1859. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



321 



POETHAIT OF AN ANTI-BO OK-FABMEB, 

 The following very readable remarks we ex- 

 tract from Henry Ward Beecher's new book, 

 "Plain Talks to Farmers," to be published June 

 4th, by Messrs. Brown, Taggard & Chase, of this 

 city : 



Whenever our anti-book-farmers can show us 

 better crops at a less expense, better flocks, and 

 better farms, and better owners on them, than 

 book-farmers can, we shall become converts to 

 their doctiines. But, as yet, we cannot see how 

 intelligence in a farmer, should injure his crops. 

 Nor what difference it makes whether a farmer 

 gets his ideas from a sheet of paper, or from a 

 neighbor's mouth, or from his own experience, 

 so that he only gets good, practical, sound ideas. 

 A farmer never objects to receive political in- 

 formation from newspapers ; he is quite willing 

 to learn the state of markets from newspapers, 

 and as willing to gain religious notions from 

 reading, and historical knowledge, and ali sorts 

 of information expept that which relates to his 

 business. He will go over and hear a neighbor 

 tell how he prepares his wheat-lands, how he se- 

 lects and puts in his s-^t-d, how he deals with his 

 grounds in spring, in harvest and after harvest- 

 time ; but if that neighbor should write it all 

 down carefully and put it into paper, it's all poi- 

 son ! its book-farming 1 



"Strange such a difference there should. b« 

 'Twixt tweedledum, and tweedledee." ' 



If we raise a head of lettuce surpassing all 

 that has been seen hereabouts, every good farmer 

 that loves a salad would send for a little seed, 

 and ask, as he took it, "How do you contrive to 

 raise such monstrous headsj* you must have 

 some secret about it." But if my way were writ- 

 ten down and printed, he would not touch it. 

 "Poh, it's bookish !" 



Now let us inquire in what States land is the 

 best managed, yields the most with the least cost, 

 where are the best sheep, the best cattle, the best 

 hogs, the best wheat ? It will be found to be in 

 those States having the most agricultural papers. 



What is there in agriculture that requires a 

 man to be ignorant if he will be skilful ? Or 

 why may every other class of men learn by read- 

 ing except the farmer ? Mechanics have their 

 iournals ; commercial men have their papers^ re- 

 ligious men, theirs; politicians, theirs; there are 

 magazines and journals for the arts, for science, 

 for education, and why not for that grand pur- 

 suit on which all these stand ^} We really could 

 never understand why farmers should not wish 

 to have their vocation on a level with others ; 

 why they should feel proud to have no paper, 

 while every pursuit is fond of having one. 



Those who are prejudiced against book-farm- 

 ing are either good farmers, misinformed of the 

 design of agricultural papers, or poor farmers 

 •who only treat this subject as they do all others, 

 with*blundering ignorance. First, the good far- 

 mers ; there are in every county many industri- 

 ous, hard-working men, who know that they can- 

 not afford to risk anything upon wild experi- 

 ments. They have a growing family to support, 

 taxes to pay, lands perhaps on which purchase 



to make their crops build a barn, that the barn 

 may hold their crops. They suppose an agricul- 

 tural paper to be stuffed full of wild fancies, ex- 

 pensive experiments, big stories made up by men 

 who know of no farming except parlor-farming. 

 They would, doubtless, be surjn-ised to learn that 

 ninety-nine parts in a hundred of the contents 

 of agricultural papers are written by hard-work- 

 ing practical farmers ! that the editor's business 

 is not to foist absurd stories upon credulous 

 readers, but to sift stories, to scrutinize accounts, 

 to obtain whatever has been abundantly proved 

 to be fact, and to reject all that is suspected to 

 be mere fanciful theory. Such papers are design- 

 ed to prevent imposition ; to kill off pretenders 

 by exposing them ; to search out from practical 

 men whatever they have found out, and to pub- 

 lish it for the benefit of their brethren all over 

 the Union ; to spread before the laboring classes 

 such sound, well-approved scientific knowledge 

 as shall throw light upon every operation of the 

 farm, the orchard and the garden. 



The other class who rail at book-farming ought 

 to be excused, for they do not treat book-farm- 

 ing any worse than they do their own farming; 

 indeed, not half so bad. They rate the paper 

 with their tongue ; but cruelly abuse their ground, 

 for twelve months in the year, with both hands. 

 I will draw the portrait of a genuine anti-book- 

 farmer of this last sort. 



He plows three inches deep, lest he should 

 turn up the poison that, in his estimation, lies be- 

 low ; his wheat-land is plowed so as to keep as 

 much water on it as possible ; he sows two bush- 

 els to the acre and reaps ten, so that it takes a 

 fifth of his crop to seed his ground ; his corn- 

 land has never any help from him, but bears just 

 what it pleases, which is from thirty to thirty-five 

 bushels by measurement, though he brags that 

 it is fifty or sixty. His hogs, if not remarkable 

 for fattening qualities, would beat old Eclipse at 

 a quarter-race; and were the man not prejudiced 

 against deep plowing, his hogs would work his 

 grounds better with their prodigious snouts than 

 he does with his jack-knife plow. His meadow- 

 lands yield him from three-quarters of a ton to a 

 whole ton of hay, which is regularly spoiled in 

 curing, regularly left out for a month, and very 

 irregularly stacked up, and left for the cattle to 

 pull out at their pleasure, and half-eat and half- 

 trample underfoot. His horses would excite the 

 avarice of an anatomist in search of osteological 

 specimens, and returning from their range of 

 pasture, they are walking herbariums, bearing 

 specimens in their mane and tail of every weed 

 that bears a bur or a cockle. But, O, the cows ! 

 If held up in a bright day to the sun, don't you 

 think they would be semi-transparent ? But he 

 'ells us that good milkers are always poor ! His 

 cows get what Providence sends them, and very 

 little beside, except in winter, then they have a 

 half-peck of corn on ears a foot long thrown to 

 them, and they afford lively spectacles of anima- 

 ted corn and cob-crushers — never mind, they 

 yield, on an average, three quarts of milk a-day ! 

 and that milk yields varieties of butter quite as- 

 tonishing. 



His farm never grows any better, in many re- 

 spects it gets annually worse. After ten years' 

 work on a good soil, while his neighbors have 



money is due, or they are straining every nerve Igrown rich, he is just where he started, only his 



