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NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



July 



For the Tfeiv Ens^land Farmer. 



ADVANTAGES OF LIVING ON POOR 

 LAND. 



Messrs. Editors : — What advantage is there in 

 having a poor parcel of hind for a farm 1 I will 

 try to state the advantages, as I view them, if it 

 would, atford any amusement or gratify the curios- 

 ity of the reader. To live, stay on, or rather get 

 a livingoff of poor laud, will call latent fiiculties 

 into activity. If the farmer makes up his mind 

 to get his meat, bread and vegetables, by making 

 poor land better, his thinking powers will be 

 called into exercise to select the best course to be 

 pursued to accomplish his purpose. 



In the first place, his faculty of skill will be 

 called into exercise in order to adopt the best 

 method to improve his poor land, then the neces- 

 sity of his circumstances will confirm him in the 

 habits of industry ; and his wallet, not being very 

 highly replenished with cash, will be a practical 

 lecture to him on economy, and his ambition to 

 accomplish his purpose, will excite his energy to 

 action, and hope of reward will prompt him on 

 to perseverance and patience "in well doing" to 

 the time of harvest. Here we can see faculties 

 and talents exhibited and applied to useful pur- 

 poses which would have continued smothered in 

 the bosoms of the rich, for the want of the com- 

 pulsive power of necessity to excite them to ac- 

 tion. The young man who is solely dependent 

 upon his own efforts and resources, has every fac- 

 ulty for self-support called into requisition. The 

 great display of mental and physical efforts is 

 seldom the result of riches and luxury. The 

 young man in easy circumstances, whose every 

 want is supplied without any of his own exer- 

 tions, has nothing to arouse or call his native fac- 

 ulties into exercise which have been in a dormant 

 state, and till necessity is forced upon him, they 

 will continue to sleep ; he is educated to such 

 numberless wants that it would be impossible to 

 have them supplied from the products of a poor 

 land farm. AV ould the inhabitants of New Eng- 

 land have probably been more intelligent, ener- 

 getic, industrious, persevering, enterprising, vir- 

 tuous or even more wealthy had their soil rivalled 

 that of the mighty and far-renowned valley of the 

 Mississippi ? Riches and rich land have a tenden- 

 cy to deteriorate, rather than to invigorate both 

 the mental and physical faculties ; idleness and 

 dissipation are frequently the offspring of plenty. 

 It was said by a farmer of my acquaintance who 

 had lately bought a large worn-out farm, "that 

 any clown could live on rich land but the man for 

 me, is he that has skill and ability to get rich on 

 poor land," which has frequently been done to 

 my knowledge. 



This farmer went to scattering leached ashes 

 and compost upon his poor land, and soon had the 

 satisfaction of seeing his crops, of grass, especial- 

 ly , increased to nearly ten fold . 1 have known nu- 

 merous instances of young men of small capital 

 to purchase poor farms because they were cheap, 

 and in a few years become independent farmers, 

 and as comfortable livers as any in New England. 

 Discipline is necessary to make a good soldier, 

 and equally necessary to make a good farmer. 

 The New England farmers have been trained on 

 what western peoi)lo call hard, sterile land, but 

 this very land has made them what they are; 



they are renowned throughout this, if not for- 

 eign lands, as a people well-trained in the arts, 

 which require unilinching industry in overcoming 

 obstacles thrown in the way by arbitrary rulers, 

 as well as subduing the rugged soil. 



If the land in New England requires three 

 times the labor to produce any given quantity 

 that the western land requires, it is a course of 

 discipline, though rigorous, which has not been 

 without its advantages. If idleness is the mother 

 of vice, industry is the guard of virtue. It has 

 often been said'by my western friends, that the 

 habits of the New Englanders were much needed 

 there ; they think the leven of industry might 

 produce a wholesome fermentation which might, 

 ultimately, leaven the whole population. 



A modern writer observed that had there been 

 no New England, there would have been no re- 

 public in America to boast of. Had the lot of 

 the same men who have subdued the land covered 

 with stumps and stones in New England, been 

 cast upon the richest land of the great valley of 

 the west, it is possible they might have been en- 

 ervated, and their posterity become a degenerate 

 race. They might have fallen an easy prey to 

 the ambition and domination of the mother coun- 

 try, and to this day, been the humble servants of 

 the British queen. Living on luxuries, sleeping 

 on down, and having all wants supplied without 

 knowing their value, does not qualify men to re- 

 sist oppression or fill their brains with patriotic 

 blood. Those who boast of living on the proceeds 

 of three days' labor in the week, generally have 

 very little reason to boast of their conduct during 

 the other four days. 



It appears by the reports of charitable associa- 

 tions that the residents on the hard soil of New 

 England, subscribe more for various benevolent 

 purposes, than the inhabitants of all the other 

 States in the Union. So we fancy, Mr. Editor, 

 that we can trace out some advantages by being 

 inured to the hardships and constant employment 

 growing from the necessity of our location as in- 

 habitants of New England. Silas Brown. 



Wilmington, 1854. 



Remarks. — Excellent. We hope every reader 

 will give this article an attentive perusal, and es- 

 pecially those who find themselves in the possee- 

 sion of poor lands. 



WEEDS IN DOOK YARDS. 



One prolific source of spurious vegetation on 

 our farms, is the neglect of which too many of 

 our agricultural friends are guilty, to destroy, at 

 the proper season, the weeds which befoul their 

 door-yards, and unoccupied places by the road- 

 side. 



As the soil in such places is almost invariably 

 affluent in the prineij)les of vegetable nutrition, 

 those weeds which are indigenous, ordinarily 

 flourish with great luxuriance, and if not eradica- 

 ted with a timely hand, produce an abundant crop 

 of seeds, a very considerable proportion of which 

 find their way in time, and by a variety of ways, 

 to the fields and cultivated grounds, where they 

 radicate, and render the labor of cultivation per- 



