THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



35 



ready convinced, that there is one true and sure 

 course which if tlir farmer pursues will assure him 

 increase of cnpital and secure him the more cer- 

 tain means of a comfortable living. That course is, 

 a perseverance in the use of those means which 

 may come u-itliin his reach to renovate and im- 

 prove his soil. I wish every practical man to keep 

 the rule constantly in mind : it will in many cases 

 carry him even in advance of his better hopes — it 

 willbless him botli morally and physically. 



No matter on what ground a man may happen 

 to be placed, whether the soil at present be poorer 

 rich, if it only contain inherent qualities of preser- 

 vation that shall sufter no labor bestowed upon it 

 to be thrown away. The necessary course of things 

 in the cultivation of the first virgin soil gives the 

 easy and more fertile land a first advantage ; but 

 tliis advantage to what is called good lands is by 

 no means as great in the renovating system that 

 must succeed the exhausting system. For proof of 

 this fact we need not look beyond what is round 

 about us. There are lands highly productive and 

 valuable from their position. The Deerfield mead- 

 ows in Massachusetts being alluvion formed by the 

 backing in of the waters of the Connecticut at the 

 mouth of the tributary stream bearing the name cf 

 the town where it unites with the larger stream, 

 have continued an extraordinary fertility for more 

 than a hundred years, because they are every year 

 supplied with the material which best contributes 

 to the earth's fertility. Other alluvial farms on the 

 banks of our rivers, having similar means of sup- 

 ply, will always be more valuable than u.nlands 

 that have not the same advantage. But there are 

 farms having none of these advantages — there are 

 cultivated lands that have been dug out of the hard 

 rock, whose vegetable mould has been made in part 

 from a subsoil of gravel nearly as hard as the rock 

 itself — lands that had for years been abandoned be- 

 cause they were considered too porous to retain tlie 

 strength of any kind of matter that could be appli- 

 ed to them ; — tlicre are farms and lands of this de- 

 scription in various parts of New England that 

 have been made by artificial means equally valua- 

 ble and productive as the very best natural soil cf 

 the country. 



Improvement within the reach of every 

 man. 

 Every man in the community who occupies a 

 few rods of ground for a garden plat or a farm of 

 few or many acres, without any scientific knowl- 

 edge not taught by every day experience, 

 will have it in his power to make his ground and 

 his cultivation among the first and the best. Who- 

 ever doubts this position need not go beyond the 

 limits of this county for proof of its truth. If it 

 cannot be proved in your own town and neighbor- 

 hood, go to the sea-shore and examine as hard an 

 original soil as svas ever brought to the subjection 

 of the plough ; go to the town of Rye, which yields 

 a greater produce in proportion to its size than per- 

 haps any otiicr town in the State. Here you will 

 find ocular demonstration that a new system of 

 husbandry would pour into the lap of the New 

 England farmers wealtli and competence, ease and 

 independence, such as may be sought for in vain by 

 any other occupation than the farmer; such as, 

 comparatively speaking, might make, beside of that 

 moral and intellectual cultivation of which our 

 population is susceptible, "a heaven hereon earth." 

 Almost as certain of success, of prosjierity, of 

 wealth, shall even the present generation be under 

 the new system of cultivation as the demonstration 

 of any mathematical problem. By the new "'.ulti- 

 vation I do not mean the following strictly of any 

 rule laid down in the books of agriculture, or any 

 precise theory of an agricultural professor. The 

 farmers of the town of Rye have studied and prac- 

 tised upon tliis now system without consulting any 

 other book than the Book cf Nature — tlieir own ex- 

 perience has demonstrated to them the value of 

 their discoveries. Apart from the discoveries of 

 scientific men upon a larger scale, they have ar- 

 rived at the same results; and the coincidence fur- 

 furnishes lucid proof that there can be no mistake 

 as to the value of the New Husbandry. 



Renovated Husbandry in Europe. 



Although I would go to no foreign land to seek 

 for institutions more valuable than we possess; yet, 

 as we htLve received much tiiat is commendable 

 in principle, and more that is important in the dis- 

 coveries of science and the improvements of the 

 aire, from the parent nations of Europe than from 

 our own talent and experience, we may with safe- 

 ty continue to draw on that source for examples in 

 all that is praiseworthy and practically useful, a- 

 voidmo- whatever is inconsistent with those princi- 

 ples of human right which place every son and 

 daughter of Adam upon the basis of equality. 



Since I commenced writing out these remarks 1 

 have taken up the bound volume of the American 

 Farmer, publislied at Baltimore twenty years ago; 

 and I am surprised to find the new system of hus- 

 bandry tliere advocated and enforced with all the 

 power that fact and argument could bring to its 

 aid. That newspaper was then the only agricul- 

 tural periodical journal published south of Boston 

 — it was a weekly sheet published at the price of 

 five dollars a year. Perhaps a hundred copies of it 

 were not circulated in all New England ; and those 

 few were taken by persons whose wealth would en- 

 able them to gratify a curiosity for trying new ex- 

 periments, but who, (.fall others, were least likely 

 to find success in those experiments that should 

 commend them to the. practice of common farmers. 

 The American Farmer was a newspaper of high 

 character : the first volume was called for in tlic 

 reprint of three successive editions. It had an in- 

 dividual rather than a general cifoct: rich planters 

 of the South availed themselves of the informa- 

 tion it contained — some of them succeeded in 

 doubling and trebling the value of their estates ; 

 but others, and probably the most numerous class 

 of experimenters failed, as most theoretical men do 

 fail, for want of system and perseverance. 



It shall be my business at this time to draw your 

 attention to the agriculture of foreign nations, 

 more particularly to the improved and improving 

 Agriculture of the island of Great Britain, not for 

 the purpose of recommendiniv their mode of culti- 

 vation in its extended scale, but for the purpose of 

 demonstrating that their system of improvement 

 may ada))t itself to this country, and especially to 

 New England, with even more advantage than at 

 home. 



The difference between the Agriculture of Great 

 Britain and tlie United States is'this : Nine-tenths 

 if not nineteen-twentieths of the soil in the for- 

 eign country are owned by the nobility and men of 

 wealth who do not themselves cultivate their lands. 

 These are rented to others wlio are not owners, 

 but men who must be wealthy to be able to furnish 

 a capital necessary to make the advances tor culti- 

 vating the land. A middling farmer in England 

 occupies a thousand acres ef land, for which he 

 pays a rent of from two to five thousand pounds 

 sterling annually ; and he requires an outlay of 

 five thousand pounds more to be able to begin bu- 

 siness. Considering that a price is paid for annu- 

 al rent nearly equal to the original value of New- 

 Kngland farms, that an outlay in the purchase of 

 stock and in the payment for manure and labor e- 

 qual at least to the rent, must be provided — consid- 

 ering the immense burden of taxation necessary to 

 support the govtrnment and pay the interest on 

 their national debt — it might by us be thought im- 

 possible that the farmers of that country should 

 succeed at all. Yet accounts agree in the fact that 

 there is even less uncertainty of success in that 

 country than this, where farming is done on a 

 smaller scale, and where the occupant is ninety- 

 nine cases in a hundred the nominal if not the real 

 owner of the ground which he jaitivates. The 

 facts whicli 1 shall present will f^fther develope 

 the difference between the farming in Old and New 

 Euiriand, and perhaps may teach some to pursue 

 the good and reject the bid in both systems. 



The Great Farmer and Philanthropist. 



Probably the most extensive and most success- 

 ful farmer of the civilized world is Thomas Wil- 

 liam Coke of Holkham, in the county rf Norfolk, 

 England, who was the first to commence and tri- 

 umphantly to carry through the New Husbandry. 

 For many years he was the great commoner in 

 England, who preceded even the highest of the no- 

 bility ; he was a member of tlie British H-ouse of 

 Commons during the Amer'-can revolution, and 

 with the elder Pitt and Col. Bane took the part of 

 the American colonists on the floor of Parliament: 

 but not so much for his political efforts as for his 

 snecessfu! example as a great farmer and patron of 

 productive industry, does he deserve the highest 

 earthly honors. Other men, stained with the blood 

 of oppressive rule, may be called Great : the Great 

 Farmer of Norfolk has a better title to the appella- 

 tioir for the comforts alid enjoyments he has thrown 

 around the lower classes of his neighborhood — for 

 the proof he lias laid before the world that con- 

 stantly improving cultivation is the most sure and 

 most profitable cultivation. 



A late number of Bentley's iNIiscellany thus de- 

 scribes Holkhain, the seat of the Earl of Leicester; 

 "The grounds, including gardens and park, and 

 forest, and meadows, and fields of corn, are bound- 

 ed by a circumference of ten miles. Within this 

 circumference is an artificial lake, regarded by ma- 

 ny as the most superb in England. Walks and 

 rides intersect these grounds in every convenient 



direction. Here you move under a triumphal arch ; 

 before you arises soon a lofty obelisk ; upon your 

 right spreads out five hundred acres of barley ; and 

 anon you enter Lady Anne Coke's beautiful flow- 

 er garden, planted by the taste of Chantry . Sheep, 

 wiiereof here are twenty-two hundred of the veri- 

 table South Down breed ; Cattle, of which there 

 are three hundred belonging to the stock of Devon- 

 shire ; milch cows, whereof thirty constitute the 

 dairy ; horses, whereof fifty enjoy the stalls of 

 Holkham; tenantry, of whom two hundred are 

 happy to acknowledge this excellent landlord; and 

 laborers, of whom two thousand are said to be con- 

 tinually (Employed by him, meet your eye wherev- 

 er it is turned ; and nearly in the centre of thiscir- 

 cumfere-uce stands the house of Holkham, a mag- 

 nificent pile. It was erected about eighty years 

 since by the Earl and Countess of Leicester. It 

 consists of a large central building witli four wings, 

 and you are informed tliat, "measuring closely by 

 all the angles, it i.s just one mile in circumference." 

 The house is open for public inspection on two 

 days of each week ; and well may it thus be open- 

 ed, for it contains treasures in tapestry, sculpture 

 and painting, that richly repay the visitor for his 

 time and trouble. In this respect, as a repository of 

 art, Holkham is one of the many valuable houses 

 in England." 



I have somewhere seen an account of the great 

 farmer which represents him as having married his 

 present wife within a few years who is much young- 

 er than himself, and by whom he has a family of 

 young children. All statements describe liim as 

 having pursued a most active life for more than 

 sixty years. He is now nearly er quite eighty years 

 of acre. He came into possession of his estates in 

 the year 1775, when their whole annual rents a- 

 niounted to short of £2200. A large portion rent- 

 ed for no more than three shillings per acre, and 

 the best of it not over five shillings. No wheat 

 then grew in the county of Norfolk ; and it was 

 believed until he improved the culture of his 

 grounds that wheat would not grow there. In the 

 year 1817, he had increased his rents to £20,000 

 sterling, nearly ten fold ; and this although they 

 were not near any large market town. Among his 

 best investments was the planting 1500 acres of 

 forest trees, from which at that early period the 

 building timber for his tenants' dwellings and the 

 fuel consumed was procured. With the gains from 

 his farm he had then purchased other lands. He 

 put an entire new face upon the condition of the 

 poor of his county, being able to give employment 

 and bread to all who were able and willing to work. 

 In an agrionllural journal published in 1820, I 

 find a statement of the method of farming pursued 

 by Mr. Coke, which had been attended with such 

 eminent success. The causes of success are stat- 

 ed to be " the succession of four or even five dif- 

 ferent crops" — "improvements in the whole sys- 

 tem of manure" — "irrigation of ground wherever 

 practicable" — "the drill and horse hoeing husban- 

 dry" — "improved utensils of husbandry — liberali- 

 ty in the quantity of Eeed"^extirpation of weeds, 

 not one being suffered to grow to seed in the wet- 

 test season. The best moral conscquecces had ac- 

 companied his increase of value, crops and rent, 

 one strong proof of which was the demolition of 

 the poor house, which had tilways before been- ne- 

 cessary for the three adjoining parishes. By judi- 

 cious management inmakingand applyingmanure 

 as early as 1817, Mr. Coke had made gravelly and 

 other poor lands without a sward produce as high 

 as 42 bushels of wheat and G5 bushels of oats to the 

 acre. 



Mr. Coke, with the munificence which could be 

 afforded only by the princely fortune he possessed, 

 has yearly entertained the gentlemen farmers of 

 Entrlrind with his grand annual sheep-shearing and 

 meeting, at whicli he has accompanied his guests 

 on horseback over his farms and grounds, furnish- 

 ing entertainment for three successive days and 

 at the close a dinner. Tliis entertainment 

 was garnished witli speeches from the more distin- 

 guished agriculturists, in which improvements of 

 breeds of cattle and the best modes of cultivation 

 were pointed out. This grand annual festival 

 was calculated to diffuse an excellent spirit through 

 the farmers of the kingdom : foreigners from all 

 countries were invited and attended. So 

 (Treat was the reputation of this distinguished farm- 

 er, that young men from Germany and other coun- 

 tries were sent to him to serve apprenticeship and 

 learn the trade of a farmer. 



At the Holkham exhibition inlg]0,Mr.Curweh,a 

 distinguished English agriculturist, in answer to a 

 statement of Mr. Coke that he (Mr. Curwen) ''had 

 never done him the honor of a visit before," re- 

 marked that instead of being the newest, he was 

 probably the oldest visitor at Holkham, then m the 



