404 



long since, in one of my excursions, I visited a gentleman 

 brought up in city liabits from his childhood, who had recently 

 removed into the country with a view to farm for profit. As 

 a farmer, he had not got a single wrinkle upon his horns, for 

 he was then only about six months old. He showed me his 

 plantations, his buildings and multiform conveniences, and 

 above ail, his Berkshire pigs, which he proposed to fat upon 

 ruta-baga and hay-tea. He then told me, with admirable self- 

 complacency, that he had thought there was some mystery in 

 farming ; but he had found none, and in three months, had 

 learnt all that there was to be known about it. Had he said 

 all that he could learn of it, I should have agreed with him. 

 It would have been hopeless in me to have attempted to unde- 

 ceive him ; but the barrenness of his products, and the bottom 

 of an empty purse, soon brought home the conviction of a too 

 common error ; and, 1 am sorry to add, provoked some curses 

 upon farming, which belonged entirely to his own ignorance and 

 indiscretion. He was not the man who, because his beans came 

 up the wrong way, caused them to be turned and planted with 

 the top down ; but he was first cousin in the same family. 



Mr. Hill employs five men in the winter, and twelve through 

 the summer. He pays high wages, because the best services 

 are required, and no men work more hours in a day, than men 

 employed by the farmers in the vicinity of the capital, who 

 supply the market. 



Mr. Hill purchases the right for a portion of the time, of 

 clearing the refuse from the plat-forms in the hog-establishment 

 in his neighborhood, which I have described. He knows no 

 manure so efficacious as this wherever applied. It is always 

 composted. Next to this, he ranks night-soil, whicli is like- 

 wise mixed with mould or peat-mud. 



4. George Pierce, whom 1 have already named, has a home- 

 lot of little more than seven acres whicii he cultivates, in the 

 same favored district of which I have been speaking. Besides 

 this he sometimes extends his cultivation by hiring occasionally 

 small lots in his neighborhood. 



