THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



CONDUCTED BY ISAAC HIIiL. 



' Those viko labor in the earth are the choscnpeople of God, whose breasts he has made hispeculiar d^positefor tubstanlial and g«iuine i)tr(ue."— JEFFrB 



VOLUME III. 



CONCORD, N. H. MARCH 31, 1841. 



NUMBER 3. 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



A MOXTHLY NEWSPAPER, 13 PUBLISHED EV • 



JOHN M. HILL, 



mVe Brick Block, Concord, AT. H. 



GENERA fAGEMTS, 



B. COOKE, Keene, N. H. 



TH. R. HAMPTON, Washington City, D. C. 



JOHN MARSH. Washington St. Boston. 



CHARLES WARREN, Brinley Row, Worcester, Mass. 



A. H. STILLVVELL, No. \, Market Square, Prov. R.l. 



GEORGE W. TOVVLE, Portsmouth, N. H. 



L, VV. HALL & Co. Springfield, Mass. 



ngiei 

 >DoU 



ed on the last day of each month, 

 subscribers. Seventy-five cents : 



The Visitor v 

 TERMS. 



Three copies for Two 

 lars: — Twenty-tive copies f 



The twelve numbers em 

 first volume of the Visitor, 

 every ten new subscribers 

 person. 



Subscribers may commence at their electi 

 the January or July number, in each year. 

 Title Page will accompany each half year. 



O" Communications by mail will be d 

 Publisher, Concord, N. H. 



racing the year 1839, or 

 are offered as a premium 

 obtained and paid for by 



Extra cultivation and expense will increase 

 the profits of labor. Example of Gen. King 

 of Bath, Me. 



" LINE UPON LINE, PRECEPT UPON PRECEPT. 



The papers exclusively devoted to Agriculture 

 are becoming numerous in almost every section 

 of the Union : in these papers himdreds of prac- 

 tical men are devoting their time and attention in 

 furnishing the results of their knowledge and ex- 

 perience. Many men of talents make it their bu- 

 siness to furnish something for every number of 

 some agricultural newspaper. If the united tal- 

 ents of all the writers on Agriculture in the coun- 

 try could succeed in establishing conviction on 

 one point, one hundred times the value of all the 

 money paid as the subscription prices of all the 

 agricultural newspapers ia the country would be 

 gained. That one point is every where applica- 

 ble — not less as affecting the most easy and most 

 fertile virgin soil of the West, than tlie hardest, 

 roughest and most sterile worn out soil of th( 

 New England Suites. It is the fact that the judi- 

 cious investment of capital in extra cultivation tvill 

 in all cases greatly increase the value of the land by 

 increasing the profits on labor. 



We fear we may tire the patience of our read- 

 ers by repealing the assertion that our farmers 

 generally cultivate too much land for the quanti- 

 ty of manure and labor applied. Be the premi 

 ses of any farmer large or small, it is our firm 

 conviction that he will be greatly the gainer by 

 putting the manure generally spread over foil 

 acres upon a single acre. Suppose he ploughs 

 up this year for the first lime four acres of hard 

 sward land, which either had never before been 

 ploughed, or vvhich, having been ploughed, lias 

 become exhausted and nearly barren of grass 

 from long cropping. He has forty loads of good 

 stable manure to put upon this ground. If he 

 place these forty loads in equal portions upon 

 each acre of some kinds of manure, he may re- 

 ceive the advantage of it for the year; but the 

 benefits of manure so diffused will scarcely ex- 

 tend to any after crop. The effect of the raanare 

 is felt in that year when it will do the least good ; 

 and if it be a ttimulaling manure, in proportion 

 OB it is exposed to a greater atmosphere, so will a 

 larger portion of its strength and the strength of 

 the soil on vvhich it acts pass off in the air with- 

 out doing good any wliere. Suppose he shall 

 place the whole forty loads on a single acre of 

 the four, mixing it as much aa possible with the 

 soil, and by covering it over completely, leave it 

 little exposed to evaporation from the atmosphere 



and sun. The acre thus prepared will give all 

 the benefits that might be expected from the ma- 

 nure the first year — benefits, it is believed, equal 

 at least for that crop in proportion to the fourfold 

 quantity used ; and leave the ground in that slate 

 which will give a double crop of grain and grass 

 for at least three succeeding years. By this four- 

 fold process, with little additional labor a double 

 crop is produced in a rotation of different crops 

 for at least four years, and the land is left at that 

 time in an excellent condition for another round 

 of the same crops. 



It will be seen that four acres have been 

 ploughed : what shall be done with the other three 

 acres ? If nothing better can be done, let half of 

 it be planted with potatoes without manure, and 

 the other half be sowed with oats or buckwheat. 

 The potatoes will be very nearly as valuable, if 

 not as great in quantity as they would have been 

 if the manure at the rate of ten loads to the acre 

 had been placed upon the ground. The oats or 

 buckwheat, if the farmer can afford it, will make 

 a most excellent renovator of the soil for another 

 year if ploughed into the ground in a green state, 

 being equal,in proportion to their size and growth, 

 to an application of from ten to twenty loads of 

 (nanure as a preparation for the next year's crop ; 

 so that the quantity of manure which was used 

 only on one acre this year will be sufficient for 

 from one acre and a half to two acres the ne.\t 

 year with the aid of the summer fallow of the 

 first season. The potatoe ground likewise will 

 be in excellent condition for a next year's treat- 

 ment with the forty loads of manure, as the favor- 

 ed acre was the first year ; or if there be not suf- 

 ficient manure to be had far the purpose, let the 

 sowing of oats or buckwheat wiih the summer 

 fallow follow, preparing the ground for its high- 

 est cultivation on the third year. If the farmer 

 cannot afford to lose the green cro]) for the year 

 by ploughing it in, he may without much exhaus- 

 tion of the laud take it away when it becomes 

 rifje. In such case when the land comes under 

 real cultivation in a subsequent year, the manure 

 should be placed on the ground in full quantity, 

 and mixed and diffused as far as possible through 

 all the soil destined to furnish aliment for future 

 crops. 



We think we cannot be mistaken as to the 

 better policy of this method of treating the four 

 acres of land. We know that most farmers 

 choose tlie method of spreading their manure 

 over a larger sui-face from their supposed inabili 

 ty to give land more manure. They say it is easy 

 for men who have the command of money, or 

 who live where manure may be readily purcha 

 sed, to adopt the method we recommend ; but 

 that it is impossible for hundreds of farmers to 

 do it and be able to bring the year about. The 

 farmer who commences business without a capi- 

 tal feels obliged to help himself by taking all he 

 can get from the soil. If his farm be new, he 

 forces large crops from it on the exhausting prin- 

 ciple for several years in succession until the land 

 seems to be -literally worn out. The exhausted 

 land is abandoned for present cultivation, and as 

 a better encouragement for present labor the pro- 

 oi^Sfir clears off new acres of forest to be treat- 

 Wff their turn as those which have been aban- 

 doned. The course is a natural one to be pursu- 

 ed in all newly settled countries ; and the more 

 fertile and easy the soil, the more extensive in the 

 end becomes the desolation. 



Looking to older countries than our own, a 

 different sy.stem has been adopted from necessi- 

 ty. In Flanders and Holland, in England, Scot- 

 land and Ireland, the agricultural products have 

 been greatly increased by the renovating process, 

 by the thorough cultivation and the abundance of 

 manures furnished for the ground. The laborers 

 who there cultivate the land are very rarely own- 

 ers of the land which they cultivate : they are 

 generally poor and dependent, much more so 

 than the lowest class of laborers in this country 



The wealthy proprietors of the lands, and thos* 

 who are rich enough to tenant them and furnish 

 capital nearly equal to their original value to car- 

 ry tliem on, derive almost exclusively the benefits 

 and the profits of their cultivation ; and the labor 

 of the poor goes not for their own benefit but for 

 the benefit of their rich employers. 



In this country there is great encouragement 

 for every poor man who has the means to pur- 

 chase a little plot of ground to carry its cultiva- 

 tion to the highest pohit. Let his enterprise and 

 his diligence be directed rather to the improve- 

 ment of the small farm that he now possesses, 

 than to increase the size of a farm now under 

 poor cultivation. 



Much money has been expended by wealthy 

 and sometimes by improvident men who happen 

 to find the means within their reach, in experi- 

 ments. In nine cases out of ten, experiments 

 hitherto untried turn out to be fruitless and uii- 

 profitable ; and of the successful experiment it 

 is very seldom the man who originates it derives 

 a present advantage. The want of success, it is 

 believed, has created a common prejudice against 

 experimental farming which prevents thousands 

 from embracing real advantages of which there 

 can be no doubt. 



The practical farmer of the interior who pur- 

 sues the course of his fathers who first settled the 

 land which he occupies and finds by the exhaust- 

 ing process that his farm growslessand less pro- 

 ductive, on his way to some seaport, passes the 

 beautiful fields of the wealthy man which yield 

 three and four times as much as his own premi- 

 ses. "Ah! (he e.xclaims) that man is rich— he 

 has the means and he can afford to manure and 

 cultivate his lands highly. But he probably got 

 his money in some other way than by farming. 

 I think he must be spending and wasting money 

 by farming, for I gain nothing by it where I do 

 not i)ut a fifth part of the expense and labor upon 

 my land tliat he does upon his." The country 

 farmer is often mistaken on every point. The 

 successful farmer was a poor man when he be- 

 gun : he has made himself rich as well by the 

 greater expenditure upon his land as by his great- 

 er industry : he obtained all his means from the 

 improvements he has made ; and so far from 

 spending and wasting money by farming, he en- 

 joys the superlative satisfaction while he sees his 

 ample crops burdening the ground, of filling his 

 coffers day after day and week after week from 

 the sales of his surplus produce. 



We hope to see the time when the prejudice 

 which exists against the enterprises of generous 

 and munificent capitalists who have spent much 

 time and money in experimental farming, shall 

 wear away. Several of these gentlemen have al- 

 ways been " ready to every good word and work" 

 in the towns near our seaboard. We can remem- 

 ber the publications of a Lowell, a Quincy, a 

 Prince, and a Welles of some twenty-five and 

 thirty years ago ; and of the numerous weaJthy 

 men who are pursuing Agriculture and Horticul- 

 ture in the vicinity of the Emporium of New 

 England at this time, we might name J. P. Cush- 

 iNO, Esq. of Watertown, as able and free to ex- 

 pend his thousands and his tens of thousands 

 merely to gratify an enlightened taste in magni- 

 fying the productions of our mother earth both in 

 the vegetable and animal worid. These gentle- 

 men indulge in a pursuit which is made to them 

 a favorite, not for the purpose of mere money 

 making : they introduce and rear rare animals not 

 with the expectation of profit : they lay out and 

 construct artificial gardens producing fruits and 

 flowers out of their natural season for no purpose* 

 of pecuniary gain. There is, nevertheless, a Taliie 

 attached to their efforts which is not duly estima- 

 ted and correctly appreciated. The example of 

 these men, although condemned by many as a 

 useless expenditure, has taught practical farmers 

 and gardeners living near them to furnish lh« 

 markets weeks sooner than formerly with those 



