Mvxexs 



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A\)i^ fisit^r 



COPTDUCTED BY ISAAC lULL. 



"Those who labor ik thb earth are the chosen people of Goo, whose rreasts he has rude his peculiar defosite for substantial akd genuine virtue." Jefferson. 



VOL.9. NO. 11. 



CONCORD, N. H., NOVEMBER 30, 1847. 



WHOLE NO. 107. 



■^■"'^^^''^^'^'-'^'^ 



THE F.VRMER-S MONTHLY VISITOn, 



riBLISllKll BY 



ISAAC HILL, & SONS, 



ISSUED ON THE LAST DAY OF EVERT nrOiNTH, 



At Athenian Building. 



!fy^£XiltkL AnEsrs.— H. A. Rill, Keenc, N H. ; Johm 

 Marsh, Wasliington St. Buston, Mass.; Charles W'arhex, 

 liriiilcy Row, Worcester. Mass.: Thomas Cha.xdler, Bedford, 

 N. H. 



TERMS,— To single subscribers, F{fly Cents. Ten per 

 ctMit. ivili be alluvveU to the person wlio shall send more tliaii 

 one subscriber. Twelve copies will be sent for tne advance 

 payment of Fire' Dollars: twenty-five copies for Tin Dollars: 

 sixty copies for Ticrntij Dollars. Tbe payment in every case to 

 be made in advance. 



{^Money and sul^^crititions^ by a regulation of the Post Master 

 General, may in all cases be reinitled btj Vie Post Master, free oj 

 yostu<Te. 



OO^AII gentlemen who have heretofore noted as Agents are 

 requested to continue tlleir Agency. Old subscribers who 

 come under the new terms, will please notify us of the names 

 alieady on our books. 



A pair of Agricultural Addresses. 



(t/^AIong willi our own hasty protliiciion, 

 flrawii tip l)y request of the farmers of Bedford, 

 we jireseiit Judge Niles' Address liofore tlie Litch- 

 field Airriiuilttiral Society in Coiiuecticiit. Rich 

 in the piiirtical resuhs of the highest huelleclual 

 cultivation, as that gentleman is, we are gratified 

 to find tliat liis train of thoughts and conclusions, 

 respecting t!ie present position of American far- 

 mers, are nlinost identical with our own. We 

 have personally known Judge N^iles many years, 

 and we esteem his judgment hetter, in a practi- 

 cal sense, than that of almost any other man in 

 the country. Willi perhaps less brilliancy, as a 

 statesinan, hu is an "ohler and a hetter" faitner 

 tliaii Silas Wright, and greatly his superior in all 

 niatlers connected with domestic economy and 

 the cominun affairs of life. We hesitate not, 

 then, to present his whole address to the readers 

 of the Visiioi-. 



Address of the Hon. John M. Niles. 



[ D.liverod bolbro the Litchfield County Agricultural 

 Society, Sept. 30th, 1847.] 

 Gentlemen of the ^Igncidtaral Socklij : 



In accepting the invilation of your society to 

 address them on this occasion, it will not, 1 hope, 

 he siipposcil, that I assume to he hetter informed 

 on the suhj.jct of hushandry — the interests of 

 which it is tlio ohject of the society to advance — 

 tlian most ot its members are. Such a supposi- 

 tion would lead to expectations which I am qnile 

 .-Mi-e wouhl he disappointed. It. is many years 

 since I have had much practical acquaintance 

 with agriculinre ; and in tiiy judgment, practical 

 !;no«ledge is the only knowledge which is of 

 much impt-iiance tipon that subject — the only 

 knowledge which can safely direct the applica- 

 tion of caiiital or labor in that great depart- 

 ment of indiij-iry. 



I was, it is tine, as I presume most of you 

 have been, hroiight u|) (to use a New England 

 phrase) upon a liirm — I may say, educated upon 

 a lai-m, as I have ever esteemed the kuosvledge 

 and the steady habits of industiy 1 iherM acquired, 

 the most essential part of my eilucatitui. And 

 although it has been my fortune lo he engaged 

 tnost of my lile in other employments, private 

 and public, 1 lia\e ever found that knowledge 



useful, profitable, jind a constant source of en- 

 jojtnent. It has given me a more just apprecia- 

 tion of the importance, and a deeper interest in 

 everythitig connected with that great department 

 of human labor. It has made me, although not 

 a practical agricnitinisi, a carefiil and interested 

 observer of the condition and progress of the 

 agricnitine of our stale and coimtry, so far as 

 mv ineans of observation and reading on the 

 subject have exteniled. Let no one undervalue 

 tiic knowledge, the discipline, ami the steady 

 hiihits of persevering imiiisti'y which are ac- 

 (piired in early lile, upon a farm. 



If any of you have sons whom you propose to 

 prepare for other pursuits, ibr trade, or what 

 are called the learned professions — not very 

 learned, neither, often — I need not remind those 

 of yon who are farmers yourselves, of the great 

 impolicy of withdrawing them entirely frotn 

 labor upon the farm, where they would acquire 

 those habits of indiiftry, and that discipline, in- 

 dustrial, social and nioial, which can be acquired 

 in few other situations. There are none of our 

 schotds or colleges in which this part of the ed- 

 ucation of a young man can he obtained, with- 

 out which his success in lile may be extremely 

 doubtful, and with it, almost certain in any pin- 

 suit, where ordinary natural capacity is not 

 wanting. 



It may not be out of place on this occasion, to 

 look hack nnd see what has been the change or 

 progress in agriciilture in our country, as this 

 may enable us to forma jnster estimate of its 

 piesent condition. And its the past and the 

 present aftord the only light which wc have of 

 the future, an attention to what our agriculture 

 has been, and now is, may enable us to form 

 some opinion of what it may he hereafter. 



The agricultural interests of our state and 

 country have been and are progressive ; and this 

 progress will continue tor a long period lo come, 

 and perha|is indefinitely. The causes of this 

 change of progi-ess, are in part such as are iden- 

 tical to a new country ; but they are mainly to 

 he found in the ailvancement of civilization and 

 the arts, in our own and other countries, in the 

 extension of commerce, the growth and perfec- 

 tion of mannficlines, the accuinulation of capi- 

 tal, the refinement, liixui-y, and vast multiplica- 

 tion of aitificial wants, which have followed in 

 the train of tidvancing civilization. 



Asriculture has, and must continue to advance 

 with the progress of the times. Where there is 

 no advancement in civilization, as is nnfiirlimate- 

 ly the case in some-of the countries in this hem- 

 isphere, settled by the Spanish race, agricidtnre 

 has remained stationary. In England and most 

 countries in Europe, its progress has been 

 great, the last half centiny. Din-ing the age of 

 Elizabeth, considered as one of the most glori- 

 ous reigns in England, dislingnished for its illus- 

 trious men, and the dawning night of philosophy 

 and science, agriculture was in the rudest state, 

 not having brought to its aid either science or 

 art. It made little advancement during the fol- 

 lowing reigns of the Stuarts, distracted by inter- 

 nal commotions and civil wars ; and this is the 

 period when oui' Puritan ancestors fiist emigi'a- 

 ted to this western continent. During the reign 

 of James the First, Sir Walter Raleigh, the most 

 enlightened man of his day, presented to the 

 king a paper containing a statement of the con- 

 dition of the agriculture, commerce and manu- 

 factures of England, Willi a view to their im- 

 provement, which shows that all these great in- 

 terests were in a most rude condition, and great- 

 ly inferior to those of their neighbors, the Dutch. 

 'i'lie enii^'i'ants, therefore, to America from Hol- 

 land, wurefariher advanced in the knowledge 

 .•mil piactice of liusbandi'y than tlie emigrants 

 from England ; and were certainly better judges 

 of soil ; for, instead of settling on the barren 

 shores of Plymouth, they selected the richer 



soil npon the Hudson, the Mohawk, and the 

 Connecticut, from the latter of which, ihey were 

 foii'ibly dislodged by the English. 



Even iis late us the commencement of the 

 American Revolution, agriculture had made 

 comparatively hut little advancement in Eng- 

 land. The population of Great Britain at that 

 lime, was hut seven millions and a half, and the 

 products of its soil were hardly sufficient (or 

 their subsistence. Wheat was imported from 

 Ireland, and sometimes frotn other coimtries. 

 Hut sueh has been the improvement in agricul- 

 ture, during the last half century, that the Island 

 now produces food, ordinarily for more than 

 twenty millions, who are much better fed than 

 at the former period. 



A new counti-y was not calculated to improve 

 the knowledge or skill in husbandry, which our 

 ancestors brought with them from the mother 

 country. In a new and remote country, the 

 first settlers must necessarily, for many years, be 

 mainly occupied in providing for their inmiedi- 

 ate wants ; and in the case of our ancestors, they 

 had also to provide for their security against the 

 savages, whom they found in possession of the 

 country. The fertility of the soil in a new coun- 

 try, anil the nominal value of land, almost ne- 

 cessarily give rise to a careless and slovenly mode 

 of cultivation ; which was increased by the little 

 value of agricultural product!!, owing to their 

 distance from foreign markets, and the want of 

 one at hotne, as nearly the whole population was 

 engaged in the cultivation of the soil. 



The parent country wanted tindierand lumber, 

 and encouraged the colonists to engage in those 

 pursuils which naturally occupy the attention of 

 the people in a new coimtry covered with for- 

 ests. In after years, the West Indies afforded, 

 not only a market for lumher, but for horses, 

 provision, Indian corn, and other articles of food, 

 which gave the fiist impulse to agricultural en- 

 terprise. The trade with those islands had be- 

 come very im|)ortant lo the New England Colo- 

 nies at the commencement of the revolutionary 

 war, not only in a commercial, hut In an agri- 

 cultural point of view. 



That trade was riestroyed by the fearful strug- 

 gle in which the colonies became involved ; and 

 it was hut partially recovered, after the restora- 

 tion of peace. England, mortifierl at the loss of 

 her colonies, sought to cripple their trade, nnd 

 thus lo check their growth and prosperity. Ag- 

 riculinre, in common! with commerce, lan- 

 guished during this period. 



But the wars which agitated all Europe, con- 

 sc<pienl upon the French Revolution, and which 

 withdrew so many men from the ordinary pur- 

 suits of industry, imparted a powerful stimulus, 

 not only to the commerce, but to the agriculinral 

 enterprise of the United States. From 1800 to 

 1807, was a period of unexampled prosperity. 

 As the continental nations were ilriven from the 

 ocean by England, the Americans, almost the 

 only neutrals, monopolized the carrying trade 

 for most of the nations on the continent; and at 

 the same time supplied their colonies in this 

 hemisphere with food, and partially their armies 

 at home. Durina this period, grain and agricul- 

 tural products of every kind commanded a high 

 price, and the husbandman received an anqjje • 

 reward for his labor. This prosperity was in- 

 terrupted by the vexations of unlawhil restric- 

 tions, which the belligerents imposed upon our 

 trade. 



But, although the great demand and high price 

 of proiluce stimulated enterprise in agricu(lure, 

 and increased the attiount of productions, it had 

 little influence in introducing a more improved 

 or skilful mode of cultivating the soil. The 

 time had not arrived for such a result. Much of 

 the land at that period under cultivation, even in 

 New England, was conqtaratively new, and lit- 

 tle was thought of its amelioration ; and as larjjc 



