1857. 



KEW ENGL.^ND FAKMER. 



389 



to seek his fortune — full of the spirit of unrest, un- 

 easy, anxious for change, desirous of doing some- 

 thing else besides what his fathers have done, and 

 desirous of trying all sorts of experiments. This 

 is the paramount and marked distinction between 

 this country and our own. This is a conservative 

 country ; ours is a country that has no conserva- 

 tism — I had almost said, if we had the best thing, 

 we should want to try and see if there was not 

 something better. (Laughter.) The Englishman, 

 when he builds a house, lays the foundations deep, 

 and calculates, not only for his own time, but for 

 his son, and for his children's children, down to re- 

 mote posterity. He supposes that they will live 

 upon the same acres, and in the same house ; it is 

 not so Viith us, — a man who builds a house goes out 

 west. He buys his land for a dollar and twenty- 

 five cents, or 5s an acre ; for that sum he takes 

 the fee-simple from the government, and buys the 

 land for himself and his heirs forever. He looks 

 around, with his axe upon his shoulder ; he sees 

 the forest, and without thinking anything about 

 beautiful shades and lines of trees, he considers 

 how he shall get a crop off the land fcr himself and 

 his children. He lays about right and left, and 

 makes a clearing. He chops the trees down, if he 

 has time, and if has not time, he cuts the bark off, 

 so that they die, and digs in his Indian corn. Corn 

 means nothing in my country but Indian corn ; if 

 we mean anything else, we give it some kind of a 

 Christian name. (Laughter.) Well, he digs in his 

 Indian corn ; the roots don't trouble him, and in 

 ten years' time— if he is a good smart man, and if 

 fever and ague don't assail him — he gets enough, 

 not only to support himself and family, but also 

 money enough to repay every dollar he paid for 

 his land. This is his house ; but he does not stop 

 there. You will think he might be content, but no ; 

 a village springs up around him — other people 

 from the east arrive — a school-house and church 

 are built — here people collect around them, and 

 the village becomes a city. Let me state a fact or 

 two with regard to the city of Chicago. The city 

 of Chicago lays at the bottom of Lake Michigan, 

 and twenty-one years ago it was a wilderness. In 

 1850, there were 38,000 persons in Chicago; in 

 1855, when the census was taken, there were 

 88,000 people in it; and now, in 1857, it is 

 thought, if the population were enumerated, that 

 there would be found to be more than 100,000 per- 

 sons where, twenty-one years since, there was not 

 a habitable dwelling. The man who w^ent out close 

 to the city of Chicago and planted his wheat-field 

 there, of 100 and 200 acres, now that his land 

 which cost one dollar and twenty-five cents, is worth 

 £25,000 an acre does not, of course, cultivate wheat 

 nor grow Indian corn there, but he sells out on 

 speculation and goes west. Chicago is only the 

 beginning of going west — and he starts and founds 

 a city somewhere else. This is not exactly like 

 the stationary system of old England. It is a kind 

 of life which you have no idea of, and yet, it is the 

 common life of western settlements. This spirit of 

 unrest, as it may be denominated, has its good and 

 bad sides. Its good points are, that it peoples, civ- 

 ilizes, Christianizes, and enriches the world ; its 

 bad points are that home influences are not regard- 

 ed, and are not felt as they are in a more stable 

 and older country. I am afraid, my Lord, that I 

 may be tedious. (No, no.) Perhaps in our agri- 

 culture you would see a wider difference than in 



any other point. You would see the difference be- 

 tween the old and the new ; you would see, in short, 

 the diflerence between system and no system ; for 

 it is just exactly that. The fact is — and 1 am wil- 

 ling to proclnim it, wh(-n J go home, u]x>n the house- 

 to])s — you understand th" business of farming, a 

 good deal better than we understiind it in our coun- 

 try. We have much to learn of you; and this is 

 my mission, to try and leain something (anplause.) 

 If a man could buy as good land as the sun ever 

 shone upon for 5s an acre, you would not expect 

 him to lay out £'5 upon an old acre to make it 

 half as good as a new one. But the fact is, that 

 thousands of acres of the lands taken at the gov- 

 ernment price of 5s an acre, have been planted 30 

 years with Indian corn and wheat, without the crop 

 perceptibly diminishing. They are bottom lands, 

 where probably rivers once flowed, and are called 

 river-bottom lands. But even these soils may be- 

 come exhausted in time. And we have found in 

 New England, where we have been 200 years, (a 

 long time for America) that in our old fields the 

 system of taking everything off and putting noth- 

 ing in begins to fail. We find we must aj)ply ma- 

 nure, if we wish to get any crops, and we are look- 

 ing anxiously round to see whether we can stay 

 there, or whether we must go west and desert the 

 works which we have been two hundred years in 

 rearing. It is by a careful observation, I think, of 

 the agriculture of this country, that we must profit 

 more than in any other respect. 



In passing over your grounds to-day I noticed at 

 every step the diflerence between the old country 

 and the new. Every one of the implements which 

 I observed here marks this difference. Your im- 

 plements are of perfect workmanship. I have been 

 in the warehouse of my friend, Mr. Ilansome, where 

 many of them are made, and I see there is a great 

 deal of fine workmanship in your implements, and 

 that they are made far more expensively and dura- 

 bly than implements are with us. Why is this? 

 Because )ou believe that you are perfect in your 

 agriculture. But take your plows. Our plows are 

 about as much like jours as they are like a spoon. 

 I asked a gentleman vliat was the weight of one 

 of your plows, and he replied 280 lbs. This was a 

 plow for two horses; and a plow in my country, 

 such as we work with three yoke of heavy oxen, 

 equal to six horses, is of such a weight that one 

 workman can walk oft" with it very comfortably. 

 (Laughter.) I have seen it done hundreds of times; 

 and yet such a plow will not readily break. I do 

 not know how jour plows may act in your land, 

 but they would be old iion in ours in about five 

 minutes. (Laughter.) It dees seem to me that, with 

 regard to agricultural implements, you gentlemen 

 may learn something of America yet. I was glad to 

 see McCormick's reaper upon the field. It looked 

 American, and it appeared to indicate that you 

 were looking a little that way, and seeing whether 

 you might not learn something from us. No doubt 

 your implements are better for your own soil, but 

 I doubt whether they are better for ours. I shall 

 go home and report upon these matters, and I am 

 endeavoring to look upon things candidly to ascer- 

 tain what is best, and what we can carry away that 

 may be usefuL We are indebted to jou for much. 

 We are importing some of the best stock that we 

 find in the country here. We send our agents, who 

 come and take away the best bulls and sheep and 

 everything else they can find. I^lenty of Indian 



