178 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



THE GOLD PLACERS OF NEW ENG- 

 LAND. 



Lumps of virgin gold are said to have been found, 

 on the mountains of Vermont. However that may 

 be, it is undoubtedly true, that every man has a 

 gold mine, or its equivalent, in his farm, if he be 

 so happy as to own one. He has that upon his 

 own acres, which he can change into gold, at his 

 pleasure ; and with much more ease and certainty, 

 than the California miner can change his dust into 

 coin at the mint. 



Let us look a moment, at the fact, that these 

 places really exist, and at some of their advanta- 

 ges, over the California placers, that are turning 

 the heads of so many of our Yankee boys. 



According to the last census, there are in the 

 State of Maine 46,760 farms ; which, divided by 

 the number of acres in the State, would give about 

 480 acres to each farm. In New Jersey, the av- 

 erage of each farm is about 172 acres. This prob- 

 ably is a fair basis upon which to calculate the 

 number of farms in the other five New England 

 States. Taking this basis it would give 108,761 

 farms for the rest of New England — or 155,521 

 for the whole, including Maine. We will call it 

 150,000, to keep within bounds. Now suppose 

 that each farmer on an average has five acres of 

 his farm under tillage. The average produce of 

 corn per acre in Massachusetts, New Hampshire 

 and Vermont, is about forty bushels, and the val- 

 ue about eighty cents per bushel. The number of 

 acres under tillage, then, in New England, is 750,000 

 and the annual crop of these acres is thirty million 

 bushels of corn, or its equivalent in agricultural 

 productions. The value of this is twenty-four mil- 

 lions of dollars, every year dug up out of the soil 

 by the farmer's hoe. The net profits of corn per 

 acre, in the three States above mentioned, is about 

 eighteen dollars. This would give a clear profit to 

 New England farmers, on crops raised by the hoe, 

 of thirteen and a half millions of dollars. And this 

 is but a single item, in the wealth of our placers. 

 Does California turn out any better 1 If Congress 

 ever finds time to print the census of 1850, and 

 give us the facts, we shall be able to give with 

 some accuracy the whole product of our mines. 



But this is only the beginning of their wealth. 

 The mines of New England are not half wrought. 

 If, with their present husbandry, each acre avera- 

 ges forty bushels of corn per acre, then with the 

 help of science, each acre may be made to produce 

 eighty bushels per acre ; and that too with no 

 large outlay of capital or labor. This may seem 

 an extravagant calculation ; but we have the facts 

 to back up the position. In the New England 

 Farmer, Vol. 2, page 42, it is stated that " R. W. 

 Turner, of Newton Centre, raised from one acre 

 and one hundred forty-four rods of land, four hun- 

 dred and twenty-four heaping bushels of ears." 

 This is over one hundred bushels to the acre. In 



the Patent Office Report for 1849-'50, pages 230-7, 

 Arthur Rice, of Conway, Mass., states of his own 

 experience in corn growing — "We live in a hilly 

 country, and but a small portion of the land is suit- 

 able for tillage. I have on my farm about twenty 

 acres fit for tillage. Till the last twenty years 

 about thirty-five bushels of corn was considered an 

 average crop per acre, for this land. Now it is at 

 least seventy-five bushels. The produce of the turf 

 land, — that is, the first crop, — has been for sever- 

 al years, from sixty to seventy bushels per acre. 

 The crop the second year has been from eighty to 

 ninety bushels. In some cases, as has been re- 

 ported by a committee of the Conway Agricultural 

 and Mechanical Association, over one hundred — and 

 in one instance as high as one hundred and twenty- 

 two bushels of shelled corn per acre." He says 

 also of the experience of others, "I subjoin a state- 

 ment of the amount of corn per acre raised by sev- 

 eral farmers in this town in 1846-'47, as reported 

 by a committee. In 1846, 134—132—111—110— 

 103—96—92 bushels per acre. In 1847, 122—120 

 — 110 — 103 bushels per acre." 



Facts like these, are not unfrequently reported " 

 to the Patent Office, and if there were any well- 

 prepared index to the Reports of that office, it would 

 be an easy thing to spread them before our far- 

 mers through the agricultural journals. But to 

 get at anything wanted, in that strange medley of 

 facts, now, is very much like looking for a needle 

 in a haystack. O, for some utilitarian Yankee to 

 have charge of that Report just for one year, to di- 

 gest its contents and to give us an index in the Bos- 

 ton style of book-making ! Would it not be re- 

 freshing 1 



There are probably instances known to almost 

 every farmer, of an acre yielding eighty bushels of 

 corn, and they are growing more common every 

 year. Improved husbandry, upon the principles now 

 advocated by our best agricultural journals, would 

 easily make this the average yield in New England; 

 and then we should have, as the annual product of 

 our placers, sixty million bushels of corn and for- 

 ty-eight millions of dollars,' and a clear profit of t wen- 

 ty-scven millions of dollars. The gold is there in 

 the soil, and all we have to do, is to dig it out. 



We will now notice some of the many advanta- 

 ges in our New England mining over those of Ca- 

 lifornia. 



New England mining is attended with compara- 

 tively few hardships. You have no long sea voy- 

 age, with its perilous sea-sickness — no exposure of 

 health in tropical climates — no exposure of life and 

 morals, among desperadoes and black-legs — no liv- 

 ing in tents and subsisting upon the coarse fare of 

 the mines. You may be all the while surrounded 

 with the comforts and endearments of domestic 

 life. You may live constantly in the smiles of the 

 best of women, the mother of your children, and 

 make home glad with your presence. Ah, what 



