74 



High Wages. — Turning Down Green Crops. 



Vol. VI. 



fixed to the sides, and the cattle attached by 

 ropes and straw collars. 



Now it may be thought very desirable by 

 some, that farmers should be able to retain 

 all the advantages they here possess, and be 

 subject only to tlie rate of wages paid in the 

 countries of which mention has been made ; 

 but such a state of things would not be natu 

 ral or rational : all would then cultivate tha 

 soil for themselves, and things would soon 

 find their level. It is only by paying wages 

 in proportion to the advantages to be derived 

 from farming, that agricultural labourers can 

 bo retained in any country; consequently, 

 wages in this country must and will be high. 

 But, after this, the farmer himself derives an 

 advantage from high wages ; and to be con- 

 vinced of this, it is only to go and reside in a 

 country of low wages and watch the system 

 as it works : in France, for instance, where 

 the farm labourer receives scarcely sufficient 

 to procure bread at about a cent a pound for 

 himself and family ; for out of a population of 

 32 millions, 22 millions have but six cents a 

 day to defray all expenses — food, lodging, rai- 

 ment, and education ! He has not, therefore, 

 the means of purchasing any of the comforts 

 of life ; he eats no meat, buys no clothes, uses 

 no groceries, partakes of no pleasures, carves 

 his shoes out of a block of wood, and braids 

 his own straw-hat — his children going with- 

 out either; so that, as the agriculturists in 

 every country embrace the larger portion of 

 its inhabitants, the farmers themselves are 

 deprived of such a number of customers, who 

 would, if they had it in their power, purchase 

 at the market the very articles which are 

 raised on a farm, and by which the higher 

 wages paid by the farmer would find their 

 way back to him, after having afforded the 

 means of a greater degree of comfort, and in- 

 duced a higher relish for them in future. 

 Then the labourer would say, I can now af- 

 ford to buy shoes, as well as to indulge in the 

 luxury of animal food ; and the shoemaker 

 would be able to do the same, after having 

 fitted himself with a garment, by which the 

 tailor can afford to purchase a new hat, after 

 indulging in a few of the luxuries at the 

 market ; the hatter also being enabled to sport 

 a chicken or a few eggs at his table; and so 

 the system would work, to the benefit of all, 

 but especially to the farmer, the ciltivator 

 of the soil, from whence all these things are 

 derived. Now, the low rate of wages in Eng- 

 land would at first eight appear advantageous 

 to the cultivator of the soil, but by tiie time 

 the farmer has paid the poor's rate, which, 

 vyith the expense of collecting, &.c., has some- 

 times amounted even to the rent of his land, 

 he finds that it would be better for him to af- 

 ford his labourer the means of living in the 

 shape of wages at once, than support him in 



a way that does not permit him to expend 

 any portion of it in the articles which he 

 raises, bread only excepted ; and he is at 

 length brought to see that if there are no 

 consumers, there can be no purchasers. 



With regard to the advantages to be de- 

 rived from farming in this country over that 

 of England, that is another and a very inte- 

 resting subject, which may furnish matter for 

 a future dissertation. Vib, 



Tnrning Down Green Crops. 



I TURNED under for wheat-fallow a piece 

 of oats, which, had the crop been harvested, 

 would have given 45 bushels to the acre: the 

 experiment was on about five acres, with the 

 oats removed from two of the contiguous sides 

 of the square ; but at the time when the wheat 

 was a fair crop on all the field, no human 

 being could, from the visible efl^ects of the 

 oats turned under, have discovered where the 

 operation began or ended. This is the third 

 experiment which I have made, by turning 

 under a crop of oats just at the time they 

 were beginning to change colour, on recently 

 limed land ; and now, being satisfied that it 

 will not do, I shall repeat it no farther : no 

 green crop that I have ever turned under for 

 manure, except clover, has realized my ex- 

 pectations ; and even clover, I prefer with the 

 top mown off or grazed. The future effect 

 upon the land I yet desire to witness in the 

 after cultivation ; but the oats turned under 

 this season, having been completely decom- 

 posed by the great quantity of rain, I do not 

 expect to change my opinion, but expect con- 

 fidently to remain where I now am, and have 

 been for a long time, a firm believer in the 

 'propriety of surface mayiurinir, rather than 

 turning it under. I have never been disap- 

 pointed in weeds or other manure when spread 

 upon the surface and allowed to decompose 

 there, and thus become absorbed by the soil ; 

 but when turned under, it bleaches, becomes 

 neutralized, and its efltcts are lost, going I 

 know not where. It may be, that the direct 

 action of the atmospheric air is essential to 

 give vigour and fertilizing effect and action 

 to these substances — for I know that when 

 turned deep in a thin soil, dark substances 

 lose their colour, and on my land they do not 

 act as manure when thus placed. I have seen 

 an account of the successfiil experiment of a 

 North Carolina farmer, who, rolling down an 

 oat crop, allowed it to waste on the surface; 

 and this I much desire to see repeated here, 

 for this experiment much better accords with 

 the theory of surface manuring, which seems 

 rapidly to be gaining ground everywhere. — ■ 

 General T. Emory. 



A FELLOW-FEELING witli the happy, is hap- 

 piness. 



