^[)t faxmtx's illi3ntl)lu iMsitor. 



165 



surface to tl.e sinallost s|)aL-e, cniTving back no 

 equivalent for what is annually taUeu away, at 

 length hccoMies exhausted in the whole space of 

 stirred soil of nearly every ingredient necessa- 

 ry to the prodnotion of any useful crop. 



Now it has become a source of gratification to 

 me while passing such lands to reflect that be- 

 low the siu-faco is contained abundance of the 

 original elements which first made tln'in to yield 

 food for man and beast ; that instead of the old 

 impression that these lands are to be forever 

 useless, the new conviction comes over me that 

 the generation is even now coming, which will 

 make of these lands nil, and more than they ever 

 yet have been. 



As between good and poor land, there is much 

 less ditfcrence than the mass of manUind may 

 suppose. The lightest soils, which are generally 

 denominated poor, require even less labor, if 

 managed with skill, for the production of u crop, 

 than the heavier lanils, which are generally es- 

 teemed rich. Swamps have been reclaimed by 

 lens and hundreds of acres productive in per- 

 manent crops of rich grasses; but the same ex- 

 pense judiciously laid out upon light and |)Oorly 

 esteemed pine plain lands might in many instan- 

 ces give a more ready and equally sure net 

 gain. 



It has become to me almost a settled convic- 

 tion that from one third to one half the work 

 done upon the farms in many of our towns is 

 labor thrown away. I will present to you the 

 case of the Hospital Farm belonging to the 

 State of New H impsliire, situated in my own 

 town, as an illustration of my position. That 

 farm consists of about one hundred and twenty 

 acres of what was four years ago worn out up- 

 land : it was originally, without doubt, a good 

 farm, as all the larms in Concord were when 

 first settled. It had become scanty mowing, 

 and pasture ground, so poor that only hay suffi- 

 cient to keep two cows was in the first year 

 raised, and the income from pasturage was 

 trifling indeed. The method of renovation and 

 improvement has been more gradual, and per- 

 haps not as deep and searcliing as it might have 

 been if the State of New Hauipshire had done 

 as has been done in Massachusetts, authorized 

 the grant of a small sum to be expended in im- 

 provement. The superintendent of the hospital 

 has purchased manures, not we believe in any 

 year to exceeil the sum of two hundred dollars : 

 deep ploughing has been resorted to with the 

 single plow but no subsoiling has as yet been 

 iried. From three to five acres have been gone 

 over in the year in the rotation first of planting 

 to corn and potatoes, the old land one and the 

 new land two years — then laying ilown to grass 

 Willi a crop of oats or other grain taken off. .\ 

 barn sixty by forty feet, an<l eighteen feet l)03t 

 over a cellar stable and hog-pen was at first 

 erected, the benevolent agent who superintended 

 the building, declaring at the time that he would 

 desire to live no longer than to the period when 

 another barn should be needed for the farm. 

 When haying was finished upon this farm early 

 in .\ugnst the side bays in the whole length to 

 the ridge-pole of the barn with scaflolding over 

 a part of the centre were filled with good English 

 hay. And now in early October five acres o( 

 corn standing in the field at probably not much 

 less rate than seventy-five shelled bushels to the 

 acre can find no place for cover, for the butts 

 and stalks in what friend Conanl considered the 

 ample barn. 



In the cultivation of this hospital farm we are 



free to declare the belief that no labor or ex- 

 pense has been wasted if every thing had been 

 done with the view to a crop for the present 

 year. There was one piece of hard bruaUiug up 

 anil digging out of rocks upon laud never be- 

 fore cultivated with the plough that might be 

 an exception: all the rest was labor fairly laid on 

 with no more than the requisite quantity of ma- 

 nure tor a present crop. 



The condition of the Hospital farm is al- 

 ready such that with the same labor four times 

 the quantity of produce can be procured as in 

 tiie year when the State service upon it was 

 first begun. This poor worn out land, (so con- 

 sidered when it was first purchased) possesses 

 all the elements for one of the finest farms in 

 the State, furnishing no inconsiderable portion 

 of sustenance for the more than bundre<l in- 

 mates who are so unfortunate as to claim the 

 benefits of a great and noble charity, and this 

 generally with a very inconsiderable portion of 

 hired labor. 



The secret of the success u|ion this f;u-m is, 

 that the cultivation, as far it has gone, has been 

 more thorough than has been common. The 

 land has had a deeper ploughing, as far as cul- 

 tivation has extended : the manuring has been 

 in greater quantities. Leached ashes with clay 

 compost and a mixture of stable and yard ma- 

 nures have all bad a wonderful effect. 



The stimulant to increased production upon 

 New England farms would be but fiiint, if there 

 could be no market for the surplus : it is this 

 discouragement which has ojieratcd to make 

 production grow less and less. The farmer one 

 hundred miles from the seaboard could not af- 

 ford to work or hire help to raise corn and po- 

 tatoes for the market, when the expense of 

 transport would consutne half of the marketable 

 price. Compared with the condition of the far- 

 mer near to the receipt of customs, his farm and 

 his farm labor were of little value. 



The condition of things, in this respect, is be- 

 coming greatly changed. If no new demand 

 for the surplus of farmers had grown up in our 

 manufacturing towns, every where is the value 

 of many of the farmer's staple products becom- 

 ing equalized by the facilities of cheapened and 

 cheapening transport upon New England rail- 

 ways. These railroads in this country never 

 can become permanent monopolies: their ad- 

 vantages are as much thei)roperty of the people 

 as the common travelled roads. The expenses 

 of their construction once jiaid, the right to their 

 use is yoin-s and mine, our children's and their 

 successors forever. The comparatively trifling 

 cost of supporting these iron ways with the ex- 

 pense of moving a great weight by an easy pro- 

 cess, can have uo other than a constant tenden- 

 cy to reduce the rate of charges. And happily 

 all our experience confirms the opinion that the 

 lowest rates of charge in railroads as in postages 

 of letters, <lown to a certain point, tend alike to 

 the better profits of the road and the greater 

 gains of those wh6 use it. Manufacturers and 

 mechanics also find that more money is made 

 on quickened sales of wares at low prices than 

 by the slow process of higher prices restricting 

 iheir common nse: the great difficulty to man- 

 ufacturers, is that cheapened prices sometimes 

 run into a poorer article. Cheap carriages, cheap 

 harnesses, and hats, cheap pails and tubs, cheap 

 chairs, cheap hair-sofas or other cabinet furniture 

 fair upon the outside— all cheapened, because all 

 of them are a cheat— will soon run down the 

 credit and fail the mechanic who produces them. 



A fair and valuable article at the lowest cheap- 

 ened price which will yield a reasonable profit 

 is that safe medium tending to prosperity and 

 permanency. Our railways are becoming, and 

 destined to be, great labor-saving machines, in- 

 creasing the profits of the producer to the full 

 amomit of the expense saved. 



The time has been, when there seemed to be 

 a necessity for the .sons of New England to leave 

 their native soil for a better prospect for thrift 

 it) other parts of the country presenting more 

 inducements to the hands of the diligont. That 

 time was when the farmer of the interior 

 couhl find no cash innrUet (or most of bis arti- 

 cles—when heavy products could be transported 

 to a place of sale oidy at a loss. The time now 

 is, when every son of Nev» England may re- 

 main at home with a better assm-ance of success 

 i[i business than he can find abroad. And this 

 time happens to be at the period when the bet- 

 ter laboring portion of the whole European 

 world is coming to this asylum of liberty not 

 only to swell with sufficient rajiidity the settle- 

 ments to be opened in the free States of the 

 srreat west, but as the better substitute for the 

 less profitable labor of the colored race at the 

 South, destined to !)ecome extinct, as it will be 

 found, ussless in the permanent prosperity of a 

 free nation, by means of the voluntary gradual 

 emancipation by its owners, aided by coloniza- 

 tion and perhaps return to the original country 

 from which that race was abducted. 



I say the time has arrived when the sons of 

 New England can assure themselves of better 

 success at home than they can to go abroail 

 seeking for a fortune. The soil of New Eng- 

 land may be made to produce ten for one of its 

 present production. I visited a young man liv- 

 ing seven miles out of Boston in the last month 

 of September : he had a garden cultivation of 

 about seventeen acres, from some of which he 

 look two and three crops in the year. There 

 was nothing remarkable iu the quality of bis 

 land in its natural state ; it was no better than 

 himdreds of acres lying along the bank of Mer- 

 rimack river, the use of which is not worth a 

 dollar an acre a year to its owner in an unim- 

 proved state. But the product of these seven- 

 teen acres was sufficient to enable him to send 

 to the market every day one, and sometimes 

 two, full loaded wagons of produce : the amoimt 

 of weight of produce was not less than an aver- 

 age of ten hundred pounds for every working 

 day, or one hundred and fifty tons in the year. 

 At the low estimate of one cent a pound, the 

 crops would amount to three thousand dollars: 

 potatoes, turnips, celery, horse-radish, spinage, 

 cabbages, cauliflowers, melons, encumbers, might 

 be set down as of the less valuable fi)r their 

 weight. Strawberries, asparagus, early green 

 peas, lettuce, radishes, early summer and mar- 

 row squashes, (fee. might be counted iu value 

 as from two to five and even ten cents per 

 pound. Gradually has this young laboring far- 

 mer brought this small spot to yield him a cash 

 income of more than fom- thousand dollars a 

 year, one half of which is probably clear profit : 

 he ii^ more independent than the merchant of 

 the city, who can count upon his ten thousand 

 dollars nominal gain upon book, provided none 

 of his customers, to whom he has sold on cred- 

 it, shall fail. The cost of this farmer's transport 

 of articles seven miles, by team, has been quite 

 as much as the price of railway transport ought 

 to be, and will be seventy-five miles to a market. 

 The difference of expense between animal pow- 



