&!jc jTatnur's i-Hontljhj btettor. 



127 



way passes, cannot admit of a doubt. The pub- 

 lic receive all they claim ; all that can he of any 

 service to them, in securing the right of travel 

 and repair. They do nol a<k, as a public body, 

 the right of pasturage, or of ploughing and sow 

 itig or mowing. If they did, it would operate qs 

 an unequal right, which a part might enjoy, 

 while others have no opportunity or disposition 

 to avail themselves of it. On the contrary, it il 

 for the public convenience and public interest to 

 leave this right of soil and its productions in the 

 hands of the original proprietor, and further bj 

 good laws to protect him in that right. Where 

 would the comfort or the safety of the traveller 

 be, if all sorts of animals were allowed to run, 

 indiscriminately, it) our highways? Here, be 

 might be exposed to the attack of a ferocious 

 bull; there an unmanageable horse might block- 

 ade his path, and perhaps endanger his life. 

 Many advocates of street pasturing, would no 

 doubt say, keep sucli animals out, but let others 

 run. But no. If our highways are public pas- 

 hires, they have as good a right there as the in- 

 nocent lamb. If they are pastures, they are pas- 

 tures for every kind of farm stock. This is fully 

 confirmed by the practice of the advocates of 

 street feeding. 



Street feeding is ati encroachment on individ- 

 ual rights to an amount more than equivalent to 

 all the benefits that can result from it. Many 

 farmers would never on any consideration per- 

 mit their animals to run at large. They choose, 

 like thrifty men, to keep them in their own en- 

 closures, where they are sale from the exposures 

 to which animals running at large are liable, and 

 where they are sure to find them when needed. 

 Such men are forever tormented bystreet cattle, 

 which usually go in herds, and are forever pick- 

 ing quarrels with those in enclosures adjoining 

 the highway — throwing down fences and teach- 

 ing other cattle to do so, and fighting when the 

 fences are down. Many a quiet and orderly 

 stock has been made unruly, and of course of 

 depreciated value, by evil associations with ani- 

 mals running at large. 



But there are other wrongs to which individu- 

 als are subject, through this pernicious practice. 

 Suppose for instance, (and it is a supposition 

 which will hold good in a great majority of cases) 

 that the farm of A. is situated so that a 

 great proportion of his farm teaming is across 

 the public way. In spring he wishes to haul his 

 manure to fields opposite to his barns, one of 

 two things must be done: the bars must be put 

 up, or the gates opened and shut on each side of 

 the way, every time he passes, or his fields must 

 be trodden up by herds of marauders, wandering 

 about like the prince of darkness, " seeking 

 whom they may devour." In summer, the sea- 

 son of busy cares, when earth is pouring her 

 treasures into the storehouse and granary, the 

 same scene of opening and shutting must be 

 passed through again, only twice at each gate for 

 every load of bay or grain that is moved to the 

 barn. Now, is not this a pretty item of labor in 

 the hurry of haying and harvest? And does the 

 public, for whose benefit the farmer's fields are 

 cut in twain, demand it ? No ; they only ask 

 "the right of travel and repair," all these ceremo- 

 nies of labor and toil must be gone through with 

 to gratify the lawless desire of a grasping indi- 

 vidual. Let animals lie expelled from the high- 

 way, and bars may lie out anil gates open for the 

 prosecution of the business of the farm from 

 morning till night, or from spring to autumn, 

 with nothing to molest or make afraid lor the 

 safely to crops. And now, brother fanners, we 

 leave it for you to say whether such a state of 

 things is desirable in the prosecution of* your 

 daily employments. For ourselves, we have 

 lived under the dispensation of cattle going at 

 large, and now live under the brighter one of 

 having them enclosed, and found the difference 

 in favor of the latter too great for our expression. 

 Try it, and you will say likewise, and your 

 neighbors who may not at the first like it so well, 

 will, after a fair trial, give a response to your 

 sentiments. 



But to the text — How it can be done ? In the 

 first place get a draft of the law of Massa- 

 chusetts in this mailer. Il is as perfect as a law 

 can be, ami so plain that a fool cannot mistake 

 ils meaning, (though perverse and obstinate men 

 may sometimes give it a perverse translation) 



and send petitions, many or few as circumstan- 

 ces may permit, to your legislature, and ask that 

 a statute in its very letter may be entered upon 

 your own book. If they refuse to do this, give 

 them leave to slui/ at home as unfaithful servants 

 of tla -people, in all future time, as the reward of 

 their short coming in protecting tlic people's rights, 

 and try again, and continue to try until the thing 

 is accomplished. It will soon be done, and in 

 the end will compensate in more than a hundred 

 fold lor all the labor its accomplishment will 

 cost. Get such a law passed, we say, farmers, 

 for ye are the people that can do it, in every 

 State in the Union, and you will realize in one 

 particular, the pleasure of silting under your 

 "own vine and fig tree," and will entail a protec- 

 tive statute on posterity, of more value to them 

 than till the protective tariffs that a nation of 

 Congresses ever would impose. 



VV. BACON. 



Elmwood, July, 1848. 



From the Sonthern Cultivator. 

 Demand for Wool. 

 Having seen more grass in the month of July 

 than all that we have met with in eight months 

 before, at the South, [the cotton-growing States 

 are not generally productive of the grasses in 

 use for the pasturage of sheep] we begin to 

 think that something may be done here in the 

 way of growing wool. The gentleman to whom 

 the Ibllowing letter is addressed, has done much 

 to encourage the business in ibis quarter of the 

 Union, as well as at the North. Mr. Lawrence 

 is one of the largest manufacturers of woolen 

 goods in New England : 



Lowell, Mass., Feb. 10, 1848. 



My Dear Sir :— Your very kind and interest- 

 ing favor of the 27th tilt., didy came to hand, 

 and should, if practicable, have received an ear- 

 lier reply. The business of wool-growing in 

 this country is destined to be of immense im- 

 portance, and I am firm in the belief that within 

 twenty five years we shall produce a greater quan- 

 tity of wool than any other nation. 



You ask, "is the present home demand sup- 

 plied ?" There is not enough annually raised in 

 the country by 10,000,000 pounds to meet the 

 demand of the manufactories. 



You ask, " what countries can we export wool 

 to r"&c. This country will not export wool 

 regularly for fifteen years, for the reason that the 

 consumption will increase as rapidly as the pro- 

 duction. I can point out articles made of wool, 

 now imported, which will require thirty millions 

 of pounds, of a medium and fine quality to sup- 

 ply the consumption. 



The business of manufacturing wool in this 

 country is on a better basis than ever be- 

 fore, inasmuch as the character, skill and capi- 

 tal engaged in it are such that foreign competi- 

 tion is defied. A very few years, and all articles 

 of wool used here will be of home manufac- 

 ture. 



Now I beg you to keep the wool-growers 

 steady to the mark. Let them aim to excel in 

 the blood ami condition of their Bock*, and tin- 

 day is not fiir distant when they will be amply 

 remunerated. 



Yours, most truly, 



SAM. LAWRENCE. 



To Henry S. Randall, Esq., Cortland, N. Y. 



The above letter from a generous patron of 

 the fine wool-growers of our State deserves re- 

 publication, as an encouragement to New Eng- 

 land farmers to persevere in rearing ami improv- 

 ing their flocks. Messrs. Sibley and Barnard, in 

 our own neighbor town of llopkinton, have 

 flocks annually pastured high upon ICearsarge 

 proving that every year as good managers they 

 have made money on their fine wools. The soil 

 of New England, the mountain soil high up, is 

 the best in America for sheep pasturage as well 

 as for the cattle pasturage which produces the 

 best oxen, cows and horses, the fattest beef and 

 million, the richest butter and cheese. The 

 Prairie Farmer of Illinois confesses the inferi- 

 ority of that great fertile Slate in the grasses: 

 there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions 



of acres in the whole northerly line of Vermont, 

 New Hampshire and Maine, (he best in the Uni- 

 ted Slates, yet to be opened to successful and 

 profitable cultivation— as good and enduring 

 land, more profitable lor cultivation, more healthy 

 for permanent residence, than the best farming 

 lands of the far West. Let that country be filled 

 with emigrants from Europe, as the most endur- 

 ing constitutions to encounter that climate : New 

 England young men may hereafter find the judi- 

 cious application of capital and labor to our own 

 lands to be the best business they can undertake. 

 Hereafter in New England, if there can be no 

 lack of demand for fine wool, nearly every thing 

 else here raised upon the land will be in 

 demand that shall require no sacrifice in the 

 sale. 



From the Scientific American. 

 The Benefits of Machinery for alt Classes. 



Fifty years ago wages were no belter, in fact 

 less than at the present day and the comforts 

 and luxuries of life far more difficult to obtain. 

 Articles needed by the poor man, cost in those 

 days of comparative freedom from machinery, 

 from twice to three times what they do now, and 

 often more ; and you will find that the greatest 

 reductions are in those articles to which machin- 

 ery has been most successfully applied. There 

 is no article of luxury or comfort to which ma- 

 chinery has been extensively and successfully 

 applied, of which the poor man cannot now get 

 more for a day's labor than he could before such 

 application of machinery. Salt is now less than 

 one-third, iron less than one-half, shirtings and 

 calicoes and cloth generally from one-naif to 

 one-fourth. Pins, needles, shoes, hats, every 

 thing in similar proportion. 



Forty years ago such articles of use or orna- 

 ment as locks were scarcely known, and could 

 be afforded by rich only. Farmers' wagons 

 were chiefly sleds, their" houses cabins, their 

 chairs stools and benches, bureaus pins drove in 

 the wall or poles hung across, and their windows 

 often an old sheet or blanket. Nails and glass 

 cost money in those days, and labor commanded 

 little! 



Since machinery has been applied,— better 

 roads, turnpikes, railroads, all of which are a 

 species of machinery, have been constructed. 

 Steam bus has been made to propel the boat and 

 the great ship, and to give power to the mill, to 

 the jenny and the loom. Production in many 

 articles lias been more than trebled and every 

 thing the laborer needs has lallen, while his 

 wages have raised or remained stationary. The 

 cloi-k which the fanner hail not and could not 

 afford, now adorns the mantel of his poorest 

 tenant, and summons him to his meals. 



There have been less improvements in agricul- 

 tural implements than in machinery for manu- 

 facturing purposes, but this is the age of im- 

 provement. Let machinery he applied to hus- 

 bandry also. Let bread anil meat be as cheap 

 as clothing, and if the distribution is net as 

 equal as it might be, let us rejoice, that if the 

 rich man has more, so also the poor man much 

 more. 



The cottage has now by the aid of machinery 

 here, what great kings have not in Africa, and 

 what the kings of England had not before the 

 introduction of machinery. Tin: great Alfred 

 sat upon a three-legged stool, while many an 

 Engli-h or American tenant now reclines on a 

 gilded sofa. If the poor of England and Amer- 

 ica are not so well off as they should be machin- 

 ery is not at fault. It is machinery that has sav- 

 ed them from much greater misery, and the re- 

 forms which they need are chiefly governmental 

 and social. 



Ploughing for Wheat. — Elias Cost, of On- 

 tario coounty, N. Y., is very successful In raising 

 wheal, by preparing his fallo .vs w ith a single 

 ploughing— sometime during summer — all the 

 rest of the mellowing and weed-killing being 

 done with a two-horse cultivator. The wheat is 

 covered after sowing, by passing the cultivator 

 but once over ii. A strip six leet wide is I lien 

 covered at a time. The soil is nol heavy. — JJ[. 

 bnny Cultivator. 



