220 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



JAN. 17, JSW 



GOV. HILL'S ADDRESS 



To the jMerrimac Co. Ai^r. Society, October 1837. 

 tConlinued. I 

 In passing through the country in the season o» 

 vegetation we are frequently stiuck with the niis- 

 application of labor in attempts to pro.iuce a crop. 

 lu some instances we see the operation ol' plough- 

 ing, sowing, planting and hoeing where there is 

 scarcely a [xissihility that the ground will return 

 in quantity the seed which is bestoweil upon it. 

 The occupant is sometimes, from the want of 

 judgement, or from some fatality, fixed to a spot 

 where eitlier frosts appear every month in the 

 year, where the drought parches tlie soil, or 

 where there is not substance in it even sufficient 

 to be assisted in yielding a crop, or else whi"re 

 the ground is so stony as to be nearly impervious 

 to the plough and the si)ade. The person unfor- 

 tunately thus situated deserves our commiseration. 

 Notwithstanding the forbidding aspect of a portion 

 of terra firma in New Hampshire, tliere is abun- 

 dance of land which is not brought into cultiva- 

 tion at all, that will richly repay uU the labor and 

 expense that may be bestowed on it — there is 

 much that now yields little or nothing which may 

 produce not only a first crop that sliall jiay the 

 labor of reclaiming, but a succession of crops that 

 shall make present improvements a substantial 

 capital producing cent, per cent. 



To make the cultivation of land all it should he, 

 regard should first be paid to the necessity of 

 feeding the soil. Not only should every thing in 

 the nature of manure be preserved, but expedients 

 should be derised for producing it. There are 

 many ways for making manures that are but little 

 practiced. Feeding the ground to enable it to 

 yield an abundant crop is as indispensable as the 

 feeding of an ox or a hog to render it fit for 

 slaughter. The materials for feeding the earth 

 are much more abundant than is generally sup- 

 7)0sed. 'I'he a|)plicarion of the most simple ele- 

 ments in many cases will work wonders. I have 

 known the spreading of sand on a dead morass 

 with the aid of ditching and draining make it 

 produce for many years from two to three tons of 

 good English hay to the acre ; and 1 have seen 

 the scrapings of the chip yard have a like eflect 

 on wet land that was bound down in moss. The 

 interchange of sandy and light with u cold, wet 

 and heavy soil will always have a good effect. — 

 Deep ploughing will renovate worn out land, lin 

 many instances restoring it to its original fertility: 

 deep ploughing is of great advantage to wet heavy 

 soil, making it light ; ai:il it is also of advantage 

 to a light, sandy soil, giving it a much greater 

 capacity to withstand drought. Attention to these 

 simple princij)le8 will enable the farmer to do 

 much towards making his land productive with 

 very little expense. 



The proper rotation of crops will also come in 

 aid of the farmer ; the effect of these may be best 

 ascertained hy experiment. 1 have recently seen 

 it mentioned that two pieces of gromid alike ]ire- 

 parcd and manured were planted the first year 

 one with Indian corn, the other with ruta baga — 

 the second year both were planted with corn ; and 

 the result was, that the [licce of ground where 

 the crop was changed produced fidl twenty.five 

 per cent, in amount beyond the piece where there 

 was no change. 



The reason farmers do not improve their lands 

 80 well as wo might anticipate probably is, that 



that the most of men have so much to attend to 

 at home they do not notice improvcmenis else- 

 where. An extraordinary farmer in a particular 

 neighborhood is sure to find imitators near him. 

 We see some towns famed for their excellent but- 

 ter and cheese — others for their fine cattle — oth- 

 ers for their excellent sheep — others for the bet^t 

 swine — others for their great crops of corn, or 

 wheat, or hay. This excellent ])roduction results 

 from I he efiects of example. A farmer, with good 

 gate* and fences, smooth fields, neat barns and 

 out houses, is sure soon to find others competing 

 with hitn in the same line ; so a farmer out of 

 debt and with money to lend will excite imitation 

 in a whole cotnmunity of farmers. Twenty-eight 

 years ago, on my first visit to tlie Shakers of Can- 

 terbury, the appearance of their neat village and 

 the cultivation and growth around seemed to me 

 like enchantment — it broke upon me in a region 

 which I had supposed to he rough and forbidding. 

 I was then pleased to see the Shakers had imita- 

 tors in some of the independent farmers of their 

 own neighborhood. The value of attending to 

 every thing in its proper season is well illustrated 

 in the steady growing wealth and prosperity of 

 that esteemed community. More than the fourth 

 of a century has clianged all of us : it has carried 

 those who were not then born to manhood — 



sometimes applied often in the same season, aft( 

 the first crop is taken off, for the benefit of a sei 

 Olid crop. 



We cannot at present, far in the interior coui 

 try, expect to fructify our soil in the manner 

 have described ; but we have it in our powi 

 gradually to find and furnish materials wliit 

 shall cause our lands constantly to improve in fe 

 tiliiy. In England the business of reclaiming at 

 making lands fruitful is better understood than 

 is even by the market farmers near our lar, 

 towns and cities. It is said of the Isle of Wig 

 with a dense population, that it produces mo 

 bread stuffs in a year than will suffice for the co 

 sumption of its inhabitants in six years. The a 

 riculture of England, Scotland and Ireland, lii 

 their manufactures, is the growth of a thousai 

 years. During the last fifty years the improTeme 

 in the liritish Islands have probably scarcely ba 

 exceeded by the improvements here. The gr« 

 farmer of Holkham, Mr Coke, now between 8(t 

 enty and eighty years of age, has been celebrat 

 nearly fifty years for Ids agricultural impro' 

 ments ; and liis accumulation of wealth has kc 

 pace with his increasing crops. The extent, 

 his farming may be estimated from the fact tl 

 he keeps more than three thousand sheep ; d 

 he has under cultivation this year more than fj 



those who were just entering on active life be- hundred acres of wheat, as many acres of barH 



yond the middle age — those of ndddle, to extreme 

 old age, and many of all ages to their graves — yet 

 do some of the identical dwellings at that lovely 

 village, constructed of wood as they were, bear 

 the same youthful exterior; the church, which is 

 now as it then was, has no marks of decay or 

 change. The whole has been improved by the 

 addition of rich and expensive edifices of brick, 

 on one of which is the first slated roof made it is 

 believed in any interior town of New Hampshire. 

 If any inan is at a loss how to cultivate his land 

 to the best advantai;e, let him make inquiry of the 

 United Brethren at Canterbury or Enfield ! 



I wander from my subject, which was that of 

 feeding the soil. In the first settlement of this 

 State our soil did not need feeding — it was fruit- 

 ful as that of the far West. We cannot be good 

 farmers, if we neglect furnishing that material to 

 the earth which shall cause it to bring forth fruit. 

 It is scarcely possible that good land should be too 

 highly stinndated. I have sometimes heard it 

 said that a piece of ground had been manured too 

 much — that the stimidant produced weeds that 

 chokeil the crop or else produced blight and ndl- 

 dew to the crop itself. Even of this land I be- 

 lieve the notion was a mistaken one, and that the 



fault was that there was not manure enough 



Whoever has visited the farms near our seaboard 

 will have |)erceived the matter is there better un- 

 derstood. Of late years every particle of manure 

 from the stables, the back yards and the streets in 

 the cities la preserved, and is transported from two 

 to eight and ten miles into the comitry — purchas- 

 ed and transported at on expense which would in- 

 dicate that too high prices can hardly be paid for 

 it. The result of this expense and labor is, that 

 the land to which this stimulant js applied, not 

 only produces four fold the crop usual in the in. 

 terior, but that crop is from one fortnight to one 

 month earlier in its growth than it was wont to 

 be under the ordinary cultivation. It is not un- 

 common for the farmers who follow the market 

 to apply fifty, sixty, and sometimes an hundred 

 loads of manure to the acre ; and a part of this is 



and other crops in proportion. A late visitom 

 Ilolkham writes — " It must be borne in mi 

 that Holkham has been completely made over 

 Mr Coke. When he succeeded to the estate 

 was a mere desert. There were no trees b-i 

 even, and it was believed the land would bar 

 let them grow. Mr Coke says, the rabbits w 

 the only creatures livitig on it, and they w 

 starving." It is said that employment is giv 

 as connected with this farm, to more than I 

 hundred persons. The business is carried 

 with great system, tyid farmers far and near v 

 this eminent citizen for -the purpose of copy 

 his improvements. Mr Coke is a jjatriot as v 

 as the best farmer probably in the world. At 

 time of the revolution he was the fiiend of AiT' 

 ica, and has ever since that time, frequently g 

 member of Parliament, been the advocate of i 

 principles. Much belter than we, do the Eng! 

 understand the methods of renovating soils; 

 several years a species of manure in that cou* 

 has been made an article of traffic which f 

 hardly yet been introduced into the United St»i 

 The bones of the tliousands slain at Watei 

 twenty-four years ago v^■ere taken from the £ 

 and carried across the German ocean to assis 

 the British cultivation. It is said that twe 

 bushels of pulverized bones applied to the a 

 will cause that acre to yield a succession of cr 

 without material diminution for twenty years | 

 The bones of animals contain a compositioii 

 carbonate of lime with other substances that si i 

 ulate the ground to its greatest fertility, 'i 

 time I hope is not distant, when the use of i 

 and other stimulants will be l)oth understood 

 practised here in greater perfection than they « 

 have been in England or any other country. 



1 he use of lime, in its various shapes, is 

 coining more common. There is a qnalitj 

 lime that will adapt much of the soil of N. Hai 

 shire to the production of wheat. Its preset j 

 in the belief of more than one experienced cb (i 

 ist, will expel many of the worms and other ' 

 min that destroy the tender plants. As a still 



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