F A R JM £ R S ' REGISTER. 



7C9 



The cedar planted in a good soil, well manured and 

 properly cullivated, cropped at one year old and 

 annually, so that it rises only as it sjjrcads; and clipped 

 at the ends of its branches, those excepted buried 

 about their middle to fill gaps; will thicken near to 

 the ground like box; and after it is brought to the 

 intended height, by raising the bank of the ditch, will 

 be in close contact with it. My experiment has been 

 more imperfectly made from tlie circumstance of its 

 embracing at once a large larm ; made upon a smaller 

 scale and°more skilfully, an example would speedily 

 appear, which would be ardently copied. 



Green pine or cedar brush has been used as a dress- 

 ing to the hedge as follows. The earth is shaved 

 downwards on each face of the bank of the ditch, so 

 as just to take off the grass, and not to injure the roots 

 of the young hedge, and leil in a ridge. The brush is 

 laid in a line with the hedge eighteen inches wide, so 

 as to cover the ground. After it is in danger of being 

 perforated by weeds or grass, the ridge of earth 

 shaved down is thrown upon it. To the other benefits 

 of this process, that of protecting the young cedars 

 against the sun, which strikes the face of banks with 

 great force, is to be added. In some situations this 

 protection is indispensable. By drawing down and 

 returning this mixture of earth and brush alternatel}^ 

 as the hedge requires weeding, it receives both ma- 

 nure and cultivation, at a very trivial expense of labor. 



No doubt can exist, that the thin population of a 

 great portion of the United States proceeds from the 

 poverty of the soil, whether it be natural or artificial. 

 In the latter case, patriotism ought to sicken with the 

 anticipation of the censure which po.sterity will see 

 w-ritten in the face of the country. These vvords will 

 be engraved on it: "Your ancestors, like Indians, 

 prove their regard for the children by scalping the 

 mother." In the former, is it wise, patriotic or pious, 

 to neglect the means for its improvement? Live 

 fences attended with apple trees would, I have no 

 doubt, more than double the population of the eastern 

 sandy portions of the United States. Let the reader 

 compute before he decides upon this opinion, and test 

 it by figures. The savings of wood, of labor, and of 

 the expense in foreign liquors, are items going to an 

 increase of population, because these savings muLt be 

 carried to some productive object lor its sustenance. 



The conversion of the brushwood now lost in mak- 

 ing dead fences, into manure, is a smalh-r item of the 

 same nature. But the single advantuge of securing 

 to agriculture the benefit of making a permanent and 

 constant use of atmospherical manure, arising from the 

 security of five encfosurcs, alone suffices to sustain the 

 opinion By gradually spreading fertdity over barren- 

 ness, inclosing vvili increase population to an extent 

 c mmensurate with its own progress. Tor a system 

 of ciosing the pores of the earth against the inhala- 

 tion of those qualities of the atmos[jliere, by which 

 its surface is fertilized, it wili enable us to open them. 

 Wealth instead of poverty ; national strength instead 

 of weakness; and perhaps liberty instead of slavery, 

 march in the train of permanent inclosiires. But we 

 are blinded against computations founded in figures, 

 by comparisons arising fiom supeificial prejudices. 

 Beggary admires the luxury of competence, and me- 

 diocnty ctiiickks over her wealth, when she beholds 

 poverty. So we draw opinions concerning the fertility 

 and improvement of a whole country, from compaii- 

 sons made among ourselves, always shedding darkness 

 upon truth, because always influenced by severaf of 

 ttie worst or weakest passions of human nature. To 

 provide prosperity for nations by the cool calculations 

 of reason, and not to devote posterity to v»retchedness 

 from the odious prejudices implanted by such shallow 

 comparisons, constitutes the duty of legislatures, and 

 the real virtue of patriots. The appalling diif'erence 

 between the average product of wheat in tliis country 

 and in England, ought to dissipate our delusion as to 

 the present quality of our soil, to awaken our inquiries 



after the causes of an inferiority so deplorable, and to 

 rouse all our c ipacities in search of a remedy. Our 

 wretched, expensive and iiiell'ectual mode of inclosing 

 is in my view the chief of those causes. No history 

 has preserved, and no country exhibits, a good system 

 of agriculture in union with dead wood fences. Ho- 

 mer, in his description of a Phoeatian garden, informs 

 us, that green fences were understood and used in his 

 time. 



" Four acres was the allotted space of ground, 

 "Fenced with a green inciosure all around," 



He mentions stone and thorn inclosures, selects the 

 iireen to adorn his most splendid horticultural scene, 

 and is utterly silent as to dead wood fences. Were they 

 exploded above three thousand years ago, to be now 

 revived as an evidence of man's ro-aiy disposition ? 

 But we need not dive into antiquity, nor travel over 

 the globe to settle the question. At home we see the 

 waste of soil graduated from north to south, by some 

 inexplicable circumstance, distinct from original fer- 

 tility. The diflerent modes of fencing is probably that 

 circumstance. In Connecticut, I have seen many 

 fields apparently so naturally poor and stony, that I 

 could never account for their fertifity, until I discover- 

 ed the advantages of permanent inclosures, and recol- 

 lected that they were surrounded by stone fences. 

 Prejudice, sustained b}^ conscience, is too strong to be 

 subdued by reason, and too respectable on account 

 of its honesty, to deserve contempt. Yet it ought to 

 be persuaded by its senses, and to be induced to follow 

 its own interest by the plainest evidence. Though at 

 length convineed through its eyes, of the benefits 

 arising from inclosing, it will not be convinced through 

 its mouth, that the old mode of raising meat by ranges 

 (as they are called) is insufricient for the supply of a 

 thin population, and that the eft'ect of its conviction of 

 one error is defeated, by its persistence in another. 

 Dead wooden fences are too transitory, too subject to 

 imperfections arising from idleness or accident, and 

 too easily impaired hy thoughtless or malicious tres- 

 passers, to guaranty to a nation the benefits of an in- 

 closing system. They are here to-day and gone to- 

 I morrow. Live, possess the rights and "the respect of a 

 freehold. Atlached to the soil, they soon efface the 

 I unjust and ruinous prejudice, nurtured by their eva- 

 ! nescent rival "that aiable lands, when out of actual 

 culture, ought to be turned into a common." This 

 j opinion, suggested by a national wish to obtain good 

 i and sufficient supplies of grass, and gratified through- 

 out a great j)ortion of the union, as a wish for such 

 supplies of horses, would be gratified by throwing open 

 every stable to all who wanted them) is undoubtedly 

 entitled to denunciation as a prejudice ; if prejudice ex- 

 ists among mankind. 



My wish for a better understanding was never 

 stronger than in considering this subject, from a con- 

 viction that its gratification could never have been more 

 useful totiie public. Tliroi^liout the world, countries 

 inclosed by stone or live fences, and those inclosed 

 by dead wood, exhibit the contrast between cadave- 

 rous decrepitude and blooming youth. The richest 

 country of Viiginia below the mountains, painted on 

 th;same canvass, would be a foil to the poorest of 

 Connecticut. The incapacitj' of the first, for render- 

 ing inclosing subservient to the improvement of land, 

 by excluding ruinous or injudicious grazing ; and the 

 capacity of tlie latter to avail itself of this agricultural 

 panacea, is a chief cause of the constrast. In Britain, 

 live fences are substituted for stone, where the latter 

 is not to bo had, and often preferred to it ; and are 

 by wide experience demonstrated to be a sound spon- 

 sor for an excellent state of agriculture: here, the de- 

 monstration that dead wooden fences ensures a bad 

 state of agriculture is as wide. Does truth require 

 more than two demonstrations? 



If permanent fences are indispensable for the pur- 

 pose of changing the stale of our agriculture from bad 



