DESULTORY HINTS TO FARMERS. 



619 



rinsed clothes in a ^eat Washing establish- 

 ment, and was assured that it performed admi- 

 rably. The mighty progress of Invention du- 

 ring the last half ceuturj- has yet been a gradual, 

 step-by-step advance. There probably never 

 wa.s a man with genius sufficient to have invent- 

 ed outright one of the powerjooms now used in 

 the manufacture of the richest Carpets, Shawls, 

 &c. To construct a modem Steamship would 

 have defied all the power and sktU of Archim- 

 edes. From the first rude conceptions of Fitch 

 or Fulton to a steamboat like the Oregon or St. 

 Nicholas is a distance not to be traversed bj- any 

 one intellect. It has been traversed, however, 

 in a moderate lifetime, by the successive im- 

 provements of one man on the suggestions of a 

 predecessor and so on. In Agricolture only is 

 this advance halting and capricious. Half the 

 meadovi's and grain-fields as level as a house- 

 floor are still har\-ested by scjthes, cradles and 

 rakes, although the facilitj' of attaining the same 

 results by the best machinery with half the la- 

 bor has been abundantly demonstrated. 



The slowness with which improvements are 

 adapted by the most of farmers spring from two 

 cau.ses. want of means and want of knowledge. 

 The plow-jogger who barely and hardly lives 

 by scratching the face of Nature will tell you, if 

 pressed, that he knows that Deep Plowing is 

 the correct course, but what is he to do with his 

 one light, gaunt yoke of cattle, that had to 

 browse half the winter for want of hay, or his 

 skeleton span of horses, that are just able to hold 

 each other up by the help of the harness ? He 

 would like to cover his land with lime, guano 

 or some other fertilizer, but then he has n't money 

 to buy it nor even time and team to draw the 

 muck out of his own swamp-holes, where it has 

 lain from time immemorial, loading the summer 

 air with noxious vapors to poison the health of 

 his family. He would like to farm better, but 

 the sheritl" and the tax-gatherer are on his track, 

 and the mortgage on his farm (if it is not a leased 

 one) warns him against devoting too much time 

 to costly improvements of which the benefit can- 

 not all be realized this year. So he worries on, 

 skinning his starved acres by the help of his 

 star\"ing brutes, until the sheriif steps in and 

 turns him otFio seek in the Far West some re- 

 gion where the rewards of good farming can be 

 enjoyed by bad, shiftless farmers. If any body 

 knows where that region lies, let him proclaim 

 its whereabout speedily, so that the men who be- 

 long there may go at once. As it is, there are 

 thousands who began in New England, moved 

 thence to Western New- York, afterward to Ohio- 

 then to Michigan, next Illinois, are now in Iowa, 

 and mean to start for Oregon as soon as they 

 can compass an outfit — all along cursing their 

 hard fate in being trained to so poor a business 

 as Farmins. and grumbling at the great profits 



of merchants, manufacturers, &c. when in truth 

 farming is the only business by which they could 

 have earned a livelihood at all. If almost any 

 other business were followed as ignorantly, care- 

 lessly, shiftlessly as Farming quite commonly 

 is, those engaged in it would break the first 

 year. No mechanic or manufacturer could af- 

 ford to neglect or misimprove his advantages as 

 half the farmers habitually do theirs. 



Want of Means is often a real but sometimes 

 an imaginary or avoidable clog on the farmer's 

 energies. He who has little or nothing to do 

 witli can only do the best he can ; though even 

 he may find means by taking just the right 

 course. Whoever clings closely to the region 

 wherein he is best known and rigidly maintains 

 a character for integritj-, industry and economy, 

 need not long stand in need of any requisite 

 means. But let him be careful not to involve 

 himself for any thing more than he actuallj' does 

 need. Many a farmer staggers through life tm- 

 der an outlay of S3,000 for a farm when his labor 

 well bestowed on half as much land would have 

 ensured as ample a product and saved him $100 

 a year in interest (or rent) and taxes. And now 

 if our indebted farmers, who are worrjing along 

 on a hundred to two hundred and fifty acres each 

 of land, would just let half or two thirds of it go, 

 pay off their debts, resolve to be henceforth 

 • forehanded ' by keeping no more land beside 

 a small wood-lot than they can fertilize thorough- 

 ly and work faithfully, no intelligent person can 

 doubt that immense benefits would result to 

 them and to all. The same area of soil ^vould 

 support twice the present aErricultural popula- 

 tion, giving extensive employment for years to 

 brickmakers, lumbermen, house-builders, cabi- 

 netmakers and mechanics generally. The dis- 

 tance between each farmer and his merchant, 

 blacksmith, shoemaker, ice. would be greatly re- 

 duced, and schools for his children would be 

 brought gradually nearer and nearer his door. 

 This process of relieving farms from mortgages 

 and other incumbrances by dividing them, at the 

 same time by superiorculture trebling and quad- 

 rupling the aggregate product, ought to be en- 

 couraged and accelerated. The cultivator will 

 never improve a mortgaged or leased farm so 

 heartQy as he will once that he owns and may 

 tran.smit to his children beyond peradventure. 

 Before we can have the harborer of any nuisance 

 like the Canada thistle or the producer in a good 

 season of ten bushels of com or half a ton of hay 

 to the acre indicted by our Grand Juries as he 

 should be, we must have unencumbered farms, 

 and the owners cultivating them. There are 

 able, enlightened men capable of managing 

 larger Estates efficiently, but these are compara- 

 tively few. 



But want of adequate Knowledge is a far 

 more general and crying evil among farmers 



