1837] 



F A l\ xM E II S ' REGIS T E R 



217 



possesses the qualities for laslinsr, grazing, utul I reserved lor grazing, out of which last number 

 making high land hay, may, 1 think, be confijed sr-honld be annually taken the lot to be manured ; 

 in. But it does not, so far as luy trials have ex- so iliat none vviil sustain above five years' irra/.ing 

 tended, succeed in lands onguially wet, liuwever ! before it is recniiieil. Tlu; five lots devoU'd to 



well they are drained 



As the end designed to be produced by the pre- 

 vious observations, comprises their value, u plan 

 for the nianagenient ol' a bread-stuff iarui, com- 

 bined with high land meadows and artiiicial 

 grasses, is the remaining subject suggested U)r 

 consiileration. Let us suppose a far.iu to consist 

 of one thousand acres of arable land ; that the 

 greatest produce of bread grain, not in one year 

 only, but in a course of years, is Ihe chief object; 

 and that the labor on it is adequate to its cultiva- 

 tion in the threeshifl mode, that is, to having 

 two-tnirds of it annually in corn and wheat. To 

 discover whether the profi! to be expected from 

 this style of' cultivation will be e(iuai to that ari- 

 sing li'om the svstem presently to be projiused, we 

 must first glance at its defecls. It impoverishes 

 the soil — grass seeds cannot be beneficially sown 

 with or upon the wheat crop., because the land is 

 too poor to nourish them, and their destruction by 

 the plough returns too rapidly. Pasturage is 

 scarce, bad, and impoverishing to the land ; and 

 the farmer is thereby disabled ti'om raising within 

 the farm, teams, meat, milk and butter, for his 

 own consumption and coiuibrt, ami moreover ex- 

 posed to considerable annual expenses to supply 

 the deficiencies. The labor bemg computed by 

 space, and not by produce, and a great demand 

 for it being coui;en!rated in one |)ortioii of the 

 year, losses accrue fi^om its iusufliciency to meet 

 temporary pressures, an;l at other seasons tor want 

 of beneficial employment. The crop compuied 

 by the acre., is upon an average, surprisingly 

 small, whilst as much labor is necessary (or its cul- 

 tivation, as, differently managed, would, in a fiiw 

 years, increase it per acre, four-fold. Let us con- 

 trast this abridgement of the three-shift system, 

 with an abridgment of that proposed to be sub- 

 stituted for il. 



Let eight hundred of the supposed thousand 

 acres be divided into four-shifts of two huntlred 

 acres each, one to be annually cultivated in corn 

 acid sown m wheat, so that two will yield a crop 

 every year. As much as possible of each shift 

 should be manured the year it is planted in corn. 

 This may be extended in a tew years to one hun- 

 dred and thirty acres, (exclusively of the twenty 

 presently mentioned,) by ordinary manai^ement. 

 Clover should be sown on ihe wheat in the spring, 

 or meadow oat with it in the fall, and these eight 

 hundred acres should remain ungrazed; of course, 

 four hundred lie untouched for two and a half 

 years, to allow time for a large produce of veg<\ta- 

 ble matter, devoted to the improvement of the soil. 

 Let the remaining two hundred acres be appropri- 

 ated chiefly to grass, and be divided inio ten equal 

 lots, one to be hiirhly manured annually, and cul- 

 tivated in pumjjkins, potatoes, peas, cotton, tur- 

 nips, or any cleaning crop, to be followed by wheat 

 and grass seed, if these crops are gotten off in 

 time to sow wheat, or by oats and grass seed, if 

 they are not. Thus two lots, or fbrly acres of this 

 portion of the farm, will produce each year heavy 

 and valuable crops, whilst a rotation will be es- 

 tablished, sufiicient to keep the grass lands clean 

 and in good heart. Three of the other eight lots 

 ought annually to be cut tor hay, and five to be 

 Vol. V-28 



that service ought to be grazed in succesi^ion, both 

 to alleviate impoverishment it produci's and to in- 

 crease the [jruduce of grass. He who aims at 

 ai^ricultural [>erfertion or elegance, will divide 

 these ten lots by ditches and live hedges of holly 

 or cedar, (the former a conjej.iural, the latter a 

 tried plant,) or at ieat by the usual fences. Even 

 ditches alone would be of some use. But, in the 

 infincy of improvement, altendanis of old men, 

 women, or children, are a tolerable resource, pro- 

 ducing also the good efii'.ct of habituating the last 

 in earlv lif« to employment, and advancing their 

 health,"vvith the precaution of fijldiiig the cattle 

 in bad weather. This tem[)orary resource is, how- 

 ever, greatly inli^^rior to enclosures, particularly to 

 the livini; or imperishable. Under this system, 

 product, instead of labor, will soon be computed 

 in reference to space; and bad airriculture, being 

 detected by the miserable crops this mod? of com- 

 putation will disclose, will shrink gradually out of 

 sight, through shame. The means of raising 

 manure, and the most beneficial employment for 

 teams and manual labor, will soon present them- 

 selves in those seasons of the year now lost or 

 trifled away. I speak not from theo4-y when I say, 

 that the fitrm well manau;ed, according to this sys- 

 tem, will, in twenty years, at least return back to 

 its original fertility. I add, as an inference from 

 this fact, that supposing contiguous fiirms of one 

 thousand acres each, one in the usual state of im- 

 poverishment and the other in woods; Ihe former 

 to be thus inanaged, and the latter in the customa- 

 ry mode, with the same amount of labor; that the 

 proprielor ot the first would make far more profit, 

 and find his land at the end of his term of far 

 more value than the proprietor of the latter. If 

 these rival farms were in an equal state of impo- 

 verishment at the commenGemenl of the experi- 

 ment, I have ho doubt but the first would produce 

 three times as much bread-stuff in twenty years 

 as its rival, inilependentof its inferior productions, 

 and of its exclusive improvement. 



A great annual increase of manure is the 

 soundest test by which a firmer can discover 

 whether he is successfully practising the proposed 

 system or not. On the area from which it was 

 taken, five acres were hardly manured eighteen 

 years ago, and now the resources of the farm 

 alone sometimes reach to one hundred and fifty. 

 It is a bread-stuff farm, and grass is used in strict 

 subserviency to that object, for the purpose of en- 

 hancing its profit. If gypsum, marl, a neighbor- 

 hood to towns, or any other adventitious mode of 

 enriching land, can be added to the supply of ma- 

 nure on such a farm, the process of inq)rovement, 

 and ihe gratifications of increasing profit, may be 

 accelerated. 



The large area upon v^/hich the proposed sys- 

 tem is calculated, is no obstacle to its application 

 10 any other. Its proportions may be applied to a 

 iiu'in of any size. This scale was adopted lor the^ 

 purpose of awakening the best informed order of 

 farmers to ihet-alls of patriotism and self-interest. 

 Intelligence effects great objects by reflection ; 

 ignorance from immitation ; and though a pros.- 

 perous state of agriculture depends much upon 

 small farmers, because they possess by tar the 



