No. 7. 



Comparative Price of Labour. — Leaf Manure. 



219 



nominal amount — not that there is that differ- 

 ence in the value of the produce of labour, 

 but the currencies differ to that extent. Our 

 currency is much more valuable than that of 

 Texas, and that of England is of considerable 

 more value than that in circulation with us," 

 Now, as some one says, this is all Latin to a 

 plain farmer like myself, and I think it much 

 the most satisfactory way to lay out the rno- 

 ney at market, and see what it will briner in 

 the shape of the necessaries of life ; and as 

 that has been done by a correspondent in the 

 Cabinet, p. 362, vol. 2, in a way too plain to 

 be misunderstood, I should like, if you have 

 no objection, to transfer the account from 

 thence into your present number, as many of 

 your readers might not have seen it, while to 

 those who have, I wish to apply for informa- 

 tion as to the rationale of the thing ; to me 

 it appears clear, correct, and easy to be un- 

 derstood, and if it be so, is not the mode 

 adopted a very simple way of settling the 

 currency? It is there stated, in an argument 

 on the comparative value of labour between 

 England and America, "And now, let us put 

 this and that together, and see if there be not 

 some difference in favour of the wages in this 

 country. I have hit upon a very simple plan 

 of deciding this question: it is, to expend a 

 man's wages for one week, and see what can 

 be obtained for the same. I get a dollar and 

 a quarter a day, and you do the same; to be 

 sure we work hard for our money, but that 

 is no hardship, as we are able; and it is a 

 great mistake to suppose it hard to have to 

 obtain one's bread by the sweat of one's brow, 

 and so the magistrates think, for when they 

 determine to punish a man severely, they 

 send him to the penitentiary and keep him, 

 without permitting him to work ! Well, 

 then, for the sum of ^1 50 (a week's wages) 

 may be bought, 



A new liat $0 75 



Pair of shoes 1 00 



Pair of trowsers 1 00 



New uiiihrella 75 



41 Ibp. of mutton 1 25 



1 " tobacco ]0 



1 " tea 2.5 



] " coffee 13 



3 " sugar 21 



New pown, for wife 56 



An acre of free land 1 50 



$7 50 



Now tell me, is there any other country in 

 the world where this can be done ? Why 

 don't you speak ? I will leave you to lay out 

 the wages for a week, such as we used to re- 

 ceive in England, for they are so small that 

 I fear if I were to attempt to handle them, 

 they would slip through my fingers." 



The wages here alluded to were, for a sin- 

 gle man, per week, $1 20, a married man 

 with wife ijsl 56, do. with three children 

 $2 04 ! not more than the price of a pound 



of tobacco, or a pound of snuff, or a quart of 

 French brandy. I have added to the account 

 sixteen pounds to the quantity of meat to be 

 purchased for $1 25 ; for I sold, the last week, 

 a fore-quarter of as good fat wether mutton 

 as was ever butchered, for three cents per 

 pound, and a fine calf's head for 12^ cents. 

 Now, although I do not pretend to know 

 much about currency, 1 do not think it neces- 

 sary for a man to understand Latin before he 

 is enabled, by putting " this and that together," 

 to see that of no country under heaven can 

 this be said but of America. J. Dalton. 



Jan. 1, 1842. 



P. S. Must not a man be blind not to see 

 that the difference between the state of things 

 in England and America is simply this: — in 

 England wages are low, and the necessaries 

 of life and the value of land high; in Ameri- 

 ca wages are high and land and its products 

 low ? 



From the Southern Planter. 

 Leaf Manure. 

 I AM pleased to see several recommenda- 

 tions in your paper of the use of leaves and 

 wood offal for compost, and particularly do I 

 admire Mr. Lownes's idea of a horse-rake for 

 collecting wood trash. My experience has 

 fully satisfied me of the profit of hauling into 

 my farm-yard vegetable matter from my wood- 

 land, but experience has also taught me that 

 it will never do to rob the wood-land of this, 

 the sustenance of its growth — in other words, 

 this nutritious substance is as much needed 

 for the growth of trees as for the growth of 

 corn, and you can only afford it to the one at 

 the expense of the other. I know that I com- 

 pletely impoverished a very valuable piece of 

 wood-land by the annual removal for several 

 years of the fall coating of leaves, whereby 

 nothing was left to restore the depletion 

 caused by the growth of the succeeding sum- 

 mer. My plan now is, to haul in only the 

 undecomposed vegetable matter of the land I 

 am clearing, for when the growth is stopped, 

 the food may be taken away for other crops. 

 But even here, if I am about to cultivate 

 the cleared land, I am careful to remove no 

 mould, since it is certainly better to plough 

 it under than to carry it to the farm-ya|4 

 for the purpose of bringing it back again. 

 Whilst undecomposed matter may be profita- 

 bly removed from the surface of land on which 

 there is no growth, I think a very erroneous 

 and common opinion exists and is increasing, 

 that an indiscriminate removal of wood-com- 

 post may be advantageously made; and it is 

 to do away this impression, and afford to 

 others the benefit of my experience, that I 

 offer this communication. 



E. W. 



