82 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



SEPT. 16 14 . 



satisfactory; and an individual or a corporation rc- 

 qniring funds arid operating on a larffe scale, do 

 not act for themselves alono, but tlicir success and 

 operations involve, of course, the interests of many 

 others; but it is obvious that in proportion to the 

 amount the risk is increased ; an offensive monop- 

 oly is allowed ; and in a business conunuiiity,-in 

 times of severe pressure, where so rnanyaie strug- 

 gling for existence, a hank instituted for the gene- 

 ral good should deal with an equal add impartial 

 hand. What is to be said of cases, where in a 

 bank with a capital of one hundred thousand dol- 

 lars, two individual directors obtain almost as a per- 

 manent loan, more than sixty thousand dollars : in 

 another case, wliere the bank has a capital of a 

 million, a single individual is favored to the amount 

 of three hundred and twenty thousand dollars; and 

 another case recently disclosed, wliere in a season 

 of universal distress and pressure, a single house 

 of brokers and speculators, could obtain a discount 

 of more than two millions of dollars. We leave 

 others to answer. 



Another too coinmon abuse of banking powers 

 has been excessive loans. Nothing can justify go- 

 ing beyond their legal rights in this respect. This 

 however is ofteji done; and we have known a bank, 

 with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars capital, 

 discounting to the amount of more than a million. 

 The public have no security where such practices 

 are allowed. 



We might add considerably to the catalogue of 

 banking abuses ; but we forbear, save in naming 

 one. A bank should engage in no form and in no 

 case whatever, in trade or speculation. The legi- 

 timalc object of banking is not, in the mercantile 

 sense of the term, the making of money. A bank 

 is not a trading house nor a broker's office. The 

 proper object of a bank is a place of deposit of 

 surplus capital in a situation of perfect security, 

 and where it can be loaned for the benefit of the 

 community. It has a right, therefore, to legal in- 

 terest for the money deposited, to the discharge of 

 all its necessary expenses, and to any profits which 

 may accrue from the use of money deposited in its 

 care. It njay likewise lawfully avail itself of any 

 advantages arising from the exchange of foreign 

 money, and for the negotiation of exchange with 

 distant places. In all these respects the public 

 are essentially benefited ; and these may be man- 

 aged with perfect security to the bank. But it is 

 not so when a bank enters into trade or specula- 

 tion of any kind : it then clearly dt-partiS from the 

 true principles of bunking. It exposes its stock to 

 loss and its notes to deprociaticm ; and therefore 

 assumes risks, which were never contemplated in 

 its charter; and especially as by its extraordinary 

 command of funds it may in many cases monopo- 

 lize any branch of trade, and control the business 

 operations of the community in a way in which 

 they will not and ought nut readily to acquiesce. 



'i he United States Bank of Pennsylvania pre- 

 sents a striking lesson on this subject. The true 

 history of its transuctinns in cotton is not known. 

 If it obtained and forwarded the cotton of the plan- 

 ters with a view to save itself from loss from the 

 large debts of these planters, thi; motives are com- 

 mendable : but the fault lies in so largely extend, 

 ing its discounts. If its object was a mere specu- 

 lation in cotton, as any other mercantile concern, 

 this was wholly foreign from its proper objects, 

 and no one but the parties concerned can lament 

 the retribution which has fallen upon it. If its 

 object was, as is professed, to secure the cotton 



planters from loss, by monopolizing the supply and 

 so maintaining the price of cotton, il has seen the 

 folly of attempting by any artificial interference, to 

 sustain a particular interest and to control the laws 

 of trade. These great laws like the great laws 

 which regulate every department of nature, are 

 as fixed and uniform in their operation as the ebb 

 and flow of the tide, and cannot be managed by 

 human skill and cunning. Any attempt to sub- 

 vert, escape from, or obstruct them, is as wise as 

 Canute's determination to stop at his royal com- 

 inanil the flowing of the sea, or, to use a humbler 

 comparison, as it would be to shut the cellar door 

 to keep out an earthquake. The course pursued 

 by this bank, its losses, its suffering its bills to be 

 dishonori'd, and the depreciation of its stock, have 

 done an immense disservice to the cau.ie of legiti- 

 mate banking generally, and deeply and most inju- 

 riously affected the currency of the country. 



H. C. 



From the Farmor's Cabinet. 



BOOK FARMING. 



Mr Editor — Sir — On a visit to a young and 

 neighboring farmer, one who has left the busy town 

 for the peaceful country, as he says, and who reads 

 the agricultural works of the day in his own de- 

 fence, I saw many things about his house and pre- 

 mises which even I, an old farmer, with perhaps a 

 pretty strong spice of prejudice, especially against 

 book farming, at once could perceive were improve- 

 ments upon the old plans adopted by my grand- 

 father. I had called upon him to offer my services 

 by way of advice, but I vow that before I entered 

 the house, I was sensible that I had come to the 

 wrong [ilace for that business — so I made what is 

 called a virtue of necessity, and held my tongue. 

 Why, Mr Editor, before I left him, I found that he 

 was the oldest in point of knowledge, and only 

 wanted a little practice to render him by far a bet- 

 ter manager than myself: I guess he talked "like 

 a book," and had chapter and verse at his fingers' 

 ends for every thing he did ; and something better 

 than that too, for he had the modesly to listen, 

 while I described some of our old-fiisliioned modes 

 of management, which, however, he would demol- 

 ish, although very quietly, in about half a minute, 

 by turning to his books, in which, 1 declare, he 

 seemed to have the power to find just what he l(,ok- 

 ed after; and the truth of his notions was, I am 

 compelled to say, as plain as A, B, C. There is 

 one thing, however, in which I think he is wrong: 

 he says we do not, according to his calculation, 

 plough deep enough. Now I think, if any thing, 

 we plough too deep, and so I told him; but he on- 

 ly answered he was young, and was desirous of 

 getting informatiim by buying it, and was making 

 experhnenls which would convince him of the truth 

 or falseliood of the theory ; and then he asked me 

 if I had ever given the thing a fair trial ? which I 

 was bound to say 1 had not: and there, Mr Editor, 

 these youngsters have the advantage over us — for 

 nothing will satisfy them but rooting to the bottom 

 of things ; and it was in vain for me to say, as I 

 did repeatedly, " he may be sure that I was right 

 in my notions on that subject, and he would find it 

 so." 



His dairy cows, which lie had bouglit but the 

 last year, were all of the proper age and in full 

 milk, for he told me, as often as he was convinced 

 that he had a bad milker, ho gold lier right away 

 and bought another ; for, added he, " my books 



tell me there is more than a hundred per cent, dif- 

 ference between a good and a bad milker, lor 

 while a good milker gives a profit, a bad milker 

 gives a /oM." This was physic to me, for I knew 

 that one-half my dairy cows were too old or too 

 young, and the other half far from good — so I said 

 nothing. 



But there was one thing in which he shamed 

 nif, and that was, the way in which he had chang- 

 ed the situation of his cattle yard, so as to prevent 

 the drainage of the dung from passing over the 

 high road and down the ditch, as had been the case 

 for the last age or two, and this he had done so 

 easily too, for, by digging up the bottom of the old 

 yard two or three feet in depth in the centre, he 

 had cast it hollow, and obtained by these means 

 many hundred loads of the richest mould, exactly 

 in the place where it was required, and all without 

 the cost and labor of carting, to act as a sponge to 

 soak up the drainage of the yard during the win- 

 ter; and now I found liim turning it up with his 

 long manure, a heap, I had almost said, as large as 

 a little barn I this was killing two birds with one 

 stone, you see, and I wondered how the idea could 

 have entered his head — for I am sure it had never 

 entered mine — but he took down a book where 

 there was a picture ofa cattle yard as natural as 

 life, and pointed out the advantages of the altera- 

 tion, and made a calculation of the saving it would 

 be to him in the course of the year, in the article 

 of manure, that quite astonished me ; and then he 

 went to work with his figuring to show the quan- 

 tity of capital mould he had obtained, merely by 

 digging; multiplying together, as he called it, the 

 length and breadth by the height, and turning tlu; 



whole into loads, without ever loading a bit of it 



I declare it made me feel all-over-like to see 

 him go from Dan to Beersheba in about a wliistlc '. 



But there was a machine in ashed at the end ot 

 the house, that was a caution to me : it was a large 

 grindstone set upon rollers, so true, that with a sin- 

 gle finger it might be set off" as though it would go 

 for a month : now that was a toid which I had 

 promised to get for the last ten year.", but never 

 found time to do it, although it has cost me hun- 

 dreds of hours, and something more than time, to 

 go to the tavern a mile ofl^, every time we want to 

 grind a scythe, or hook, or axe, and operate upon 

 an old, worn out, rickety thing, about as smooth as 

 the back of my hand — a quality which it never be- 

 fore struck me was chosen by the owner and ten- 

 ant of the tavern, for the purpose of keeping the 

 noses of his customers so long at the grindstone, , 

 as to bring on a desire for drink ; and, now I think 

 of it, it is placed in the nine-pin alley! I would 

 have passed without noticing it, but my young 

 friend remarked, " here is the cheapest article I 

 over bought ; it is large and cuts so readily that it 

 is no labor to use it : I guess it has saved me about 

 the amount of a rent already : all our tools, from 

 the knives of the table to the hoes, spades, shovels, 

 and pick-axes, are kept sharp, and it is a pleasure 

 to work with them ; at haytime and harvest, we 

 generally give our scythes a touch every morning, 

 which saves hours in the day and many a weary 

 back, besides cutting the crops closer and cleaner: 

 I cannot calculate the value of such a convenience 

 because I have never been without one:" but I 

 thought I could, and from that moment determined 

 to get one right away. He had many other strange 

 things about him, a description of which I must re- 

 servo for another opportunity. 



Onk of the Old School. 



