65$ 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 9 



to 15 bushels per acre (slaked under cover,) about 

 once in three years, or as I see the sorrel conic. 

 We have guides and directions in profuse abun- 

 dance if we will learn and look lor them. I for- 

 merly thought the farmer had to blunder out and 

 Btumble upon his knowledge, in the best way he 

 could, by long, tedious, painful and expensive ex- 



{)eriments. It is a great error and mistake: the 

 aws for his guide and observance are as marked, 

 distinct, and simple, as those for the mechanician, 

 only far more multifarious — and their truth is not 

 quite so soon ascertained. 



I apply manure, lime and gypsum, at leisure 

 times upon the grain stubble, young clover and 

 grass, in the fall — late in the winter — or early in 

 the spring — so that there is no interference what- 

 ever with the very short and most important of all 

 periods, seed time and harvest. The exact due 

 times of sowing and planting each crop are so 

 booh passed over with the crops duly varied and 

 proportioned to each other, that I consider this 

 fact alone as conclusive proof that any operation 

 at these times, excepiing those of the plough, har- 

 row, and seed bag, or drill, is contrary to the laws 

 of nature — therefore none others were intended to 

 be performed at seed times, when the crops are 

 manured, limed, &c. Upon no farm in any coun- 

 try is the whole sowing scarcely ever accomplish- 

 ed in due season — particularly, as upon no farm 

 are the crops yet duly proportioned with each 

 other. 



In England, the turnip husbandry is the main 

 and essential support of the jet (there as else- 

 where) almost exclusively separate and perpetual 

 arable farms — and this most important crop (the 

 foundation and support of England's prosperity, 

 civilization, and wealth,) being always manured, 

 it is made a most expensive, severe, formidable, 

 and tedious operation — and t lie manure being ap- 

 plied only once to the soil in the whole year, a 

 great deal of it is lost by the rains and fermenta- 

 tion, and the last sowed turnips are generally put 

 in so late, as often to be not bigger, as the Scotch 

 Lord of Session said of his own crop, than "golf 

 haws.'''' In wet seasons the operation of manuring 



filoughed land is dreadful and hideous, and the de" 

 ay and mischief are greatly injurious. By my 

 practice, all this, and the great cost of making and 

 hauling compost and manure heaps- two or three 

 times over, and the immense waste from fermenta- 

 tion, are saved. By top dressing the <rrass in its 

 infant state, and in one, two, and three years 

 ploughing up that sod and rotting it, I get better 

 crops of all, and at. far less expense than formerly. 



In no instances whatever, are the laws of na- 

 ture so broken, outraged, and neglected, as in the 

 consumption of food — or rather non-consumption 

 in most countries — and consequently in the pro- 

 duction of it: and until these laws are duly and 

 perfectly observed, no other laws (of nature) can 

 be so — that is, likewise duly and perfectly. The 

 former laws are best observed in the United 

 States — hence its rapid and matchless progress. 

 The observance of the latter is only retarded by 

 the occupation of the western lands. Freedom 

 and excess of land (or rather the soil being unoc- 

 cupied) have here produced precisely the same 

 effects — exhausting thesoil, but only temporary — 

 which despotism and low wages have produced 

 in other countries, likewise only temporary. 



A writer in the Philadelphia National Gazette 



of September 4, in speaking of your Essay on 

 Calcareous Manures, says: "The agriculture of 

 our country is on the eve of a revolution more im- 

 portant and glorious in its effects upon the wealth, 

 intelligence, physical beauty, and mora! grandeur 

 of our stupendous land, than ever was, or ever 

 will be exerted by the great power that the intel- 

 lectual energies and indefatigable enterprise of 

 man have ever made subservient to his use." 

 With this opinion, as the members of "delibera- 

 tive and dignified" assemblies,parliaments,&c. say 

 "1 entirely concur" — in what the dignity of those 

 bodies consists I cannot say — but I think they ge- 

 nerally deliberate to small purpose. It is not the 

 arbitrary laws of man which improve the condi- 

 tion of man — for if they did there has been 

 enough of them, such as they are, to have made 

 him perfect, long ago. No, they will not do — we 

 want the developement of the laws of nature in 

 agriculture, manufactures, commerce, education, 

 knowledge, &c. with as little parliament as possi- 

 ble. Parliamentlawis a poor substitute for know- 

 ledge. This by the way— as the good old Dr. Coven- 

 try used to say in his lectures. 



What deplorable and frightful descriptions of 

 the state and condition, and consequently of the 

 morals of the people, do the reports of the parlia- 

 mentary commissions of inquiry present iu Eng- 

 land in part, and in Ireland throughout! All reme- 

 dies for which are nugatory and vain, without 

 higher wages and better agriculture preparatory to 

 all others, so that, the people may procure food, 

 clothing, and habitation, more in accordance with 

 the laws of the organization of man. If a legis- 

 lator does not understand these laws, all laws of 

 his making can, and will do little but mischief. 

 The Malthusian and other doctrines of the ex- 

 isting schools of political economy and philan- 

 thropy are the worst and most mischievous possi- 

 ble. France put them in operation in 1789! 

 Whilst in England the introduction of the turnip, 

 (for it is not a native,) with the great discoveries 

 of Bakewell, Culley, Dawson, &c. and Ark- 

 wright. Watt, and others, all combining to raise 

 wages, and increase and elevate the demands and 

 means of subsistence — raised that country to its 

 present power and civilization, and may, and pro- 

 bably will, save it for ever from the horrors of rev- 

 olution, in spite of all the vast evils and errors of 

 hereditary and conservative legislators! ! 



Without the existence of the means and powers 

 to develope the natural powers and resources of 

 the soil, there can be nothing but misery and des- 

 titution, and if what is produced is exported for 

 the benefit of a few, or for absentee landlords to 

 more fortunately situated countries, that destitu- 

 tion and misery are extreme, and finally reach all — 

 for with low wages the people cannot consume, 

 and what they produce under those circumstances 

 only exhausts the soil. The wants of man must 

 be fulfilled — for as Lamartine most truly observes, 

 "Providence never creates wants without at the 

 same time creating the means of satisfying them." 

 But I am rambling into political economj', and for- 

 getting farming — but they are inseperably inter- 

 woven and connected together. 



I have more of these notions, if you like them, 

 and some on wages, one of the most important of 

 all questions, now beginning to excite attention — 

 and some on the purposes and use of weeds — and 

 some observations upon the present slavery quea- 



