766 



FARMERS' REGISTEH. 



refiitalion of these errors mustpi-ecede Ihe possibility 

 of any consideiable ai;riciiltuial improvement. The 

 first is occafioiially tlctccttd by the rare efibrts of in- 

 tlivirinals. But these ran never iijake a wide and 

 lasting iinprtssion, whilst Ihey arc defeated by the se- 

 cond. Tliis obstach; can only be removed by legisla- 

 Ijve power. Until a better police for the regulation of 

 slaves is invented, th; n has nitlierfo existed, no consi- 

 derable impiovernenl can possibly take place in a sys- 

 tem of agriculluie to be executed by Ihera. A bad 

 police will lor ever draw back agriculture with more 

 lor(C, t;i;in individu;.l exertions can drive it forward; 

 nor can llic most violent ctibits overrule its baleful 

 intiucnce, any more tl^an the destruction of a tyrant 

 can overrule bad principles of government, and ex- 

 tract liberty fiom (he causes of oppression. The cre- 

 ation of a free negro class has been noticed as a great 

 defect in this police ; but its defectiveness in relation 

 to the slaves themselves was overlooked. Nothing 

 etfectual has been done by law, for controlling the 

 iirpgularilies of the slaves or the errors of their 

 owners, by which a multitude of mischiefs to them- 

 selves and others are produced, together with the ruin- 

 ous national mislortune of an impoverishing and de- 

 populating system of agriculture. As the remedy for 

 these evils lies only within the reach of law, it is the 

 duty of the government to find it. Should it require a 

 farther limitation of the prerogatives of ownership, 

 public and private good will unite in their recom- 

 mendation of such a measure. As the laws now 

 stand, an owner, by withholding from his slave even 

 a necessary subsistence, may compel him to steal it 

 horn otl:er5, and ihorehy increase the profit of his la- 

 bor; or he might drive him into the resource of ab- 

 sconding, and prowling like a wolf for food. Ought 

 the pieif^gatives of ownership to inflict such unjust 

 calamities upon a free people ? Are they not infinitely 

 more grievous than the ancient royal prerogative of 

 pnivpyance ? One grievance robbed openly, the other 

 lobs setiilly; one was subject to some legal regula- 

 tion, the other is subject to none; one paid something, 

 the other i)ays nothing. Can agriculture or industry 

 flourish here under the burden of having an infinite 

 number of roguish and runaway slaves living at free 

 quarter upon ihem, when they could not in England 

 bear the purveyance of a single king? The slave 

 liimseH'nuiy have imbibed, from a vicious disposition, 

 a habit ot indiscriminate theft, so ruinous and disheart- 

 ening to industry; nor can any excuse justify his 

 robberies fiom the innocent. The insufficiency of the 

 laws to correct these evils, will be discerned by com 



parin;. 



the number of such robberies, with the in- 



stances of their receiving any species of punishment. 

 The object of punishment is to deter by example, and 

 not to gratily this passion of revenge. But this 

 fiivial risk amounts almost to the encouragement of 

 impunity; and leaves only to the public that security 

 asainst the theltsof slaves, arising fiom their love of 

 moral rectitude, witi.out any apprehension of punish- 

 ment. Agriculture in the slave states is every where 

 lani'uishing under this mortifying and consuming 

 malady. She possesses no moveable which she can 

 call her own. Bleeding continually under these num- 

 beiless scarifications, legislatures continue to act to- 

 vvards her like surgeons who should desert a patient 

 covered with wounds, because he was not quite dead. 

 It would be belter to cure her by protecting her pro- 

 perty. A law, compelling the sale of every slave who 

 should run away or be convicted of theft, out of the 

 state, or at a considerable distance from his place of re- 

 sidence, would operate considerably towards correcting 

 these great evils. If its execution was insuied, as 

 might easily be eflected, it would strongly influence 

 both the master and the slave ; it would only reti'ench 

 in a very small degree the prerogatives of ownership, 

 for Iheir common good, and it would render the-re- 

 maining mass of those jirerogatives infinitely less de- 

 Uimental to national proaptrity. 



[Note C— Page 728.] 



The foregoing essays having been written several 

 years past, subsequent experience has made some 

 change in a few of the author's opinions. Those in 

 relation to the essential article of manuring are stated 

 in this note. 



The extent of surface now manured upon the same 

 farm, by a more careful employment of the same re- 

 sources, has so far exceeded his expectations, as to have 

 transferred his preference as means of improving the 

 soil from inclosing to manuring, without however 

 lessening the value of the former in his opinion. A 

 field of two hundred acres aided by loth, produced 

 last year a crop of Indian corn averagii.g fifty bushels 

 an acre, and another of eighty, aided only by inclosing 

 and gypsum, a crop of twenty-five. The first being 

 nearly double, and the second, one third beyond their 

 respective products when last in culture. Under a di- 

 minution of' the stocks quoted, the surface manured 

 last year exceeded a hundred acres, and will this ex- 

 tend to one hundred and thirty. It is contemplated to 

 extend it, until it reaches annually a space sufiicient 

 for the whole Indian corn crop of the farm. The regu- 

 lar increase of crops furnishes additional vegetable 

 mattei ; the chief basis of this rapid improvement. 

 TulTs position " that ten cultivated acres, will not 

 produce the means o( manuring one" is quite erroneous. 

 Four acres already produce olfal capable of manuring 

 one, from the corn and wheat crops, exclusive of the 

 bread stuff they produce for sale. By removing the 

 cattle and sheep early in the spring from the farm pens, 

 and forbearing to return them thither until late in the 

 i fall, the space manured by penning is greatly extended, 

 and the manure raised in the faim pens but little^di- 

 minished, because its quantity is regulated by litter. 

 This is in a small degree diminished by extending the 

 period of penning, and as both cattle and sheep will 

 require some food, early in the spring and late in the 

 fall in these pens, the litter arising from that food will 

 enable the farmer more fiequently to remove Ihe pens 

 at these seasons, whilst a mixture of vaiious manures 

 causes a greater benefit to soil. These pens on remo- 

 val are fallowed in high ridges five and an h.alf feet 

 wide, and those thus treated before the middle of 

 August, if the land is strong, cover themselves with a 

 heavy coat of grass, furnishing a fine pabulum for a 

 bushel of gypsum to the acre, to be sown thereon. 

 This cover, by reversing the ridges, is completely 

 buried, and bestows on the ground a second valuable 

 manuring. The hog pens are managed in the same 

 way, excluding the litter, not because it would be 

 useless, but because it is used otherwise. For these, 

 stifl cold soils are selected. Thus the same stocks 

 have been brought to manure by penning, nearly 

 double the surface qr.oted. In the winter, all thefaim 

 pens are littered daily and copiously with corn stalks. 

 Each ten ordinary sheep will by this means, exclusive 

 of the summer's penning, raise nrianure sufficient for 

 one acre ; and that raised in the stable and its yard, 

 and in the farm pens of the cattle, calves and lattlings, 

 l;as sufficed to produce the result stated in this note. 

 Instead of applying the corn cobs in the former mode 

 they are weekly scattered in the pens or stable yard 

 to preserve them from the fire, where they absorb a 

 rich moisture to be bestowed upon Ihe earth as they 

 gradually decay ; thus constituting a valuable addition 

 to the manure, and saving the labor of Iheir sepaiate 

 removal, and more tedious application in the former 

 mode. The augmentation of manure thus produced, 

 requires a commencement of its removal early in March, 

 and by appropriating a small portion of the labor of 

 the farm to this object for one month before the com- 

 mencement of corn planting, that left to be subse- 

 quently carried out will be finished in good time. The 

 holes lor depositing the manure are more judiciously 

 arranged under the direction of a person on horseback, 

 ("whose elevation fad sole attention to th»t object will 



