

THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



means he has calh'd into the fieUl of agricultural 1 his departure, to furnish just this volume, for just 



hibor a higher order of mind ; has elevated <hc 

 standard of ajfricultural attainment; and has tend- 

 ed to render this extensive department of industry 

 as iiili-lligent, respected, and liouorable, as it ever 

 has lieen^coneeded to be useful, healthy, and inde- 

 pendent. 



Thus gifted, esteemed, beloved, distinguished, 

 and in the enjoyment of reputation co-e-\tensive 

 with tlie agricultural interest in this country, it 

 ■would seem, that if life were a boon worth pos- 

 sessing, he had almost earned a long and undis-^ 

 turbed enjoyment of it. But the dispensations of 

 God to man are full of mystery. Uelig-ion and rea- 

 son here teach the same lesson ; to observe, adore, 

 and submit. 



He Imd accepted invitations to deliver addresses 

 before the agricultural and horticultural sccictics 

 of Norwich and New Haven, Connecticut, on the 

 25th and 27tli of September last. About the mid- 

 dle of that month, he left this city for that pur- 

 pose, accompanied by his only daughter. On Sat- 

 urday night, tlie S'id of Septemlier, at Uanbury, 

 Connecticut, he was seized with a bilious colic. 

 This was extremely distressing, but yielded, with- 

 in three days, to tlie force of medical treatment. — 

 A bilious fever then supervened, unaccompanied, 

 however, by any alarming symptoms until Friday 

 the 4th of October. His disease then assumed a 

 serious aspect, and a change was obviously pcr- 

 ceptilde, particularly in his voice. He had occa- 

 sionally, during his sickness, expressed doubts of 

 his recovery, although his physicians up to the 4th 

 of October, entertained no serious apprehensions 

 that his disease would terminate fatally. He re- 

 tained throughout the full possession of his mental 

 faculties, and expressed his entire resignation to 

 the will of Heaven. He continued gradually to 

 decline from Friday until about three o'clock in the 

 forenoon of Sunday, when, after faintly uttering 

 the name of his absent companion, with whom he 

 had shared tlie toils, and troubles, and triumphs, of 

 almost forty years, he calmly, and without a groan 

 or a struggle, cancelled the debt which his birth 

 had created, and "yielded up his spirit to God who 

 gave it." 



As a writer, the merits of Judge Bikl have al- 

 ready teen doterniined by a discerning public. It 

 is here worthy of remark, that he never had but six 

 months schooling, having enjoyed fewer advantag- 

 es, in that respect, than most of our farmers' and 

 mechanics' sons. He, however, had the good for- 

 tune to possess a mindtliat could improve itselfby 

 its own action. AllhoLigh, therefore, lie lacked the 

 advantages of that early education, vvliichcan pol- 

 ish, point, and refine good sense where it happens 

 to be lonnd, and endeavors to supply its absence by 

 some imperfect substitute, where it is wanting; 

 yet by dint of study and practice, and of strong 

 original endowment, he succeeded in the attain- 

 ment of a style excellently well adapted to the na- 

 ture of his communications It consisted simjdy 

 in his telling, in plain language, just the thing he 

 thought. The arts of lllietoric ; the advantages 

 of skillful arrangement in language; tlie abundant 

 use of tropes and figures ;■ he never resorted to. — 

 He seemed neither to expect nor desire, that his 

 communications would possess with other minds 

 any more weight tiian the ideas contained in tliem 

 would justly entitle them to. With him words 

 meant things, and not simply their shadows. He 

 came to the common mind like an old familiar ac- 

 quaintance ; and although he brought to it new 

 ideas, yet they consisted in conceptions clearly 

 comprehensible in themselves, and conveyed in the 

 plainest and most intelligible terms. 



His writings are principally to be found in the 

 many addresses he lias defn'ored ; in the six vol- 

 umes of his Cultivator ; in the small volume (made 

 up, however, principally or entirely, from materi- 

 als taken from the Cultivator,) published by the 

 Harpers of New York ; and in the "Farmer's Com- 

 panion, ' the last and niosl perfect of his works, 

 containing within a small comj)ass, the embodied 

 results of his agricultural experience, a rich legacy 

 to wliicli Ihe greal extent of our farming interest 

 cannot remain insensible. This work was written 

 expressly for the Massachusetts Board of Educa- 

 tion, and constitutes one of the numbers of the sec- 

 ond series of that truly invaluable District School 

 Library, now issuing, under the sanction of that 

 Board, from the jiress of Marsli, Capen, Lyon and 

 Webb of Bofton ; which for the extent of the un- 

 lertaking; the great caution exercised in selecting 

 tlie material ; the talent enlisted in furnishing it ; 

 and the durable manner in which the books are ex- 

 ecuted; so richly deserves the patronage of the 

 whole American Nation. I deem it really the most 

 fortunate circumstance in his life, that he should 

 have been permitted, so immediately previous to 



this purpose ; and I shall confidenlly expect that 

 the coming generation will be better fariners, better 

 citizens, and better men, from having had the form- 

 ation of their young minds influenced to some ex- 

 tent, by the lesson's of experience and practical 

 wisdom, derived from the last, best, most mature 

 production of this excellent man. The sev- 

 eral district schools throughout our state, will un- 

 doubtedly, feel it due to the important trusts they 

 have in charge, to secure this among other valua- 

 ble publications, to aid in composing their respec- 

 tive District School Libraries, from which so much 

 orood is expected to be derived. 



Address (Jdhcred before tlicLijrxum tit Candid, N.H. 

 Feb. 19, and the Lyceum at Hill, JV. II. March 2, 

 1:^40. 



Bv ISAAC HILL. 

 Preliminary Remarks. 

 Knowledge is power to those who in the school 

 of experience have been taught how to apply it ; 

 but abundance of knowledge shut up in the bosoui 

 of him who neither applies it himself or imparts it 

 to others, like precious metals buried deep in the 

 bosom of the earth, is of no intrinsic value until 

 brought into use. 



We know many things as a matter of general in- 

 formation : — we know that some countries are more 

 advanced than others in civilization and the com- 

 forts of life : we know that the people of some na- 

 tions are more industrious and thriving than those 

 of other n.ations : we know that some districts of 

 country are much more productive than otiier dis- 

 tricts ; we know that the people of one nation are 

 endued with superior information, with higher in- 

 tellectual powers and greater physical capacity 

 than others : we see the superior intellect of one 

 community more than counterbalance the greater 

 physical strength of others. All these facts are 

 matters of curiosity and inquiry. Philosophy will 

 lead us to analyze the minute circumstances which 

 in the mass go to place one government or one man 

 in a higher or lower state than another; and rea- 

 son should teach us so to trace effects to their caus- 

 es, as to apply our particular knowledge to its most 

 useful purpose. 



If we see another do many things better than we 

 have done the same things ourselves, it will be but 

 a blind influence that should teach us while essay- 

 ing to amend our own course to adopt the errors 

 and mistakes as well as the correct practices of our 

 exemplar. It is the proof of a superior mind that 

 it possesses powers ofdiscriminition knowing how- 

 to separate what is beneficial from what is useless; 

 and it marks the childhood of intellect to imitate 

 and adopt as well the vices as the virtues of those 

 to whom it looks for instruction. 



Coming more directly to our subject, we are led 

 to the consideration of some of the means by which 

 we wlioare now present may be taught to contrib- 

 ute our part towards a more general improvement. 

 The foundation stone of the prosperity and wealth 

 of every nation is its production. Individuals may 

 amass wealth to themselves who contribute noth- 

 ing to the general welfare ; but no whole people, 

 who are notplunderers and robbers, can become 

 wealthy and prosperous without creating actual 

 value by labor upon the soil or in the work-shnp. 

 Labor in the soil, a business wliich many who are 

 present habitually follow, is our present then.e. 



The inventions and improvements of the last 

 fifty years have probably exceeded all these of the 

 previous five hundred years. America, whose old- 

 est invention looks back not beyond two centuries, 

 has contributed hardly less in many things than 

 tlie oldest and most intelligent of the civilized na- 

 tions. Indeed, that part of tlie new world embrac- 

 ing the country' in which we live, in the pride of 

 justifiable exultation, many boast that the young is 

 far in advance of the old in the excellence of her 

 civil institutions, in the protection and enjoyment 

 of those rights inherent to intelligent man. 



The value of the privileges which have been 

 purchased by the toil and blood of our fathers 

 should lead us to higher improvement in the otiier 

 arts of life. If any subject is further behind than 

 another, it is the Agriculture of this country which 

 is marked by the slower pace. 



Causes of Agricultural Deterioration. 



There are reasons why the United States of A- 

 merioa should not advance likctlic older countries 

 of Europe in agricultural improvements. 



In the first place, the virgin soil of every new 

 eonnlry must be cultivated in a manner that ne- 

 cessarily leads to its exhaustion ; and the more fer- 

 tile the soil the greater danger that deterioration 

 will not stop until necessity shall cither force its 



abandonment or a change of cultivation from actu- 

 al sufl'ering. A large proportion of those persons 

 who haveleft this portion of the country which 

 has been considered partially worn out, and gone 

 to the occupancy of a more fertile virgin soil, en- 

 tertain no oiher idea than that the fertility of their 

 present location is to last fiirever : they write to us 

 and they say to us when we meet them, that the 

 grain country of tlie West will produce wheat year 

 afler year, increasing in quantity (as it undoubt- 

 edly will for the first few years while the rich veg- 

 etable mould becomes more friable) the longer it is 

 ploughed and sowed without the application of ma- 

 nure. Will n 1 was a boy of ten or a dozen years 

 I well remember the report brought by a young 

 man who had gone to the "far west," as far as Troy 

 in the State of New York. The land was so rich 

 there, he informed us, that the Dutch farmers had 

 no other resource than to remove their barns away 

 from the piles of manure which had collected a- 

 round them, as the most labor-saving method of 

 trettino- rid of a mountain of evil which threatened 

 to overw-helm them. Farther west than Troy as 

 population has since travelled, the notion prevails 

 in every new settlement (for the fertility of the soil 

 increases the farther settlers go) that manure never 

 will be necessary in their cultivation. 



The cultivation of a soil so rich has of necessity 

 led to exhaustion. Other parts of the country, the 

 wheat and tobacco country of Maryland and Vir- 

 irinia, and the cotton districts of the Carolinas and 

 part of Georgia (cursed as they have been with 

 slavery) have suft'ered far beyond our own rougher 

 hills and plains of the N-irth. 



My own observation, while travelling in various 

 parts of the country, has lauglit me to mark the 

 progress of the exhausting system at some points. 

 There are several towns on the eastern declivity of 

 the Green Mountains of Vermont, and tbere are 

 other hill towns in Massachusetts and New Hamp- 

 shire, in that state of deterioration which shows 

 that a portion of the settlers had left the ground, 

 and the larger proportion of those who are left look 

 with discouragement on the exhausted lands sur- 

 rounding their dilapidrted houses and hams. In 

 the westerly part of the little State of Rhode Isl- 

 and, through w-hich I passed some years ago, I re- 

 inemberseeing much stony, worn out ground which 

 looked as if itliad been productive years since, be- 

 cause the fields were still surrounded by the rem- 

 nants of stone walls, where rags and old hats sup- 

 plied tlie place of broken panes of glass in the win- 

 dows, and moss covered the worn-out shingles that 

 had been laid on buildings erected in a former 

 more prosperous generation. Poor as was that 

 country, hard as was the face of the worn out 

 ground, and numerous as were the rocks upon the 

 surface, the elements of renovation were still left : 

 and I will not doubt that during the period of time 

 that has intervened, there has been great iinprove- 

 inent on that ground, as tliere has been within tliir- 

 ty miles from the sea along tlie whole line of coast 

 from the mouth of Hudson river to the bay of Pas- 

 samaqnoddy . 



Within reach of our present vision — upon some 

 of the fertile hills which half a century ago fur- 

 nished abundance of production for a population 

 nearly as large as the ]ircsent and a supply for the 

 market— are t'arms that were, which now hardly 

 deserve the name, where neglected cultivation has 

 either caused abandenment, or poverty and misery 

 seem to reside with the remaining occupants. 



We find deterioration and dilapidation as a matter 

 of course following about twent}' years after a first 

 settlement in the country, especially in places of 

 hard and rocky and uneven ground. In that time 

 the ground exhausts itself; and if there be not 

 some principle of renovation other than the appli- 

 cation of artificial stimulant manures, very likely 

 it will be in that worststate which we can imagine 

 of such land. If it be not covered with a surface' 

 of barren moss or poisonous weeds, or briars and 

 ferns, it will have a growth which is neither clear- 

 ed land nor forest, yielding no profit to the owner. 



The soil of the country must be reclaimed. 



Sucli ground as Ihe most discouraging part of 

 that I am describing has been rescued ; all of it, 

 sooner or later, must be rescued. There is little 

 land v.ithin the limits of New Hampshire that is 

 not valuable for some purpose. Her ledges of rock 

 in niaiiy cases will be found to be more valuable 

 than mines of silver and gold. Much of the ground 

 that is too rocky for the plough or too porous for 

 the profitable application of manures, w'-ill yield an 

 annual increase of a hundred percent, in its form- 

 er estimated value in the growth of wood and tim- 

 ber. There is no part of our terra firma that may 

 be reproached as useless. 



My object will be to convince such as are notal- 



