138 



American Farming. 



Vol. VI. 



which have paid 7 per cent, tax, into a silver 

 spoon, which has paid 15 per cent., flinofs 

 himself back upon his chintz bed, which his 

 paid 20 per cent., and expires in the arms of 

 a taxed apothecary who has paid an hundred 

 pounds sterling for the privilege of practising 

 his calling! and then, his whole property is 

 immediately taxed from 2 to 10 per cent., 

 large fees being demanded for burying him 

 in consecrated ground, his virtues being hand- 

 ed down to posterity on taxed marble, and he 

 is at length gathered to his fathers — to be 

 taxed no more." Now, it may be safely left 

 to any man's conscience to declare whether 

 all this is not worth another rent. And after 

 all this comes the poor's rate, which is as a 

 millstone about the farmer's neck, and has 

 dragged many a hard-working, industrious 

 man to the alms-house ! 



Here then are four rents to start upon, 

 and I know but of one item to place against 

 all this, and that is, the higher rate of farm- 

 labour: to be sure some articles of provisions 

 are cheaper here than in England, while 

 others are higher — butter, potatoes and vege- 

 tables generally; but even in the lower price 

 of provisions the farmer has a gain upon what 

 he consumes, balancing in a measure his loss 

 upon what he sells ; while the articles which 

 he has to purchase are generally much lower 

 than they are in England, such, for instance, 

 as tea, coffee, sugar, foreign fruits, rice, soap, 

 candles, salt, vinegar, spices, glass, nails, 

 farming implements, most of the articles of 

 domestic clothing and building materials ; 

 and if he indulges in the luxuries of tobacco, 

 snuff, wine, spirits or beer, he will find a dif- 

 ference on some of these to the amount of 

 two or three hundred per cent. 



Now, in my estimation, the greatest draw- 

 back to a farmer in this country, is the innu- 

 merable and rapid growth of weeds, but in 

 the hands of an intelligent and industrious 

 man they are lessening every year, and when 

 a better rotation of crops is adopted, their de- 

 struction will be certain, although it is ad- 

 mitted that great toil and vexation must first 

 be encountere^d ; but place against this the 

 advantage of being able to raise the corn 

 crop — which is, by the bye, of itself equal to 

 almost half a rent — the use of the cradle- 

 scythe and the horse-rake, implements not 

 yet in general use in England, and the balance 

 is very much in favour of this country. 



But are the wages paid to farm-labourers 

 higher than what are given to mechanics and 

 artizana generally? say, for instance, to the 

 men employed in large manufactories, sugar- 

 houses, machine-shops, cotton and paper 

 mills, &c. : if they are not and the complaint 

 of agriculturists is just, then indeed it is a 

 fact that agriculture will not pay for capital 

 invested ; and yet we see that the price of 



sugar is lower in this country than in Eng- 

 land, with wages for the fabrication of it 

 much higher; that building materials, bricks, 

 lime, &c., are the same, while boots and shoes 

 and domestic clothing are lower also, with 

 higher wages paid for manufacturing; and 

 then come the pay of mariners, miners, agents, 

 book-keepers, &c., all higher than in Eng- 

 land, and yet no complaint is made, and why] 

 simply because they are exempt from ta.xa- 

 tion — and so are the farmers, after standing 

 at about a third of the rent of land that is 

 paid in England. So that, after viewing the 

 subject on all sides, my opinion is, that farm- 

 ing in this country, in the hands of an intelli- 

 gent man with a fair capital — and what man 

 in trade expects to succeed without these re- 

 quisites ? — is more profitable than in England, 

 with far less anxiety of mind and labour of 

 body; and conclude with the testimony borne 

 to this view of the subject by the late Mr. 

 Geo. Walker, that he desired only to know 

 the rate of wages for labour paid in any coun- 

 try, to be able to estimate its state of pros- 

 perity ; when that is high, there is the great- 

 est prosperity and the greatest sum of happi- 

 ness, and these are always in exact propor- 

 tion, the one to the other. 



But it is said, innumerable instances have 

 been known of persons commencing farming 

 with scarcely a dollar as capital, becoming 

 rich enough in a few years to purchase their 

 farms — this is true, and speaks volumes in 

 favour of the business of agriculture; and 

 I have at the present moment two such 

 men in my view. One of them began 

 the world as a bound boy, and at the end 

 of his term, married a young woman with- 

 out a dollar, and commenced business by 

 slaughtering an animal now and then and 

 disposing of the meat at market; and dates 

 his first success to a God-send in the shape 

 of a flock of geese, which came down the 

 Susquehanna on a block of ice and landed 

 near his cottage. This person is now one of 

 the very first men in that part of the country 

 in point of property, intelligence, probity and 

 high standing in society — but he enjoyed a 

 noble capital in the capacities of himself and 

 an invaluable helpmate, with a magnificent 

 stock of health and industry, and ingenuity 

 to turn everything which ttiey handled into 

 gold — a glorious capital to work upon, and 

 far better than thousands of hard dollars. j 



There is another of these " fortunate men," | 

 as they are very improperly termed, residing 

 near Wilmington, Del., who, about nine years 

 ago, commenced farming upon shares the 

 farm which he now owns; since which he 

 has, by his industry and his wife's capital, 

 which consisted only in the art of making 

 and saving money, the first, by attending 

 market, and the last by frugality and indue- 



