NEW ENGLAND FAJIMER. 



May 



I 



capital for farming in New England ; but it is more 

 difficult to obtain capital at the West. It is the 

 boast that more is done in Massachusetts to foster 

 agriculture than in any other States ; but it be- 

 hooves the farmers to see to it that more still is 

 done. The way to prevent young men from going 

 away to the West, is to use the means we can to in- 

 crease the interest now felt in agriculture. Men 

 who have capital, should encourage young men to 

 remain in this State, by aiding them in their efforts 

 to carry out their operations in farming here ; and 

 when they will do that, as they do in mercantile 

 pursuits, the superiority of our State as an agricul- 

 tural State will be seen. He closed by urging the 

 cultivation of a taste for agriculture in the young, 

 and that should commence at a very early age. 



Mr. Wetherell had great faith in Massachu- 

 setts soil for the purposes of agriculture. There 

 are many things that appear inviting to the young 

 in the idea of going West ; but most of those who 

 go, will desire to return. He said, that several 

 years since, a friend of his who was largely inter- 

 ested in land at the West, urged him to go and 

 settle there, using as an argument, that he could 

 have a farm for each of his children if he would go 

 there ; but if he remained here there was no prob- 

 ability that he could thus provide for a family. 

 He, (Mr. W.,) replied that he would, if he had a 

 family, rather have them trained and educated in 

 Massachusetts than to give each of them a farm. 

 He had since that time been through much of the 

 West, and that idea was fully confirmed. Nobody 

 makes money at the West by farming ; those who 

 have made money have done it by the rise of land, 

 or other speculation. If the objects for which a 

 man lives are not money or land only, he would 

 not advise any one to go West. In all his travels 

 there, he had never found but one New England 

 woman who was not homesick. He visited a church 

 in one of the oldest counties in Illinois, and he 

 found it less neat and comfortable than the livery 

 stables of Boston. Bad water, bad houses, no 

 barns, and other inconveniences, go to show the 

 disabilities under which farmers labor; and the 

 fact generally is that men cannot labor there near 

 as well as here. The crop of corn, although great, 

 could not formerly be sold for more than twelve 

 or fifteen cents a bushel. Wheat is not a profita- 

 ble crop except in the part of Illinois called Egypt. 

 Wool is not a profitable production either. They 

 had, when he was there, a few years ago, three 

 kinds of hogs. The first kind were called three 

 row ho^s, because they were so thin and long they 

 would eat the three outside rows of any field by 

 reaching through the fence ; another kind they had 

 to soak before they would hold swill in the spring ; 

 and another kind they called the ?n*«e mile hogs. 

 No young man who could afford to live in an old 

 State would ever desire to live in a new one. 



Mr. Ward, of Orange, admitted that if the 

 question was where a man could live most comfor- 

 tably, he would not defend the West. But when 

 the question is confined to farming the state of the 

 case was difierent. True, the water is bad, and the 

 climate did not suit New England men, and fever 

 and ague is common ; but consumption, which is 

 so common here, is unknown there. The advanta- 

 ges of farming were then enumerated. Among 

 them an important item is that no manure has to 

 be carted. It does not require any ingenuity to 

 raise crops, and the crops of corn may remain in 

 the field and be harvested at any time during the 

 winter. The hogs and cattle of Illinois were also 

 defended. Many Suffolk hogs are to be found there, 

 and some of the best kinds of neat stock. 



Mr. Brooks, of Princeton, claimed that although 

 the crops in Massachusetts are not so great as at 

 the West, the profits were greater here. The aver- 

 age price of corn for twenty-five years has not been 

 over twenty-five cents a bushel in Illinois ; they can- 

 not make more than $7,50 profit on an acre of 

 corn ; and according to prices here, the profit is 

 $20 an acre. True, they can cultivate more land 

 with the same labor. But allowing they cultivate 

 four acres while we cultivate two, the profit is still 

 in favor of Massachusetts. Farms in good situa- 

 tions in Illinois are almost as expensive as in this 

 State. Then as to the diseases, he thought the 

 consumption was to be preferred to the fever and 

 ague. 



Mr. Sheldon, of Wilmington, was glad there 

 were people who were ready to go West, for it was 

 an advantage to have people there to create a mar- 

 ket for our products. We get corn as cheap now 

 as we did sixty years ago ; potatoes and turnips 

 are higher. He knew a man who told him that he 

 himself raised at the West six hundred bushels of 

 corn, for which he got ten cents a bushel. A pair 

 of boots cost him from $5 to $7, so that it would 

 take sixty bushels of corn to buy a pair of boots. 

 A young man there cannot live as we do here and 

 lay up any money at all by farming. They prac- 

 tice self-denial, and are obliged to do it to a great 

 extent, in order to live there. 



In concluding, Mr. Sheldon stated a fact with 

 reference to the time when pine trees may be 

 trimmed and not be injured by a tendency to a 

 flowing of the sap where the limbs are cut off. He 

 had learned of iJeacon Levi Parker, who had tried 

 it for twelve years, that the proper time is from the 

 20th of May to the 10th of June. 



Mr. Hubbard, of Michigan, was then called 

 upon, and he spoke at considerable length in de- 

 fence of the West, particularly of the eastern por- 

 tion of Michigan, where he claimed that the people 

 had not only some of the best land in the v. orld, 

 but had as good houses, churches and schools as 

 are to be found in Massachusetts. He had not 



