44 



THE FARjMER'S monthly VISITOR. 



impulse has been given to agricultural improve- 

 ment, by the extreme subdivision of the soil, 

 which has grown out of the law of equal suc- 

 cession and the confiscation and sale of lands 

 belonging to the church and to the expatriated 

 nobles, who followed the fortunes of the Bour- 

 bons. 



But in none of these countries has agriculture 

 gained the distinction in the ranks of industry, 

 which it possesses in England. The great land- 

 ed proprietors belong to the nobility. They are 

 foremost in the proceedings of agricultural asso- 

 ciations, at fairs and cattle-shows, and in all inat- 

 ters connected with the rural economy of the 

 kingdom. Through the operation of the corn- 

 laws, the bread-stuffs of foreign countries are, in 

 seasons of ordinary abundance, excluded from 

 her markets, and a monopoly is thus secured to 

 her own gi-ains. Though the effect of this sys- 

 tem of exclusion is to make the great body of the 

 people eat dear bread, it has given an extraordi- 

 nary impetus to the progress of her agricultural 

 industry. Jn 1760 the population of Great Britain 

 was seven millions and a half; in 1831 over six- 

 teen millions. At the former period the total 

 growth of grain of all kinds in the kingdom was 

 about one hundred and seventy millions of bush- 

 els, of which about three tiiillions were exported. 

 In 1835 it was estimated at three hundred and 

 forty millions— just double. The population has 

 more than doubled during the same lime. But 

 the exportation of grain, excepting in seasons of 

 extraordinary abundance, has ceased, and about 

 twenty-four millions of bushels are annually im- 

 portetl from Ireland. Though the increase of the 

 quantity of grain produced falls somewhat short 

 of the growth of her population, it is a matter of 

 astonishment that an island, having less than 

 double the surface of New York, and a considera- 

 ble portion of it broken and inaccessible to the 

 plough and the harrow, should be capable of sus- 

 taining fifteen millions of inhabitants. Yet il is 

 supposed that its agricultural produce might still 

 be doubled, and that at least thirty millions of 

 people might be subsisted without importihg 

 grain from abroad. 



In a country, where agriculture performs 60 

 important a part in the great scheme of national 

 industry, and numbers among its followers so 

 large a portion of the higher orders, it is natijral- 

 ly ranked among the most honorable pursuits. 



Without intending to insliliite any invidious 

 comparison between different branches of indus- 

 try, we may be permitted to say, what is almost 

 universally conceded, that in importance agri- 

 culture stands preeminent. It is the great foun- 

 tain, from which animal life derives its support ; 

 it supplies the materials on which almost every 

 other species of labor is employed ; and it fur- 

 nishes to man the occupation most favorable to 

 his happiness and his moral elevation. To give 

 a country the highest degree of wealth and pow- 

 er, which it is capable of attaining, agriculture 

 must be sustained by commerce and manufac- 

 tures; but it may dispense with both the latter, 

 and yet retain its prosperity. The condition of 

 the United States is favorable to all these pur- 

 suits: but whatever may be the fate of our com- 

 merce and manufactures, we must, as an agii- 

 cultural country, rank among the first nations of 

 the earth. The extent of oiu- territory, the ex- 

 traordinary fertility of our soil, the adaptation of 

 our climate to almost every species of produc- 



60 that the windows of almost every house in the viILi- 

 ges and even in the country are shadeil by plants, often 

 of exquisite beauty and luxuriance. There is no higher 

 evidence of good taste than ttiis fondness for flowers, nor 

 is there a cheaper embellishment. They cost almost 

 nothing ; they require but a few minutes' attention during 

 the day from the farmer's wife or daughters ; they are a 

 richer ornament to the window than the curtain of chintz 

 or calico, which often takes their place j and they pre- 

 serve within, when all nature without is bound up in the 

 icy fetters of winter, the perpetual freshness and verdure 

 of spring. From Ulzburijh to Neuminster (six German 

 miles) the country is lees interesting. It abounds in farm- 

 houses and fields of grass or griin ; but the former are of 

 roush stone or brick, often covu.ed ivith thatch and built 

 in the worst taste. From Hamb'Jrgh to Kiel, about sixty 

 miles, is scarcely an elevation even of a few feet : some- 

 titnes nothing is to be seen for miles but one unbroken 

 expanse of level ground, covered with a great variety of 

 |!Mins, from wheat and rye to buckwheat and oats, inter- 

 rupted occasionally by broad pastures whitened with 

 flocks of sheep attended by shepherds and dogs. Mucli 

 of the soil is a dark sand, mixed with shell-marl and de- 

 cayed limestone ; and, though it presents no striking ap- 

 appearancR of fertility, the crops wuro, alra'-et willicut 



tion, our distance from other countiies, in which 

 agriculture furnishes a surplus for exportation, 



' ow conclusively that our vast and rapidly aug- 

 menting population can, and must, be sustained 

 by the fruits of our own industry. In this field of 

 labor we fear no competition. The productions 

 of our agriculture have but one limit — the de- 

 mand for them. Centuries must elapse before 

 they will be limited, as in the densely populated 

 states of Europe, by the powers of the soil. Wk 

 have not only the ability of expanding to an im- 

 mense degree, by means of our vast unoccupied 

 domain beyond the lakes and the Mississippi ; 

 but we have the ability of increasing to an in- 

 definite extent upon the surface we now occupy. 

 For centuries after the reaction of settlement 

 shall be felt from the west, (an event too distant 

 to enter into any estimate of our future growth,) 

 we may continue to multiply, and yet be able, by 

 a more prudent husbandry of the powers of the 

 soil, to furnish the additional consumers with the 

 necessaries of life. 



With these prospects before us, the impor- 

 tance of our agricultural industry cannot be 

 overrated. The estimate, in which it is now held, 

 falls far ghort of its true value. Just opinions 

 have made, and are still making, some progress. 

 But agriculture cannot attain its true rank, until 

 it shall be regarded, like the learned professions, 

 as one of the direct avenues to honor and wealth. 

 In a country like our own, in a course of most 

 rapid devclopement, the temptations and excite- 

 ments, which arc presented to the young and tlie 

 sanguine in the pursuit of fortune, prove, uidiap- 

 pily, an overmatch for the sober occupations of 

 agricultural industry and its slow but certain re- 

 wards. The healthful labors of the field arc too 

 often abandoned for the confinement of the coun- 

 ting-room and the lawyer's office, or (or hazar- 

 dous pecuniary enterprises. Yet how many a 

 merchant, who has fiillen a victim to an over- 

 .strained credit; how many a lawyer, who ekes 

 out a scanty subsistence for himself and fiimily 

 by a plodding and laborious profession ; how 

 many an adventurer in speculation, who has seen 

 hisair-built fabrics fall, one by one, to the ground, 

 would have improved his condition, in regard to 

 health, respectability and fortune, by devoting 

 himself to the pursuits of agriculture ! Time 

 will correct prevailing errors of opinion on this 

 subject ; though from the active, enterprising 

 and impatient spirit of a large portion of our 

 countrymen, and the numerous stimidants by 

 ■ ich that spirit is kept alive, correct views may 

 be slow in gaining the ascendency. It will be 

 the object of this publication to contribute what 

 it can to so important a result — to assert and vin- 

 dicate the claims of aRricultnre to the attention 

 of our countrymen, not merely as a manual oc- 

 cupation of the highest value in the genera! 

 economy of our social system, hut as a science 

 embracing a uide range of investigation, and to 

 brought to perfection by an accurate knowl- 

 edge oi' facts, an<l through tlie introduction of 



mproved methods in the application of the pow- 

 ers, which it employs. J. A. D. 



The Lands upon Merrimack Kiver. 



For many years, to the traveller from tlje hill 

 country or from the flnurisbing and well cultivat- 

 d soil on the seaboard, the sterility of the valley 

 near the Merrimack river, with the exception of 

 the turns of rich intervale, has been a subject of 

 remark. Along this riveron either side from the 

 line of Massachusetts to Plymouth, a distance of 

 nearly one hundred miles in all its meanderings, 

 we have the same varied general aspect. Now a 

 level of hard pine plain.*! extending several miles 

 appears — now rocky ridges and gravelly knolls 

 intervene, covered with a growth of white o.iUs, 

 scattered in with white pines, and sometimes 

 maple and birch — now the plains descend into 

 swamps which orijinally contained a heavy 

 growth of water maple, ash and liackn;ctack, 

 some of which still remain. 



Poor and forbidding as all the.^e lands seem to 

 be for the purposes- nf farming, they are now as 

 valuable as almost any other interior lands in 

 New England. The c'timalc put upon much of 

 these lands was formerly nothing, saving for the 

 timber they contained : and the beautiful i)ines 

 and onks that v.'ere either cut down to rot and be 

 burnt up on land i'oy clearing, or drawn to the 

 bank and floated down to be u.sed as the mast or 

 knee of some ship, were then roi.iiderrd of irr-\ 



little value beyond the expense of labor laid out 

 upon them. The millions of beautiful timber 

 wasted in former years along this valley are a sub- 

 ject only of melancholy reflection to the present 

 owners of the land, who are able now and then to 

 descry some remnants of the magnificent trees 

 in the remaining stumps, and to count their val- 

 ue had they been suffered to remain. 



It is only until the last ten or fifteen years that 

 the value of these lands has been duly estimat- 

 ed. As an instance worthy of our remark, we 

 n)ay take the towns of Manchester on the east 

 side, and Bedford on the west side of the Merri- 

 mack. There were many fine upland farms in 

 Bedford where the land was cleared and culti- 

 vated ; and the poverty of "Derryfield," where 

 lived the famous Gen. Stark, until the name was 

 changed to Manchester on petition to the Legis- 

 lature at the suggestion of an eccentrick gentle- 

 man who married a daughter of the old warrior 

 and who to indulge in a whimsical fancy named 

 his children as they came, " One, Two, Three, 

 Four," — was a subject of derision to many a pas- 

 sing observer, contrasting to no very good advan- 

 tage with the rich town of Londonderry, to which 

 it was an ajipendage. Bedford stood high in her 

 valuation : Manchester stood low. The former 

 had rich and floinishing fields on extensive clear- 

 ings; the latter had land that was hardly worth 

 clearing, and its iew fields were generally of thin, 

 sterile soil, over portions of which the sand was 

 driven about as the light snow of winter under a 

 north westerly breeze. About ten years ago, the 

 value of the wood lands, that had been already 

 cleared of their best timber'in the vicinity of the 

 river at and above Bedford and Manchester began 

 to be appreciated ; and it was found that the orig- 

 inally worthless lands of Manchester were esti- 

 mated higher than the cleared farms of Bed- 

 ford; and the town of Manchester, whose extent 

 of acres was less than Bedford, in the State valu- 

 ation stood higher. This was before the fast in- 

 creasing village of the last town near the Amos- 

 keag falls, which now numbers some three thous- 

 and inhabitants and which has risen up entirely 

 in the last three years, had been begun. 



The land upon the river may bo all set doxvn 

 as valuable. Of the most rocky, rough and pre- 

 eipitious parts, there are ledges of Granite in 

 Hooksett, Concord and other places that may 

 hereafter be worth hundreds of thousands of dol- 

 lars. The Head farm, on the east side, about five 

 miles above Amoskeag, which was purchased u 

 i'cw years since by the Amoskeag Company, will 

 forever furnish the stone that may be wanted for 

 the extensive city which is to grow up from the 

 water power at the Falls. The Granite ledge in 

 Concord upon the Rattlesnake mountain conica 

 very near the river : from its extraorainary ])urily 

 and beauty, ere many years roll roimd, this Gran- 

 ite will furnish a business of great extent in the 

 tnanufactnre of Biihstantial and ornamental buil- 

 dings at di.>tai)t points of the United States. The 

 Concord Granite is already known along the sea- 

 board south west to New Orleans and up the riv- 

 er MiEi=is.-ippi. 



The rocky light lands in the Merrimack valley 

 which are too rough for cultivation as well as the 

 lightest and coarsest soil of the pine plains, will 

 ahvajs be valuable for their growth of wood and 

 timber. Lands that were in cleared fields twenty 

 and twenty-five years ago have in that time 

 grown trees equal to the production of twenty 

 and thirty measured cords of wood to the acre. 

 This wood is worth fifty and seventy-five cents, 

 a dollar and a dollar and a half a cord according 

 to its i)osition nearer to, or fiirlher up the river. 

 The poorest of this land for many years, even 

 with a growth of twenty cords to the acre, was 

 considered to he of go little value rs to pay the 

 Eiiiallest aiamal tax, and nmeh of it has been 

 sold and resold for ta.xes. This land is general- 

 ly worth now from ten to twenty dollars the acre 

 with any tolerable growth ; and let all the trees 

 be cut oft'and the ground thrown into commons, 

 it would be a better invebiinent at ten dollars the 

 acre purely from the growth of wood than mon- 

 ey in most kinds of stocks. The value of the ac- 

 cumulation coMtists not only in the annual growth, 

 but in the annual increasing value of the same a- 

 niount of wood and timber. 



A portion of the light rocky u))land is natural 

 10 the chestnut, wliicli is becoming the most val- 

 liablc timber for rail road«. As long as rail road.'' 

 cx'il cii'jstnut linjbrr v.ill l.-c among the m<vt 



