38 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



without beJDg properly prepared. My method is 

 to turn over a piece of graas land that needs tak- 

 ing up, early in the spring, put on a heavy harrow 

 and work up the turf as line as possible, fill the 

 soil with coarse manure, put on the harrow again 

 and work in the manure, plant ou the surface 

 without a furrow ; the manure and turf will keep 

 the soil sufficiently light. I have never failed of 

 getting potatoes of an excellent quality, though 

 perhaps not so much in quantity ns many others 

 on different soils. 



As to the culture of wheat and rye I must ac- 

 knowledge that I have been unsuccessful. I do 

 not think that these intervales are adapted to these 

 crops. In cold seasons I have known them to 

 succeed well, but in warm seasons the air is too 

 sultry and the fogs are too dense ; the straw will 

 inevitably rust and the grain blight. 



Grass, corn, and oats are the most profitable 

 crops, and I believe by proper cultivation these 

 can be produced in as great abundance here as 

 in any part of the known world. Oats are objec- 

 tionable with some on account of grass seed being 

 less likely to take well with them than with other 

 smttU grain ; but there is no difficulty in this if 

 the laud is in proper condition. I have always 

 stocked to grass with my oat crop and have nev- 

 er yet failed of having grass in abundance, espe- 

 cially for the last four years. 



The mangel wurtzel, sugar beet and ruta bagn 

 can also be made profitable with us. I raised 

 400 bushels of the latter ^ach year for the last 

 two years, on one half acre, and find they turn to 

 good account as a wholesome feed (or my sheep 

 in the spring betwixt hay and grass. 



For the last four years I have kept an account 

 of sales from my farm — the first two years I did 

 not ; as I observed in the former jiart of this com- 

 munication it was a liard business, notwithstand- 

 ing the favorable prices of produce to make the 

 net gains, witli my own labor, pay the interest of 

 the purchase. 1 have since increased the cost of 

 farm to $4000, by improvements in buildings and 

 adding thereto. 



I have for the last five years had the lease of a 

 lot adjoining my own of about thirty acres, for 

 which I pay annually in rent and taxes $125, and 

 am obliged to return to the soil all the manure 

 made from the products of this land. In order 

 to obtain the lease I became obligated to pay ten 

 dollars more per year than it ever had rented for 

 before, and this sum more than any one else 

 woidd pay. I have managed this lot as though it 

 were my own, and increased its products to near- 

 ly double. The Canada thistle had made sad in- 

 roads upon all the best part of this laud, many 

 acres of which had been kept for several years 

 under the plough. The person then a!)OUt to 

 leave the farm I had purchased, remarked to me 

 that he would not cultivate this lot for all he could 

 get from it, ou account of its being so overrun 

 with tins troublesome enemy. I was satisfied 

 their growth and increase had been promoted by 

 too much ploughing and believed I could subdue 

 them by a diflferent process. I stocked down all 

 then under the plough with a liberal quantity of 

 red clover and timothy seed and three bushels of 

 oats to the acre. As I expacted, however, the 

 thistles overpowered the grain. I had but a light 

 crop, and was obliged to cut it with a scythe, some 

 of which I never thrashed. These lands have 

 been mowed four years in succession, and there 

 is not now one thistle stock to where there were 

 twenty when the last crop of grain was taken oft'. 



This lot together with what I own, gives me six- 

 ty-seven acres of intervale, besides what the buil- 

 dings occupy. My products this last year were 

 1060 bushels of gi-ain of all kinds, 350 bushels 

 of potatoes, 400 bushels ruta baga and about six- 

 ty tons of hay by estimation ; and I think the es- 

 timation is not too higli, for with my ruta baga 

 and probably about sixty bushels of corn I shall 

 go through this long winter with two horses, one 

 yoke of oxen, four cows, two yearling steers and 

 four himdred slieep. 



I do not make this statement because I tliink it 

 an extraordinary yield for the quantity of land, I 

 improve ; as I have remarked before, I believe 

 this land can be made to produce double this 

 amount. I only feel proud of what I have already 

 done.beginning as I did with an impoverished soil. 

 The last year's products compared with those of 

 a few years back would show a very sensible in 

 crease. I have never paid n frnrtinn for manure, 

 nor have I any swamps or bog inirc to resort to 



great natural advantages wherever they exist. I 

 have made the most of my limited means to in- 

 crease this invaluable treasure of the farmer, and 

 feel that 1 have been amply rewarded. 



For the three j ears previous to the last, I kt on 

 shares about one lialf of this sixty-seven acres of 

 intervale, giving the occupant one half of the 

 grain and one third of the hay, but not the privil- 

 ege of taking away from the premises- any hay or 

 other fodder. I also reserved the right of direc- 

 tion as to the way and manner of cultivation, and 

 as an offiset to this, paid all the taxes myself and 

 furnished a house and fuel for the tenant. 



1 will now proceed to give you tlie amount of 

 sales for these three years, arising from my share 

 of the products of the land thus leased, together 

 v/itli the avails of what I produced myself on the 

 part I retained and occupied. I commenced my 

 farming year on the 1st of April; consequently 

 the sales and expenses of the last year are neces- 

 sarily excluded from this statement as the year 

 has not yet closed. 

 The year ending March 31st, 18.'J8, my sales were 796,68 



Do " " 1839, ' 867,97 



Do " " 1840, •' '■ " 1036,28 



Total for 3 years g2700,83 



Deduct one-third for rent of land hired, my own 

 hoard, and other necessary farming expenses, 900,28 



1008,55 

 Interest on capital invested, viz ; farm g-lOOO, 

 stock, farming tools, &c. S1500,— S5500 for 



3 years, at §330 each, 990,00 



Net gains, or balance left for my own services ^810,55 

 A diminutive sum to be sure compared with 

 city salaries and Washington clerkships. It nev- 

 eitheless satisfies imj iiumble wishes, and I have 

 the satisfaction of knowing that I have added to 

 the value of my farm more than the amount of 

 the three years interest above, and could now 

 take S5000, for it if I wished. I must add that I 

 did not keep an accurate account of expenses for 

 these three yeare, yet I believe the deduction ot 

 one-third as above is sufficient to cover all the 

 farmii:g expenses of those years. I have kejit 

 Dr. and Cr. with myself this last year, and this 

 enables me to come at the expenses of those 

 years with a considerable degree of accuracy. 

 J. W. COLBURN. 

 Morris Flats, Springfield, Vt. March 15, 1841. 



ADDRESS DELIVERED AT BATH LYCE- 

 UM, JAN. 27, 1841, BY M. F. MORRISON. 

 The Farm considered in its relation to the 

 Sublime and Beautiful. 



When we analyze the elements of taste by a 

 comparison of those olijects which excite our ad- 

 miration, either from the grandeur of their design, 

 or the harmony, beauty, and utility of their exe- 

 cution, wo are surprised at the influence which 

 solitary and even useless show and magnificence, 

 when iillied to regal power, have had to dazzle 

 the imagination and mislead the judgement, both 

 in the works of art, and the creations of fancy. 

 " Behold the Pyramids of Egypt," says the travel- 

 ler, " how grand and sublime!" "her Labyrinth, 

 what a niagic display of tlie imagination !" " the 

 Temple of St. Peter's at Rome, how magnificent !" 

 "the palace of Versailles, how splendid and 

 beautiful I" But does not the sad reflection rush 

 over the mind, that the years of toil and suffering 

 spent in their erection might have been more 

 profitably and happily applied ? 



These few monuments of the arts have been 

 selected out of the thousands which might have 

 been named, not from their superlative expense 

 or uncommon folly ; and yet one of the seven 

 Pyramids is said to have cost the labor of 360,000 

 men during 20 years. The Labyrinth, a subter- 

 ranean city of 12 iialaces and 3000 marble hou- 

 ses, probably cost as much ; and although the 

 modern temple of Rome cost the Princes of Eu- 

 rope 55 millions of dollars wrung from the labors 

 of her peasantry and oflered up at the shrine of 

 superstition, yet the palace of the French King 

 was built fioni the labors of his own subjects at 

 the enorinous expense of $250,000,000, and in its 

 consequences led to the overthrow of tho Bour- 

 bon Dynasty, and all the melancholy evils of the 

 , French revolution. 



Again we hear the exclamation of "what beau- 

 tiful" paintings ! what elegant sculpture!" and 

 turn and lichold perchance a licentious allegory 

 embodied in the fancy of the painter, or in the 

 imasitiation of his still more immoral natron, and 



transferred by the hand of genius to the canvass 

 or the marble. And where are the contributions 

 to utility or to happiness in these splendid fancies 

 of a morbid imagination ? Is glory a sufficient 

 reward to the artist for his years of toil, when ho 

 finds too late that his beautiful creation has arisen, 

 phoenix like, from that consuming fire which 

 lights up the intelkctual powers of man at the 

 expense of his ph^ sical energies ? Or to the mon- 

 arch, is a splendid and niagiiilicent palace or a 

 gorgeous display of labyriu'thean architectiu-e a 

 full compensation for the ruin of his finances and 

 the miseries of his people .' 



Perhaps we are called upon to admire a grand 

 display of military power, or the splendid pa- 

 geant of a coronation — and ask ourselves, if life 

 is so poor and wortliless that the gaudy trappings 

 of the destructive arts, or the false glitter of a 

 scenic show, comprises all that we are to admire, 

 as great, and wonderful, and beautiful, and sub- 

 lime ? Has the idea never entered even royal 

 brains, that 250,000 beautiful farms, with their 

 happy and contented inhabitants, the offset in ex- 

 pense to one palace, might redound as much to 

 the glory, and happiness, and security even of a 

 throne, as a single palace, a magnificent temple, 

 or a worthless pyramid ? 



We respect and admire the labors of the ar- 

 chitect and the engineer when directed to useful 

 purposes : we even highly approve of the elegant 

 arts of painting and sculpture when they perpet- 

 uate the nobler feelings aiid social sympathies of 

 life, without contaminating the morals; but we 

 do contend that the beautiful and sublime rests 

 not alone upon abstract considerations of gaudy 

 show, useless parade, or isolated magnificen( e, 

 h\it upon associated ideas of harmony of design 

 and utility of execution. 



The sources of beauty and sublimity are in 

 that region where all is subservient to utility and 

 happiness, all is lovely and magnificent, all is har- 

 mony and perfection. The impress <if its glori- 

 ous origin is cast over this beautiful world in the 

 starry vault above u.s, and in the vai^iod landscape 

 beneath our feet, in its multiplied adaptations to 

 intellectual enjoyment, and its conservative gifid- 

 ancc to moral rectitude. And nature every where 

 reflects back upon the mind her images of beau- 

 ty and grandeur, both in her wildest commotiona 

 and her calmest scenes of repose. 



1 am aware there are those whose ideas of sub- 

 limity retire from the smiles and sunshine of 

 nature, to dwell hermit like amidst her gloom. 

 To those, the demon of dcstructiveness, brooding 

 darkly and m3'steriously over the evil destinies of 

 man, displaying his power in the. ruins of the 

 earthquake, the conflagration of a city, the de- 

 structive path of the tornado, or the sanguinary 

 conflict of the battle-field, aftbrd tho highest anil 

 only conceptions of the sublime, and the gran- 

 deur of that conception is always in just propor- 

 tion to the extent of tho desolation. Aud this 

 itiisaiithropy of our species has been perpetuated, 

 not only by the pencil of the artist, but by the 

 pen of the philosopher; and the armorial ensigns 

 of nations still exhibit the Lion, the Eagle, an<l 

 the Tiger, as appropriate emblems of national 

 character. But it seems a singidar aberration 

 of the faculties of taste, to suppose sublimity in- 

 compatible with beneficence. For why should 

 we measure the amplitude of power rather by the 

 evils suffered than the good diffused ? 



Is there nothing sublime as well as beautiful in 

 nature's renovation, where the wilderness is chan- 

 ged to the abodes of rural life, or where a city 

 rises, as if by magic, from the ashes of its confla 

 gration; where art triumphs over the convulsions 

 of nature, and man renders the elements obedi- 

 ent to his will ? Yes, man possesses the impress 

 of the beautiful and sublime in Ids own intellect- 

 ual energies ; in those powers so potent in reno- 

 vating or desolating the world ; in those attributes 

 which give a charm or cast a gloom over the so- 

 cial relations, and in those capacities wliioh mark 

 the towering heights or grovelling dojiths of the 

 realms of thought. And in the exercise of those 

 powers by which he is so eminently distinguish- 

 ed, there is not so beautifid and sublime a crea- 

 tion as is presented in a highly cultivated and 

 finely embelli.-ihed Farm, with its cottage conse- 

 crated to the social affections, and its inliabitants 

 cherishing the milder virtues unclouded by the 

 darker vices of the world. No where is there so 

 varied a combination ; nowhere so complete and 

 happy a change. No where arc Ihc nicyns.*o in- 



