THE FAiiMER'S MOiNTHLV VISITOR. 



149 



would to bo cousideied the cliampioEs of some 

 Biicccssftd pitched battle, 



That men who are not practiced fni'iiieis some- 

 times fail in a laudable attempt to carry on the 

 business of farming, is more their misfortune 

 than their fault. There is often a want of iideli- 

 ty in those employed whicli is destructive to the 

 best interests of botli employer and employed. 

 The confiding, generous individual who consults 

 the welfare of his hired man as belonging 1o his 

 own household, ought not to be tantalized by eye 

 service or other evasion of duty. 



Cases are not unfrequent of a tenor like this. 

 A young man, having studied navigation, and 

 learnt how to conduct a ship in safety across the 

 ocean, after a .series of years of successful busi- 

 ness, becoming wenllhy enough to give up that 

 for an easier occupation, sets down upon a 

 first rate farm. He wants a good farm at first, 

 because he is utterly ignorant of the best method 

 how to renovate a bad one. He hires for help to 

 carry on this f;u-m oiic or more men who calcu- 

 late more on their pay than on earning it. Thc-^e 

 go to work — they know how to work well, be- 

 cause they liave heretofore perhaps been employ- 

 ed by just such men as knew how to teach them; 

 but they did not choose their present employer 

 fertile purpose of Jjotter instruction, but with the 

 view to \'iolate their duty with in]punily and in 

 the anticipation before they commenced that they 

 could do it without the master's detection. 



The farming project of the generous .seaman, 

 nine chances in ten, mu.st fail. Warmed with 

 zeal at first, loathing and disgust follows disap- 

 pointed expectations. The luiprofitable servant 

 who hides his talent in the earth, hardly considers 

 that he injures hiiusclf more if possible, than he 

 has injured Ids generous employer. A faithful 

 man who regards the interests of his employer 

 that is not inclined lo be severe, is to be highly 

 prized — such a person, faithful over a tew things, 

 rarely fails to become a fit man to be trusted 

 with the care, and even to obtain the ownership 

 of many things. 



Tlie conserpiencos of an uusucce.ssful tcrmi- 

 nafion of a laudable attempt to subserve the ag- 

 ricidtnral cause, are .such as any discriminating 

 mind might anticipate. The man is not only in- 

 jured for himself, but his lamily and all around 

 him feel the consequences. Many a day after- 

 wards is his example cited as a discouragement 

 to all future similar attempts. The notion con- 

 tinues as it has begun to be prevalent that no 

 man can tlirive in the occu]>ation wlio performs 

 not the whole work with his own hands, or by 

 the hands of dependents who cost him little or 

 nothing ; and the final result is, to east no incon- 

 siderable porfion of the farming counnunity be- 

 yond that desirable pale of respectability which is 

 necessary to constilute the gentleman, and it may 

 be the civilian and the statesman capable to dis- 

 charge any and every i>ublic trust. 



Jt will not be expected that New England shall 

 at once advance lo that slate of improved agri- 

 culture which is evinced in some districts of Eu- 

 rope. England and Sculland are far in advance 

 of us, as well ^vc believe in particular instances 

 as in their general agriculture. The business 

 tlierc is reduced to a better system. Regard is 

 had to the suitable division of labor — to the ef- 

 fecting great objects at the less expense — to the 

 careful execution of phuis well laid out — to the 

 assurance of certain crops from the best use of 

 stinudating in-.uiures — to the ;iccurate analysis of 

 soils, and the true adaptation of chemical affini- 

 ties, calling forth the greatest production with 

 the least labor. 



If New England is now behiLid Old England 

 in agricultural knowledge and imjirovement, we 

 are by no means behind the jiarcnt country long 

 after she had attained to our age. Let not com- 

 munities be discom-aged ; let no man, who lias 

 the agriculiural sjiirit in him, pretermit his best 

 efforts. V/e sJiall, by and by, see eye to eye on 

 this subject ; and the work of renovation must 

 then go on. 



This is the first time I have ever set foot in 

 your county. If my avocations had permitted me 

 to accept the invitation of one of your citizens 

 most zealous for improvement, Henry Ste- 

 vens, Esq., of Barnet, I should have preceded this 

 address with a tour days' journey through many 

 of the to\\'ns, and been able to convince myself 

 from actual examination that he did not exagger- 

 ate when he said he v.isheil to convince n-c that 



there is no county in New England that surpasses 

 Caledonia in production, takiiig into considera- 

 tion nundjcr of acres of imj)rGved land, apprai- 

 zed value, and nund)er of inhabitants. 



IVIost fertile and inviting is much of the soil, 

 even the mountainous land of Vermont; and 

 none is pcrijaps better than that of Caledonia 

 C(«inty. With no fears of sterjliij', you j)repure 

 tlie gromids for crops which scarcely ever liul 

 you ; your mountains fiirnish rich and luxuriant 

 pastures which depreciate in no perceptible de- 

 gree at a new return of the vernal season. Such 

 land as yours may always be expected to produce 

 the largest and best fallings for slaughter — the 

 milch kine, from whose generous udders shall be 

 furnished the greate.st quantity of the best milk — 

 the bleating flocks whicli shall annually aflbrd the 

 greatest quantity of wool. 



But it should he marked that there is greater 

 danger from a very good than from a somewhat 

 indifferent soil ; for the land now yielding almost 

 spontaneously, must, like every thing belonging to 

 tliis world's creation, become less and less capa- 

 ble of retaining its original life, instincts and 

 [lowers ; and yon may be, as they arc in other 

 [larts of the country, driven to the west, because 

 the good mother which furnished the whole 

 means of your livelihood, no longeryields her in- 

 crease. If you suffer your land to be starved, 

 that may stane yourself and your fimulies, anil 

 you be obliged to take up your line of nmrcli for 

 new countries, which, although they may be 

 equally fertile, can never give you the health, if 

 the)' do exceed the production of the land which 

 you have left. 



T\vo years ago an enterprising and talented cit- 

 izen of your comity presented yon an address 

 which I iierused with great interest for its facts 

 and the general scope of his argument. He then 

 showed you that the amount of woolen manu- 

 factures imported into the United States in the 

 year ending Sept. 30, 1836, cost at the place of 

 imjiortation the gross sum of .'?24,575,989 ; and 

 to this sum he was not very far from correct when 

 he added sixty-five per cent, for duties, insurance, 

 freight, tonnage, importer.s' and retailers' profits, 

 amounting to o\'er fifteen millions of dollars. — 

 He would have been nearer to the triilh, I think, 

 if he had doubled the original cost, making forty- 

 nine instead of forty millions of dollars as the 

 amount expended in the United States in a single 

 year for woolen goods, equalling as the cost for 

 each individual in the country, two dollars and 

 seventy cents, and as I believe more than three 

 dollars and fifty cents. 



}?y the General List of Vermont for the year 

 1S37, the number of sheep was shown to be 

 l,1Cti,'*34 ; and these at two and a half pounds 

 each would yield a little short of three millions 

 pounds of wool per annum. lie was of opinion 

 that nine [lounds of w oo! would be little enough 

 to clothe each jierson in the State ; and if the 

 po|julation be three hundred thousand in Ver- 

 mont, the whole amount of wool raised in the 

 State in a year will but a very little exceed the 

 luiaiitity consumed by its inhabitants. 



At the same time he went into a calculation to 

 sliow how much it would cost to manufa«**ire the 

 wool in the great establishments of othafi' States 

 before it was returned liere ; and this he showed 

 to b(.' a larger L^im of money than the whole val- 

 ue of the wool at the price of fifty cents the 

 pound ; and that it would require an additional 

 exiiensc of one million and a half of dollars be- 

 yond the value of the wool raised to furnish the 

 people of Vermont «ith the necessarj' woolens 

 for a year, calculating that it required nine pounds 

 of wool to clothe each person one year. From 

 these premises he arrives at the just conclusion 

 that tho raising of wool for exiiortation beyond 

 the rniiits of the State, was injurious to its inter- 

 ests and ought to be changed. Can it be possi- 

 ble (said he') that the farmers of this State will 

 continue to pursue so ruinous a policy as that they 

 have heretofore pursued — sell their wool and buy 

 the manufactured article ? I wish that the guar- 

 dian angel of our country woidd write in great 

 capital letters on the door of every husbandman — 

 The iioman who manufactures for her own household 

 and one piece, of g-oods to sell, doth more, to retain 

 the solid coin in the Slate than a':. Vie banks or the 

 greatest fmauocrs." 



I agree with your fellow-citizen that the Stale 

 of Vermont has greatly suffered in its means by 

 sending- the raw material out of the State to he 



manufactured, whcic she ought to manufacture 

 for herself. It is imt so much in tho deficiency 

 of large incorporated establishments as in the 

 failure of the spinning wheel and loom of the fa- 

 mily, that your peo|)le are deprived of their 

 means. Where the people pay a large and bur- 

 densome tax in the increased price of their tea 

 and cofiee, their sugar, molasses and salt, they do 

 not sensibly li'el the ta.x, although it takes iVom 

 them fifteen, twenty or thirty dollars a year each : 

 if this were laid upon them as a direct ta.x, their 

 burden would be considered unbearable. So 

 when a liuiner buys a broad-cloth coat or surtout 

 made of cloth manufactured either in England, 

 France or Massacluisetts, with the additional price 

 of five dollars, either placed in the national trea- 

 sury as a duty on the cloth imported from a for- 

 eign country, or in the shape of a premium to the 

 mannfiicturer at Lowell, he does not realize the 

 cause why he is impoverished and made poor. 



There is a sure way for the farmers and me- 

 chanics of Vermont and New Hampshire to keep 

 themselves clear of enibaiTassment ; and that is 

 for every fiimily to produce within itself for sale 

 as much as it ])urchases. 



It may seem a hard case to carry on in each 

 fianily the manufacture of woolen cloth ; but 

 every man who keeps sheep, every man who 

 does not keep them, but can purchase wool in the 

 neighborhood, should have his clothing manufac- 

 tured as much as possible in his own family. 

 The man with a family of daughters, who arc 

 led away by the temptation which the employ- 

 ment and wages of a great manufacturing estab- 

 lishment in a distant State presents, is certainly 

 the loser by changing their position to a place 

 where they can gather money by tending of spin- 

 dles and looms from his own fireside \vhere the 

 same hands might make the clothes which are 

 \\ orn by the other members of his family, while 

 he actually pays more money for the clothing 

 manufactured abroad, than all the wages which 

 his family obtains from abroad. 



I have lately visited a society of those enter- 

 prising people, the Shakers, situated at no great 

 distance from my residence in New Hampshire ; 

 and I am no longer surprised at their acquisition 

 of wealth and all the means of comfortable living, 

 when I see their industry in all departments of 

 life. These people do not satisfy themselves sim- 

 ply with the manufacture of their own clothing. 

 They keep their due number and jiroportion of 

 sheep of the finer and coarser wool, but they send 

 abroad no wool on sale — they buy wool of their 

 neighbors, but they dispose of none of their own 

 raising. 



The men card and prepare their wool for spin- 

 ning at their own mill and machine — the women 

 draw the threads from a hand spinning jenney 

 with almost as great unilbrmity, regularity and 

 raiiidity as can be done by the most expert man- 

 ufacturers ; and they dress their cloth and make 

 u]) their garments with a neatness and workman- 

 ship such as the best manufacturers need not be 

 ashamed of At each establishment of three Sha- 

 ker families I lately visited, I found a portion of 

 the females at work in making up fine flannel 

 drawers from the cloth made in the families. 

 Sales for these at a sure profit, the article being 

 of a better quality than is elsewhere obtained, 

 \\ere readily made as fast as it could be furnished 

 in the city of New York. The s))inningof wors- 

 ted by the females of one of these establishments, 

 was quite a curiosity : tlie thread drawn out to 

 the distance of some twelve or fifteen feet from 

 a single patent-headed wheel like the gossamer 

 of a spider's web, proved that spinning might be 

 made an art as curious as that of making the 

 movements of a clock or any other machine. 

 Should all the rest of the world grow poor, the 

 Shakers, practicing their rides of economy and 

 industry with really more pleasure than other 

 ))eople enjoy in departing from all rules, will con- 

 tinue to increase their means. 



Again we find examples in the case of single 

 families where increase of wealth results not sim- 

 ply from hard work, but from coiTCCt calcula- 

 tions. Not one week ago I visited a farming 

 town ill Hillsborough County of the Granite 

 Slate. It is one of those hard fiiced towns lying 

 in llie vicinity of sonic of tho highest hills, 

 through whicli the upper branches of a consider- 

 able stream, tributary to the Merrimack, send 

 dov.n their waters sometimes in roaring cascades, 

 sonietinios on a sluggish 1e\fl The hills of this 



