THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



167 



neat stock. A ton of hay, however, will not keep 

 five sheep — vvitli a Ranibonillet lack (hy which 

 nearly all the warte is prevented) it will lake a 

 ton of hay for four sheep and a lialtj giving thus 

 only six dollars and 43 cents per ton for the 



Let us however take the hay at $6 per ton, and 



see how much the Farmer will make by his shsep 



business. 



Hay for winter keep, at 44 sheep to the 

 ton, at $6 per ten, 



Sunnner pasturage. 



Washing, shearing, and finnishing with 

 salt. 



Interest of capital invested in stock, 



Losses by escapes IVoni pasture and se- 

 verity of winteis, 



$1 33J 

 35 



36 



S2 OSk 

 Deduct income fleece, $1 44|, lamb, 33i 1 78 



Loss by keeping sheep, wool at 48 J cents 

 per lb., 25J cents on each sheep, 25^ 



Or we will take it another way. 



Income fleece, .$1 44i, lamb 33i 1 78 



Deduct sumnjer iiastiirage, 35 cts. 



Washing, shearing, salt," 10 



Interest of capital invested in stock, 09 

 Losses by escapes from pasture,&c. 16 

 Hay for winter keep, at 4i sheep 



to the ton, at gi 61, 1 08 1 78 



Is the price put on the hay, six dollars a ton, 

 too high ? Let us try it with" a cow. It is allow- 

 ed, I believe, by all fanners, that seven sheep will 

 eat as much as a cow. 

 Dr. Sununer keep of sheep, 35 cents, 



seven times for cow.-, $2 45 



Winter keep of a sheep at $6 per 



ton, 1 33J seven times for cows, 9 33J 



Interest of ca 



pital 



iivested in stock,9 cts. 63 



Losses, &c. for sheep, 16 cents, seven 



times as much for cows, 1 12 



Salt, 20 



$13 73J 

 Cr. Four-fifths of a calf, $3 73i 



100 lbs. butter, at 10 cts. 10 00 13 73J 

 1 take one hmidred lbs. of butter, that being the 

 quantity given for the hire of a cow the season. 



I cannot, like Mr. Colburn, claim to leel a deep 

 solicitude in the wool-growing business, nor do I 

 wish for protection to that or any other branch of 

 husbandry. The " laisser faire" doctrine is, I be- 

 lieve, the only true one : that pursuit or employ- 

 ment will be followed, and that investment made, 

 that will be the most productive. We can tell 

 better for oiuselves what is for our interest, than 

 any govciinncnt can tell for us, I fomiil the price 

 of wool too low lo yield me a fair return. I sold 

 and killed my sheep. Should the price rise and 

 afford a profit, I can and shall soon increase my 

 stock — at present prices, cows for a dairy and the 

 raising of stock are more productive. 



In one of your numbers for 1839, I recollect 

 yon made some observations on the fertility of 

 the subsoil brought down by a slide of the White 

 RIountains ; and as I have now tny pen in hand 

 I am induced to give you an experiment 1 made 

 in 1838, which was attended with the happiest 

 eftects. During the haying season of 1838, in the 

 rainy days that occurred, I dug a cellar under 

 one of my buildings occupied by a tenant. The 

 house stood in a very good mowing field, which 

 had been in grass for twenty-one years without 

 having been disturbed by the plough. The .soil 

 is a clayey loam of about a foot in depth. The 

 subsoil was a tenacious clay, such as is consider- 

 ed good for brick. The ipiantity of hay cut per 

 acre in 1838, by estimation, was one to one and 

 three-fourths tons. On a part of this field, se- 

 lecting that which had given the lightest burthen 

 of hay, I spread the clay taken from the befoie 

 mentioned cellar, contrary to the advice of many 

 of my neighbors, who assured me I should ruin 

 njy field. "The consequence was, as I expected, 

 exactly the reverse. My crop was more than 

 doubled. As a part was clayed and part not, we 

 had a fair opportunity of seeing the advantage 

 produced — itwas fully equal to that on an adjoin- 

 ing piece which had received a heavy top-dress- 

 ing of rockweed. • 



At different times I have made use of a varie- 

 ty of top-dressings on old grass grounds, and 

 have been able to perceive but very little differ- 

 ence in the results, provided the dressing was 



liberal in quantity so as slightly to cover the 

 ground. Tlie reason for this 1 tlnuk may lie that 

 the gieat eneujy to oui- cultivaied grasses is a lit- 

 tle green moss, which by being covered is killed, 

 and instead ol dianing away nourishment Ironi 

 the grasses, or strangling them in its embraces, is 

 converted into a powerful manure. 

 Your obedient servant, 



EDWARD S. JARVIS. 



Hon. Isaac Hill. 



Remarks. — We very much regret that Col. 

 Jarvis should find occasion for the opinion that 

 tiie keeping of sheep, at the present and late pri- 

 ces of wool, camiot be profitable. From the 

 large number of sheej) on their way in droves to 

 the seaboard from the interior this fall, we pre- 

 sume that the greater number of farmers have 

 arrived at his conclusion. As every kind of pro- 

 duce must ultimately be brought to be valued by 

 its cost, so we incline to the opinion that there 

 will not soon be an end to the production of 

 sheep and wool in this country. The friends of 

 a "protecting tariff" have done but poor justice 

 10 tlie f;u-mers in virtually taking off the whole 

 duty on foreign wool, while woolen 'cloths have 

 been highly taxed. There has been by public 

 men generally much less sympathy for farmers 

 than for aiiy other class of people. The protec- 

 tion given to the fiumer's wool is a little worse 

 than the adoption of the free trade principle ; for 

 while a duty protects the manufacturer, it ena- 

 bles him to drive domestic wool out of the mar- 

 ket by tempting the introduction of foreign wool 

 fiee of duty. 



It is believed there is no State of the Union 

 which produces suflicient wool for its own con- 

 sumption. The protection of the several tariffs, 

 without an adequate advance even of the large 

 manufacturing establishments, has operated as 

 death to the manutiictures of families. Thirty, 

 forty and fifty 3 oars ago, nearly every fiimily 

 manufiictured under its own roof all its woolen 

 and worsted clothing: and t'cNialcs, instead of the 

 frail cottons and silks wlii.-|] they imw wear, were 

 then clothed in good subslanlial dressed wool- 

 ens, which were carded, spun and wove at home. 

 The every day, not less than llie Sunday and 

 holiday wear of the males, all came liom the 

 wool grown upon their ovvn farms. How have 

 the times changed ! There is scarcely one spin- 

 ning wheel now where there was a hundred 

 then. 



If our farmers consumed the wool in their own 

 households, there would be no need of a calcu- 

 lation of cost and profits on the price of wool. 

 Whether it was worth twenty-five cents or fifty 

 cents a pound would make no difference in the 

 substantial, healthy covering it woidd supply to 

 the husband, wife and children. Farmers using 

 their wool at home need never beg the manufac- 

 turers to take it at any piice less than the cost of 

 raising it. The truth is, that the man at the great 

 fitctory yonder, is as much a foreigner to the far- 

 mer as the manufacturer in a foreign land ; and 

 he may just as well buy and sell to the one as to 

 the other. Returning to the carding, spimiing 

 and consmiq]tion of oin- own wool at our home.s, 

 we may continue to raise sheep at as much |)ro- 

 fit as ever. If luuler that state of things the 

 price of wool becomes depressed, so will the price 

 of every thing else that is plentifully produced be 

 depressed. 



We are glad to receive from a source so intel- 

 ligent as that of Col. Jarvis the facts he commu- 

 nicates iu relation t» the value of subsoil, con- 

 forming to the view we had taken of it. Our 

 first attention was drawn to this matter when on 

 a visit to the new State of Michigan three years 

 ago. In estimating the value of that fertile pen- 

 insula, it was mentioned that the under ground 

 was quite as good as the upper ground ; and 

 proof was adduced in the fact stated, that in dig- 

 gtuff a well some twenty-five feet deep, the ground 

 Thrown around the top" of this well from the deep 

 bottom produced the same mammoth vegetables 

 as the upper surface. The value of this whole 

 under soil of Michigan was supposed to originate 

 in the debris from limestone rock of which the 

 soil is there every where composed, constituting 

 the whole of a similar quality to the marl re- 

 gions so extensively found along the Atlantic 



aboard. 



It afterwards occurred to us that our own 



cky and almost impervious subsoil, intersper- 

 sed with gravel and' sometimes 'with clay and 



sand, might also be valuable if it did not possess 

 all the fijrtilizing qualities of a limestone soil. 

 We recollected the digging of a cellar at Ash- 

 bnrnham, Ms. some forty years ago in a pan near- 

 ly as hard as rock: the house was erected on a 

 ridge surrounding it of this hard material. In 

 the course of two or three years where vegeta- 

 tion had an opportunity to spring upon this ridge, 

 composed, as we supposed, of barren material, 

 rank grass and other vegetation sprung up, and 

 the surface of the ground turned to a black mould. 

 In subsequent years we saw some of the hardest 

 fields out of which rocks suflicient had been ta- 

 ken to wall the whole into fonrih-acre lots, grow 

 more and more fertile in proportion as the culti- 

 vator from year to year was able to drill with the 

 bar or the sharp point of the plough deeper into 

 the ground. These recollections and observa- 

 tions convinced us that the subsoil of some of the 

 hardest lands in New England might be as valu- 

 able as the subsoil of Michigan. 



But when we came to visit the region of the 

 avalanches in our own rocky hard "mountains, 

 and see the materials from the decomposing 

 rocks taken from their very bosom which had co- 

 vered acres at the bottom, utterly changing their 

 color and aspect aftei- being exposed a few years 

 upon the surface, we began to entertain the opin- 

 ion that there is great virtue in the whole subsoil 

 of our country ; and that for some purposes on 

 some kinds of land, the most open and porous 

 sand and gravel inay be made to act its part iii 

 soils of an opposite character scarcely less salu- 

 tary than the most fructifi-ing vegetable material 

 on other kinds of soil. 



The reason, in our belief, that the n:iked gra- 

 vel, sand or clay of which nearly the whole un- 

 derlaying ground is composed, is esteemed to be 

 worthless, is, .that Ou its first exposure to the at- 

 mosphere it is almost entirely inert, or perhaps 

 may have even an injurious effect upon tlie vege- 

 table mould with which it is mixed until the at- 

 mospheric action shall adapt it to the vegetable 

 uses for which Providence has designed the whole 

 upper surface of the world in the economy of 

 nature. In the origin of things the material of 

 both the upper and the under soil must have 

 been the same. The revolutions of fire and wa- 

 ter in the great la[)se of time have placed the 

 earth's material in different positions — they have 

 acted chemically upon this material, making 

 rocks preponderate in one position, gravel in an- 

 other, sand in another, clay in another, and vari- 

 ous- admixtures of earth in all. At the com- 

 ineucemeut of things, when the waters were 

 assuaged, or the fires were put out, or the cli- 

 mate became so changed from that law of the 

 Divine Hand v/hich placed this earth in that pe- 

 culiar position in relation to the sun that man and 

 other animals might exist, and woods and vege- 

 tation necessary lor their shelter and subsistence 

 might grow — the surface and the interior of the 

 earth were undoubte<lly alike. By a law of na- 

 turej exposure to the atmospheie caused the 

 earth's, fertility ; and as the material of which the 

 immediate surface was made was more or less 

 tenacious or friable, atid was so jilaced as neither 

 to retain too much or too little of moisture, so 

 vegetables and trees upon the ground were pro- 

 duced in greater or less abundance. 



Such being the constitution and formation of 

 the earth, man must be truly a superficial being 

 to suppose that the land, in relation to produc- 

 tion, may be worn out. It is true, that if he shall 

 in a succession of years continue to plough into 

 the ground from four to six inches, and either 

 carry on vegetable and other manures just sufli- 

 cient to be felt in the crop of the present year, 

 or put nothing into the ground, he tnay expect 

 his land will become worthless and what is gen- . 

 eially termed worn out. But such worn out land, 

 even in its worst condition, is not valueless. The 

 virgin fertility is gone, but the land need not be 

 abandoned. Even if it shall be deserted, that 

 Great Being who made all and overrules all, will 

 restore it to its original condition : the fields that 

 are abandoned will in due time of themselves lay 

 their own foundation for the growing forest ; and 

 there are hundreds if not thousands of acres of 

 such land that have almost insensibly become to 

 their present owners in the course of twenty-five 

 or fifty years in some positions of more value 

 than the best cleared farms. As towns and vil- 

 lages have grown up and facilities of inter-com- 

 municiitjon have been multiplied, these lands, a. 



