^Tamers JHcmtl}t|> f xzxi&x. 



I WHO LADOU IN THE EARTH ARE T 



COMMCTKD BV ISAAC HILL. 



HE CMOS IN lll.l i.l' God, whose bueasts hi: has lllllt HIS PECCLIAR deposit e for substantial and 0EHUIK1 TIBTPE." — '•ffir„». 



VOL. 10. NO. 6. 



BOSTON, MASS., JUNE 30, 1848. 



WHOLE NO. 114. 



. ^-^. —■ ■■ -rvn attm M m- ■ ■ VrrWr . ri d rrr i - 1 



THE PARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR, 



PUBLISHED BY 



JOHN MARSH, 



ISSUED ON THE LAST DAY OF EVERY MONTH, 



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alrea'li on our hooks. 



The Mind and the Soil to be Improved. 



[Extract from an Address by Joshua R. Latvtun, Esq., 

 at the last Fair ul the Berkshire Agricultural Society.] 



We are accustomed to hear much of the ex- 

 cellence and respectability of the farmer's occu- 

 |iati<ni ; of the collective power ami influence of 

 the agricultural classes of society; and such 

 ideas are always pleasing, and, to it certain ex- 

 tent, are true and reasonable. But certainly they 

 should never blind our eyes to the necessity ol 

 continual improvements, nor to the actual defects 

 which exist in our modes of cultivation and 

 management of our farms and properly. We 

 should never he afraid to view our condition and 

 circumstances in the light of truth, for such 

 views alone will induce us to apply the appropri- 

 ate remedies, and carry forward a general im- 

 provement. 



We find some instances of highly successful 

 farmers, whose fields and crops illustrate most 

 clearly the advantages of applying science to 

 their cultivation ; but we still find, in their neigh- 

 borhood and in striking contrast with them, 

 other firms, whose appearance proves that their 

 owners have taken no pains to avail themselves 

 of the progress of agricultural science. Jt is 

 true, there is such a thing as poor and unprofita- 

 ble book-farming. If a man, with no practical 

 experience in farming, who has been brought up 

 in other business, should come into the country 

 and purchase a farm, and, despising the habits, 

 experience, arid practical knowledge of his 

 fanning neighbors, should undertake to carry on 

 a farm by the directions contained in books and 

 agricultural papers, he would soon find his busi- 

 ness discouraging and" unprofitable. But this by 

 no means proves that accurate knowledge, de- 

 rived from experiments and experimental sci- 

 ence, is of no use to the practical fanner. 



The intelligent fanner, in perusing agricul- 

 tural papers, and treatises upon agricultural sub- 

 jects, will bring them to the test of his own 

 practical good sense and practical knowledge, 

 Btld silt out and apply that knowledge' which 

 may he sound and useful, and applicable 

 to his own soils and bis own circumstan- 

 ces, and reject the remainder. In the pre- 

 sent slate ol' the world, it is certainly as absurd 

 and injudicious to reject all agricultural reading, 

 as it is blindly 10 follow the rules anil observa- 

 tions laid down in books and agricultural papers. 

 In agriculture, as in all other occupations, we 

 must pay a proper regard to the spirit and im- 

 provements of the age in which we live, or our 

 agricultural occupations, and those who are em- 

 ployed in them, will fail in securing the respect 

 and consideration they deserve. 

 It must 1 



the modes in which farming is carried on among 

 us; and are we not intelligent and candid 

 enough to seek and apply the proper remedies? 

 Why is it that our young men, and young wo- 

 men loo, so often express a dissatisfaction with 

 their home employments and condition ? Is not 



the reason, at least ill part, to he found ii r 



own course of life? How can their fathers ex- 

 pect that their occupations will be satisfactory 

 and attractive, if, disdaining the help of science, 

 and regarding whatever i-< new in practice as in- 

 novating on good old habits, they go on through 

 a fixed dull round of lislless toil, from year to 

 year, barely supporting existence, unimproved 

 and unimproving, doing nothing to relieve agri- 

 culture of associations of toil anil servitude 

 which were heaped upon it by the Vandals and 

 the Goths of the barbarous ages :* The moral 

 estimate placed upon the profession of the farmer 

 is not yet sufficiently high, and whether it shall 

 ever become so, depends upon himself, and upon 

 the moral and intellectual cultivation which he 

 brings to his profession. Jt is not yet fully un- 

 derstood, that it is not the whole nf a farmer's 

 duly lo labor, but that his occupation is a sphere 

 for the noblest exercise of taste and intellect, in 

 which ;irt and science may work with materials 

 as exhaustless as the resources of the globe. — 

 Let him call this art and science to his aid, and 

 man, not alone the geologist and the chemist, 

 hut man, the intelligent farmer, may look upon 

 himself and his calling with pride, and with pro- 

 found gratitude to the Author of his being and 

 the Creator of the world in which he lives. 



To render the earth in the greatest degree tri- 

 butary to the uses of man ; so to mix and manage 

 its elements, as to make it teem with vegetation 

 in all its useful varieties, is a great natural pro- 

 blem, vital to the existence and progress of soci- 

 ety. To solve this problem seems not to have 

 been among the attainments of ancient nations. 

 With them, and indeed until times quite modern, 

 agriculture seems rather to^have exhausted the 

 powers of the fertile portions of the earth's sur- 

 face, than to have renovated exhausted lands, or 

 to have sought out appliances and means to 

 make poor and barren soils productive. This 

 field is open to the industry and science of mod- 

 ern fanning. Great progress in some countries, 

 and in some parts of this country, has been 

 made in it ; but there is room and increasing ne- 

 cessity for still greater progress. What a gill 

 from the great Author of our existence, thai 

 man is made the great instrument in disposing 

 the earth in such a manner as to produce. Look 

 at it as it illustrates the scientific dignity belong- 

 ing to your profession. See what an elevated 

 position you have taken in the: world, to be a 

 producer of all the good tilings which man can 

 desire to make him happy, and also the provider 

 for "the cattle upon a thousand hills." Labor is, 

 and in the best ages ever has been, honorable. 



Yet it is to be observed, that in this«ge of the 

 world, when all other occupations and profes- 

 sions are invoking the aids of scientific research, 

 the labor of agriculture, to maintain its dignity 

 and respectability, must he coupled with iutel- 



* Let us look, for a moment, nt the immense importance 

 of the agricultural interest; at the immense capital em- 

 ployed in tillage, ami the enormous amount of us pro- 

 ducts. Take the fact, for instance, that the whole foreign 

 commerce ol Great Hrilain is actually worth less than the 

 annual grass crop upon her home island', and that the uni- 

 ted commercial and manufacturing industry of the entire 

 world fails to create values at all comparable with those 

 of agriculture. These things are not sufllcently realized 

 by the farmer, and especially by tin young farmer. 



Look fnra moment at the power of agriculture., ns exhi- 

 bited the present year What else could have snatched 

 from the grave the millions dying by limine in another 

 hemisphere? All the gold, ami 'silver, and precious 

 stones, and hooks of learning, in the world, could not 

 have saved life in that crisis. The famishing millions 

 .cried for bread, and bread nlono would save them ; and 

 admitted that there are defects in agriculture alone would furnish bread. 



lectnal activity and scientific investigation. The 

 occupation of the mind is entirely consistent 

 with industrious bodily labor. The farmer, of 

 all others, may reasonably expect to enjoy that 

 greatest of all earthly blessings, "a sound mind 

 in a sound body." The occupation of the mind 

 is productive of refinement. From it spring 

 morality and religion ; and the farmer can never 

 be considered lilted for his business, and prepar- 

 ed lo fill the many important positions to which 

 he maybe called in lile, without much study and 

 reflection. 



The practical farmer may and should be con- 

 tinually improving his mind by study and reflec- 

 tion ; — reading and study in his leisure hours, 

 reflection and observation in his daily toil. The 

 field of his labor is unbounded, and his mind 

 should be continually employed in searching out 

 the nature of his soils, and what they require to 

 make them productive. If a pi' ce of land is 

 wet, how shall it he drained and made produc- 

 tive, at a reasonable expense ? If it is cold, with 

 what shall it be mingled, to give it genial 

 warmth ? If the soil is light and thin, how shall 

 it be deepened and made more stringent? If 

 dry and porous, what retentive mixture will give 

 the power of retaining moisture and manures? 

 These ;ue questions to be solved by every farm- 

 er, in regard to his own fields, and they must be, 

 to make him a successful agriculturist. 



First, he must learn the general character of 

 his soils; the general classes lo which they lie- 

 long, the proper treatment of these classes of 

 soils; and then he must patiently ascertain, by 

 trial and experiment, the peculiar modifications 

 of that treatment which Ins particular soil may 

 require. By so doing, by this practical applica- 

 tion of his knowledge, he can enliven dead and 

 Unproductive hinds, and make them teem with 

 the choicest productions of the earth. He can, 

 in short, give to soils just such a combination as 

 he pleases, and can make a good soil where na- 

 ture has denied it both mechanically and chemi- 

 cally, by adding earths, and by adding manures. 

 Different soils require different treatment, lo dis- 

 pose them to production. The intelligent prac- 

 tical farmer knows lands when lie sees them ; he 

 knows what treatment they want. His common 

 seuse and observation will teach him how they 

 may be made productive-. lie is many times 

 surprised, when he sees sterile and unproductive 

 fields very near flourishing villages, where lie 

 most of the materials, necessary to enrich them, 

 unemployed. A few shillings and dollars, with 

 some labor and energy, will prepare the fossil 

 manures, and apply them to produce fertility. — 

 The lime-stone beds are reposing all around, 

 waiting for the attention of the owner, or the 

 capital of some one who deals in stocks, to bring 

 them to the furnace, and prepare them to correct 

 and fertilize the soil, making ihose sterile fields 

 not only productive, but ornamental. 



There may he, and there are, portions of our 

 land, where' the soil is itself so rich and inex- 

 haustible in fertility, that a knowledge! of making 

 an application of manures is of no consequence. 

 But we till know that our soils generally are not 

 of that character. Here the science of preparing 

 manures lies at the very foundation of agricul- 

 tural success. The variety of manures is much 

 greater, and their application lo the variety of 

 soils and crops is much better understood, than 

 heretofore. The farmer has learned much by 

 his own experience, by his own experiments, 

 patiently and perseveringly carried out, modified 

 by his own good sense and careful observation. 

 I i< is no longer content w ith the small amount 

 of manures which his farm naturally supplies. 

 Nature, at homo and abroad, furnishes manures, 

 and the materials from which manures can he 

 made, in almost endless variety; and if the 

 farmer is diligent in inquiry and experiment, he 

 can create, in his barn-yard and compost-heap, a 



