1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARlvrER. 



459 



Breeds of cattle or horses were not considered ; 

 but such were raised or bought, as happened to be. 

 Indeed, with the exception of the working oxen, if 

 the other stock, was kept from starving, during the 

 winter, the farmer was satisfied. In a plentiful 

 year, all that was raised was consumed, and if a lit- 

 tle waste was necessary to this end, it was readily 

 resorted to. If there was a large crop of corn, the 

 turkeys, pigs and hens were somewhat fatter ; and 

 if any hay was left, old hay was considered poor 

 stuff. It would have been difficult, in any county, 

 to have found ten farmers who looked forward to 

 the blending of the operations of two or three 

 years together, or who had any system of farming 

 or of agricultural economy. How often, even yet, 

 is the question discussed of how much working cap- 

 ital is necessary for a farm, or how many animals it 

 will support, or can be made to support ? I do 

 not say that better things have not been attempted, 

 but the experimentalist has, generally, been a warn- 

 ing ; and after having made his improvements, of 

 walls, fences, showy barns, and orchards ; and af- 

 ter having cultivated his fields without economy of 

 labor and with strict economy of manures and 

 outlays in stock and implements, and without a 

 system, running over a term of years, he has found 

 his produce a few tons of hay, a few bushels of 

 corn and potatoes, and has joined his testimony to 

 that of others, that it was impossible to make any- 

 thing, by farming, in New England. 



Still, I can call before my mind scenes which 

 even our poor New England agriculture has creat- 

 ed, on which my eyes have rested, with a delight 

 which no other scene on earth can call forth — the 

 farm-house, looking like a home, shaded by two or 

 three spreading elms, with its large barns, where 

 the grain and hay were stored and the cattle housed, 

 with their large barn doors and ample floors, for 

 husking, and threshing, and for a play-place, for 

 rainy days ; with its extensive orchard ; its one or 

 two fields of Indian corn, with pumpkin vines in- 

 terlaced; its small brook-home of trout, running 

 through the green meadow ; within sight of, if not 

 adjoining, the noble wood-lot of trees of clean and 

 smooth bark free from moss, such as are found in 

 no other land, that supplied the fuel of the family 

 fire, which from capacious fire-places shone on the 

 manly, honest, cheerful faces, through long winter 

 evenings, of a religious New England household. 



Still, though our agriculture afforded many love- 

 ly scenes, these did not alter its history. Farmers 

 were generally in debt ; when the income of the 

 year failed to meet its expenses, they gave notes to 

 the store-keepers for the balance, until the debt, in 

 a few successive years, sv/elled to a magnitude that 

 demanded a mortgage, the foreclosure of which 

 swallowed up the farm ; while the law of attach- 

 ment swept off its personal property. Such has 

 been the history of our agriculture. 



Agriculture has some disadvantages in New 

 England ; our late springs and their June frosts, — 

 our droughts — and our long winters. 



The evil of late frost is most felt by the farmer in 

 the cultivation of Indian corn ; and against this evil, 

 he must offset the splendid advantage he has in the 

 warm summer, when the plant grows audibly, and 

 the late falls. 



The effect of our droughts can be entirely over- 

 come by deep tillage, which our soil needs. About 

 six years ago, rather in the way of experiment than 

 of profit, I began to trench two or three acres of 



land, resolved to trench it five or six years, syste- 

 matically, mixing about four inches of the subsoil, 

 at every annual trenching, with the upper soil. The 

 natural soil was a gravelly clay loam, of about a 

 foot in depth. By bringing up each year about 

 four inches of subsoil, and mixing it with the upper 

 soil, and bringing it in contact with the atmosphere 

 and manure, the whole soil is now about three feet 

 deep. No drought has ever affected this land. 

 The same thing which I did with the spade, might 

 have been done by the subsoil plow, followed by 

 a common plow, till the soil was sufficiently deep 

 for all purposes. 



Our long winters, the farmer must find the bless- 

 ing in which God has imparted to them, rest and 

 improvement, if not profit, 



I do not admit the disadvantage of our soil, for 

 I do not think it, naturally, inferior to the natural 

 soil of England, the best farmed country in the 

 world. Our climate is not as favorable as that of Eng- 

 land to the turnip ; but Indian corn is a gift of 

 God as valuable to us as the turnip is to England. 

 But we are, for the most part, successful in the cul- 

 ture of the turnip. 



The complaint is often made that our New Eng- 

 land farmers occupy too much land. This is not 

 the proper form in which the fault, with which our 

 farmers are chargeable, should be stated. The prop- 

 er complaint is, that our farmers do not employ, in 

 the tillage of their lands, capital proportioned to 

 their acres. C'apital, among New England farmers, 

 being limited and more divided than in England, it 

 is expedient that the farms should be smaller, so 

 as to correspond with the working capital. Sup- 

 pose the working capital to exist in proportion to 

 the acres cultivated, the size of the farm is de- 

 termined by such circumstances as these, the na- 

 ture of the soil, the climate, and the kinds of crops 

 prevailing. Branches of agriculture that require 

 a great amount of manual laboi", demand a great- 

 er division of fields of operation. You are struck 

 with this fact, in the market gardens, in the neigh- 

 borhood of cities ; in the onion cultivation, in the 

 neighborhood of Wethersfield. A larger farm is 

 expedient where a part is fine meadow land, espec- 

 ially, if it be overflowed and mowed by machines, a 

 part in wheat, rye, or oats, with a soil easily prepared 

 for the crop by horse plowing, and a part in Indian 

 corn, cultivated by the plow or cultivator chiefly, 

 and a small part in potatoes and roots. But still 

 larger farming is required, and small farming is an 

 evil in such a case as this, not uncommon in New 

 England ; take a mountainous region where the 

 soil is poor and granite, the cHmate cold, where 

 wheat cannot be cultivated and hardly rye and oats, 

 where, however, grasses and roots flourish, and irri- 

 gation is easy from abundant streams, and the slope 

 of the land — here is a region for breeding and 

 fattening cattle and calls for large farming. Ag-ain, 

 take a cheese farm, a branch of domestic industry, 

 in Avhich ten or twelve good cows suffice to give em- 

 ployment to a family in the country, without assis- 

 tance ; here you call for small fiirming ; for who 

 would wish the cares and help of a large farm to 

 disturb the interior of one of these humble cottages 

 so clean, so orderly, with an air that breathes peace 

 and industry and happiness. But the whole secret 

 of farming,*large and small, be it never forgotten, 

 lies in two words. Capital and Skill, "Working 

 capital is one of the chief agents of production. 

 Three kinds of capital conduce to the development 



