one half 

 of the strength and aliment of the ground. The 

 land thus cultivated is stocked down, and this in 

 consequence t.f tlie mode of cultivation produces 

 not more than half a crop of hay. It must be ob- 

 vious at the first blush, that the man who culti- 

 vate.s only half the ground I have been describing, 

 bestowing on it the same expense for manure and 

 the same amount of labor judiciously applied, vnll 

 obtain an equal amount of crop, and make his land 

 of at least four times the prospective value. 



The celebrated Nurseries of the Messrs. Win- 

 ships at Brighton, Mass., which of themselves are 

 an independent fortune, cover no more than twcn- 

 five acres of ground. Most of the plants usually 

 cultivated in gardens and green houses, and all the 

 shrubs and ornamental and fruit trees known in 

 this country, are there found. Such a place, in the 

 green and bearing seasons, has more enticemciitB 

 than tlie splendid palace, or almost any other earthlj' 

 location. It is tlie more beautiful because it is use- 

 ful to the public, and profitable ta its proprietors. 

 If the stranger who visits these Nurseries and 

 Garden feels himself transported to an imaginaiy 

 Eden, how great must be the mental gratification 

 of the hands which projected and brought them to 

 their present beauty and perfection. 



Having detained the society too long in the con- 

 sideration of the two first heads, I now pass to the 

 last proposition, which is 



3. Keep the ground dry. The subject of drain- 

 ing wet and heavy lands, as yet but little practised 

 in New England, seems not to be fully understood 

 and appreciated. The most of us have seen pieces 

 of low ground, bogs and quagmires as well as mead- 

 ows producing t!ie coarse and useless wild grasses, 

 made fruitful with the best of hay simply by ditch- 

 ing and draining after ploughing and cultivation. 



There is much ground besides the low meadows 

 that may be wonderfully improved by draining. 

 The mode of draining in some places is the digging 

 of ditches in spring)' ground, filling up with small 

 stones and covering over the surface. In other cas- 

 es, open ditches to drain and carry off the redun- 

 dant v/ater are resorted to. In others, flat and heavy 

 fields are benefitted by leaving at intervals a low 

 furrow turned out !-y the plough in completion of 

 the land struck out for the turning of the team. 



Much of our richest soil is comparatively of no 

 value for cultiv.ation purely in consequence of the 

 effect of wet either upon or near the surface. I 

 have in vain attempted to raise a crop of potatoes 

 the last year, and of ruta baga the present year, on 

 some half a dozen square rods of the richest soil 

 on my premises, because the wet weather of the 

 sprino- and of each rain during the summer remained 

 so long as to check the grovjth of the vegetable, in 

 most cases before the seed had sprung up. That 

 ground, 1 do not doubt, may be made highly pro- 

 ductive by under-draining in the proper place. 



Under-draining is extensively resorted to by the 

 farmers of Europe, and its value is beginning to be 

 understood in this country. Every farmer who cul- 

 tivates heavy land becoming less and less produc- 

 tive by being baked down to hardness in conse- 

 quence of the presence of water for too great a 

 length of time, would do well to commence tlR; tri- 

 al of under-draining. In some places, where the 

 right kind of flat rocks cannot be procured, burnt 

 tiles of clay manufactured like bricks, are used. 

 The principle of draining grounds is undoubtedly 

 practically better understood by many other gen- 

 tlemen than by myself Spongy and muddy land 

 niav be made entiiely dry by diggi u; below the 

 hio-her springs which usually appear on or near the 

 surface, and carrying off the water in a passage left 

 under ground for the jmrpose. The sources of the 

 springs thus cut off at a point from which the v.'a- 

 ter descends, will leave the ground below so dry 

 that it will readily yield all that the best soil is ca- 

 pable of producing. 



The hard baked ground which suffers fiom the 

 presence of water in the wet season is even sooner 

 aflected by drought than the drier permeable soil, so 

 that it encounters the double d sad vantage of wet 

 and drought in the same season. This land when 

 properly drained will become soon so light as to re- 

 tain all the warmth necessary to promote vcgeta 

 tion, and yet retuin sufficient moisture to prevent 

 injury from drought. It is land prepared and kept 

 in this manner that is intended by my third propo- 

 sition. 



A Fact for GeoIogi!>»s. 



On the Rye beach in New Hampshire, at a con- 

 siderable distance beyond where the sand and grav- 



el commences, at extreme low water, the stumpii 

 of trees are discovered in positions where they grew. 

 These stumps must have stood there several hund* 

 red years ; as since the first settlement of the coun* 

 try the sea has been kno.wn to advance on the coast 

 but a short distance. We are curious to find out 

 how great a length of time these rooted stumps 

 would stand covered withsalt water without rotting 

 or petrifaction .' We would likewise be gratified to 

 learn, whether there are similar appearances along 

 other parts of the coast directly exposed to the sea, 

 indicating that old ocean is making a steady inva- 

 sion of the land on the eastern or Atlantic shore .' 



Large Uogs. 



Capt. William Graves of Andover in thia 

 county, in the month of January, slaughtered a bar- 

 row hog eighteen months old, which weighed 

 sercn hundred and seventeen pounds, of as hand- 

 some proportions as any ordinary three hundred 

 hog. Four days previous, Mr. Joseph E. Fellows 

 of the same place, killed a sow of the same litter 

 with the above, whose meat and fat weighed six 

 hundred and fifty-six pounds. Thc'last animal had 

 a litter of pigs when a year old, one of which Mr. 

 Fellows slaughtered at the same time of the sow, 

 and this last weighed, when killed, three hundred 

 and fifty pounds. These hogs were of the same 

 kind that have for several years been raised by the 

 farmer.^ of Andover — being entirely white, of a 

 thin skin, and beautiful proportions. 



Mr. Fillows describes the keeping of the above 

 sow, as follows : He purchased the sow and pig 

 on the first of June, of Capt. Graves: from that 

 time the animals were under the peculiar care of 

 the good lady of the house. For the first month 

 they were fed daily, twice a day only, on the skim- 

 med milk of two cows with one quart of Indian 

 meal per day, added to the slops of a small family. 

 For the second month, the same feed with the ad- 

 dition of one pint of meal per day: from August to 

 September, same feed with two quarts of meal dai- 

 ly. In September commenced giving them new 

 boiled potatoes mixed with about the same quantity 

 of meal, as much as they would eat. The quanti- 

 ty of meal mixed with boiled potatoes was some- 

 what increased until the month of December, after 

 which they were fed constantly on scalded Indian 

 meal, into which was thrown so much salt as to 

 render it palateable, until the day they were slaugh- 

 tered. 



We have been thus particular in our inquiries 

 about these hogs, because we recollect of seeing 

 no account of hogs slaughtered the present season 

 in any part of the country, which of that age 

 weighed so much. Mr. Fellows paid, as might be 

 supposed, a high price for the two hogs when he 

 purchased them in June, viz. nineteen dollars ; but 

 as the same sized pork has been sold in this town 

 the present winter, they would have amounted to 

 lb* srim of $190 72 — a handsome premium, after 

 paying for the whole material which they consum- 

 ed, for the regular attention which was paid to their 

 feeding. It Ta a fact undoubted, which we have 

 ascertained as the sum of all our inquiries about 

 large and profitable hogs raised the present year, 

 that the profits depend more upon the preparation 

 of feed and the regularity with which they are at- 

 tended and fed, than upon the quantity of feed giv- 

 en them, ,,< ■•' -; . 



Fioiirtlle Pluliiil Panneis' Cabiiift, 

 Kitchen Garden. 

 /} well cultivated garden indicates care, industry, 

 and thrift. 

 A good garden furnishes a large amount of sus- 

 tenance to a family ; and although its productions 

 may not assume a money value by being converted 

 into cash, yet they are not the less valuable on that 

 account, as every good housewife knows, who re 

 sorts to it daily, in order to procure a supply of 

 wholesome and nutricions esculents for the table. 

 Many farmers do not duly a|ipreciate, but disregard 

 and neglect the garden, and throw the burden of 

 its care and cultivation too much on the female 

 branches of the family, who are oftentimes suffi- 

 ciently burdened with other cares and duties of an 

 imperious character. All good husbands, or young 

 men who are susceptible of being converted into 

 that article, are careful in looking after, and attend- 

 ing to the cultivation of the garden. As soon as 

 spring opens and the ground is in a fit state to be 

 stirred, they are up and doing, being fully aware of 

 the vast importance to the comfort and interests^ of 

 a family, of having an early and good garden, fur- 

 nishing a copious sujiply of vegetables, the best of 

 their kind in due succession. 



It would be unnecessary to inform any person of 

 common sense, that the soil of a garden should b« 

 rich, and that it should he dug deep, and be thor- 



