148 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



to lassitude and shrinking from labor, might stilly 

 have tlirown it upon a more servile generation of 

 human beings, and rendered slavery the cnrse and 

 the destroyer of tliat very fertdity of wliich it 

 was intended to take advantage for the greatest de- 

 gree of ease and eomfort to its proprietors. In a 

 word, if tile New England pilgrims had made tlieir 

 first pitcli upon Virginian territory, the fate of that 

 population which has been broken down by luxury 

 and enervation, miglit and probably would have 

 attended them. 



, Tlie great blessing of New England has been her 

 hard soil, her difficulty of producing abundant pro- 

 ducts from tlie earth, and tlie necessity to labor 

 whicii has pervaded almost every rank and class of 

 her population. If a part, say one half, could have 

 done the work necessary to support all, tlien might 

 we see at this moment a race of different color with 

 marks of inferiority, doing what is now done by 

 hearly tlie whole superior class combined : then 

 might we witness one class of our population phys- 

 icallv and morally enervated ; — another class, to 

 the lowest pitch degraded. Slavery existed in New 

 England before the existence of those blessed free 

 institutions which w'cre purchased at the expense of 

 the blood of freemen — a race was here as "hewers 

 of wood and drawers of water," a black race in 

 slavery, scattered remnants of vviiich in some parts 

 remain ; and to no single cause so much as to the 

 necessity that dll should work to gain a compe- 

 tence from the ground is it due that free white la- 

 bor, diffusing the blessings of health and abun- 

 dance, is tlie almost exclusive labor of tliis portion 

 of the United States. 



We cannot always have that exact state of things 

 which all could wish. For wise and beneficent 

 purposes the Almighty has placed us in a state of 

 trial and uncertainty. The fruits of well directed 

 labor are sometimes smitten — the struggles of hard 

 labor are sometimes crowned with utter want of 

 success. Tile privations and the sufferings of the 

 first New England settlers were far beyond the 

 privations and sufferings of those who are now 

 settling the new territories of the South and West. 

 The proo-ress of those first settlers was much slow- 

 er and more tedious — the dangers and horrors of 

 Savage warfare were much more appalling — the 

 destitution of the common necessaries and com- 

 forts of life was more intense and more general. 

 If the savage tomaliawk now and then does the 

 work of sudden murder upon our extreme frontier, 

 the opportunity of protection or escape to those 

 who remain is soon presented. To the settlers of 

 New England for the first hundred and fifty years, 

 not only the frequent terrors of repeated barbarian 

 murders in the worst shape were realized, but a 

 heartless, hopeless, never-ending fear of secret at- 

 tack and massacre became the great passion, swal- 

 lowinor up and marring almost evOTv species of en- 

 joyment. 



Our fatiiers doomed to procure sustenance by the 

 severest sweat of the face, the charged musket was 

 taken to the field for defence. With every precau- 

 tion the watchful and prayerful pioneer wliile cut- 

 ting down the forest, or tilling or gathering tlie 

 fruits of the ground, was frequently shot down in 

 the field by the Indian lurking unseen in some ad- 

 jacent swamp or covert: the brains of children 

 were dashed out in the presence of trembling moth- 

 ers torn and hurried into captivity ere the bleeding 

 Tictims had ceased to struggle. The accumulated 

 horrors of want and famine and pestilence were 

 but a mitigation of the greater horrors and dread 

 of savage warfare. Within my own recollection, 

 aged men and women lived among our ancestors 

 who, from their remembrance of these horrors, 

 described their own condition with tlieir elders 

 concerned for themselves as well as for their pro- 

 tection in language and gestures with colors tliat 

 no hieroglyphic or written or printed statement ever 

 can equal. 



The soil of New England, sterile altliough it may 

 have been, was more prolific the first ten years than 

 it was the second ten years of its occupancy. Un- 

 der the "skinning process," in the course of twen- 

 ty years here and every where else, saving in land 

 Chat is repeatedly flowed, the tilled soil becomes 

 exhaustid and worn out. It is a blessing to the 

 world whicli seems n^t to be realized by hundreds 

 and perhaps thousands, that this worn out soil con- 

 tains the germ of its own resuscitation. Even the 

 worn out soil of Virginia, which at first was so rich 

 as to need no ajiplication of artificial manures, may 

 be made to attain its original fertility from a change 

 t)f its own elements aided by tlie surrounding at- 

 mosphere. The position of that country forbids 

 the general application of manures upon much of 

 it; but such land may again be made productive, 

 simply by summer fallows — by ploughing in the 

 exterior vegetable growth, sowing and rearing a 



new growth of clover or other succulent produc- 

 tion. To be in its turn again ploughed and ferment- 

 ed under the surface. 



Exhausted lands too soon abandoned. 



The fault of the farmers upon our hard soil has 

 been to abandon the ground after the skinning pro- 

 cess, This was natural while other fertile lands 

 renuined in the vicinity to be cleared, that would 

 produce larger crops. And now a farmer that ha.s 

 mowed over forty, fifty and a hundred acres year 

 after year, until jic has reduced the crop of hay 

 down from two tons to one ton, half a ton and 

 even four or five hundred pounds to the acre, is as 

 a matter of necessity willing almost to give away 

 the ground that yields so scantily, to seek a liveli- 

 hood by taking women boarders at the price of a 

 dollar or a dollar and a quarter a week near some 

 great factory establislimcnt, or else to pack up 

 "bag and baggage" and set out for the land of 

 promise in tlie west. 



To men so discouraged as these have been in 

 times past, I believe the alternative offers of a much 

 more certain chance of success in life ; and 

 that is, in the renovation of worn out farms. If a 

 man is in debt to the amount of its whole value, he 

 had better purchase a portion of what was his own 

 on credit, and remain upon it, than abandon it. — 

 With common health, with a good resolution and 

 good habits, he may as soon lay a foundation for 

 the future sustenance and comfort of himself and 

 family as he can perhaps any where else. The poor- 

 est places for steady employment, I am induced to 

 believe, are our largest towns and villages. A- 

 mong the farmers the poor man can almost every 

 where be employed at a price either in money or 

 produce to help sustain his family ; his wife and 

 children who are of sufficient age can also find 

 some kind of business where industry shall aid the 

 exertions of the father : nay, is it not an event of 

 frequent occurrence that females in a family a- 

 lone earn its support.' The poor man can work for 

 others as well as on the ground which he has pur- 

 chased or hired. But let him work it right at 

 home. If he have but a single acre of the worn 

 out land — I do not mean impervious rock or that 

 gravel or sand on which labor and manure will have 

 iio eftect, but that retentive soil which holds ma- 

 nure, or such barren wet soil as may be drained — 

 or such iinpovershed soil as requires the plough or 

 the iron bar to strike deeper than it has been wont ; 

 if he begin with a single acre of such land and be- 

 gins aright, the first year will give him better pay 

 for the labor and application than he ever obtained 

 under the skinning process ; the product will be in- 

 cieased iu a compound ratio in succeeding years ; 

 and in a few revolving seasons he will find his single 

 acre yielding him more clear gain than some farm- 

 ers obtain from fifty and a hundred acres under the 

 wearing-out mode of cultivation. 



Too much attempted. 



The practice of farmers in New England has 

 been to go over too much ground. By planters in 

 the South, some of whom have their five hundred, 

 their thousand and even ten tliousand acres, the 

 largest New England farmers are considered small 

 farmers. We think too little of our small farmers 

 of fifty or an hundred acres : I know men of smal- 

 ler farms of twenty and thirty acres who are not 

 only thriving and gaining property every year, but 

 who actually are in more easy and independent 

 circumstances in life, than others with half a dozen 

 farms and some of them large. 



I will state a case in point. A rich man of the 

 society of Friends who owns estates in the vicini- 

 ty of Wilmington in the State of Delaware, leased 

 a single acre of good land to a poor man in his 

 neighborhood with the condition of furnishing him 

 a horse and cart twice a week to go to market. — 

 The product of the acre was to be divided equally; 

 and the owner's annual share on an average of five 

 years was $1 ''•1 20 cents, making the income of the 

 acre $*248 40 a year. The owner and tenant did 

 well for five years on the single acre ; but the lat- 

 ter thought he had not business enough, and asked 

 for another acre, the use of which was granted with 

 the same division on the condition of adding the 

 use and services of a man, a horse and plough 

 occasionally. To the owner and of course to the 

 tenant the whole proceeds were less from the two 

 acres for a second term, than they had been from 

 tile one acre the first term. 



The smaller farmer in proportion to his capital 

 has generally the advantage of his neighbor with 

 more numerous acres. Suppose each of them shall 

 labor himself and have the benefit of the work of 

 two hired men in a family of sons under age. The 

 farmer of seventy -five or a hundred acres performs 

 the whole labor with his own help : he works to 

 the advantage of taking fewer steps, and teams in 



proportion in going to and from his work, and in 

 gathering his produce. His Surplus beyond the 

 wants of his family is a clear gain to his capital. 

 The larger owner of one hundred and fifty or two 

 hundred acres does of himself half of his wcrk, 

 and hires the entire of the other half: he loses the 

 additional travel and the transport from the double 

 distance. His profits upon the one half of his land 

 where the help is all hirinl will be as much less 

 than the half done by himself, as the addition of 

 price paid for his hired labor and the increased labor 

 and time cimsunied in travel and carriage occasion- 

 ed by the greater compass of his grounds. The 

 difference may be so great that the loss on the one 

 part will exceed the gains on the other ; and the 

 case may even be conceived where the smaller 

 farmer will constantly increase his property while 

 the larger farmer doing precisely as much labor 

 with the same means, in consequence of his more 

 extended operations, will be continually losing 

 property. 



The farmer who exercises at the same time the 

 capacity of planning and directing and of assist- 

 ing in the labor of his farm, has the advantage of 

 him who only plans and directs ; but the man who 

 does all within himself has an advantage over him 

 who plans and executes only in part. So the small 

 farmer who, besides doing by himself and his minor 

 sons all his farm work, adds to that in seasons when 

 he cannot be abroad the performance of some me- 

 chanical labor wliich shall turn to profit, at the same 

 time the wife and daughters ply the needle, the 

 wheel or the shuttle within doors, often advances 

 to wealth more rapidly than he who has the use of 

 much more extended apparent means and cajiital. 



The example of every family who make the most 

 of their means, who live comfortably on a little, 

 and gain fast by putting in motion every practica- 

 ble method of increase to the fruits of industry, 

 should be an object of emulation to every other 

 familv. None are so ricii as to be able to be waste- 

 ful ; and the most wealthy better enjoy the econo- 

 my which adds to their means than the prodigality 

 which throws them away. 



Happy condition of the New Ungland 

 Farmer. 



The condition of a community situated as are 

 the great mass of agriculturists in New England is 

 more desirable than that of any other class of men 

 within my knowledge. If it do not too much at^ 

 tach men and women to this life — if it do not make 

 them so happy as to increase tile love of life be- 

 yond the age of sorrow, toil and jjain — it is a con- 

 dition which the "tall, the wise and reverend head" 

 may envy. Living within their own means, on 

 the fruits of their own labor — enjoying abundance 

 of the best products of the ground and the first fat- 

 lings of the fiock ; the appetite sharpened and 

 sweetened, the muscular powers strengthened, the 

 mind made vigorous and active, by labor ; their de- 

 pendence solely on the iroodncss of God ; — their 

 prudence having looked forward even to the de- 

 struction of a crop with a providence to supply its 

 l)lace : with abundant leisure for all healthy recre- 

 ation and all needful rest ; with no worldly cares 

 and vexations encroaching on the reflection wliich 

 aids the better judgment ; iu the midst of those 

 social and domestic relations which throw a charm 

 about life, whicli give to moral suasion its greatest 

 force, and which rear the "tender thought ' to the 

 ripe vigor of its highest usefulness : — how can we 

 conceive any state of imperfect, erring, dependent 

 man more truly enviable, than that of the industri- 

 ous, laboring, i)rolific farmers of New England who 

 live according to the best lights of their own expe- 

 rience .' The merchant fails nine times in ten be- 

 fore a fortune is gained — the speculator ninety-nine 

 times in a hundred : the mechanic and the lawyer 

 gain only while their work is going on ; the wages 

 of the priest, like those of the common laborer, 

 stop when he no longer works; the jihysician adds 

 to his income no oltener than he visits the sick ; 

 the salary man, if he saves at all, saves only a spe- 

 cific sum: — the farmer, more sure of success than 

 either, in nine cases out often, certain of ultimate 

 prosperity, lays his head upon his pillow with the 

 reflection that while he sleeps his crops are increas- 

 ing to maturity and his flocks and iierds growing 

 in size and strength. 



Benefits of Association. 



To awaken a laudable zeal and emulation in the 

 agricultural improvements of tile day is the object 

 of this association, as it is of many other similar 

 associations existing in this and other countries. 

 That there are excellent farmers in Cheshire coun- 

 ty who are not members of this or any other agri- 

 cultural society, is undoubtedly true ; that this may 

 be a fine agricultural district scarcely behind the 

 best in New England without an agricultural soci- 



