1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



461 



port. When visiting the counti-y in England, one 

 meets with a hospitable reception from these kind 

 and simple families, who have occupied the same 

 lands for several generations. The most perfect 

 order reigns in their domestic economy, and every- 

 thing in their houses is conducted with that habit- 

 ual regularity, which indicates long usage. 



Now these farmers in England realize from three 

 dollars and a half to seven dollars and a half per 

 acre, as their net income, or profit, after paying 

 their landlords from five to ten dollars the acre, as 

 rent, and after paying about two dollars an acre, as 

 taxes. They have no desire to change their situa- 

 tion, because they get the net profit stated, employ- 

 ing a working capital of their own, on which they 

 also get interest, of about $4000, on a farm of 

 fi'om 100 to 150 acres ; whereas, to be a proprie- 

 tor, the farmer would be obliged to invest from 

 $15,000 to $20,000 in the farm, in addition. 



Now, I suppose it will be conceded, that where a 

 man is proprietor of his acres, as he is in the Unit 

 ed States, as well as the farmer of his acres, and 

 has as much skill as a tenant farmer, the same cap- 

 ital to carry on his farm, and as good a farm, that 

 no mode of farming can compete with proprietor 

 farming. 



The wages of a farm laborer in England are from 

 forty to fifty cents a day, probably now fifty. The 

 prices of farm produce in London, to wit, hay, 

 ■wheat, mutton, beef, milk, &c., do not average 

 higher than in Boston. The price of farming lands 

 in England, aie more than double the price of 

 farming lands in New England ; but much richer 

 in sunk capital. 



Taxes in New England probably do not exceed 

 fifty cents an acre, on farming lands ; while in Eng- 

 land, they are two dollars an acre. Farm laborers' 

 wages in New England are double what they are in 

 England, that is, a dollar a day. 



Now, here are the elements of calculation or 

 comparison, to determine whether the same forming 

 which is profitable in England, could be profitable 

 in New England. Observe, I say the same farm- 

 ing ; for we cannot expect poor farming, without 

 capital and skill, to be profitable in New England, 

 while only good farming, with capital and skill, is 

 profitable in England. 



In cost of land, the New England farmer has, I 

 think, the advantage, even after he has enriched it; 

 in taxes, he has the advantage ; in markets, equal- 

 ity ; in wages, he pays double. Can the disadvan- 

 tage the Nev/ England farmer labors under in the 

 rate of wages be overcome ? One would think 

 that a proprietor former, in New England, might 

 arrange a system of farming which calls for the 

 least manual labor, and pay a dollar a day for labor, 

 and do more than compete with an English tenant 

 farmer, who pays a heavy rent, heavy taxes, and 

 fifty cents a day for labor. 



I can point to many a farm in England, of 150 

 acres, on which the tenant farmer pays $1200 a 

 year rent, $300 a year taxes, and what are there 

 called good wages, and clears, without much trou- 

 ble, 8600 a year. But here are the elements of 

 his success — not better markets than ours, but a 

 good stock of sheep of the best breeds, early fit for 

 the butcher, yielding 80 to 100 pounds of net mut- 

 ton, and a good fleece; the best breeds of cattle, of 

 similar qualities, the best breeds of cows and of 

 pigs, his farm cultivated with a proper rotation of 

 crops, with proper proportion of meadow and pas- 



ture, the farming not high, but such as the most 

 judicious and economical man would approve. 

 Would such a farm, thus cultivated and stocked, in 

 the hands of a New England proprietor farmer, of 

 equal skill, pay — wages being a dollar a day ? If 

 it would yield no profit, then our agriculture is, 

 and is likely to be, in poor condition ; if it would 

 yield a remunerating profit, then we may yet have 

 a rich agriculture. 



To make more distinct the different results which 

 we should have in New England, if we covered our 

 farms with the best breeds of sheep and cattle, as 

 the English do, that is, breeds of great precocity, 

 and yielding the greatest weight of meat at the 

 earliest age, I make the following statement, which 

 is the result of pretty accurate calculation, and will 

 bear, I think, examination, and make clear that we 

 may have success in our agriculture, if we will imi- 

 tate those who have succeeded. The markets in 

 England and New England being equal in price 

 for mutton and wool, and allowing what is not 

 true, that we get as heavy a fleece from our sheep 

 as the English do from theirs — for every fourteen 

 dollars our farmer realizes from a flock of sheep, 

 the English farmer realizes from a flock of the 

 same number, thirty- six dollars; or v/here our 

 farmer realizes fourteen cents, the English farmer 

 realizes thirty-six cents. And in regard to cattle, 

 oxen and cows, where our farmer, from their milk, 

 and meat, and work, realizes $28, the Englisli 

 farmer, from the same number, realizes $36 ; yet 

 the English farmer never works his oxen. In the 

 one case, the English farmer has an advantage of 

 more than a hundred per cent., and in the other, of 

 about twenty-five per cent. What wonder, if these 

 things be true, that English agriculture is profita- 

 ble, and our agriculture unprofitable ? 



Some now living can remember when it was 

 stoutly contended that we could never carry on 

 manufactures to advantage ; but time has proved 

 their predictions false. Agriculture is only another 

 and higher branch of manufacturing, carried on by 

 skill and capital, proportioned to the acres cultivat- 

 ed ; and when the capital and skill of New Eng- 

 land shall turn in this direction, and the love of 

 the country, which is natural to our race, shall re- 

 turn to our bosoms, the present feeling of despair 

 respecting New England agriculture will vanish 

 away. 



Agriculture is an art of slow growth, not a sci- 

 ence ; tliough science may, and has contributed to 

 its progress, in a degree. In its fir.st stages, agri- 

 culture is imperfect and poor, depending almost 

 wholly on the natural fertility of the soil, and poor 

 methods, and not on the skiil and capital of man. 

 In this stage it remains, until commerce and man- 

 ufactui-es have developed themselves. Then it Is 

 found that to feed the cities, and towns, and plains, 

 where manufactures have fixed their seats, agricul- 

 ture must be developed info an art, requiring skill 

 and capital, as much as any branch of manufacture. 

 If, after manufoctures and commerce have been de- 

 veloped in a State, the ])eople Iiave not_ energy and 

 skill, then, to bring agriculture to a higher (hncl- 

 opment, the whole State languishes, and Individual 

 distress, poverty and emigration prevail, and nation- 

 al decay follows. Wise and good men h;.ve thus 

 far, watched agriculture In New England, through 

 its primitive stage, in which it rehed on the natural 

 fertility of the soil, and as this wore out, have seen 

 the rural population grow thin through emigration, 



