NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



303 



For the New Eii^lanil Farmer. 

 LEGISLATION ON AGRICULTURE. 



Mr. Cole: — The House of Representatives of 

 our little State of New Hampshire, at its late ses- 

 sion, resolved by a very decided majority to appro- 

 priate a few hundred dollars to aid the State and 

 County Agricultural Societies, in promoting im- 

 provements in agriculture. The Senate, composed 

 of twelve very consequential men, negatived the 

 whole matter. This raises a question, if not more 

 questions than one, on what is the proper busi- 

 ness for a legislative body to act upon, or what 

 should be considered the proper objects of popular 

 governments like our own. Upon this point a few 

 remarks are intended. 



The first and most important object of govermen- 

 tal action, should be to develope the resources or 

 means of a State for self-support. This being se- 

 cured, the next object is the protection of a State 

 from external evils and internal difficulties. These 

 being secured, the third object is to carry forward 

 such improvements as shall be for the public bene- 

 fit. 



We put the development of the means of self- 

 support as the first proper object in the govern- 

 ment of a State, because subsistence is more impor- 

 tant than all other circumstances combined. And 

 how is it in the State of New Hampshire 1 Has 

 the State the means of subsistence within itself? 

 Its agricultural productions are not equal to the 

 wants of the people, by at least five dollars to each 

 individual, in this part of the State. In some 

 towns, where more than half of the people are 

 farmers, the expenditure for bread-stuffs is equal 

 to seven and a half dollars for each individual, over 

 and above all that is produced in the town. Then 

 in our large towns, the sura paid out for flour 

 and grain is equal to fifteen if not to tw-enty dollars 

 for each inhabitant, over all that is produced by 

 agriculture. Suppose the average expenditure for 

 flour and grain brought into the State to be four 

 dollars for each individual, per year; v^ith a popu- 

 lation of three hundred and twenty thousand, it 

 would amount to the nice little sum of one million 

 two hundred and eighty thousand dollars, for the 

 little State of New Hampshire, to pay away for 

 the means .of subsistence, besides all that is paid 

 out for other provisions, and grocery articles, such 

 as sugar, tea, salt, &c. &c. 



With the evidence we have before us, we are 

 led to the conclusion that New Hampshire is taxed 

 not less than two or three millions of dollars annu- 

 ally for the means of subsistence. While this is 

 the esse, what is the condition of farms and farm- 

 ers 1 



Take the State through, and a large portion of 

 the farms, if carried on by hired labor, would no 

 more than pay for the labor (of man and beast,) 

 and pay the taxes assessed upon them. They 

 would not give one per cent, profit on their valua- 

 tion. As a means of profit in the present state of 

 agriculture, though they may be variously valued 

 or estimated, they are not properly worth a single 

 cent. 



Under such a state of agriculture, a small por- 

 tion only of farmers are improving their property. 

 They toil hard and live short, and then have a hard 

 struggle to make the income sufficient to meet the 

 outgoes of the year. A great majoiity of our 

 honest, hard-working farmers are as poor at the 

 close of the year as they were at the beginning of 



it. And such are the very men whose votes have 

 elected such Senators as refuse every encourage- 

 ment to farmers. But if some proposition'^is 

 brought forward for a new privilege to city and 

 village capitalists to grow richer without labor, 

 those Senators are ready to act. 



Our Senate is made up almost entirely of Dem- 

 ocrats. A very large majority of the votes given 

 for those Democrats are cast by the very class of 

 men whose interests they set at nought from year 

 to year. A great majority of the New Hampsliire 

 farmers are Democrats. Whether Whigs would 

 do any better in this respect, is not our purpose to 

 inquire. The writer of this is a Democrat, but not 

 one born blind. 



Now if the development of the means of sub- 

 sistence should be the first care and first object of a 

 State, it is time that we put away such rulers and 

 legislators as legislate continually for party or 

 pockets, and who \Vould consent that famishing 

 millions might lift up a hopeless cry for bread, and 

 the barren and desolate earth frown coldly back 

 upon them, refusing their call. 



The soil is the great gift of God to man, as ena- 

 bling him to obtain the means of life. The study 

 of its proper use and management is the most ne- 

 cessary and important study, for the subsistence and 

 the happiness of man. 



But it is answered, that we have a forbidding 

 soil. We must devote our hilly home-land to man- 

 ufactures and to mechanical pursuits. And de- 

 pend on the means of subsistence from abroad ? 

 Yes. 



When agriculture is given up in New England, 

 the home of virtue will no longer be among us. 

 An intelligent farming community is the very stay 

 and life of virtue and liberty. c. 



Mason, N. H., July, 1851. 



For the New Enslayid Farmer. 

 FARMING IN RAYMOND, N. H. 



Mr. Cole: — Last January an unknown friend 

 sent me two copies of the "New England Far- 

 mer." I was so interested in them that I subscribed 

 for it, and I have got my dollar's worth already. 

 As you have no correspondents in this vicinity, I 

 will furnish you with a few articles of my experi- 

 ence in farming, &c. 



My residence is in a small country town, in the 

 western part of Rockingham Co., and on a farm 

 "cleared up" by my grandfather, about ninety 

 years ago, and was the residence of my father, 

 (who was a practical farmer) during his life, which 

 closed a few years since. 



The crops in this vicinity mostly promise well; 

 the hay crop especially is abundant. The season 

 has been very wet and rather cold, consequently 

 corn is backward, but "it is on the ground," and 

 there will be a good harvest, if the fall is favora- 

 ble. The potato disease has made its appearance, 

 and we fear that it will be very destructive. 



I am fully satisfied that we cultivate too much 

 land. 1 do not mow over so much l)y ten acres 

 as I did eight years ago, and I get more hay than 

 then. There is far greater satisfaction in swing- 

 ing the scythe where there is a heavy burden, say 

 two tons to the acre, than it is where thcie is not 

 enough to shade the grasshoppers. 



Most farms are so situated that a portion can be 

 "turned out to pasture" without much extra fence. 



