NEW ENGIAWR FARMER. 



PUBLISHED BY GEO. C. BARRETT, NO. 52, NORTH MARKET STREET, (at the Agricultural War B h.ji;»e.)-T."gTeSSENDEW, EDITOR. 



VOL. XII. 



BOSTON, W EDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 12, 1834. 



NO. 31. 



AN ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE HAMPSHIRE, FRANKL.IN AND 

 HAMPDEN AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY) 



Deliveredin Greenfield, Oct. 23,1333. By IIenrvColman. 

 PUBLISHED 



AT THE REQUE3 



P THE SOCIETY. 



: 1 ) 



(Concluded from p 

 The next means of improving your lands is to 

 extend your cultivation. The more produce to be 

 consumed, tlic more manure to he applied ; and so 

 the enriching and improvement of your land may 

 be kept on in a continually accelerated ratio. I 

 am aware that the proposition to extend your cul 

 tivation, with a view to the improvement of your 

 farms, will he received with distrust; this will ex- 

 cuse me for dwelling upon it more at large. ] 

 will give you my opinion ; and shall be happy to 

 be corrected by your better judgment. 



I admit that in general it is a good rule in hus- 

 bandry, to cultivate no more land than you can 

 manure well ; and to manure well and tend well 

 all you do cultivate. I would recommend it as 

 strongly as any one ; but under peculiar circum- 

 stances there are excepted cases to every rule 

 however reasonable. Your farm is run down and 

 impoverished. Yon wish to restore it ; to wake 

 its dormant energies ; and, if possible, to make it 

 stand upright again. Agricultural improvements 

 are always slow. It requires a year to accomplish 

 the most simple experiment ; and often many years 

 to effect any extraordinary alteration. But there 

 must be a beginning, and the first step in any val- 

 uable undertaking is commonly difficult and dis- 

 couraging. When Ledyard, a lad auimated by the 

 indomitable spirit of adventure, first launched his 

 frail canoe, more than a hundred miles from this 

 spot on the waters of the Connecticut, to him an 

 unexplored stream, it required a bold heart to push 

 from the shore into the descending current; but 

 as he was borne along its winding and fertile banks, 

 he was cheered by the consciousness of his onward 

 progress and triumphant adventure ; and continu- 

 ally more and more animated by the hope of far- 

 ther knowledge, success, and power. This confi- 

 dence of progress, this hope of ultimate success, cer- 

 tain to persevering and judicious labor, is the great 

 encouragement, which is to sustain us. 



Let us suppose then, that you have an impov- 

 erished acre of land, and at present no manure to 

 apply to it. What is to be done ! Perhaps it 

 will bear rye, the crop which seems to demand 

 less of the soil than any other; and will put up 

 with the meanest fare. At present it gives you 

 comparatively nothing. Sow it then with rye and 

 clover ; plaster it ; gather your rye ; perhaps you 

 Will not get back even your seed. Now use the 

 straw carefully for litter, and convert it either by 

 means of your swine or cattle into manure ; plough 

 in your clover, if there is any of it, after it has 

 gone to seed : apply the manure be it more or less, 

 Which you obtained from the straw gathered 

 from this acre, and be careful not to cheat the land 

 of any thing that belongs to it. Sow it again with 

 rye and clover and repeat the same process. The 

 ■econd crop may he expected to be better than the 

 first ; and, though the returns may for some time 

 be small, they will be continually increasing, and 

 Will soon be a full return for the labor and expense 

 applied. Your land will be in a course of improve- 



ment, and your means ol enriching your soil will 

 be increasing in a correspondent proportion. If 

 in addition to this you can as I before remarked, 

 depasture such clover with sheep ; and enrich such 

 land by the addition of some soil in the neighbor- 

 hood suited to its improvement, the balance of 

 such husbandry will be in the end greatly to your 

 advantage. This is one process, which may be 

 adopted without any great outlay to the improve- 

 ment of worn-out lands, where manure is not to be 

 obtained ; but there are other modes, and other 

 crops by which it may be effected, which the time 

 does not allow me to particularize. 



There is another ground on which farmers, 

 whose whole profession and business is husbandry, 

 and who are looking to its fair returns as an hon- 

 est compensation for their labor, should be urged 

 to extend their cultivation. If any portion of your 

 land is absolutely worthless ; and you are satisfied 

 that by no process, which you can apply to it, you 

 can ever obtain an equivalent for the labor em- 

 ployed in its cultivation, then indeed for cultiva- 

 tion let it be abandoned, or appropriated to any pur- 

 pose in which it may yield something, and the 

 most that it can be made to yield. 



There is likewise land, which is in permanent 

 meadow ; and which by no cultivation can be'made 



so productive as in its present condition. Leave 



this, then, as it is. It would be very injudicious 

 to disturb it. But on many farms there is some 

 land, which is turned into pasture and affords but 

 a w-.nty supply to the animals, which are fed upon 

 it; or which remains in mowing, yielding a small 

 crop of hay, which by cultivation might be made 

 to yield good crops of cora; potatoes, and grain ; 

 and then be rendered far more productive of grass 

 than in its present state. I believe there is much 

 land in this condition ; and this induces the com- 

 plaint, that our farms are too large for a profitable 

 cultivation. Why should such land remain uncul- 

 tivated ? Why should you be satisfied with less 

 than half a crop. What would you say of the cap- 

 italist, who was bent upon increasing his fortune, 

 who permitted any portion of his capital, which he 

 could use without loss, to remain in his coffers un- 

 employed ? What should we say of the manufac- 

 turer, who should suffer any portion of his power 

 to run to waste, or of his machinery to be unem- 

 ployed, or of his raw material to lay by, in useless 

 accumulation, when it might all be employed to 

 more or less advantage? He might by such a 

 process, consult his ease, but certaiidy not the ad- 

 vancement of bis fortune. We can say nothing 

 different of the farmer, who permits any portion of 

 his grounds to remain unemployed ; or who neg- 

 lects to obtain from them all that they can be made 

 to produce. We believe that there is little land of 

 a kind which may be cultivated without loss, but 

 what may, by judicious and persevering labor, by 

 a process within the power of the farmer, whose 

 means are restricted and bumble, be placed in a 

 course of certain improvement, and afford a fair 

 profit to his exertions. 



The answer commonly given to these sugges- 

 tions is, that labor is so expensive we cannot afford 

 to cultivate our land. I admit that the expense of 

 labor is very high compared with the value of 

 produce. Yet I cannot but believe, in circumstan- 



ces ordinarily favorable, and where the price of 

 land is not exorbitant, the man, who attempts to 

 thrive by the plough, and does himselfeither "hold 

 or drive," if his management is judicious and per- 

 severing, and his habits frugal and temperate will 

 obtain a fair compensation for his labor and pains. 

 If then, the balance of his cultivation is, upon the 

 whole, in his favor, why should he not extend it 

 as far as it can be extended to advantage ? Why 

 should he permit a single acre of his land to re- 

 main unproductive, which may he made produc- 

 tive? if he can plant ten acres to advantage, why 

 not plant twenty? if he can produce two hundred 

 bushels of corn, why should he not attempt to raise 

 five hundred ? in short, why should he not carry 

 bis cultivation to the utmost limits of a profitable 

 return ? Beyond that, certainly we would not ad- 

 vise him to go. Under such circumstances he en- 

 gages in no dishonorable competition ; his gains 

 are at no other man's expense or loss ; on the con- 

 trary, he contributes essentially to the general good, 

 as the increase of his produce tends in a certain 

 proportion, to lessen its price in the market ; and 

 renders, therefore, the comforts and supplies of 

 life more accessible to the' poorer classes of the 

 community, and certainly not less so to the richer. 

 This brings us to the great subject of the proper 

 size of farms. It is often said that an acre of land 

 well manured and cultivated, is better than two 

 acres poorly or imperfectly manured and cultiva- 

 ted ; but it is not so good as two acres well ma- 

 nured and cultivated ; nor is it so good as two 

 acres poorly manureu and cultivated, if the profit 

 from the two acres, is, after all expenses are 

 allowed, greater than the gain from the one acre, 

 though not in an equal proportion. He is the best 

 farmer, as far as agriculture is considered in a pe- 

 cuniary view, whether he cultivate much or little, 

 who obtains the greatest amount of produce, at the 

 least expense. 



A farm is too large, when from its size, any part 

 of it is necessarily left unproducti\e i.nd uncultiva- 

 ted ; or if from its extent, its owner or landlord is 

 incapable of its careful superintendence. But a 

 farm is not too large, when its pi rfi ct and exact 

 superintendence is practicable to its owner ; when 

 every part of it is made as product hi as the nature 

 of the case admits ; when upon the whole result k 

 yields a fair remuneration ; and no part of it can 

 be withdrawn from cultivation, without a diminu- 

 tion of its profits. Farms are often ton large ; too 

 large for the capital which the owner is able to 

 apply to the management, for a successful agricul- 

 ture can no more be prosecuted than a successful 

 manufacture of any kind can he prosecuted, with- 

 out a considerable floating capital ; and they are 

 often too large for the superintendi nee of a single 

 individual, for the management can seldom be di- 

 vided, or any part of it neglected without loss and 

 injury ; but it is to be remembered that large farms 

 are always cultivated at a much li s?s proportional 

 expense than small ones. The expenses of outfit 

 in regard to utensils, team and its appendages, and 

 a great variety of necessaries, is by no means 

 double on a farm of large size, to what it would be 

 on a farm of half the extent. Many advantages 

 are found on a large farm from the division of la- 

 bor, which is practicable among a number of hands, 



