110 



Philadelphia Agricultural Exhibition. 



Vol. V. 



Lahouring horses are about one-fourth cheaper in 

 Pennsylvania; and, moreover, the work which two 

 horses do in England is generally done here by one. 

 Cows, too, are much clieaper liere. 



Labouring implements are cheaper and better, the 

 wood being so ninch low(!r-priced and durable. Of all 

 these elements of work, there remains only labouring 

 men who are cheaper in England ; they are cheaper by 

 about 30 or 35 per cent. ; but even say that wages are 

 50 per cent, higher in Pennsylvania than in England. 

 But then, although the nominal rateof wages is higher, 

 yet you actually get more work done for the money. 

 The climate gives you more long working days than 

 can be relied upon in the climate of England, where 

 out-door work is necessarily much suspended, and the 

 American labourer works better, for the very reason 

 that he is paid better. And the proof, which seems de- 

 cisive, is that although money wages are higher here, 

 piece-work, contract-work — whether to dig a canal or 

 to reap a field, is done cheaper in America. And, ac- 

 cordingly, one of our most intelligent Philadelphia 

 county farmers, Mr. Walker, an Englishman, always 

 declared that his farm-work was done twenty per 

 cent, cheaper in Pennsylvania than in England. But 

 supposing it to be higher — labour is only one of the ele- 

 ments — for we have seen that the rents are three or 

 four times as high — taxes ten times as high — manures, 

 implements, cattle, all dearer — and far overbalancing 

 any dilierence of wages, were it even real. 



Let us now see what are the prices obtained for what 

 is raised. Wheat is higher in England — flesh markets 

 are higher. But wheat forms only one-fourth of the 

 crop — and, on the other hand, the great staple, wool, is 

 dearer here— potatoes are twice or thrice as high here — 

 and, therefore, the English conii)ete with us in our own 

 market — turnips, cabbages, all vegetables generally 

 dearer; so that, after all, taking the average, farm 

 produce is not higher, or very little higher, in England, 

 while all the materials of raising it are much liigher 

 there — so that, on the whole, farming ought to be as 

 lucrative in Pennsylvania as in England. 



Witli regard to wages, it may sound strangely, yet I 

 believe it to be true, that the real interest of all farm- 

 ers is, that wages should be high, and for this reason. 

 A labouring man is not a mere machine — a human 

 poor-box, into whose mouth is put a daily number of 

 cents never to reappear, but a living being witli wants 

 and desires, which lie will not fail to gratify the mo- 

 ment he possesses the means. If he can earn only a 

 scanty pittance, just enough to keep him alive, he 

 starves on accordingly — his food bread and water, a half- 

 fed, h.nlf-clad, wholly untaught animal, with a useless 

 mouthful of carnivorous teeth. But if Jiis wages in- 

 crease, he instantly employs them in comforts; in 

 clothes for himself and family ; and, as he rises in the 

 scale, ventures on the taste of meat. He employs a 

 tailor — a shoemaker— a hatter — a butcher — and these, 

 in turn, purchase the materials of their trade from the 

 farmer liimself The labourer becomes thus a customer 

 of himself, and the payer of other customers — and the 

 farmer receives back, with abundant interest, the dif- 

 ference which he advances in the first instance between 

 high wages and low wages. It is for this reason that 

 one of our shrewdest farmers used to say, yes, give our 

 labourers good wages and they will buy our beef Thus, 

 too, the bounties of Providence go round, a beneficent 

 circle— and, after making the labourer better fed, bet- 

 ter clad, better taught — in short, a better man, the 

 farmer himself is richer for the very benefits he dis- 

 penses. Depend upon i-t, there is no surer sign of na- 

 tional prosperity than high wages — and God grant that 

 for many a long year it may be the lot of our country- 

 men, who subsist by the labour of their hands, to work 

 well— to be paid well— and to live well. 



And now we come to the real reason why our crops 

 do not equal those of England. It is, that our farms 

 are all too large— too large for the means we employ in 

 farming them. Agriculture is the only pursuit I know, 

 where the owner does not employ his capital in liis bu- 

 siness. He rents or buys a large farm, and then has 

 nothing left to stock it with. He might as well rent a 

 large store without goods enough to fill a single corner 

 of it. In England, it is supposed necessary, before 

 renting land, that the tenant should have a working 

 capital, of thirty or forty dollars an acre, to employ. 

 It is calculated that, besides lime and other enriching 

 substances, the cost of the mere animal manures ap- 

 plied to the soil of England, amounts to three hundred 



millions of dollars; being more than the value of the 

 whole of its foreign commerce. Yet the grateful soil 

 yields back with interest all that is thus lavished upon 

 it. And so it would do here, if we would only trust 

 the earth with any portion of our capital. But this we 

 rarely do. A farmer who has made any money spenda 

 it not in his business, but in some other occupation. 

 He buys more land when he ought to buy more manure ; 

 or he puts out his money in some joint stock company, 

 to convert sunshine into moonshine — or he buys shares 

 in some gold mine or lead mine. Rely upon it, our 

 richest mine is the barn-yard, and that w hatever tempt- 

 ations stocks or shares may ofli^r, the best investment 

 for a farmer is live stock and plough-shares. 



Another defect of our farming is that we do not raise 

 sheep enough. Some years since, we were among the 

 first to import the merinos, and to indulge in the wild- 

 ness of that extravagance, until we had secured vast 

 numbers of these high-priced animals, without any 

 previous accumulation of roots to sustain them, and 

 then found that we should have to purchase expensive 

 food for them. That at once disenchanted us. It was 

 then seen that not only in palaces but in sheep-folds " a 

 favourite has no friends." To enthusiasm succeeded dis- 

 appointment and disgust, and these unhappy victims 

 were sacrificed to the knife for no other crime than 

 their appetite. We have not yet outgrown this horror 

 —but it was entirely our own fault. There are many 

 parts of the State where sheep would take care of them- 

 selves, in the woods, during the greater part of the year 

 — and the root-crops would furnish a cheap and whole- 

 some support during the remainder. 



And this leads to the great improvement, which, of 

 all others, we most need, which is the multiplication 

 of root-crops. 



No soil can withstand a succession of grain crojTS ; 

 and instead of letting it lie fallow in order to recruit 

 from its exhaustion, as was the old plan, the better 

 practice now is to plant in the same fiekl a crop of 

 roots. These draw their nourishment from a lower 

 region than the grain crops do; they derive a great 

 part of their food from the atmosphere, by their larga 

 leaves, which at the same time shelter the soil from the 

 extreme heats; they provide a fresh and juicy food for 

 cattle during the winter, thus enabling us to keep a 

 large stock, which, in addition to the profit on them, 

 furnish abundant manure with which to return to the 

 grain crops. Now this should be our efl'ort— more roots 

 — more cattle — more manure — then more grain. We 

 cannot much err in the choice of these roots. Common 

 turnips, Swedish turnips, mangel wurzel, are all good, 

 tliough in various degrees; but perhaps the sugar-beet 

 will be found the best of all— not for the purpose, at 

 least at present, of making sugar — but as the most nu- 

 tritious food for cattle, and the most milk-pro<lucing 

 vegetable for cows in winter. These root crops will 

 grow abundantly; and what I should specially desire 

 to see, is that we would confide in our long and mild 

 autumns, and see if they would not yield us a crop of 

 roots planted immediately as the grain harvests were 

 removed, so as to be ready by winter for the cattle. 



Another thing which we should strive to amend ib 

 the unfarmerlike and slovenly appearance of our fields. 

 Clean cultivation is like personal neatness to an indi- 

 vidual, a great attraction to a farm ; but who can see 

 without mortification, our fields of Indian corn or po- 

 tatoes, just as they are verging to maturity, outtopped 

 and stifled by a rival crop of weeds, which seem waiting 

 with impatience for the removal of the real crops, when 

 they and all their seed may take exclusive possession 

 of the ground! The rule of farming should be, never 

 to let any thing grow in our fields which we did not put 

 there ; and the value as well as the beauty of the crop 

 would more than pay the expense of removing these 

 noxious intruders. 



Nor do we pay sufficient attention to our gardens. 

 We are too often content with a small enclosure where 

 a few peas and beans and a little salad are left to strug- 

 gle with a gigantic family of weeds, not to speak of 

 the frequent inroads from the jiigs ; and what can be 

 saved comes at last on our tables the scanty compa- 

 nions of the masses of animal food which form almost 

 our exclusive subsistence. For such a wilderness, hov? 

 easy would it be to substitute the cheap and wholesome 

 luxury of many vegetables which would grow without 

 the least trouble, and, while they gave variety to our 

 tables, would diminish our excessive and expensive 

 use of animal food ! 



