168 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



few yeiiis since deemed to be of no value, are fit 

 again for the woodiiuin's nxe — tl.ey even already 

 begin to turn out valnal)Ie timber ; and the second 

 clearing generally discovers the soil of almost 

 equal fertility witii the lirst clearing. Blessed be 

 the Hand that ci. altd all, as «ell the material 

 world as men nnd animals, that there is a conser- 

 vative jiriii(i|ilu iu the constitution of material 

 tilings thai will forever secure the earth's annual 

 produdions! 



But there is much for man, the great organ of 

 intelligence placed by God upon the earth " to 

 till and to dress it," to look after und to do. La- 

 bor and care are those blessings Ijere which alone 

 can make life tolerable : if man cannot be train- 

 ed for a taste to these, he is but a poor machine 

 either for his own happiness or tlie comfort of 

 others. 



The occupation and cidtivation of the earth is 

 that calling more important to man than all oth- 

 ers. In this cininlry this calling has been greut- 

 Jy mal-tn:.tL(l : and for the sin of this mal-treat- 

 nient il:e iiaiion at the present time suffers. The 

 non-productive classes are here, as they have 

 been almost every where, the prevailing fashion- 

 able classes — they seem to be the fortunate clas- 

 ses ; while their good tbnnne is the misfortune of 

 the mass of the community. Let not the cultiva- 

 tor of the soil longer njistake his true interest — 

 let him not harbor the thought that the earth is 

 about to become so worthless as to be abandoned. 

 The earth every where, by diving deep into it, 

 may be made to produce more and more ; and it 

 may be made to yield a greater profit on the ren- 

 ovating process than on the wearing out pro- 

 It becomes every farmer, by his own practice — 

 not by reading simply the succcssfid experiments 

 of others, but by trying to do it himself— to prove 

 that labor may be more profitably expended by 

 that good cnllivalion which shall continually im- 

 prove a small liact than by the same labor ex- 

 hausting' lonsi.mtly a large tract; and that it is 

 mill.' \> i-i to ci.iulile the cost laid out on land 

 poorly iiihiiaii.il, than to add another acre to 

 that « bich now scarcely pays in its product the 

 expense usually bestovved upon it. — Editor Vis- 

 itor. 



Farming on the ICennebeck. 



A paragraph in a Maine paper, which has slip- 

 ped througli our lingers since receiving it, men- 

 tions that there >vere received at llallowcll, in 

 one week in October, twenty thousand bushels of 

 potatoes for shipping, and that the price of these 

 in cash was two shillings the bushel. Ilallowell 

 lies between Gardiner, nearer, and Augusta, far- 

 ther Irom the sea, on the river Kennebeck : the 

 coimtiy which would carry their potatoes to the 

 middle port would not probably embrace more 

 than two or three townships. "Here is the sum 

 of more tban six thousand dollars received by 

 some twenty to ti^irty tiuniers for the surplus po- 

 tatoes dug liom Ihi'ir fields in a single week. 



In sight of Ilallowell in the rear, and overlook- 

 ing the town of Augusta wrth its granite capitol 

 on the west side, and the splendid buildings at- 

 tached to the U. S. Arsenal and the State Asylum 

 for the insane, likewise constructed of granite, on 

 the east side of Kennebeck river — overlooking 

 also the compact village of Hallowell to the south, 

 and still further iji the distance the village of 

 Gardiner, eacli with their steam saw nulls throw- 

 ing constantly into the air columns of smoke and 

 vapor;— overlooking these villages which appear 

 almost as n coulinued city— is the Davis farm, 

 consisting of about five hundred acres of land. — 

 When this farm was in its best condition, it was 

 one of the nioSt beautiful as it always has been 

 one of the most productive in that fertile region. 



John Davi.s, Esq. who officiated many years 

 since as Clerk of the Courts of the county of 

 Kennebeck, and who was placed in the Second 

 Comptroller's Ofiice at Washington, while the 

 editor of the Visitor was at the head of that De- 

 partment in 1829, and has since remained iu that 

 place— a man of no ordinary address and talent 

 —was the projector and first improver of this fine 

 Augusta farm. The expense which he laid out 

 on the buddings and grounds about it must have 

 been very great. The house which he erected 

 was a palace— the walks and trees about it were 

 all on a grand scale ; but neither this palace, nor 

 the walks, nor the shruJjbery, enter into the esti- 



mate of the present value or income of the farm. 

 The ample barns are indeed used lor the tenii)0- 

 rary deposiie of the crop of iiay ; but only a small, 

 and that the inlerior part of the house, is occu)jied 

 tiy the overseer of the farm. 



The Rev. Mr. Dkew, to whose liospitality and 

 kindness the editor was much indebted during 

 the time spent in Augusta, among other points to 

 which he introduced us during a raw cold day, 

 took ns to this farm. He informed us that it had 

 been purchased up in speculating times, after it 

 had passed into various other liands since it was 

 left bv Mr. Davis, by a conipaiiv of teiilh men at 

 tlie price of 6-25,000. Unlike oihur Va.^wxu land 

 purchases, this has proved to lie at ili;ii jirice a 

 profitable investment. The superinli-inlc nl olthe 

 liirm informed ns that lie had paid over to the 

 owners as net profits from this land for one year, 

 $3000, and that he hud saved from the profits 

 his personal coirqiensation besides, about $1000 

 in the same time. His ordinary crop of potatoes 

 was 3000 bushels ; and for these he had often ob- 

 tained forty cents the bushel. The farm yielded 

 annually fioin 120 to 200 tons of English hay, 

 worth from ten to fifteen dollars the ton. I'here 

 was a large apple orchard upon the liirm, fiom 

 which a profit was generally derived. The occu- 

 pant showed us some large corn, which had been 

 raised the last season at the rate of sixty bushels 

 to the acre. 



This fiirm of late years has been cultivated al- 

 most exclusively with a view to present income, 

 and without so much regard to futiu'e permanent 

 profit. It might he made far more product' 

 than it now is. It is too large for a profitable 

 New England farm, cultivated under the eye oi 

 a single occupant iu the most advantageous man- 

 ner. It Would make four or five good fiunis, and 

 its produce might be made to reach four or five 

 times the present amount. Its location is so near 

 the beautifiil village of Augusta, the capital of the 

 State of Maine, that a portion of the original firm 

 has been converted into house lots set oft' on va- 

 rious streets, on which have lieeu erected sev( lal 

 houses with their appendant buildings. Among 

 these is the coftage bouse of Mr. Dreu , late edi- 

 tor of the Ilallowell Cultivator, and likewise edi- 

 tor of the Gospel Banner. Besiiles furnishing 

 the matter for these two papers, Mr. Drew sup- 

 plies the desk of the Universalist Church in his 

 immediate neighborhood. His house lot embra- 

 ces nearly an acre; and from this and another 

 lot, making about one and a halfacre in the whole, 

 principally from the labor of his own hands, he 

 raises supplies of vegetables for bis own lamily 

 use and (or sale : on about one-third of an acre 

 his annual ).roduce is equal to thirty bushels of 

 corn — in another small spot he rai.ses from fifty 

 to seventy-five bushels of onions — as many more 

 each of beets liiid carrots, and almost every kind 

 of garden vegetables produced in New England. 

 His fruit trees iu the same garden, especially ap- 

 ples and pears, are very fine — his grapes the pres- 

 ent year were delicious. Mr. Drew has not only- 

 taste for agriculture and horticulture, but he has 

 a tact for the business which gives him great suc- 

 cess. If the entire Davis farm conld be turned 

 into cultivation equal to the acre he occupies, it 

 might be made to aflord sustenance for double 

 the number of men that it contains acres, and lijr 

 at least a thousand of the cattle and sheep kind. 



Mr. Drew is liimself an example of what indus- 

 try applied to judicious labor may accomplish. — 

 In the profits derived from tlu; religious and agri- 

 cultural newspapers which he has conducted, in 

 the small stipend he has received tiom the desk 

 which he has supplied, ami in the fbrtimate man- 

 agement, principally with iiis own hainls, of the 

 garden about his domicil, which is, in th'e season 

 of vegetation, almost as pleasant to the eye as 

 Cusliing's paradise of exotic and native shrubbe- 

 ry, flowers, fruits and parterres at Watertown, 

 and a profit instead of great expense to its own- 

 er, this unassuming and amiabfe man has contri- 

 ved, not.only to bring up and educate a fine fam- 

 ily of sons and daughters, but has gained enough 

 of this world's goods to assure him and his (iirai- 

 ly a tolerable competency lor llie remainder of 

 liis life. He has, in short, possessed himself of 

 the means of independence in the acquisition of 

 a few thousand dollars, which will give him a liv- 

 ing quite as sure as some of the men of the cities 

 who have piled up their hundreds of thousands 

 and millions. 



For the Farmci's Monthly Visitor. 

 The Climate of New England. 



It is well known tluit the south of Euioije, in 

 the same latitude with New England, abounds in 

 the grape, fig, oiange, and other tiuits, which 

 cannot be made to flourish on our own soil with- 

 out the greatest attention. Our climate is subject 

 to greater extremes and more rapid vicissitudes, 

 and to such a degree that we are obliged to go 

 six or eight degrees farther south to find the pro- 

 ducts of Fiance or Italy in perttclion. The 

 causps of this difference have been an interesting 

 subject of speculation and of ohscrvalion, and 

 different theories have been originated. The 

 opinions that have most generally obtained are, 

 that the vast extent of land stretching to the 

 north and west, has ati effect to accumulate great 

 quantities of snow and ice in the polar regions, 

 which lowers the temperature of our northerly 

 winds, and the wild and uncultivated state of a 

 large part of our territory, is thought to !;ive an 

 asperity to our climate which has been w'orn oflf 

 in Europe by the increase of population and 

 more extensive cultivation of the soil. The first 

 of these rea.sons is entirely unsatisfactory, be- 

 cause no wind comes to us from any region with- 

 in the arctic circle for a sufficient part of the 

 year to have much effect in the climate. The 

 latter has long been credited with great confi- 

 dence, even by philosophers, but a more careful 

 investigation of the causes that effect tempera- 

 ture, and the actual result of observation, prove 

 the truth to be just the reverse. So far as level- 

 ing the forests and smoothing the roughness of 

 the earth's surface, do affect the climate, they 

 have been found, to make it cohh r. 'I'he most 

 satisfactory explanation of tlie piculiaiitiesof our 

 climate has been given in a very philosophical ar- 

 ticle on the "Natural History "of the VVeather," 

 published in the American Almanack for 1831 

 and 2. It is concisely as follows : 



The teniperalnri- of liii' land is more variable 

 than that of til.- ur-caii. 'n,,. sun or frost peno- 

 tralcs only a lliin layr ,,| mmI, while at sea a con- 

 siderable ikplh (if \\al( r is «aiuird or cooled in 

 a mass. Il<!nce the ocean, at a little distance from 

 the shore, rarely varies more than 30 deg. while 

 on land the difference is often more than 100 de- 

 grees. In the temperate zones the prevalent 

 winds are westerly, as the eipiatorial trade winds 

 and the comparative velocity of daily revolution 

 at diiT'erent laliliidcs, indicate they should be. 

 The fact has been shown by observation on the 

 length of passage of the Now York and Liver- 

 pool packets. The average time was found for 

 six years, from England to the United States, 40 

 days, and fnnii the United Stat<'S to England, 23 

 days, showing a ureat predominance of westerly 

 winds. This being the case, it would he expect- 

 ed that countries on the east of the continents, 

 where they are swe|)t by winds coming from a 

 large extent of land, as China and the United 

 States, would be subject to great diversity sind 

 intensity of both heat and cold, and, on the "other 

 hand, those upon the western shore, as Europe 

 and the Oregon Territory, would he preserved 

 from both extremes by the more equable temper- 

 ature of the air coming from the surface of the 

 water. Such is really the fact. At the same lat- 

 itude on the opposite side of the Atlantic, and 

 also on our western coast, the heat of summer is 

 never so great by 8 deg. or 10 deg. of Fahrenheit, 

 and the cold of winter is not so intense by Dear- 

 ly 30 degrees. 



It is a common remark that our winters seem 

 to have been gradually becoming less cold, and 

 our summers less hot. This is doubtless correct, 

 but not to so great an extent within the memory 

 of our own ancestors as many suppose. In the 

 .south of Europe, since the earliest observations 

 of the Romans on Agriculture, the weather, &c., 

 the effect has been remarkalile. Directions then 

 given to the liushandman are found not to an- 

 swer at all at the- present day, but show that the 

 winter must have been much calder and so se- 

 vere as to require much care on the jiart of the 

 herdsman (ijr the security and support of his 

 slock, where now almost none is necessary. — 

 This fact has doubtless given rise to the opinion 

 that an increase of population and the cultivation 

 of the soil ameliorate the climate. 



iiice this has been aseert.fmed to be incorrect, 



another and a more ]irnhahle reason has been as- 



gned. The inclination of the ecliptic, which 



