BRITISH AGRICULTURAL DISSERTATIONS 



APPLICABLE TO AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



An impression exists, which, considering its 

 nature and effects, may, perhaps, in the worst 

 sense of the word be denominated a prejudice ; 

 to wit : that owing to diversity of circumstances, 

 such as difference of climates, forms of govern- 

 ment, the price and the rental of land, and the 

 relations between the employer and the em- 

 ployed, in the two countries ; little or nothing 

 can be found in English books, or discovered in 

 English agricultural practice or implements, 

 which is applicable to American Husbandry', 

 and therefore that little or nothing from that 

 quarter is worthy of being read and patronised 

 by American Farmers. 



Acting under a very different impression, vre 

 shall draw very largely from English and Eu- 

 ropean works, for what we hope will prove 

 both entertaining and useful to the patrons of 

 the Farmers' Library ; but of this, of course, 

 they must be the judges. 



We should not, however, deem it expedient to 

 do so, without exercising very great caution, if 

 ours were an imitative people, like the Chinese ; 

 but we shall feel that more freedom may be 

 used, and less apprehension felt, of injury, from 

 any oversight of ours, in consideration of the 

 fact that Americans, thanks to the freedom 

 of their government, are of all people the least 

 given to mere imitation. No people exercise 

 more freely all the powers of mental investiga- 

 tion into the reasons for what is proposed out of 

 the common track, and the qualities of new things 

 offered for their adoption. It is in that convic- 

 tion that we shall present frequently, to the con- 

 sideration of our readers, essays and drawings 

 and descriptions of machinery, which have com- 

 manded high premiums, in England and Scot- 

 land particularly — first subjecting them to criti- 

 cal examination, as to their adaptation to our soil, 

 circumstances and cour.se of cropping ; but after 

 all, not much fearing but that the generality of 

 American readers will examine for themselves, 

 with capacity to detect, as we before said, any 

 mistake of ours. Sometimes it will happen that 

 we must give something that is obviously inap- 

 propriate, for the sake of valuable suggestions, 

 with which such inapplicable matter may be 

 mixed up or connected. But here — and em- 

 phatically, we would have it distinctly under- 

 stood, that ■we shall pass by nothing which may 

 come in our way that American science or ex- 



(57).... sir,. 1" 



perience can suggest or have tested, which ap- 

 pears to be new and worthy of record and dis- 

 semination. On the contrary, such suggestions 

 and such experience will always have pre- 

 ference over other matter. But we confess to 

 place no very high estimate upon mere state- 

 ments of facts and results, unaccompanied with 

 reasons and an accurate statement of all atten- 

 dant circumstances. We prefer in all cases 

 what is inductive to what is merely empirical. 



Mistaken or not, in thus drawing fi-eely and 

 often fi-om the fountains and stores of European 

 science and experience, we shall at least have 

 the satisfaction to know that in this we shall be 

 standing somewhat aside from the path of fel- 

 low laborers whose judgment we have been 

 accustomed to respect, and whose way we liave 

 no right, much less any inclination or power, to 

 obstroct. 



Imperfect as may be our view of the real 

 wants of American agriculturists, it seems to 

 us that much, amounting to repetition if not re- 

 pletion, has been said of the practical details 

 and the measured results of experiments in the 

 cultivation of particular crops, the weight to 

 which beasts may be pampered, and cf the trial 

 of various implements, with, or without a view 

 to premiums. 



We have been told, and usefully told, it is 

 readily admitted, that A, from a specified quan- 

 tity and kind of corn or wheat, planted or 

 sowed in a particular manner, has gathered a 

 certain large quantity of grain per acre — and 

 that B has fatted and slaughtered a bullock, 

 sheep, or hog, of his favorite breed, that at a cer- 

 tain age attained such and such an extraordi- 

 nary weight. 



Now^ all this is very useful in its way, and 

 commendable, as it shows how much can be ac- 

 complished, in the way of heavy crops ; while 

 as to animals, it demonstrates the difference of 

 breed ; proving that some are endowed with 

 aptitude to take on fat at an early age ; wliile 

 others are of slower growth. That the fonner 

 may be the better for rich pastures and the 

 butcher, while the latter may be preferable for 

 the dairy-, for scanty herbage, and finally for the 

 table. All these facts maj- be again, as they have 

 been repeatedly demonstrated ; but to our com- 

 prehension of the true wants of agriculture, in 

 the existinij condition and circumstances of that 



