36 



THE PARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR 



loom, for he had known the country fifty y-cars 

 ngo : a more miscrnblc country, a more barren and 

 deplorable and neglected place lie had never seen. 

 To view it now and to look back to that time, 

 might be likened to tlie cli'ects of the sorcerer's 

 wand : for surely no real scenes in nature, — no ef- 

 forts of huHjan skill and perseverance — had ever 

 wronglit such a change on any other spot on, tlie 

 globe ! But Mr. Coke's exertions — bis knowledge 

 — his sagacity — his liberality— his example — had 

 made the men, as well as the land, quite different 

 from what they were : by his progress and encour- 

 agement he had made the men a new race, and had 

 "advanced them as much in tlie scale of character and 

 of human happiness, as he had changed the land 

 from a barren waste to a beautiful garden. The 

 riches of the county of Norfolk (said ftlr. Cnrwen) 

 aa-e not in the soil, but in the intelligence and in- 

 dustry of its cultivators. Look round the country 

 — observe the tenantry— consider the fields — the 

 stock — the produce of the land — and the comfort 

 and respectability of the occupiers; and then re- 

 flect that all this is owing to the wisdom and liber- 

 ality, to the unequalled encouragement that Mr. 

 Coke has given to that pursuit in which he delights 

 — the pursuit wliich of ail others is most calculated 

 to ennoble mankind, and improve the condition of 



humanity." "Sir (said he addressing him- 



gelf to the great farmer) the example you have 

 given is noble — the iRstrnctionyou have bestowed 

 will never be forgotten ; and t'lough such actions 

 are not blazoned in history, they will pass from 

 generation to generation propagated by a thousand 

 of tongues. You have increased the fruits of the 

 earth — given bread to the poor, and employment 

 and reward to meritorious industry; and finally 

 you have shown that men are to be governed by 

 liberality, and excited to action only by a just as- 

 surance that they shall reap the advantages oi their 

 own exertion. May your example and the splen- 

 did success of such conduct be impressed on the 

 minds of the great -of this and all future ages." 



I have extended the quotations and remarks up- 

 on the individual case of the great farmer of Eng- 

 land because I consider him tlie father of the New 

 Husbandly, and because his successful experiment 

 of full sixty years proves to us that the renovating 

 principle is in the gtound^that the poorest district 

 of this country may be made to yield an increase 

 that shall repay many fold the value of the labor 

 bestowed upon it — tliat capital and labor, rightly 

 applied, will always return a profit. 



Division of Labor. 



The secret of the success of British agriculture 

 is the proper division and application of expense 

 and labor. Until the Highland Agricultural Soci- 

 ety was formed in Scotland in 17t4, that country 

 was as poor in its agriculture as may be well con- 

 ceived; the face of Scotland in the middle of the 

 last century was as "bleak as a howling wilder- 

 ness." Up to that time all the manure used upon 

 the farm was put upon a little patch. No wheal of 

 consequence was raised — the oat crops w"ere fullot 

 thistles and weeds ; and there was no rotation ol' 

 crops. By the concentra.ted efi'ortsof the members 

 of the Highland Society, means have bccnsougiit 

 for obtaining and applying all the valuable ma- 

 nures : bone dust has been brought from foreign 

 lands. The turnip husbandry has been gradually 

 introduced with other green crops, which there 

 must be a substitute for our Indian corn cro[js — 

 rotation of five and six years is practised; and tlie 

 price of rent per acre of lands before the improved 

 cultivation of little value has been raised to eight, 

 ten and twelve dollars in the most distant parts of 

 that country, where the business of raising cattle 

 is almost exclusively pursued. The improvements 

 of steam carriage by land and by water have 

 brought the most distant counties ol Scotland near 

 to the Smithfield cattle market of London. That 

 country is said now to be richer in her arable lands 

 than any part of Great Britain. 



The perfect system of British farming is worthy 

 of our attention. An immense saving is re- 

 alized in every large establishment IVom this sys- 

 tem. The arrangement and system of the Lowell 

 manufacturing establishments were copied from 

 those of Manchester in England, so far as the con- 

 dition of the people of the two countries would ad- 

 mit. The great farming establishments of Great 

 Britain are conducted with as much order and sys- 

 tem ias are the British manufacturing establish- 

 ments. Every man, every beast, every tool and 

 implement, has its proper jilace : no time is lost in 

 the day's work of any man. Horses are generally 

 used, and perform with the plough and harrow or 

 other implement, much of the work that is done in 

 this country by the hand of man. A team of hors- 

 es and a man are calculated to do the work of fifty 



acres of laud. The crops requiring the hoe in Scot- 

 land are attended by females and children. The 

 potatoes are planted and dug with the plough ; and 

 in almost every kind of crop here requiring the 

 hoe there the work is done by the plough. The 

 expense of human labor is less in that country than 

 in this; Ihe annu.il cost of a pair of working hors- 

 es is set down at 70 pounds sterling — that of a man 

 to drive them thirty pounds and the wlicde cost of 

 the team equal to £2: 10 per acre. This team la- 

 bors every working day in the year : it is well kept, 

 so that the horses are worn out only by age. It 

 works its regular hours each day, never varying, 

 ten hours in the summer, and eight hours in the 

 winter. This regularity secures to the farmer a 

 full equivalent for the cost of his labor. 



Greater improvement greater profits. 



Nine-tenths of the cultivated lands in Great Brit- 

 ain are leased to tenants, who pay for rents from 

 two to five pounds sterling per acre. Admitting 

 taxes and labor and other expenses to be no higlier 

 here than there, it will at once be seen that our 

 common cultivation will no where do much more 

 than pay the price of rent. By superior product- 

 iveness occasioned by superior cultivation, the Brit- 

 ish farmer is not only enabled to pay rents and tax- 

 es, finding every thing for husbandly, all articles 

 put upon the ground and all utensils by which the 

 crouud is worked ; but he obtains wealth from the 

 pursuit of his calling. 



Two English Farms. 



Mr. Curwen, whose compliment to Mr. Coke I 

 have just quoted, stated the produce of an English 

 farm of t-'J4 acres in the year Ibll, to be £S57a — 

 equal to $40,000. On this ground were carted in 

 that year the almost incredible quantity of 13,74G 

 horse cart loads of manure, and in ltfl2, 10,250 

 more. Suppose the rent of this farm to ue 12 dol- 

 lars the acre — the expense of manure and its ap- 

 plication 12 dollars more — and the interest on out- 

 lav, taxes and additional labor of cultivation, su- 

 perintendence, &c. twelve dollars more: still there 

 will be left as profits ten dollars to the acre, leav- 

 ing a clear gain to the tenant of about ten thou- 

 sand dollars. 



A hay farm near London of IGO acres was rent- 

 ed for i'i dollars the acre, or U!20 dollars. The ten- 

 ant commenced with a great outlay for manure— 

 an outlay which would here be considered at least 

 equal to the value of the laud before it was manur- 

 ed ; a large outlay for farming implements and for 

 accoininodations and wages to laborers, «&c. ; and 

 yet he has been constantly .iccumuhiting riches 

 from this farm, al'ler paying all expenses. This 

 was as early as the year 1625. 



A Scotch Farmer. 



A Scotch farmer by tlie name of John Baigrie 

 desciibes a farm in Ross-shire, Scotland, which 

 consisted of about four hundred iinjierial acres, and 

 was, prior to tlie year 16^25, occupied by numerous 

 small tenant«nho farmed the land on the old sys- 

 tem which prevailed in the highlands of Scotland 

 about fifty or sixty years ago. This system was a 

 constant sowing of oats or some other grain crop 

 until the land was fairly exhausted, when manure 

 was applied — a crop of potatoes followed, succeed- 

 ed again by oats, which were continued until the 

 efl'ecls of the manure were no longer visible. A 

 farm thus treated was taken in hand. A portion 

 of it had grown into bushes on which stones had 

 been collected and suffered to lie ; the ploughed 

 patches were overlaid with scattered blocks of blue 

 granite which could not be taken oti' without blow- 

 ing. The land was also in a wet state from many 

 springs isuing out of it not being carried oft' by 

 drains and ditches. The work commenced with 

 digging drains into which stones collected on the 

 ground were placed in quantities over an aperture 

 for the passage of the water; upon the top of the 

 stones weeds are placed, and npun the weeds earth 

 was laid to constitute soil. The large blue granite 

 blocks were blasted and converted into materials 

 for fences. Where the ground was covered with 

 birch, iiazel, elder and other bushes, these were 

 dug up and the land trenched with the spade, turn- 

 ing up to the depth of sixteen inches as well all 

 the stones with the excejjtion of those too large as 

 the soil itself The stones were taken off and car- 

 ried the large ones to the fences and the small ones 

 to the drains. This trenching was done in some 

 instances at an expense of from eleven to fourteen 

 pounds sterling the acre. Fences were made by 

 means of open ditches for carrying off the water on 

 the sides of the hills, on one edge of which thorn 

 hedges were planted. The land, after it was drain- 

 ed, was found to be of good quality, rich and deep 

 in soil, but contained no calcareous matter, to sup- 



ply which liming was extensively adopted. The^ 

 followin"- was the expense bestowed on one field of 

 twenty-one acres : 



Blasting large stones £75 



TrenchlngG 1-2 acres at 12/ iOs per 



acre ^^ ^ O 



Draining 3 



Lime 3,024 bushels (14 ! bushels per 



acre) at 6/ 2(/ 81 IS 



Inclosing with stone dyke 52 7 



Average per acre 13/ 19s Gd £21)3 10 



After the whole ground had thus been prepared, 

 an easy rotation was fixed on : the deep clay loam 

 as follows. 1. Fallows with a small portion of po- 

 tatoes and spring sown tares. 2. 'Wheat sown 

 down with grass seeds. 3. Clover. 4. Pasture. 

 5. Oats. On the lighter soils the rotation was : — 

 I. Turnips. 2. Barley with grass seeds. 3. Pas- 

 ture. 4. Pasture. 5. Oats. This farm, during the 

 continuance of the improvements, was worked by 

 abailift'or head man, six ploughmen or carters, 

 and three laborers in constant pay, and six pairs of 

 horses; afterwards, when the improvements were • 

 completed, tour pairs of horses only did the work. 

 The first wheat sowed produced the large return of 

 forty bushels to the acre on land upon which the 

 former tenant had last raised oats scarcely sufii- 

 cient to pay for the expense of cutting down. 



In about three years the immense improvement 

 was carried over the whole of this farm. In this 

 time upwards of fifty thousand bushels of lime 

 were carted to the farm, a distance of four miles, 

 and all without hiring additional teams. 



I have been thus particular in describing the 

 metliod of farming in England and Scotland to be 

 able to make the distinction between that country 

 and this, and by the contrast to learn where we 

 might improve. 



From every view of British agriculture it is ev- 

 ident that a far less personal labor in that country 

 is necessary to procure a greater produce than in 

 this coiintrv. There a larger portion of the pro- 

 ducts of the soil is raised for sale : here the great- 

 er part is raised for consumption on the ground 

 which produces it. There the product of the soil, 

 after paying all expense, goes to pay high govern- 

 ment charges and enormous rents, leaving a large 

 surplus to the tenant, and the smallest compensa- 

 tion to the under laborer : here the condition of ag- 

 riculture is such that much of the cultivated soil 

 produces scarcely sufficient to pay for the taxes 

 and labor alone, and most of the profits realized are 

 in cases where the owner of the land is able to per- 

 form his own labor or procure it done without the 

 payment of wages. 



Every farmer should put his hand to the 

 work. 



There is indeed a great deficiency in our system 

 of Agriculture which time and perseverance in the 

 determination to change the old and exhausting 

 system ol husbandry for the new and renovating 

 system can alone rectify. It should be the busi- 

 ness of every man who has the means to com- 

 mence the great work of renovation. This work 

 is more important to the welfare of the country 

 than I can well describe : it will bless the individ- 

 ual who undertakes it, as it will bless the whole 

 community when it shall be generally undertaken. 



The improvements in British husbandry, altho 

 that country had been settled and cultivated lor 

 more years than have transpired since the com- 

 mencement of the Christian era, are stated to have 

 increased the agricultural productions of Great 

 Britain during the last fifteen years more than one 

 fourth. So striking has been the example ot ren- 

 ovation that it would not be surprising if the pro- 

 ducts should double in an cquallengtli of time from 

 this period. , c , i 



The New Husbandry in England and Scotland 

 presents a most gratifying fact, which ought to be 

 realized and understood here. Our men of capital 

 Invest their money in almost any thing sooner than 

 in either purchasing farms or making improvements 

 uoon them. In England the policy of the lav/ is 

 to' continae the ownership of soil in a succession 

 of families ; so that the greater enterprise is to be 

 found, not in the owners'of the land, but in those 

 wliopayahigh price for its use. The improve- 

 ments there are more generally made by tlic ten- 

 ants tfian by the owners. 



What can be done. 



The eminent success of the venerable farmer of 

 Norfolk presents a case w^orlhy our admiration.— 

 The product of his whole estate when he came in- 

 to possesion was little more than two thousand 

 pounds per annum. Twenty years ago his income 

 from rents had advanced to twenty thousand, and 



