January, 1842. 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



16 



Abbots themselves. , As the nations of Europe 

 once more rose froin ignorance and barbarism, 

 tliey began to make advancement in the cultiva- 

 tion of the earth. In France, agriculture began 

 to flourish iu 1621, under Heury the Fourth. A 

 neve impetus, says Mr. Loudon, was given to ag- 

 riculture in France by the establishment ef So- 

 cieties for the promotion of husbandry in 1761. 

 But the French Revolution completely burst 

 asunder the chains of agriculture throughout 

 Europe, as it did the manacles and shackles, in 

 which the liberty and intelligence of the masses 

 had been so long fettered. The improvement in 

 the agriculture of Denmark, is dated from 1660, 

 when an edict of freedom went forth to the en- 

 slaved peasantry of that kingdom. In Prussia, 

 agriculture was greatly advanced by Frederick, 

 who advanced all the arts and sciences of his 

 age. Iu Bavaria they dated their agricultural im- 

 provements from the establishment of tree schools 

 In Russia, her agriculture conmienced with her 

 civilization, under Peter the Great. In England, 

 the revolution which established on a constitution- 

 al basis the liberties of the nation, greatly pro- 

 moted the condition of their agriculture. — Green- 

 ville Jlddress. 



Abuse of Spirituous Liquors. — Among the 

 causes of consumption, a free indulgence in ar- 

 dent spirits holds an important place. While 

 this pernicious habit is one of the most powerful 

 means of debasing the morals of the people, and 

 extinguishing the best feelings of human nature, 

 it is no less effective in destroying the physical 

 constitution. There is good reason to believe that 

 the abuse of spirituous liquors among the lower 

 classes in this country is productive of consump- 

 tive and other tuberculous diseases to an extent 

 lar beyond what is usually imagined. The blanch- 

 ed cadaverous aspect of the spirit drinker be- 

 speaks the condition of his internal organs. The 

 tale of his moral and physical degradation is in- 

 delibly written on his countenance. The evil 

 unfortunately does not rest with him ; by destroy- 

 ing his own health, he entails on his unhappy 

 offspring the disposition to tuberculous disease. — 

 Sir James Clark on Consumption. 



Importance of Agriculture. — Agriculture 

 is not only the most ancient, but it is the most 

 useful, as well as the noblest and most nniversal 

 of all the arts. It is the basis of all others. 

 Without agriculture, man would still be a savage 

 — the population of the world, thinly dispersed, 

 nomo die tribes, wandering from forest to forest, 

 and inhabiting the hollows and caverns of the 

 earth. Seven-eighths of mankind are engaged 

 in Agriculture. The pursuits of agriculture are 

 eminently conducive not only to health of body' 

 and vigor of mind, but to virtue, purity of moral 

 character, religion and patriotism. Such has been 

 the universal opinion of the wisest and best men 

 of ancient and modern times. Many of the first 

 writers of Greece and Rome have devoted a large 

 portion of their literary labors to the improve- 

 ment of this science, esteeming it above all oth- 

 ers. Hesiod, a Grecian poet, supposed to have 

 been contemporary with Homer, wrote a poem 

 on agriculture, entitled " Works and Days," mi- 

 nutely describing the system of husbandry in 

 those days. This poem sets out by declaring that 

 man has no alternative by which he can live, ex- 

 cept " honest industry or imjust violence." At 

 the present day peaceful fraud is substituted for 

 " unjust violence." Varro, a Roman writer on 

 a|;riculti.''.e, says there are more than fifty Gre- 

 cian works on husbandry, and amongst them he 

 enumerates Democritns, Xenophon, Aristotle, 

 Theophrastus and Hesiod. The Carlhagenians 

 also had their writers on agriculture, and carried 

 the art to a higher degree than any of their con- 

 temporaries. Mago, one of their most distin- 

 guished Generals, wrote no less than twenty-eight 

 books on agriculture. Amongst the Roman writ- 

 ers there were Cato, Virgil, Pliny, Varro, Colu- 

 mella and Pollodius, distinguished either as gen- 

 erals, poets, statesmen or philosophers. — Green- 

 ville Mdress. 



Industry.— Demosthenes, when asked the first 

 requisite of eloquence, replied, "action" — when 

 asked the second, he replied, "action" — and the 

 third, he still replied, "action." Industry bears 

 the same relation to agriculture that "action" did 

 to eloquence in the estiuiaiion of the Athenian 



orator. ^Vilh industry the farmer may accom- 

 plish every thing, and without it he can do noth- 

 ing. Let him then study the value of time. 

 Time is his great capital, and should be well in- 

 vested. The wealth of the world, its high civili- 

 zation, all its magnificent improvements, have 

 been created and fashioned by the labor and in- 

 dustry of man. The poorest soil and the most 

 unfavorable climate are scarce impediments to 

 an industrious and energetic people. Look at 

 Holland, reclaimed from the ocean, fenced in by 

 her embankments and mud walls, literally a 

 smiling garden, where once there was nothing 

 but bogs and ocean's wave. Look at Switzer- 

 land, where an industrious and hardy peasantry, 

 contending against the avalanches of snow and 

 ice, and the emboidment of mountain masses of 

 rock, falling and crushing for miles square every 

 thing before them, have cut the hills and moun- 

 tains in terraces, and planted them in vines. 

 Lands which, before, were worth nothing, by this 

 improvement sell for ten thousand francs per 

 acre. — Greenville Mdress. 



Wearing out soils. — It is an idea conceived 

 in profound ignorance, that the soil of a country 

 must necessarily wear out, or become less fertile 

 by long continued cultivation. With proper care 

 and judicious culture, the soil, instead of wearing 

 out, must necessarily improve. How is it in 

 England, in France, in Germany and Italy ? A 

 large portion of those countries has been in cul- 

 tivation for centuries. Instead of becoming less 

 fertile, they produce more abundantly than they 

 did an hundred or thousand years since. This 

 has been effected by manures, rotation ol crops, 

 judicious culture and good management. It is 

 easier to manure a field than clear one, and when 

 manured it will produce more and is more easily 

 cultivated. Every farmer knows the difference 

 between ploughing in a fresh field, filled with 

 stumps and roots, and plougbiufr one where he 

 encounters none of those obstacles. — Greenville 

 Mdress. 



Antiquity of Agriculture. — Man, in his ru- 

 dest or primitive state is supposed by modern 

 philosophers to have subsisted on fruits and roots. 

 The art of hunting and fishing was, in their opin- 

 ion, the first step towards civilization. Then came 

 the pasturage of animals, and lastly tillage, or the 

 culture of the soil. The planting'and growing of 

 seed are supposed to have been in imitation of 

 the effects produced by sand and mud, left by the 

 inundation of rivers. Hence, Sir Isaac Newton 

 and others have considered that corn was first 

 cultivated on tlie banks of the Nile. 



Be these learned suppositions as they may, it 

 is certain that, in the remotest periods of anti- 

 quity to which the knowledge of man extends, 

 the science of agriculture was practised and es- 

 teemed by the wise, the great and mighty of the 

 land. We are informed by the sacred scriptures 

 that God se-nt Adam forth from the garden of 

 Eden to till the ground. "Cain was a tiller of 

 the earth." Noah began to be a husbandman 

 and planted a vineyard. Abraham purchased 

 the field of Macphela. Isaac is said to have 

 sown and reaped a hundred fold. Moses gave 

 directions to the Jews as to the cultivation of the 

 vine. The demesne or crown lands of King 

 David are said to have been under tb.e manage- 

 ment of certain ofBcers. Elisha was found in the 

 field with twelve yoke of oxen before him. In 

 Egypt, corn was purchased by King Pharaoh 

 and stored away, tfomer, iu the Odyssey, (the 

 earliest composition extant, save the Bible) gives 

 a beautiful description of Ulysses finding Ids fa- 

 ther, old King La?rtes, who had been robbed of 

 power, wealth and grandeur, happy and content- 

 ed in the cidtivaticn of his little fields. Hero- 

 dotas, the fatlicr of liistoruins, tells us that the 

 soil of ancient Babylon was so rich and so well 

 cultivated that it produced two or three hundred 

 fold. Xenophon says that Cyrus, the wisest and 

 best of ancient fllonarchs, distributed jireniiums 

 with his own hands, to the diligent cultivators of 

 the soil. 



The invention of manures was so highly es- 

 teemed by the ancients, that Pliny ascribes it to 

 Augeas, a Grecian King ; and declares that lands 

 used to be cultivated by the hands of even Gen- 

 erals, and that the earth ih.liglited to ho ploughed 

 with "a share adorned with u triumph." Cin- 

 cinnatus was found at his plough when called to 



the Dictatorship of Rome. The Emperor of 

 China, by an immemorial usage of his "Celestial 

 Empire." is required annually to go into the fields, 

 with all the high dignitaries of his Court, and 

 plough a furrow with his own hands, as an exam- 

 ple of industry to his subjects, and as an illustra- 

 tion of the importance of agriculture. Amongst 

 the Egyptians, the invention of agriculture was 

 ascribed to superhuman agency, and so absurd 

 was their gratitude that they worshipped the Ox 

 for his services as a laborer in the field! — Green- 

 ville Mdress. 



Large and Small Farms. — If those who have 

 poor farms of large size were to curtail the di- 

 mensions of their fields fifty per cent, and expend 

 the amount they receive in labor, in inanure, they 

 would be enabled, in a liiw years devoted to 

 such policy, to improve all their arable lands, and 

 bring their entire estates into a condition of 

 profitable fertility ; and while this would be go- 

 ing on, they would find, by the increase of ina- 

 nure applied to their corn-land, and attention to 

 its culture, that their crops would increase. — 

 The great fault with us is, that we attempt to 

 achieve too much ; and owing to that circum- 

 stance, fail of achieving any thing worthy of the 

 character of good farmers. Large corn-fields un- 

 manured and half tended, reflect no credit, and 

 give no profit to their owners. — Jim. Far. 



Influence of Railways in Developing the 

 MINERAL Resources of a Country. — On our re- 

 cent trip to Darlington, at the opening of the" 

 Great North of England Railway, the probable in ■ 

 fluence of that undertaking on" the commercial 

 interest of the district through which it passes 

 was naturally a subject of inquiry. While obtain- 

 ing information as to this point, in reference to 

 the line just completed, we learn a number of 

 facts in relation to several of the previous existing 

 northern railways, which appear worthy of being 

 recorded to illustrate the power of the great 

 means of communication to develope the resource 

 of a country. Before the opening of the Stockton 

 and Darlington Railway, the export trade in coals 

 might be said to be confined to the rivers Tyne 

 and Wear. That railway was originated chiefly 

 in order to supply the wants ofthe district it trav- 

 erses in reference to fuel ; and the estimate then 

 made ofthe probable quantity of coals which 

 would pass along the line, was, that there would 

 be 80,000 tons for the neigborhood, and 10,000 for 

 export annually. The number of tons now carried 

 by the company is, for the neighboring districts, 

 180,000 tons ; tor exportation, 560,000 tons yearly. ■ 



In the mean time, the Clarence Railway, terml- 

 natinff on the Tees, has been brought into opera- 

 tion, and contributes to the coals exported prolia- 

 bly not less than 150,000 tons per annum. At a 

 later period the Marquis of Londonderry construc- 

 ted his harbor (rf Seaham, a port about four miles 

 south of Sunderland; it is ilifficidt to state the 

 quantity thence exported yearly, but it probablv 

 exceeds 300,000 tons. At a still more receilt 

 period, the ancient fishing town of Hartlepool has 

 become the scene ofthe export of a still larger 

 quantity. How striking is the contrast betwen the 

 state of Durham at the present time and at the pe- 

 riod when Domesday Book vvas compiled. Thea- 

 mountofmoneyannually received within 30 miles 

 of Darlington, for coals alone, may be roughly sta- 

 ted at four millions sterling (of course this area 

 embraces Newcastle and its vicinity :) but a large 

 proportion of this enormous revenue flows into 

 that country, of which nothing better could be 

 said by the surveyors of William the Conqueror, 

 than " Durham is waste." — Leeds Mercury. 



Raise Every Thing, — Every farmer should 

 make it a rule to purchase nothing that he can 

 raise or make on his farm. There can be no 

 higher evidence of an unprofitable farmer, than 

 to see him purchasing his pork, his beef, his hors- 

 es, his corn, his floiu'. He sliould be ashamed 

 to have it said that he is a purchaser of any of 

 those articles. If he thinks it cheaper to pur- 

 chase than to raise, it is only athiitional evi- 

 dence of his folly. If we look through the dis- 

 trict for our best fiirmers, we shall find them 

 scWtjtg- instead of purchasing those articles. — .1m. 

 Far. 



The farmer is identified in a peculiar manner 

 with the earth that he cultivates — when that is 

 poorjie is poor ; when that is rich, he is rich also. 



