174 



Skinner's Address. 



Vol. IX. 



hands, who are paid monthly in cash. The 

 machinery is all American in manufacture 

 and principle. The capital embarked in 

 this one establishment is $750,000, and 

 what constitutes the salutary distinction be- 

 tween American and English establishments 

 of tiiis cliaracter, the practical operatives 

 who daily work in the Middlesex mills, own 

 $60,000 of the stock. Lowell, which, as 1 

 before said, was scarcely more tlian a farm 

 when I was last in Massachusetts, now 

 boasts a population of 25,000 people, and to 

 crown the whole they levy on tliemselves, 

 and pay without grumbling, a school tax 

 amounting' to $24,000 a year. Note in all 

 this, my friends, the miglity energies of an 

 industrious, economical, educated people ! 



I was pleased to learn, from one of the 

 accomplished and liberal proprietors of the 

 works to which I have particularly referred, 

 that the descendants of the fine-wooled Sax- 

 ony sheep transplanted to Oliio, were sup- 

 plying his mills with wool of longer staple, 

 and equally fine as that of the original stock. 



To return to the causes of your slow pro- 

 gress in population and the obstacles pre- 

 sented by it to a more general diffusion of 

 the knowledge necessary to a high cultiva- 

 tion of the art of husbandry, to say nothing 

 of one great drawback \\hich cannot now 

 be reasonably applied to Delaware or New 

 Jersey, there are yet other causes of blight 

 which seem to Imve stinted tlie growtli of 

 the old States on the Atlantic slope south ot 

 New England, sufficiently obvious and reme- 

 diable to warrant me in referring to them. 

 Among the most prominent is the inherited 

 liabit or prejudice of mistaking and going 

 for quanlitij rather than quality of land, 

 which pervades the region referred to, and 

 which is said by some to be tlie monomania 

 of the Saxon race, flow many are there 

 who own from 300 to 500, and even more 

 acres of land, of which one-third, or at least 

 one-sixth part, lies totally unproductive in 

 useless brush-wood, in uncleared swamps, 

 or in land rendered worse than profitless, 

 for want of proper draining? tlie owner not 

 seeming to remember, that for every sucli 

 acre not yielding something in grass, in 

 pasturage, in tillage, or in growing timber, 

 he should charge himself, as with so much 

 lost or thrown into t!ie fire or the sea. Of 

 how much more arc men robbed by their 

 own indolence and short-sigiitedncss, than 

 by thieves who break in and steal. 



There is no mistake more common than 

 that of supposing that the more land a man 

 has, the greater must be his profits — forget- 

 ting that the profits arise not from the land 

 itself, any more than from an idle mill or an 

 empty ship, but from the skill and manner 



of using it: — and so indispensable is capital 

 in the business of farming, that in general 

 it may be laid down as an axiom that money 

 employed in agriculture, will yield an inte- 

 rest in an inverse ratio to the area to which 

 it is applied. Thus, if $100 be expended, 

 and yield ten per cent, on ten acres, the 

 probability is that it would yield much more 

 if applied to half that area. In England, 

 wlicre this matter is so well understood, the 

 land-steward of the Marquis of Stafford, a 

 practical man, being asked the amount ac- 

 tually required to stock and carry on a farm, 

 said that in StatTordshire, a farm of 250 

 acres medium quality land, bearing a pro- 

 portionable quantity of good, fair, and infe- 

 rior qualities, and one-fifth in permanent 

 meadow, would require a cash capital of 

 $12,500 in an ordinary state of entering, 

 and an additional capital in proportion to the 

 estimated extent of any improvements to be 

 effected in the way of road making, fences, 

 and under-draining. 



Numerous instances must be familiar to 

 all who hear me, of the wonderful effects of 

 lime and other manures, in enhancing the 

 value of Delaware lands, especially since 

 the establishment of this Society, and the 

 excitement and rivalry produced by it — 

 raising it in many cases from $5 and $10, 

 up to $50, and even $100 an acre. I will 

 detain you to mention but one instance of 

 the efficacy of lime, and of the necessity of 

 some chemical knowledge of the nature of 

 manures, soils and crops, related to me on 

 undoubted authority since I left home to 

 meet this engagement. 

 I Mr. Collins, residing on Scuppernong Lake, 

 in North Carolina, a gentleman of la ge for- 

 tune, and, to his honour be it mentioned, as 

 it does not always follow, of liberal temper, 

 had a large field of rich black alluvial soil, 

 which yielded heavy crops of Indian corn, 

 but, as often happens, was ill suited to 

 wheat, producing not over 13 bushels to the 

 acre. He purchased and applied to this 

 land 250 bushels of lime to the acre, and 

 then reaped 47 bushels of wheat ! For this 

 lime, the refuse of kilns on the Hudson 

 river, brought into Ocracock as return 

 freight, by lumber vessels trading to New 

 York, he gave 10 cents a bushel. This 

 made, you will perceive, an outlay of $25 

 capital to the acre, at a single dash; but 

 mark the result ! Deducting 13 bushels, 

 the most that land of the same quality 

 alongside of it produced, and there remained 

 34 bushels of wheat against $25; the land 

 bemg left permanently impregnated with 

 an elemental and alimental ingredient and 

 food tor that noble grain, of which, with all 

 its capacity for producing other crops, it was 



