1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



21 



audience more observant of fashions than interest- 

 ed in theology — after residing in his society long 

 enough to become acquainted, he discovers that he 

 is too liberal for some and too rigid for others, and 

 a union of dislike takes place, and he quits to seek 

 another "field of operations," to meet a similar re- 

 sult. Con>ider the lawyer, who sometimes makes 

 himself a knave by defending others in their kna- 

 very, and with his exorbitant fees gets more curses 

 than coppers. While we are considering the evils 

 incident to other callings, let us take a view of a 

 doctor's life ; if he has no business he will starve, 

 if he has, he is the greatest slave in the world ; 

 worse than the dog which has but one master, he 

 is subject to everybody's call ; he m.ay go without 

 sleep every night in the week, but his time is not 

 his own, necessity knows no law, and demands up- 

 on him are imperative, and he must go whether re- 

 warded for his works in money, flattery, abuse, or 

 nothing at all. I have lived among farmers the 

 most of my life-time in preference to living in 

 cities and villages where I had an equal chance to 

 locate myself, but it has so happened that I have 

 seen but fev/ of those degraded, ignorant men 

 called farmers, and they were responsible for their 

 own ignorance and degradation by loafing, dissipat- 

 ed habits. 



In different towns and different States those men 

 worthy the name of farmers where I have lived, 

 have possessed as much common sense and intelli- 

 gence as those of any other occupation, and com- 

 paring tliem with merchants and mechanics, they 

 have had more time for recreation than either of 

 them in the course of the year. It is true that far- 

 mers, like other ambitious men, may toil them- 

 selves to death to accumulate bank stock or other 

 funded property to leave their children, which, per- 

 haps, they would have been better off without. I 

 have known but few farmers who were deserving 

 of the appellation who could not at pleasure find 

 time to mount his carriage and drive "into town" 

 and call upon his friends, or go aboard the "stea- 

 mer" and visit his distant relatives as well as the 

 "best of them." SiLAS BRO^YN, 



J\^orih Wilmington, Oct., 1856. 



For the New England Farmer. 



TEEADWELL FARM IN T0P3FIELD. 



This time-honored estate, comprising about 150 

 acres of tillage, meadow, and pasture land, situated 

 near the bridge over Ipswich river, on the Newbu- 

 ryport turnpike, has lately attracted much atten- 

 tion, by the fact of its having been donated to the 

 Essex Agricultural Society, "to encourage experi- 

 ments in agriculture." Anxious to know what 

 kind of an estate it was, we gla'nced our eye over it 

 yesterday, in company of several prominent citizens 

 cf the county. We found it to be a marked illus- 

 tration of what an estate may become when its 

 ])roprietor lived at a distance, and suffered it to be 

 managed by a tenant, on the payment of an annu- 

 al rent from year to year, with no assurance of con- 

 tinued occupancy. About 40 acres of the land had 

 been from time to time under the operation of the 

 plow, fertilized by such manure as was made by the 

 small stock kept on the fai-m, and no more. The 

 quantity of upland hay cut annually was represent- 

 ed to be from six to ten tons ; the quantity of mea- 

 dow hay less than one ton to the acre, on the ex- 



tensive plat bordering upon the river. The exten- 

 sive pasture of sixty acres or more, rising from the 

 river, on the southerly side to tlie top of the Tops- 

 field hill, (so called) was represented as strong and 

 good land ; upon it is a considerable amount of val- 

 uable timber. I have been thus particular in no- 

 ticing this farm, because it is the first instance 

 within my knowledge of a donation of the kind to 

 any of our agricultural societies. To be sure, the 

 Bussy farm, so called, was given for the advance- 

 ment of the science of agriculture, but not to the 

 present generation. I have good reason to be- 

 lieve that there are gentlemen of wealth who would 

 be pleased to give all that is necessary to make 

 this a model farm, as soon as they can be satisfied 

 that it will be wisely managed by those to whom it 

 is given. This farm has lately been rented for $125 

 per year. It is estimated by the neighbors to be 

 worth about $40 per acre. There is on it a hand- 

 some orchard of young apple trees, and a-, exten- 

 sive plantation of maples, and other forest trees. 

 Odoler 11, 185G. * 



KE¥/ HAMPSHIRE AND VIEGIHIA. 



The Southern Planter, published at Richmond, 

 Va., copies liberally from two letters recently writ- 

 ten by us in New Hampshire, and published in the 

 Farmer. The editor says : — "The following ex- 

 tracts exhibit a state of things with which the agri- 

 cultural prospects of Virginia contrast most favora- 

 bl}'. Here we are annually opening up and im- 

 proving thousands of acres, and restoring fields — 

 not farms — that have been exhausted and aban- 

 doned. All we want is an additional supply of ne- 

 gro labor to make the whole of lower Virginia 

 blossom as the rose." 



It was not our intention in writing those letters 

 to convey any idea of lack of abiHty or energy in 

 our people, or that our institutions do not foster 

 all honest industry. On the contrary, none but men 

 of unfaltering courage would have felled the forest 

 and subdued the hard and unproductive lands which 

 they have finally forsaken. The forest, there, was 

 all that could renumerate man for his labor, and 

 when that was exhausted, it would have been wise 

 to allow it to grow up again and cover the naked- 

 ness of the land. But if the soil had been like that 

 on the Potomac or James River, that deserted re- 

 gion would now be covered with productive farms 

 and teeming with an industrious, intelligent and in- 

 dependent population. It was folly to battle with 

 gravel banks, or with lands so thickly covered with 

 boulders, as utterly to forbid the introduction of 

 the plow. Cultivation was out of the question. 

 Where the lands were cleared, they Avere occupied 

 as pasture, with here and there a limited area for 

 the indispensable corn or potatoes. 



But how does it happen that the Vir.,'Inia lands, 

 deep and rich as they are, free from stones, and 

 once covered with a dense and valuable forest, have 

 "been exhausted and abandoned ?" It could not 

 have been because Nature had not supplied every- 



