1854. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



77 



safely as the cow'' or the horse, Bee-culture will 

 be greatly increased. Then it will be regarded in 

 its true liglit as affording ample remuneration to 

 those who enlist in it. The iirofits resulting from 

 a judicious and proper system of Bee-culture may 

 be safely estimated at from 100 to 500 per cent, 

 per annum. In this statement I give merely the 

 results of my own experience in Bee-keeping for a 

 period of 12 years. There is no living creature 

 which is subject to the control of man which pays 

 80 large a profit upon the capital invested and the 

 time employed, as the Honey Bee, when a proper 

 system of Bee-culture is adopted. 

 North Bridgeioater, Mass. 



For the New England Farmer. 



FARM ACCOUNTS-RECLAIMING 

 SWAMPS. 



BY HENRY F. FRENCH. 



What have rational men a right to expect from 

 any department of labor which occupies a large por- 

 tion of the community ? Not, surely, that it should 

 make every man rich, for wealth is comparative, 

 and to be rich, signifies to have more than one's 

 neighbors have, and in that view very few can be 

 rich any where. The wealth which, in the city, 

 is expended in gilded coaches, with footmen in 

 livery, and in marble palaces, and gold and silver 

 plate, or that which, in the country village, at- 

 tempts to ape the follies of city life, is neither pos- 

 sible nor desirable, to the many. 



A business which in any country affords to any 

 large class, comfortable clothing, shelter, food, a 

 good education, good society, religious culture, in 

 a respectable position, and enough to guard against 

 the common chances of accident and misfortune, 

 and old age, without labor so severe as to impair 

 the health of body or mind, is all that reasonable 

 men can hope for. Neither the sudden acquisition 

 of wealth, nor exemption from jAysical labor, is 

 deemed desirable 1)y us, for men in general, how- 

 ever pleasant it may seem to be made the excep 

 tion one's self. 



Farming is thought, by many, to be an unprofi- 

 table business, but I am not prepared to admit it 

 to be so. It is difficult to decide whether it is so, 

 or not, because with us it is not kept sufficiently 

 distinct from other employmentvS to enable us to 

 learn its results. A farmer is generally a mechan- 

 ic, or trader, or speculator of some kind. He 

 deals in lumber, or cattle, or connects something 

 else with farming. 



If farmers could be induced to keep accurate ac- 

 counts, either of particular operations, or of their 

 whole farming l)U8incse, we should have some 

 means of forming correct opinions. 



To illustrate my idea, and to show that re- 

 claiming swamp lands for grass, if properly done, 

 icill pay, I send a condensed statement of my oper- 

 ations on a meadow in Exeter. The price paid 

 for i t was generally thought, at the time, to be 



very high, and probably no looker-on, while my 

 work proceeded, ever believed that it was other 

 than a waste of money. I consulted a gentleman 

 who had had charge of the land several years, and 

 he said it had been examined by the best farmers, 

 who had agreed that it was, the most of it, entire- 

 ly worthless, and could never be made productive. 

 On the very part pronounced the worst, I have 

 cut three and a third tons of hay to the acre, at 

 one cutting. The account shows that my expen- 

 ditures and the interest on the cost, have exceeded 

 $800, since I bought it, in 1844, and yet that at 

 the lowest price for hay, the lot has repaid it all 

 and much more. The soil is part a clayey loam, 

 and part ))lack mud upon sand. My account was 

 kept very exactly for my private use. The hope 

 that farmers may be induced to keep such accounts, 

 and that their faith in the gratitude of Mother 

 Earth to her sons for their attention to her may 

 be increased, has induced me to publish it. I do 

 not regard the work as very well done, and I 

 know that twenty tons of hay might have been 

 profital)ly raised, instead of fifteen, upon the lot, 

 had I treated the whole as I treated part. I have 

 sold most of the hay yearly, so that the weight 

 was ascertained, and not merely estimated. 



THE COURT HOUSE MEADOW. 



DU. 



$639,00 



18-44. To purchase money for 7 acres, 



May. plowing, &c., for potatoes, 97 rods, $9,14 



12 bushels of seed potatoes, 3/)0 



11 loads manure and hauling, 26,9S 



ditcliing, 5,00 



breaking up one acre, six yoke oxen, 14,50 53,62 



Nov. six months interest on cost, 19,17 



1845. To 5 casks of lime, 5,45 



plowing, and cultivation of oats, and ^ ' 



potatoes, 2 (,93 



seed potatoes 1,80 



making roads and planting potatoes 11,68 



fencing, 35,15 



15 loads of manure, 30,00 

 labor of men and oxen, plowing, dig- 

 ging stumps, ditching, levelling, 

 spreading manure, and digging 



potatoes, 79,30 



grass seed, 2,25 193,46 

 interest on balance of last year, 39,00 



1846. To grass seed, 2,27 



1 bbl. of guano, 5,60 



stable manure, hauling and composting ,24,42 

 labor of men and oxen plowing and lay- 

 ing land to grass, U,70 46,99 

 interest on balance of last year, 47,90 



1817. To manure, and hauling and composting, 32,50 

 labor of men and cattle, clearing up 



the last piece, 02,50 



ditching, &c. 8,00 



grass seed and rye, 3,75 06,75 



interest on balance of last year, 47,00 



10,00 

 49,69 



1849. To interest on balance of last year, 46,97 



1850. To interest on balance of last year, 43,69 



1851. To plowing and laying 1 acre to grass, and manure, 25,00 



interest on balance of last year, 40,70 



1852. To 7 loads stable manure, hauling, com- 



posting and spreading, for top 

 dressing, 19,25 



interest on baance of last year, 20,34 



16,71 



1848. 



To labor, 



interest on balance of last year. 



1853. To interest on balance of last year, 



CB. 



THE COUHT HOUSE MEADOM'. 



1844. By 6 tons pood hay standing, 



meadow grass and second crop, 

 61 bushels potatoes, 



$14fc0,24 



32,00 

 0,00 

 16,20 54,20 



