THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



CONDUCTED BY ISAAC HILL. 



■ Those who labor 



• the chosenpeople of God, iL-kose breasts he has made hispeculiar deposilefor sjibstantii 



•." — Jefferson. 



VOLUME IV. 



CONCORD, N. H. FEB. 28, 1842. 



NUMBER 2. 



THE PARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR, 



A MONTHLY NEWSPAPER, IS PUBLISHED BV 



JOHN M. HILL, 



Hill's Brick Block, Concord, ,V. H. 



GE:^"ERAirAGENTS, 



B. COOKE. Kerne. N. II. 

 TH. R. HA.MFTON. Washington City, V. C. 

 JOHN M-\RSII. fVashlnglon St. Boston. 

 CH.\RLi:S WAURKN, Brinley Row, Worcester, il/ass. 

 A. H STILLWELL, No. 1, Market Square, Prov. R.l. 

 L, VV. HALL & Co. Springfield, Mass. 



The Visitor will be issued on the last day ofeach i 



unth. 



TERBIS.—To single subscribers, Seventy-five ceiils 

 Three copies for Two Dollars :— Ten copies lor Six Dol 

 jars: — Twenty-live copies for Fifteen Dollars. 



The three first volumes, embracing the years 1839, MO, 

 and '41, of the Visitor, are ofiered as a premium for every 

 ten new subscribers for the year 1842 obtained and paid 

 for by one person. 



Subscribers may commence at their election, either with 

 the January or Jiilv number, in each year. An Index and 

 Title Page will accompany each year. 



[nr* Communications by mail will be directed to the 

 Publisher m Concord, jV. H. 



THE VISITOR 



Extract froiM an Address delivered at Leb- 

 anon, N. H., Jan. 8, 1842. 



BY THE EDITOR. 



Dean Swift wrote nearly a liundretl years ago 

 that the fanner '• who made two blades of corn 

 or two spears of grass grow where hut one grew 

 before, is a greater benefactor lo his country than 

 the whole herd of politicians put together." Dean 

 Swift was a writer in favor of monarchy — he 

 lived in a government where it was the policy of 

 the rulers to have few politicians among tlie n 

 of the people — and where the expression of 

 free opinions was considered criminal. In this 

 free country we change the Dean's proposition, 

 and say that he is the sofist and best politician who 

 makes two blades of corn or two spears of grass 

 grow where but one grew before ; and the opin- 

 ion of one such practical man who carries the 

 doctrine into every department of life is worth 

 more than that of the combined race of men wlio 

 make politics their whole trade, and wlio are 

 looking for promotion through mere political 

 speculation and management. 



The example of our ancestors, who settled the 

 greater part of thi.s country since Dean Swift 

 wrote, is still more deserving of commendation 

 if possible than that of the man who merely 

 doubles the production of his land. Looking up 

 and down the fertile valley of the Connecticut 

 and reflecting that it is scarcely one hundred 

 years since the greater part was a forest, and that 

 during that time much of it has been made highly 

 produelive, contributing its full share to the crea- 

 tion of that wealth which enables millions to live 

 in comparative ease and competence, we are 

 brought to the inference that the Dean's compli- 

 ment for dottble production fails to do justice to 

 the pioneers of our forests, who have made every 

 thing to grow where little or nothing useful grew 

 before ; for of what utility were the stately and 

 beautiful forest trees that fell before the wood- 

 man's axe until a portion of the ground was 

 opened to the sun which warmed into life the 

 rising germs of vegetable production wliicli were 

 to sustain animal existence? 



The whole interior of New England grew up 

 on the investment of little capital. In much the 

 larger portion of cases the original settler came 

 upon his ground without the means in posses- 

 sion of paying for the comparatively small price 

 of the land on which he settled ; and such were 

 the thrifty and industrious habits of these first 

 settlers, that in as many as nine ca.ses often they 

 were enabled not only to i)ay the full purchase 

 money with interest, but soon to double and 

 four-fold and in some instances ten-fold the value 



of the tracts of land upon which they first made 

 their pitch. 



Numerous are the cases where a man witli lit- 

 tle more property than a wife and perchance a 

 child'orchildren,witb articles hardly sufficitnt for 

 cooking, covering ami lodging, has made his pitch 

 in the wilderness, and in the course of ten or 

 twenty years, in the neighborhood of others like 

 conditioned with himself, has made himself with 

 the aid of his own labor well to live, pioducinj^ 

 in abundance the means to make life comfort- 

 able. 



A nobler race of men never existed in any 

 country than the first settlers ot New England: 

 (hey were of that safe class of politicians who 

 fiiiled not to make progress — they created the means, 

 and they gave directions for building up and sus- 

 taining the wonderful institutions which make 

 this country more prosperous and blessed than 

 any other country. 



The Dean of St. Patrick would have had our 

 ancestors attend to their business and their farms 

 at home. He would have given them the due 

 praise for doubling their products, for making 

 two spears of grass grow where hut one grew 

 before ; hut if these men liad presumed to be pol- 

 iticians — if they had felt the dignity of human 

 nature as giving them a right to speak and think 

 for themselves in matters of government, this 

 would have been a presumption calling lor loud 

 prehension. 



Haj)py (or this country and. the world, our 

 fathers were not only workers upon their farms, 

 but they were working politicians. The race is 

 not yet entirely extinct who procured the mighty 

 boon of Liberty which has made ub as a nation 

 doubly blessed — blessed in the abundant products 

 of industry, and blessed in those noble institu 

 tions which do honor to man, preserving the 

 equal rights of the many against the encroach 

 ments of the few. 



The man now resides yonder who carries in 

 his own body the mark of the unerring aim of a 

 savage foe then prowling in this wilderness 

 country near the site of one of our most flourish- 

 ing villages scarcely twenty miles distant : so re- 

 cently was the former generation here living in 

 the fear that themselves, their wives and children 

 might at any moment be the victims of the 

 cruelly of the foe which spared neither age nor 



Let us take any given territory of the State of 

 New Hampshire as an object of retros[iect since 

 its first settlement. There is not a more beauti- 

 ful country than is to be found in the single tier 

 of towns of this State bordering for a hundred 

 and fifty miles north and south on the easterly 

 bank of Connecticut river. Much of its soil was 

 originally as rich as the fertile pi-aities of the 

 West; and if it be not as productive at the pre- 

 sent moment as the best new land of the West, 

 it is because it has been longer cultivated until it 

 has been deprived of its virgin fertility. 



This town is a fair sample of the other towns. 

 Carry back your minds seventy-five and eighty 

 years in the history of Lebanon. The present 

 apparent property of the town is not all the capi- 



tliat has been created. The pioneers of the 

 forest brought here little property as a beginning. 

 They depended upon the labor of their hands 

 not only as a present means of subsistence, but 

 this labor created for them in a rapid ratio annu- 

 ally the capital which afterwards made them in- 

 dependent. Reflect how much value is now here 

 in cultivated fields, in fences which will last for 

 ages, in comfortable buildings for the use of man 

 and beast, in the flocks and herds which roam in 

 your fields, in the education and instruction you 

 have imparted to the rising generation, in the 

 provision you have made for your own and their 

 support; and i.-i it not wonderful that so much 

 could be so soon and so insensibly accumulated ? 

 Carry your reflections still further, and consider 

 how large a portion of the men and women born, 



nursed and cherished here has removed to oth- 

 er towns and to distant lands to swell the popu- 

 lation of some still newer coimtry— how many, 

 after receiving an expensive education, have gone 

 to other places as professional men, mechanics 

 and farmers : what hundreds and thousands were 

 expended on them or by them carried away, all 

 of which were earned here : is it not still won- 

 derful that so much in so short a space of time 

 should grow out of human exertion ? 



Our ancestors of New England, when their 

 noble deeds shall come to be written in iinparlial 

 historj', must be accounted a wonder of tlie 

 world such as no other country ever exhibited. 

 They not only doubled, but "they created the 

 mighty means which in the course of a single 

 century have built up this nation as among the 

 greatest, certainly the most intelligent of the na- 

 tions of the earth ; because they laid for it the 

 foundation and have sustained the most rational 

 and most salutary freedom that has yet existed. 



Let it never be said that a new generation has 

 lost the great benefits conferred by their prede- 

 cessors. The safest and best politicians of the 

 Granite State must never forget what has built us 

 up, and what has made us all that we behold.— 

 The preservation of our rights and privileges re- 

 quires our constant exertion: God has granted 

 Liberty to man oidy on the condition of perpetu- 

 al vigilance ; but to render our Liberty worth 

 preserving, ^ve must never permit any portion of 

 our country to go back in the work of improve- 

 ment. The exercise of the physical powers is 

 indispensable to the preservation and the vigor of 

 the moral [lowei's. 



The country, this inviting and healthy part of 

 it, could never have attained to its present pros- 

 perity, if the laudable ambition of its proprietors 

 had not extended beyond the wants of tlie pre- 



beyond 

 sent moment. The men w ho cleared the forests 

 and erected the substantial enclosures of our 

 fruitful fields, looked further than to-day. Tliey 

 dressed and tilled the ground as if it was to re- 

 main with them and their children forever. 



I repeat the proposition, that our best and our 

 safest politicians are they who cause two blades 

 of coin or two spears of grass to grow where 

 but one grew before. They are but a worthless 

 herd of politicians who devise ways and means 

 of gaining wealth by plans to convert to their 

 own use the labors of others, and by wresting 

 from the mouth of industry the bread it has 

 earned. 



Among the jihysical causes calculated to pro- 

 duce moral pollution is the abandonment of those 

 pursuits which produce moderate gains to lay 

 hold on a tnore fascinating contrivance which 

 sometimes fills its coflfers without any real bene- 

 fit or gain to the community. By adroit specula- 

 tion an apparent gain of liiJndredsand thousands 

 often made ; but somebody loses what the oth- 

 accumulates, so that nothing is created for real 

 benefit to any body. 



The mischiefs resulting from the contrivances 

 of trade, and especially the contrivances of un- 

 just speculation, do not stop with their own ac- 

 tion. They furnish an example, a temptation 

 hich is highly injurious to the community — they 

 drive honest labor from its high position by teinpt- 

 ing it into the illegitimate path — they discourage 

 the best efforts of the most usefiil and most hon- 

 orable inembers of .society. 



Every true philanthropist will lend his aid to 

 the cause of indu.stry — to aid and encourage the 

 great producers of our country. The miser may 

 grasp his gold and retain it to no good purpose 

 for others : the benevolent man of wealth will 

 make use of his means so that he shall increase 

 ealth while he furnishes food for the hungry 

 and chjthing for the naked. 



The means of sure prosperity exist in all our 

 towns. Some portions of the country, more ad- 

 vanced than others, can best carry on the work 

 of improvement. There is no region of ihe 



