182 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



the indirect taxes, coiiinieiicing with teu at 98 

 per cent, on the vahie, and tobacco and suufF at 

 600 per cent. ; " with," as a writer observes, " tax- 

 es upon every article vvliioh enters into the mouth 

 or covers the back, or is placed under the loot, 

 upon everything which is pleasant to see, hear, 

 feel, smell^ taste — upon warnitii, light and loco- 

 motion, upon everything which conies from 

 abroad or is grown at home, on the raw material 

 and on every fresh value that is added to it by 

 the industry of man— on the sauce which pam- 

 pers a man's appetite anil the drug which restores 

 him to heahh— on the ermine wliicli decorates 

 the robe of the judge and the rope which liaiigs 

 the criminal ! — on the brass nails of the coffin 

 and the ribbons of the bride ; while the school- 

 boy whips his taxed top and the beardless youth 

 manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on 

 a taxed road, the dying Englishman, pouring his 

 medicines which have paid 7 per cent, tax, into 

 a silver spoon, which has paid 15 per cent, flings 

 himself back upon his chintz bed, which has 

 paid 20 per cent, and expires in the arms of a 

 taxed apothecary, who has paid an lunidred 

 pounds sterling for the privilege of practising his 

 calling! and then his whole property is immedi- 

 ately taxed from 2 to 10 per cent, large fees being 

 demanded for burying him in consecrated ground, 

 his virtues being handed down to posterity on 

 taxed marble, atid he is at length gathered to his 

 fathers — to be taxed no more." Now, it may be 

 safely left to any man's conscience to declare 

 whether all this is not worth another rent. And 

 after all this comes the poor's rate, which is as a 

 millstone about the fanner's neck, and has drag- 

 ged many a hard-working, industrious man to the 

 alms-house ! 



Here then are four rents to start upon, and 1 

 know but of one item to place against all this, 

 and that is, the higher rate of farm-labor : to be 

 sure, some articles of provisions are cheaper 

 here than in England, while others are higher — 

 butter, potatoes, and vegetables generally ; but 

 even in the lower price of provisions the tiirmer 

 has a gain upon what he consumes, balancing in 

 a measure his loss upon what he sells; while the 

 articles which he hai^ to purchase are generally 

 much lower than they are in England, such, for 

 instiuice, as tea, coffee, sugar, foreign fruits, rice, 

 soap, candles, salt, vinegar, spices, glass, nails, 

 farming impletnents, most of the articles of do- 

 mestic clothing and building materials ; and if he 

 indulges in the luxiu-ies of tobacco, snuft, wine, 

 spirits or beer, he will find a difierence on some 

 of these to the amount, of two or three hundred 

 per cent. 



Now, in my estimation, the greatest drawback 

 to a farmer in this country is, the innumerable 

 and rapid growth of weeds, but in the hands of 

 an intelligent and industrious man they are less- 

 ening every year, and when a better rotation of 

 crops is adopted, their destruction will be cer- 

 tain, although it is admitted that great toil and 

 ve.\ation must first be encountered ; but jilace 

 against this the advantage of being able to raise 

 the corn crop — which is, by the by, of itself equal 

 10 almost half a rent — the use of the cradle 

 scythe and the horse-rake, implements not yet 

 in general use in England, and the balance is 

 very much in favor of this country. 



But are the wages paid to fiirm-laborers higher 

 than what are given to meclianics and artizans 

 generally? say, for instance, to the men employ- 

 ed in large manufactories, r.ugar-houses, machine- 

 shops, cotton and paper mills, &c. : if they are 

 not, and the complaint of agriculturists is just, 

 then indeed it is a fact that -agriculture will not 

 pay for capital invested ; and yet we see that the 

 price of sugar is lower in this country than in 

 England, with wages for the fabrication of it 

 much higher ; that building materials, bricks, 

 lime, &c. are the same, while hoots and shoes 

 and domestic clothing are lower, al.so, with higher 

 wages paid for manniitcturing ; and then come 

 the pay of mariners, miners, agents, book-keep- 

 ers, &c., all higher than in England, and yet no 

 complaint is made, and why.' simply because 

 they are e.xempt from taxation — and so are the 

 farmers, after standing at about a third of the 

 rent of land that is jiaid in England. So that, 

 after viewing the subject on all sides, my opinion 

 is, that farming in this country, in the hands of 

 an intelligent man, with a fair capital — and what 

 man in trade expects to succeed without these 

 requisites?— is more profitable than in England, 



with far less anxiety of mind and labor of body ; 

 and conclude with the testimony borne to this 

 view of the subject by the late Mr. Geo. Walker, 

 that lie desired only to know the rate of wages 

 tor labor paid in any country, to be able to esti- 

 mate its state of prosperity ; when that is high, 

 there is the greatest prosperity and the greatest 

 sum of happiness, and these are always in exact 

 proportion,' the one to the other. 



But, it is said, innumerable instances have been 

 known of persons comineucing fanning with 

 scarcely a dollar as capital, becoming rich enough 

 in a few years to purchase their faims. This is 

 true, and speaks volumes in tiivor of the busi- 

 ness of agriculture ; and I have at the ])resent 

 moment two such men iu my view. One of 

 them began the world as a bound boy, and at 

 the end of his term married a young woman 

 without a dollar, and commenced business by 

 slaughtering an animal now and then and dispos- 

 ing of the meat at market ; and dates his first 

 success to a God-send in the shape of a flock of 

 geese, which came down the Susquehanna on a 

 block of ice and landed near his cottage. This 

 person is now one of the very first men in that 

 part of the country in point of property, intelli- 

 gence, [irobity and high standing in society — but 

 he enjoyed a noble cajiital in the capacities of 

 himself and an invaluable helpmate, with a mag- 

 nificent stock of health and industry, and inge- 

 nuity to turn everything which they handled into 

 gold — a glorious capital to work upon, and far 

 better than thousands of hard dollars. 



There is another of these "fortunate men," as 

 they are very improperly termed, residing near 

 Wilmington, Del., who, about nine years ago, 

 comtnenced farming upon shares the farm which 

 he now owns ; since which he has, by his indus- 

 try and his wife's capital, which consisted only 

 in" the art of making and saving money, the first, 

 by attending market, and the last by frugality and 

 industry — the arts of selling as well as buying — 

 been enabled to rebuild his hou.se and barn, he- 

 sides constructing and improving every other 

 erection on his premises, which were proverbially 

 bad when he came to the farm, as also to pur- 

 chase some lots of land in the marshes in the 

 iieighborhood ! But the last time I called on 

 him I found him pulling with his own hands the 

 weeds that had sprung up in a field of potatoes 

 adjoining the farm-house ; while his wile had 

 just returned from market, bringing " iili lur .S 10, 

 received for vegetable.'!, fruit, &.c. whirli she had 

 taken herself to market that morning and sold ; 

 and that accounts tor all. Now, it is quite a 

 mistake to say these men began the world with- 

 out capital ; but it is equally erroneous to sup- 

 pose that farming, any more than any other busi- 

 ness, can ever succeed without capital of some 

 sort — it is not in the nature of things, and ought 

 not to be expected ; but with it, I contend that if 

 the business of agriculture be as well managed, 

 it will pay as good a return for capital invested, 

 as any legitimate business whatever, besides in- 

 suring a peace of mind "which passeth nil un- 

 derstanding." VIR. 



From the Albany Cultivfitor. 

 Proper Improvement of Land. 

 It always gives us great pleasure to record any 

 facts which go to show the great advantage to 

 be derived from properly cultivating land. There 

 is no trutli in American Agriculture, we think, 

 more certain, than that as a whole, we cultivate 

 too much land for either the improvement of our 

 soils, or the prosperity of our pockets. On this 

 point there is a marked difference between the 

 best farmers abroad, and those of our own coun- 

 try. Here, the money made from the farm, if not 

 wanted at once tor the payment of debts, goes to 

 purchase more land — there, the annual profits are 

 far the greater part of them immediately applied 

 to the improvement of the soil ; and this fact ar- 

 counts in a great measure for the acknowledged 

 average superiority of their crops over ours.— 

 The United States have the finest soils in the 

 world ; by good husbandry they can bo made the 

 most productive; but this will not be until the 

 farmer ceases to desire the possession of all the 

 land that adjoins him. There has been an article 

 going the rounds of the papers, writteif by a Con- 

 necticut farmer, stating that the productions and 

 expenses of two iiirins of 25 and 100 acres, the 

 first well cultivated, and the last in the ordinary 

 manner ; and the result is w hat any one might an- 



ticipate, viz: a decided advantage in the summing 

 up, in favor of the farm of 25 acres. Every well 

 cultivated farmer's garden, is an annual proof 

 that he would derive greater profit from a smaller 

 fiuni fully improved, than from a large one gone 

 over in the cnmnion mode. The immense pro- 

 duce, that iiKiy he diavvn from a small quantity 

 of tlioroii;;tily liilcil hiiid is as yet scarcely known 

 in tliiri cniiiidy ; liiNiaiices, however, are occa- 

 sionally iiin II iliiit f-how what might be done, 

 were iiioie correct o|iiiiioiis and a better practice 

 on this subject, to prevail. As a case in point, 

 we abridge from the Ithaca Journal, an account 

 of the varieties of articles cultivated in a gar- 

 den of that place. 



The piece of groun'd was 100 by 200 feet, but 

 a large part of it, (or 5000 ft^et of the 20,000,) is 

 occupied by buildings, yards, &c. ; on the remain- 

 der is grown, strawberry, many varieties, and an 

 abundance; raspberries, 4 kinds; gooseberries, 

 12 or 14 kinds; currents, 3 varieties ; filberts, 4 

 kinds; 2 early apple trees; 8 pear trees, 4 kinds ; 

 8 cherry trees, 4 kinds ; 2 apricots ; 5 pliiui trees, 

 best kinds; 10 peach trees; 4 quince trees ; 14 

 grape vines ; 2 asparagus beds, with rhubarb, sea 

 kale, and a variety of sweet and medicinal plants. 

 .Most of these liuits produce abundantly, and 

 some of them much more than is required by 

 the family. In the department of flowering 

 shrubs and bulbous roots, are a dozen varieties of 

 roses, lilacs, altheas, snowballs, almonds, dog- 

 wood, honey suckles, j-.eonics, tuli[is, crocus, 

 crown imperial, narcissus, and of annual flowers 

 more than 50 varieties. The ground appropria- 

 ted to trees, shrubs and fJowers is not crowded, 

 but there is room for many more. In the vegeta- 

 ble department was grown lettuces, radishes, 

 cress, parsneps, carrots, vegetable oysters, beets, 

 onions, summer squashes, cucumbers, musk and 

 water mellons, egg plant, okre, cabbage, brocoli, 

 (Miilillower, celery, &,c. &,c. 



Tills is what we call occupying the whole 

 ground, and in this case there was doubtless 

 much pleasure as well as profit derived from this 

 small piece of land. There is no surer way to 

 keep up kind feelings among neighbors than an 

 exchange of the tluuisand civilities such gardens 

 enable the piopi iiicus tn liotow ; and of tliis one 

 may be ci-rliiiii, tlii' cliilihrn u ho are accustomed 

 to the eiijiiyMieiil of liiiit and llowers at home, to 

 their ciiliivatiini and protection, are never a pest 

 in tlie ^.'nrdeiis ol tlic-ir iicigliliors ; never stealing 

 or pliiiiderliig the rlioiresl friiit.s, never destroy- 

 ing or mulililatiiig the iiiovt valuable flowers. 



In every point of view then, the thorough cul- 

 tivator is a gainer; in his comforts, in his plea- 

 sures, and in his profits. Lot those who covet 

 larce farms, think of these things ; let them ex- 

 amine fiicts, and decide accordingly. The capa- 

 bilities of our lands can never be fully under- 

 stood, or the amounts of products we might ofter 

 for sale, known, until a more perfect system of 

 farming shall be made common. 



To the Editor of the Farmer's Visitor. 



Sir. — My experience in favor of deep plough- 

 ing is such I feel it a duty to give it to you. I 

 have in taking up my land for planting, ploughed 

 very deep — full one lout ; my practice lias been so 

 for some time. Wlicii 1 .idoiiied this mode, my 

 first crop was rather a^'aiiist this |,ractice, but my 

 after crops were in favor of it. And In a dry 

 season like the last it was much so, for in the 

 commencement of the drought my corn did roll, 

 as we term it — but when the roots had left their 

 horizontal course and taken the perpendicular, as 

 they do and will if you give them a deep soil 

 (and deep ploughing will do it) I saw but little 

 eflTects of the drought afterwards. I hsve grown 

 as good corn as usual this ^^eason ; and 1 have giv- 

 en the credit to deep plou^liiug._ My land would 

 still improve, I have mi ddulit, if I slicmld ploiigli 

 still deeper, as others have with the sub-soil 

 plough, and have had a corresponding benefit. 



My experience in labor saving machines has 

 been very satisfactory ; such as the Corn Planter, 

 Cultivator, Horse Revolving Rake and the Giain 

 Rake. This last Rake is a simple machine, in- 

 vented and patented by Israel Kyes, Esq., of Put- 

 ney, Vt. It has two wlieel.s,two feet in diameter 

 attached to an axle long enough to pass^ each 

 wheel clear of the cradled grain, say five feel. — 

 To the axle is affixed six teeth like cr.idle fingers 

 attached in line, aiirl two handles hi the opposite 

 direction fasten in thcuianirrof sythe nibs that 



