244 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Alt Address to the Essex Jlgricultural Society, in 



Massachusetts, at Topsfieid, Oct. 6, 1823. By 



Frederick Howes, Esq. 



[Concluded from page 235.] 



In the article of fruit trees, we have a great 

 superiority over the English farmer, the most 

 valuable fruits, as apples, pears, plums, are 

 produced here with much greater ease, and in 

 far greater abundance. 



In the cheapness of labor the English far- 

 mer may have some advantage over those A- 

 merican farmers who hire a considerable por- 

 tion of the labor on their farms. 



Mineral manures as lime and marie are pro- 

 bably obtained with greater facility in England. 

 Those parts of the United States where gyp- 

 sum is used with success, have an advantage 

 over England. This however is not the case 

 with us. 



The taxes to which farmers in England, are 

 subjected, are far heavier than are known here, 

 and would be thought by us intolerable, and 

 such I trust as will never be attempted. Tithes 

 and poor rates in England fiill wholly on real 

 estate, and are estimated to amount to ten shil- 

 lings sterling an acre, on all the cultivated land 

 in England, that is more than two dollars an 

 acre, so that the English farmer in addition 

 to his rent and taxes on a farm of two hundred 

 acres, is compelled to pay about four hundred 

 dollars for tithes and poor rates. Taxes on the 

 necessaries of life, on leather, soap, beer, salt, 

 and on almost every article of consumption, for- 

 eign or domestic, increase the burdens of agri- 

 culture. In addition to these, there are regula- 

 tions which promote the interest of the manu- 

 facturer at the expense of the farmer, as 

 the prohibition to export wool, though it 

 would oftci comraaud a much higher price on 

 the Continent than in England, and the prohibi- 

 tion to import many commodities from abroad, 

 in order to give their own manufacturers a mo- 

 nopoly of the market. 



The activity, enterprize and skill of the Eng- 

 lish farmers have triumphed over all those diffi- 

 culties, and carried the art to a higher degree of 

 peifection than any other nation : They have 

 been much aided by a libera! expenditure of cap- 

 ital, and by the discoveries and improvements in 

 science and the useful arts. 



On a fair comparison of the advantages and 

 disadvantages of the English and American Far- 

 mer, I do not think the result will Be lound against 

 us. We have as great encouragement to im- 

 prove our lands, and render them more produc- 

 tive as the farmer in England, or any part of Eu- 

 rope. We have many of the same facilities for 

 the cultivation of the soil, and some that are pe- 

 culiar to ourselves. We are free from some ve- 

 ry heavy burdens to which the English farmer 

 is subject, and if agriculture is not improved in 

 a high degree, the cause is not in our soil, cli- 

 mate, or political institutions ; it must be sought 

 elsewhere. 



In some'parts of the United States, the climate 

 may be milder, the soil more fertile, and culti- 

 vated witli less labor, more favorable to thepro- 

 doctiou of grain, or have the advantage of some 

 great staple, as cotton, rice, or tobacco. But if 

 we consider the general salubrity of our climate, 

 the numberli!ss springs and streams which afford 

 .eucli an abundance of water to every part of 

 of New England, the goodness of our roads. 



the advantages of our markets, the fertility of 

 a considerable portion of our soil, the facilities 

 for enriching it, we shall have no reason to cov- 

 et the more fertile plains of the south. 



If we reflect on our institutions of every 

 kind, especially our parishes and public schools, 

 which have existed from the tirst settlement of 

 our country, and have diffused the benefits of 

 intellectual, moral, and religious instruction 

 through every town and village of New Eng- 

 land, and have contributed so essentially to 

 form that character of industry, activity, enter- 

 prize, intelligence, and those correct moral hab- 

 its, for which her inhabitants have ever been 

 distinguished, and which are not less necessary 

 to individual and social happiness, than to nation- 

 al prosperity, we shall pause before we quit 

 the soil of our ancestors lor an imaginary para- 

 dise in the south or the west. 



In order to prosecute agricultural improve- 

 ments with success, theory and experience, sci- 

 ence and practice must be united. We must a- 

 vail ourselves of the discoveries in science, and 

 the inventions and improvements in the arts. — 

 No employment has a more intimate connexion 

 with the most important sciences, and the most 

 useful arts, and there is none which admits of a 

 greater variety of interesting experiments. In 

 some countries of Europe, the study of agricul- 

 ture is an essential part of a liberal education. 

 Several distinguished Universities have a pro- 

 fessorship to teach both the theory and practice 

 of agriculture. In the countries where it has 

 been most successfully cultivated, it is one of 

 the most popular employments, and most inte- 

 resting subjects of conversation, among men of 

 the highest rank and attainments. The most 

 distinguished chemist in England delivered a 

 course of Lectures annually for many years, on 

 this subject before the Agricultural Society. — 

 Indeed no art so well deserves the national pat- 

 ronage, as none is so essential to national secu- 

 rity, prosperity and power. No employment 

 is on the whole so favorable to good morals, so- 

 cial order, and to the promotion of those objects 

 in which the true interest of a nation consists. 

 It is not expected that all formers should be phi- 

 losophers, or men of science, but it is desirable 

 that they should have some knowledge of those 

 sciences and arts which have a close connexion 

 with the cultivation of the soil, and have con- 

 tributed so much to its improvement. Such an 

 acquaintance with chemistry, mineralogy ani'^ 

 botany, as would render a man able to analyze 

 the different soils and ascertain their co'jst'itu- 

 ent parts, and the nature and propertie';, of the 

 plants commonly met with, might ofte-,i be highly 

 beneficial. Wealthy farmers m.ig'jt give iheir 

 sons an opportunity of acquiring this knowledge 

 without any sensible inconvenience, and thus 

 at once promote the welfave of their families, 

 and advance the interest of their country. 



From the Old Colony Memorial. 



The means of increasing or preserving the 

 fertility of the soil on which he operates, ought 

 to be a primary object with every farmer, 

 otherwise continual cropping will exhaust not 

 only his soil, and his strength, but his means. 



" Lime has caused to st<irt into life the most 

 inert and sterile soils of Great Britain."* If 



* Lcrd Erskine. 



this article can be substituted for, or brougi 

 in aid of manure (to all farmers so difficult of a 

 quisition) or can be found to answer in th 

 section of the country, the same purpose asGy 

 sum does in others, our agriculturalists mu 

 hail it as a new era in their pursuits. 



It is not left for us to make the experimei 

 of its efficacy; to obtain the result of whic 

 the life of man is hardly equal ; it has lor 

 been made, a«d is in familiar use among tl 

 farmers of our mother country, and they ha\ 

 reaped unbounded advantages from the use of i 

 It only remains for us to come boldly to the a| 

 plication of their experience to our soil, and oi 

 situation, to ascertain its effects here ; should 

 prove beneficial we may reap the advantag 

 without groping our way by little and littl 

 as they must have done. 



It is said to be useful when applied to any, i 

 to all soils ; when mixed with a sandy soil, 

 there renders it more adhesive, and increas 

 its capacity for retaining moisture — when a 

 plied lo a stitfclay soil, which requires the a 

 dition of sand or calcareous earth, to open, ■ 

 make it pervious to the roots of vegetables ; 

 there operates merely as a calcareous eart 

 which quality is considered as essential to gii 

 to all soils, the capacity of attaining the biglic 

 degree of fertility; when mixed with a strop 

 cold, heavy loam, it there promotes the decor 

 position of the abundant vegetable fibres, vvlii( 

 have long been frozen up, and generates a g 

 which increases vegetation beyond that whic 

 it ever belore exhibited. i 



No soils are indeed wholly destitute ofcalci 

 reous matter, though not alwa.vs to be di^rnven i 

 but liy chemical analysis ; and but few in Ma i 

 sachuselts possess so large a portion of it, ■ 

 would be salutary, as there is no district abour i 

 ing with chalk, or lime stone, which are t 

 great sources of calcareous matter ; which 

 also a constituent part of all marles, and (/ 

 are efficient in promoting vegetation in propi 

 tion as this abounds compassed with the sand 

 clay combined with it 

 *A distinguished writer on agriculture observ il 

 "that all substances in which calcareous m: | 

 ter is contained, have been successfully e {j 

 ployed as manure, at different times, and in c j 

 ferent nlaees." I 



"Thus lime, marie, chalk, lime stone gra 

 el, shelly sand, shells of every kind, have be 

 employed with the greatest success. And a» 

 these, excepting ///nc always contain the ci 

 reous substance in its mild stale, we are lei 

 conclude that they operate on the soil, met 

 as calcareous and not as saline substances." 



As burning is the usual, if not the only 

 employed tor reducing lime stone to po 

 and thus preparing it to be used as a m 

 the opinion has prevailed, that calcination 

 necessary for rendering lime stone capable n 

 becoming manure, but experience has pro; 

 thgtthis is not the case. Mr. Du Hammel',] 

 led by accident to observe that, " powdl 

 lime stone was a manure equally efficacioi 

 lime itself After repeated experiments' 

 found it never failed to promote the fertilil 

 the spot on which he applied if, in a very 

 degree." 



A little reflection on the physical cause ofj 

 difference belv.cen lime, and lime stone, 



