NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



357 



AGRICULTURE OF NOVA SCOTIA. 



By the courtesy of John Youn», Ksq. Secretary of 



t'.i' 



Provincial Agricultural Sociity of Nova Pcolia, 

 wt hare received several copies of a pamphlet, con- 

 ij, tai'.iinj an abstract of the proceedings which occurred 

 at a late meeting of said Society. By this it appears 

 t that agriculture is thriving in that Province, to a de- 

 )• gree, which has surpassed the anticipations of the 

 »: most sanguine. It is likewise apparent that a 

 li zeal in the great cause, and primal source of national 

 4 power, as well as individual prosperity, which has al- 



J ready produced and still promises the most beneficial 

 effects, pervades all ranks of the community in that 

 i Province. 



J " At one o'clock," according to the pamphlet, "on 

 M Saturday, the 14th of February, the House of Assem- 

 (1 bly adjourned, as preparatory to the meeting of the 

 } Provincial Agiicultural Society at the same hour and 

 .1 place. The Members of his .Majesty's Council instant- 

 .1 ly attended ; and the seats were speedily occupied and 

 filled up by gentlemen in town, who are private sub- 

 scibers to the Institution. " The Hon. Marshal Wal- 

 lace, as Vice President, took the Chair, and called 

 attention to the .■Vnnual Report which was now to be 

 Aread by the Secretary 



This Report is written with that ability, which might 

 have been expected to mark the production of the au- 

 thor of the " Letters of Agricola.^^ We shall quote 

 a considerable part of it, omitting such passages only, 

 IS from their local or particular application may not 

 ■Ijirove of SO interesting a nature to ourVeaders as to those 

 ill' o whom the observations were originally addressed. 

 " After any machine whatever is set up, and 

 )romises to answer the end for its erection, he 

 nust be a daring speculator who would recom- 

 nend to break it down on account of any de- 

 ed or irregularity of its motions. The skilful 

 rtist would try simply — to lessen the friction 

 f the wheels, — to rectify what he perceived 



be wrong — to introduce a greater harmony 

 nto the disposition of the parts — and even 

 vhen he met with faults that were irreparable, 

 latiently to submit, rather than adventure any 

 ash and hazardous experiment which would 

 ndanger its safely. If this be true in mecha- 

 ics, it is more so in any of those institutions 

 vhich, for useful and special purposes, have 

 een founded and established in society. Hence 

 orrection and relorm in such is a better and 

 ?iser remedy than innovation ; for in the lat- 

 er, violence is done to the feelings and habits 

 f mankind, while the former operates a change 

 lowly, imperceptibly, and without giving any 

 ude shock to existing prepossessions and modes 

 f thinking. 



" Our agricultural institutions raay now be 

 onsidered as pieces of machinery essentially 

 onnected with our internal policy, and which 

 re pretty generally contemplated as the means 

 y which our independence in bread corn isul- 

 imately to be wrought out. To this one ob- 

 jct as of pre-eminent importance they have 

 itherto been directed, and without any materi- 



1 marked departure from it. The diUerent 

 :hemes of encouragement have been amended, 

 r enlarged, or more or less modified every 

 uccessive year, but still the first great original 

 utiine has been preserved inviolate and un- 

 juched. The culture of grain has been pro- 

 loted in all the different societies, and green 

 rops hive beeik regarded, not as being very 

 nporlaii'i themselves, but as subservient to the 

 access of the other. When Lime and Summer- 



fa 



If 



fallow were admitted among the objects of com- 

 petition, it was by reason of their subserviency 

 lo the urcat main end ; and in accordance with 

 the same view composting and draining arc 

 pro|.o<od to be added in that scheme which has 

 been submitted by the Directors to the Legis- 

 lature. No suggestions, from what quarter so- 

 ever they came, have been rejected, which of- 

 fered to extend or improve the cultivation of 

 white crops : this steady and unbending perse- 

 verance in the prosecution of one object has 

 been crowned with the most unexampled good 

 fortune. In confirmation of this there is no need 

 of appealing to any doubtful authorily, as you 

 all are in possession of the official letters wliich 

 were written by the local societies in December 

 and January last, in answer to a Circular de- 

 spatched by order of the Board for the very pur- 

 pose of drawing out and bringing together this 

 information. If we suffer ourseives to be in- 

 fluenced by this cloud of witnesses, and surely 

 no evidance can be more unbiassed, more par- 

 ticular, or less suspicious, our path of duty is 

 clear and beset with no sort of difficulty. We 

 have nothing more to do than uphold the pre- 

 sent system of raising bread corn throughout 

 the different associations, and that on one re- 

 cognised general plan, which will always com 

 mand obedience while sanctioned by the Pro- 

 vincial Government. For the four last years 

 this has been the unitorm and undeviating pol 

 icy pursued, and the success attending it has 

 gone beyond the most ardent anticipations. The 

 goal is now within sight, to which our wishes, 

 our desires, our exertions have been pointed ; — 

 and it is only necessary in order to carry the 

 prize, to avoid starting from the course, or lag- 

 ging behind through a careless or blameable in- 

 difTerence. These letters from the societies) 

 which have just been printed and circulated 

 among all the members, whether honorary or 

 ordinary, contain a body of evidence which 

 must force conviction on every unprejudiced 

 mind, and show that, by;supporting them a lit- 

 tle longer, the independence of this country 

 will be no longer matter of theory or pure 

 speculation. 



The writer then exhibits a table, which contains 

 " wi Comparative VieiD of the Imports for four years 

 as illustrative of the progress of Provincial Husbandry.^'' 

 By this and other documents it appears that the sav- 

 ing for the last five years in consequence of increased 

 attention to agriculture, in the articles uf flour and In- 

 dian corn alone, bad amounted in value to /122,610. — 

 The amount of public money, granted by the Legisla- 

 ture of the Province, for the purpose of improving ag- 

 riculture is 5550Z. of which 4690(. had been expended. 

 It appears, likewise, that the farmers of Nova Scotia, 

 in consequence of the agricultural spirit thus excited, 

 " have been transporting across the Bay of Fuudy, ve- 

 ry large supplies for the sister Province." 



Mr. Young then continues his observations as follows . 



" Further, there is a collateral advantage 

 which ought not to be overlooked in the stat- 

 ing of this argument. In order to produce the 

 additional quantity of bread corn which has 

 done away with the necessity of our former 

 large importations, much land has been cleared 

 up and brought under the plough. In the whole 

 compass of political science, there is no posi- 

 tion more capable of a clear demonstration, 

 than that every acre of ground, improved for 

 the growth of grain, is in itself, an accession to 



the national wealth ; and that in proportion 

 as the territory of any country becomes arable, 

 it will abound, as a natural consequence, with a 

 greater multitude of buildings, with a better 

 fed and more valuable stock of cattle, and with 

 all the means of a profitable and growing com- 

 merce. If the additional value, therefore, 

 which has been given to the landed interest, he 

 summed up along with the prodigious savings in 

 foreign imports throughout all the harbors and 

 bays of Nova Scotia, we shall then be able to 

 make a nearer estimate of the actual good, 

 which has accrued from the expenditure of the 

 4690/. distributed among the societies. 



" That such mighty effects should have 

 sprung from so trivial a cause looks so strange 

 and problematical, as to have formed a very 

 plausible excuse for some men, to seek for oth- 

 er hypotheses, by which to account for the ap- 

 pearance. It is not my province in this annual 

 Report, and standing in this place, to argue 

 with such as are disposed to take this view of 

 the subject. Allowing to them every possible 

 concession which they may please to demand — 

 from the necessity of the times — from the pov- 

 erty of the people which urges them to greater 

 exertion and to a cheaper and plainer food, 

 still there is a curious problem, connected with 

 their theory, which is not easy of solution. It 

 is this : why have not the same poverty and the 

 same necessity produced like effects in his Ma- 

 jesty's other possessions in North America? 

 Whence comes it, for instance, that New Bruns- 

 wick still needs such large and regular sup- 

 plies ; or that Nova Scotia is now able to spare 

 Ihem ? Why has not the agriculture of Upper 

 and Loiver Canada made so great a start for- 

 ward as our own, and what has kept the flame, 

 which has been here kindled and has burned sc 

 intensely, from spreading all around ? Those 

 other colonies have been placed exactly in our 

 circumstances — their trade has equally suffer- 

 ed — their property declined in value — their 

 circulating medium drained to the United 

 States — and yet we see not among them the 

 same excitement by which our husbandry has 

 been distinguished. It will turn out in balanc- 

 ing on both sides the probabilities of the ques- 

 tion, that our progress must be traced to the 

 peculiar causes here operating, and which are, 

 — the fostering care of the Legislature — the 

 regular system of encouragement for raising 

 bread corn — and the existence and spread of 

 the agricultural societies. At all events, we 

 know that these institutions and the commence- 

 ment of our progress were concomitant evenly ^ 

 and if the one were not the cause of the other, 

 they were so closely connected in point of time, 

 and are by so many now believed to be con- 

 nected in point of efficiency, that it would be 

 extremely hazardous to disunite them. 

 (^To be continued.') 



Price of race horses. — A late London paper 

 states that the price of " first rate" colts has 

 averaged about two thousand pounds, during 

 the last few years. Among the exorbitant prices 

 given for race horses, in England, we notice 

 five thousand guineas for one, fifteen thousand 

 for another. It states, that a Welsh sportsman 

 once offered to the Duke of Devonshire, for the 

 celebrated race horse Flying Childers, the 

 horse's weight in crowns and half crowns, which 

 the Duke refused. 



