MONTHLY 



JOURNAL or AGRICULTURE. 



VOL. I. 



MAY, 1846. 



NO. 11. 



DESULTORY HINTS TO FARMERS— LABOR-SAVING, &c. 



BY HORACE GREELEY. 



[In the protracted absence of the Iditor on a most 

 interesting and gratifying Southern tour, one of the 

 Publishers is impelled to put forth some ci-ude sug- 

 gestions regarding Agriculture in this Number of the 

 Journal. As they may pass through the press before 

 the return of Mr. Skinneb, the reader will be so just 

 as not to hold him responsible for any error they may 

 contain.] 



When I was a lad ten years old, my father 

 took a job of clearing fifty acres of 1o\t, wet 

 land in Vermont, which had originally been a 

 pine forest, with a considerable proportion of 

 black ash, &c. (probably a later growth,) but 

 had more recently been overrun with fire in an 

 extremely dry season, and was thickly covered, 

 among its mostly dead and decaying timber, 

 with an undergrowth of blue beach, alder, <5cc. &c. 

 This clearing was a miscellaneous undertaking. 

 Commencing in March, the whole tract was 

 covered with water knee-deep, held there by 

 the masses of fallen and decaying pines, the 

 roots of the still standing trees, &c. We were 

 visited while at work there by a good many 

 neighbors and wayfarers, who comforted my 

 father with the assurance that he never could 

 accomplish what he had undertaken — that his 

 boys, of ten and nine years respectively, would 

 be ' out of their time ' before he could finish it. 

 He persevered, however, with the help of these 

 boys, and completed the job in about two years. 

 When it was done, and we had a chance to 

 look back upon it, I could not help seeing that 

 about one-third of our work had been positively 

 wasted, and might have been saved by ade- 

 quate knowledge. Half the labor was devoted 

 to cutting up the great pines so that they might 

 be hauled together and burnt, to digging out the 

 (1105) 



rotten wood from the earth in which it was 

 nearly imbedded, &c. which might have been 

 entirely avoided. Had we been wise enough 

 to cut down every green tree and bush to be- 

 gin with, take out whatever was worth pre- 

 serving for timber or fuel, then clear a wide 

 space between our tract and the adjoining wil- 

 derness, and, in the very dry season which rarely 

 fails to come once in a Summer or Autumn, had 

 simply mowed some of the swamp-grass, weeds, 

 &c. which grew in all the open spaces, and put 

 it in the fire, we should have been saved months 

 of rugged toil. 



This experience has led me since to regard 

 with interest the works and ways of Fanners 

 in subduing and cultivating their lands, and my 

 impression is that one-third of the labor thus 

 bestowed is absolutely throwTi away. More 

 thorough and general knowledge of the laws of 

 Nature and the means of subjecting her powers 

 and processes to the use of Man would save at 

 least this much, and in time probably more. Let 

 me indicate a few particulars in which such im- 

 provement has already been made as to give 

 promise of much more : 



Hoeing Corn and other planted crops was 

 formerly the chief business of New-England 

 Farmers through June and a good part of July. 

 Each field must be gone over with the hoe from 

 twice to four times, requiring a great outlay of 

 time and effort. But experience has shown 

 that the corn-plant, like others, knows about 

 how deep to root itself in the earth without ex- 

 traneous assistance, and that the ]*low or Culti- 

 vator can perform nine-tenths of the work for- 

 merly entrusted to the Hoe at one-fourth the 

 expense. Of course there are soils which re- 



