396 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



July 3, 1829. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE ESSEX AGRICUL- 

 TURAL SOCIETY. 

 We have received from a friend in Salem, a 

 pamphlet of about 8(1 pages, containing an ^^ Ac- 

 count of Premiums awarded in 1828, and a list of 

 Premiums offered in 1829 ; with Col. Pickerinb's 

 Address ; and a list of Members of the Society." — 

 We have not yet liad leisure to peruse this work 

 with that attention, which a glance at its contents, 

 as well as our knowledge of the characters and 

 objects of its authors assure us it merits. We in- 

 tend, however, to give, either verlatim, or in sub- 

 stance, those parts wliicli appear to be most in- 

 teresting and useful to the public at large. We 

 would give it in exlenso, but a part of it we have 

 already published, and the pamphlet itself is in 

 the possession of many of our readers. We will 

 commence with an article v/hich needs no other 

 eulogy than its title conveys. 



COL. PICKERING'S ADDRESS. 



The Society may recollect, that at its two last 

 annual meetings, I expressed a desire to be re- 

 leased from the duties of President, in which 1 

 have been serving from its first institution in 1817. 

 Yielding, however, to the requests of members, I 

 have continued in that station. Hut at the late 

 meeting of the Trustees, I informed them of my 

 positive determination to be no longer a candidate 

 for the ofBce. 



Having come to this determination, I liad con- 

 cluded, on taking leave, to present to the Society 

 a short address. But if I had contemjilated mak- 

 ing a formal discourse, circumstances since occur- 

 ring would have prevented my making it. I can 

 now offer only a few desultory observations. 



1. Within my memory, the ideas generally en- 

 tertained of the occupation of the husbandman, ap- 

 pear to me to have materially changed. It has 

 ceased to be considered as an employment adapt- 

 ed only to that portion of society Avhich was to 

 consist of mere laborers. It is now deemed an 

 honorable pursuit, by engaging in which, no man, 

 however elevated may have been his birth or sta- 

 tion, feels himself humbled, in partaking of its la- 

 bors. On the contrary, men of the learned pro- 

 fessions — others who inherit fortunes, or who 

 have acquired them by their own industry in oth- 

 er employments, now not unfrequently engage 

 with zeal in the business of the itractical farmer ; 

 and with useful emulation, they strive to excel in 

 their new occupation. This, it is true, does not 

 yield them profits like their former juirsuits, which, 

 indeed, they neither exjiect nor desire ; l)Ut are 

 content if they sustain no loss ; while their im- 

 provements, effected by more ample pecuniary 

 means, and proving what is practicable, ])resent 

 useful examples to their neighbors, who, bred to 

 husbandry, and constantly present at every opera- 

 tion, and diligently laboring with their own hands, 

 will render such improvements more profitable 

 than they were to those who introduced them. — 

 This change of public sentiment is auspicious to 

 the farming interest. 



2. I may here mention anothci' source of im- 

 provements in husbandry — the mutual commimi- 

 cations of valuable discoveries and useful prac- 

 tices. These may be most conveniently made to 

 the Trustees, by the metubers of the Society : for 

 the business of the annual meetings will not ad- 

 mit of making such things known in conversation. 

 If all the members were to write in detail their 

 several practices, in every branch of husbandry, — 



in the management of their tillage laml — their 

 mowing grounds — their pastures — their live stock 

 — their manures, &c., and hand them to the Trus- 

 tees, to be examined and compared, — it is proba- 

 ble that in the main the practices would be sub- 

 stantially similar ; but at the same time 1 have 

 no doubt there would be some variations well 

 worth knowing ; besides some new practices, and 

 some new tools, or new forms of old ^nes, and 

 some easier modes of operating to produce the 

 same efl^ects. AH these matters may be selected 

 and arranged by the Trustees, and communicated 



to the whole Society at its aimuat meetings 



However small some of the improvements might 

 be, yet they must ba worth knowing, because they 

 are improvements. Let me give an instance of 

 what some may think a trivial matter. 



When living on m}' farm, some fifteen or 

 twenty years ago, my potatoes were dug up with 

 common hoes, according to the usual practice ; 

 but I observed that many were cut with the hoes, 

 and spoiled. It then occurred to me, that instead 

 of n continued blade, four or five long teeth, or 

 tines, set to the handle just as the blade of a hoe 

 was set, would turn out the potatoes, not only 

 without cutting them, but with greater ease and 

 despatch. I had such a tool made — and then a 

 second ; for it fully answered my expectation. — 

 The potato tops, or vines, being pulled up and 

 laid aside, two strokes of the tool thrust in under 

 the potatoes, then raising it, and with a short 

 sweep throwing the earth and potatoes once to 

 the right and once to the left, would bring up and 

 display nearly all the potatoes in a hill. The blade 

 of the New England broad hoe is eight or nme 

 inches in length, on its edge, and five or six inches 

 broad, from the edge to the handle. Five tines 

 seven inches long, and the two outer ones eight 

 inches apart, will give the proper dimensions to 

 the potato hoe, or crome.* The eye for tlie 

 handle should be rather larger than that of a com- 

 mon Iioe, and of greater length, to admit a bigger 

 handle, which will also add to its durability. A 

 few years afterwards, I saw, sotnewhere, a tool of 

 the same form, for the same purpose. The same 

 tool is far better than a hoa for levelling heaps of 

 gravel, on the highways or elsewhere. 



Such mutual information as I have here recom- 

 mended, is a species of charity or benevolence : 

 I may therefore say, on high authority, " To do 

 good and to commimicate forget not." 



3. I will make some remarks on the construc- 

 tion of ploughs. 



It is not so much the iveight as the shape of a 

 plough which makes it of easier or harder draft : 

 and this depends chiefly on the mould board. 



Forty years ago, I had a farm in Pennsylvania, 

 part of which was rich bottom land — the same 

 which in New England is called intervale. Part 

 of this was in a state of tillage when I bought it. 

 I had a good Pennsylvania plough, of the fashion 

 of that day ; but the mould board was hollow 

 breasted ; and that rich soil, being moist, would 

 fill up the hollow, and there remain, clogging the 

 plough. But I observed that the earth thus lodg- 

 ed formed a straight line from the point of the 

 mould board to the overhanging upper corner at 

 the tail ; and it then struck me, that this straight 

 line should be given to the mould board itself; 

 and be the guide to the ploughwright in forming 

 the curvature or winding of the mould board. 



* Crome is a word used in some parts of Eng;land, (or Uie 

 tool of two or tliree tines, with which manure is hauled out from 

 a cart ; thence sometimes called, in this country, a dung drag. 



A few years afterwards, returning to live in 

 Philadelphia, I called one evening to see the Vice 

 President of the Philadelphia Society of Agricul- 

 ture ; when he presented to me a small model of 

 a mould board, which Mr Jefl^rson (then Vice 

 President of the United States) had left with him. 

 At the first glance of my eye, I saw the straight 

 line above described ; and stretching a thread from 

 the fore point of the mould board to its upper 

 corner behind, I found it touched it, in its whole 

 length, in a perfectly straight line. 



Speakiiig of it afterwards to Mr Jefferson, he 

 told me that he had communicated a description 

 of it to the American Philosophical Society, who 

 had published it in the fourth volume of their 

 transactions. There the manner of forming the 

 mould board out of a piece of squared timber is 

 luiiuitely described. But the simple rule may be 

 as follows : Having fixed the straight line, above 

 mentioned, by one cut of a saw from the upper 

 corner of the mould board behind to its point for- 

 ward, — cut away the wood above and below that 

 line in such manner, that when finished, if you 

 carry a straight rule from the fore to the hind 

 part, keei)ing it all the way at right angles with 

 the straight line, it shall touch the face of the 

 mould board, in its whole breadth, in straight 

 lines, through its entire winding, and so that its 

 upper corner behind shall overhang the lower suf- 

 ficiently to effect a complete turning of the fur- 

 row slice. Such a mould board can never get 

 clogged ; and the plough will move througli the 

 earth with less resistance than with a mould board 

 of any other form. A few years ago 1 saw at 

 Brighton a plough with a mould board very near- 

 ly in the form here described. 



4. This Society have formerly ofl^ered premi- 

 ums for the best manageinent of manure. There 

 can be no question, that if Tiept under cover, not 

 unnecessarily exposed to the open air, and com- 

 pletely sheltered against rain, manure will retain 

 more strength, and the same quantity fertilize a 

 larger quantity of land. But another immense 

 increase of manure will be obtained by conduct- 

 ing the urine of cattle, while they are kept in sta- 

 bles, to large quantities of earth collected (in this 

 climate) into cellars, among which the urine shall 

 run and he absorbed. Accurate experiments dur- 

 ing ten years, by a farmer in Scotland, proved, 

 that tlie dung of a immber of cattle carefully pre- 

 served by itself through the winter, furnished no 

 more manure than the urine of the same cattle 

 conducted over and absorbed by an equal bulk of 

 common surface earth ; the latter, load for load, 

 being equally fertilizing with the dung. 



5. A correspondent of a distinguished agricul- 

 tural society in England, stated that he had made 

 accurate experiments to ascertain the effect of cut- 

 ting hay into very short pieces (whence it is call- 

 ed chaffing it,) and he found it a great saving of 

 fodder ; the hay so chaffed keeping his horses in 

 as fine order as a much larger quantity given 



them uncut. A question has been asked what 



causes this difference ? The answer I have seen 

 given was, that being chaffed it was more easily 

 and perfectly digested. This is probably the true 

 solution : and the effect would be more manifest 

 in horses than in cattle and sheep which chew the 

 cud. A celebrated English writer, treating of 

 the rumination of some animals (their chewing 

 the cud); — and having spoken of a juice in the 

 stomach called the gastric juice, of wonderful 

 power in the digesting of their food, makes the 



