164 



^^l^e^fhrmcr's iUontlilij btsitor. 



A f.-nm ihp «oil But whether derived froii. 

 tl^ BoTor no,"; i not material to the present pur- 

 nose for the i.et is notorious and nuhsputable 

 Klhe earth does produce annually a certain 

 nunty of vegetable .natter, more than >s re- 

 ?.M . e 1 to the soil, without dimimslnng ..s ert, Ity. 

 r the quantity of vegetable ■"».'^'^'; 'J""";' ^^ „", 

 duced upon a given quanfty ol '».' J. " °";; ^"^ 

 is returned to il, exhausted the sod to the extern 

 of ll e vUetable elements which it contams, then 

 h a serfes of years, the soil would become 

 ho'lly exhlistei, and its P.o;i-;-;--- '^^ , 

 linct But the fact s directly the leveise. JS\ 

 "c; of la.!d will, for a series of 5--^, I-dnee 

 annually a certain amount ol vegetable subs a ce 

 ov r a./d above what is .---;^. '° %^''^:^ 

 h^ piinstantiv increasing m iertility. 1 ns, eveiy 

 one knows is the case'with a forest ot growing 

 n-ees Tl e quantity of wood is increasing every 

 veil • and yet, the land is becoming more ferii e, 

 bv he ea4s which are annually returned to the 

 soi Tl is is also true of clover a..d other grass- 

 es the crop may be taken off and the lam left 

 enriched. This may not be true of al ciops, 

 Li e are greater exhausters of tlK= so. •-" oth- 

 ers and niake less return to it. Such is the case 

 wUh the different grain crops ; and hence the ne- 

 cessity of stated rotatio.i o' g'»f ,^";' -f ^ 

 crops But there can be no doubt, thai it tht. 

 whole of the vegetable matter even ol a graiii 

 Vopweteieturnedtothe soil, the land would 

 be increased in fertility. And viewed as a w ho e 

 all the vegetable matter that conres (lom the 

 earth, must at some time be reluined to il-that 

 is the elements of vegetation which that sub- 

 sl'ancc contains, must iinally be returned to the 

 earth. Hence we discover a great truth, tliat 

 continued production is increasing the elements 

 of vegetation, and consequently, that the produc- 

 tive powers of the earth are increasing, trom 

 vear to vear. In addition to these consideralions, j 

 there are elements of vegetation in fossil matter 

 •xisting beneath the soil, which may be, and are, 

 to a certain extent, brought forth, and combmed 

 with the general mass of vegetable elements. J his 

 is the case with fossil coal and lime, winch contain 

 valuable elements of vegetation ; aud coal is gen- 

 erally supiiosed to have been originally formed 

 from vcgelable snlislaiices. 



The moductive powers of the earth are am- 

 ple, and cominually 'increasing ; and it is the 

 privilege and duty of man to avail himselr ot 



' 'Tt"is not my purpose to attempt to describe the 

 best mode of improving the soil ; nor is there 

 any general principle ; for what would be a ju- 

 dicious course iu respect to one description ol 

 land, would be very unsuitable tor another. i..x- 

 perience and judgment must direct all success- 

 ful imurovements. The whole that could be 

 said on the subject, may be summed up in two 

 general ideas : a judicious cultivation, lucluding 

 a proper rotation of crops, and making ihc great- 

 est return to the soil, of vegetable and other 

 manures. ■ The improvment of the soil requires 

 labor aud knowledge. And what cannot labor 

 and knowledge-labor directe.l by intelligence, 

 accomplish ? What have they accomplished loi 

 our country in two centuries ? t is no poetic, 

 tifjure of speech to sayjhat they have made the 

 waste places fruitful, and the " wilderness to 

 blossom as ihe rose." But let us not suppose 

 that all has been done that can be done, or tliat 

 ou.'ht to bo done. Labor and intelligence are 

 not less now than at any former period. Ihey 

 are much greater. We have called to aid ol la- 

 bor, mechanical power, to a much gieiiter degree 

 than at any former period, and added to the al 

 powerful agency of steam. If from him who hai 

 received many talents, nincli more was required 

 than from him who had received but tew talents, 

 the much will be demanded of the present genera- 

 tion. We have received many talents; let us 



not like the unfaithful steward, bury the the 



earl'h, but make a wise use of them, that we 

 may render a good acciiniil (if our stewardship, 

 when called to an account by the (Jreat l'r<qirie- 



tur of the Vlnyaid. 



Our Stale is small, and much ol it hard aud 

 iu""ed ; yet hibor aud intelligence has made it 

 thehai'liy abode of more than three hundred 

 thousand souls. 15nt small as it is, aud hard as 

 is its soil, it is capable of supporlmg twice tliat 

 number; and notwilhstaiidiiig the dram upon its 



population, which has been, and st 11 « " "^^ ' > I 

 he fertile lands of the west, it is deslined jet to 

 double its population. Its agricultural prodiic s 

 'uneasily be doubled, and those Irom the arts 

 ,„ay be increased to a n.ucli greater extent.-- 

 There is, therefore, much for us, to do. But la- 

 bor-tree labor, directed by knowledge, can and 

 will accomplish it. - 



We are people of labor. Where on the face 

 of the earth, is there a commumly more indus- 

 trious. The very sterility of olir soil has been 

 a source of strength an.l wealth, by increasing 

 our power of labor. And among the blessings 

 ' for which we should be thanklul to Provi.lence 

 is this : and that He has cast our lot in a vigor- 

 ous climate and a hard soil, which has made us 

 a laborious an4 IVugal people. 



Let me conclude, in the langtiage of a dislin- 

 guished French writer: " Enlranchised labo , 

 master of itself, will become master ofthe woild, 

 for labor is the action of humanity, accomplish- 

 ing the work which the Creator has given it in 

 charge." 



Atldres< Ueliveiecl before the Farmers of Bed 

 forll Oct! 13, and repeated the same week 

 a^Keene and'Ashbu.^oham, Ms. and rn^^^^^^ 

 before the Merrimack t ouuty Society read 

 as an essay, Oct. 'J3, 1847. 



BY ISAAC HILL. 



We are about entering upon a new era in the 

 history of Agriculture in this country, and es- 

 pecially the older or first settled States ofthe 

 Atlantic coast of the Union. 



When we look minutely into the history of 

 men and occui>atious thus far since the first set- 

 tlement of this western world, we shall find 

 that no calling has been so uniformly successful 

 as the farmer. Li the first opening of most of 

 our towns, embracing a period of more than two 

 hundred years, there has been a uniformity of 

 success attending the efforts of the farmer who 

 has pursued his career, by clearing and cultivat- 

 ing his own land under the sweat of his own 

 brow, that has accompanied no other class of 

 men. Ninety-five cases in a hundied, the mer- 

 chant has failed; but in many of the country 

 towns amidst our bills, there are scarcely five 

 cases of a hundred where the farmers first open- 

 ing their lands have failed of success. Indeed 

 most of the successful enterprising irien, who 

 have gone into our cities and made ample for- 

 tunes, are the -sons of the farmers of the interior 

 who learned their trades and the economy 

 which has made them rich, before they left their 

 homes. 



I have been siu'iuised at the early tact for ac- 

 cumulation which existed in our ancestors more 

 than a century ago. The letters of a veteran 

 patriarch great uncle, written nie the present 

 year, who was one hundred and two years ol.l 

 last January, written too by his own hand, and 

 fiom whom my information as late as August 

 last, was, that he was busily employed in assist- 

 ing his son iu haying, informed me that the 

 greal-grandfather owned aud settled upon a 

 farm in Worcester, Massachusetts, over one 

 hundred years ago, upon which my own grand- 

 mother and himself were born : this letter in- 

 forming me also to wiiom that farm was sold, 

 enabled me to trace out the place. Since that 

 time and within the last few years the village 

 alone of Worcester has grown into n popiiliition 

 of some twelve thousand inhahitanls. Tho oth- 

 er ilay, while attemling the Worcester County 

 .Agricultural exhibilion . 1 visited that paternal 

 liu-m ; and 1 happened to find upon it a geiitle- 

 inan of liberal education liy tho name of (.'recii, 

 who understood its whole history. The great- 

 grandliither with his young family left it about 

 the year 1750, nearly one hundred years ago: it 



consisted of one hundred and thirty acres of 

 land one mile and a half north-east from the 

 Worcester court-house. My ancestor, as his first 

 residence, had a log house of hundde dimensions 

 —he married first, and then became of sufficient 

 means to erect a half upright house with two 

 large square rooms and a kitchen upon the first 

 tioor-two s<iuare chambers and a roofed cham- 

 ber over the kitchen, u|>on the second floor, and 

 the garret of sufticient dimensions for the gran- 

 ary. This house, with its original finish of more 

 than a century ago, opened upon me as the work 

 of a man whose titce was familiar to the recol- 

 lections of my childhood. He went into that 

 new country, cleared his lands and from their 

 fertility theu found the means from the avails ol 

 his own industry to build him such a house as 

 no man of the present day need be ashamed to 

 live in. The timber of that house at this day, 

 sound as it was when put up, would suffer no 

 shaking from a common tempest— it is of a 

 weight and stability that few modern houses can 



boast. 



The course of our ancestor farmers has been 

 a wise one ; and blamed not should be the pres- 

 ent generation of fiumers treading in the foot- 

 siejis'' of their ancestors. It is by no means a 

 bad trait in the New England character that the 

 most of the sons do as their fiithers used to do. 

 In the o|.ening of every new settlement but litile 

 of art or science is necessary in the pursuit ol 

 the farmer's occupation. Most ofthe lands after 

 the burning off the forest wood were exceed- 

 ingly fertile aud quite sure of the crop : if not 

 treated with a sloven hand, this fertility con- 

 tinued for several ^ears. The river intervales 

 were most inviting, because of easier cultiva- 

 tion ; but the broad and oval hills and even the 

 more rocky protuberances turned out such crops 

 as made the cellars and garners of the indus- 

 trious man to overflow with a general abundance 

 for man an,l beast. Through nearly an entire 

 generation did this abundance continue. There- 

 was no talk about high manuring, because the 

 oround needed little stimulant in addition to the 

 rich vegetable loam that ages had prepared for_ 

 just such crops as the farmer needed : there was 

 no thought of the value of deep ploughing, be- 

 cause the process of vegetation bad not yet con- 

 sumed upon and near the surface those mineral 

 manures so necessary to give aid to vegetable aud 

 animal manures in all the crops requiring pro- 

 tection from blight and rust and the microscopic 

 animalcuUe which infests every species of vegeta- 

 tion destitute of the pristine aliment necessary 

 to its most perfect production. 



Well, so it has become in the lapse of time that 

 the most of our first cleared lands have lost the 

 fertility with which they were originally invested: 

 these lands are no longer what they were in the 

 hands of those who have gone before us. If they 

 were so, perhaps we might continue to do as our 

 tUthers have done ; at least,we might best continue . 

 to do as our fathers have .lone if we had not at baud/ 



any more ready means of conveying to nuirkel 

 and disposing of the surplus of our ti.rms thau\ 

 ihey have had. 



If wc could be able to realize what was tlic^ 

 condition one hundred years ago of much of tho 

 land iu New Kngland now considered to be very 

 poor, we would bo surprised to ascertain how 

 much ofthe poverty was due to the treatment 

 which those lands had received at the hand ol 

 man Our lighter lands almost universally owo-> 

 their present poverty to a system of cultivation 

 which restricting tho action of crops upon the 



