November, 1842. 



THE FARMER'S MONHLY VISITOR. 



165 



MR. niLIi'S ADDRESS, 



Before the .i^riciiUuntl Socidii of Frankfort Coun- 

 ^ty, Maine, Oct. 13, 18!-J.' 



The most valualile pi:ictic:il anlliors who have 

 written on leliu'ioii an<l morale, arc those wlio 

 wrote hefore the F^iiglisli laiiiiuai'i- hail nirr^/ed 

 from the barbarism which ailaun'. Irihjnl no 

 grammatical rules. Baxtprari<l BiDi'.an «irc' ex- 

 amples : the "Call to the Unconvei ic-il," and lli.' 

 "Pilgrim's Progress"' will Ion?; he soiiL'ht as ihc 

 best expositors for the Chrislian ; and " Kecpiii;; 

 the Heart" has given to l'"huel an emiiienie to 

 which not one in a hunilretl of the divines of the 

 present age, with ten tinier his advantages, can 

 ever reach. 



John Flavel, an old English divine, more than 

 one hundred and fifty years ago, thus spintnalizi-d 

 the British Vlusbandry of that day : 



" What land is spent out by lillago, or for want 

 of manuring, the careful hnshaiiduiau halh many 

 ways to recover and bring it in heart again. He 

 lets it lie fallow, to give it rest, and time to recov- 

 er itself: carries out his sand, lim'j and compost, 

 to refresh and quicken it again; and in [lastnre 

 and meadow ground, will wash it, if possible with 

 a current of water, or the float of the ways after 

 a fall of rain, which is to the earth as a spring of 

 new blood to a consumptive body. He cuts dovvi< 

 and kills the weeds that suck it out, and causes 

 them to make restitution of what they have pur- 

 loined from it, by rotting upon the place where 

 they grew. As careful is he to recover it, when 

 it is spent, as an honest ])liysician of his patient 

 in a languishing condition ; for he knows his field 

 will be as grateful to him, and fully requite bis 

 eare and cost" 



In this extract from an old divine we find all 

 the prominent points of the New llnshanihy — of 

 that system of cultivation which prejudice is 

 ready to condenm because it is new and milried. 



To talk at this time about carrying out " sand, 

 lime and compost" to quicken land "spent out 

 by tillage," would by souji; be condemned as an 

 useless innovation of modern date : no one wouUl 

 dream that this was the idea of an English divine 

 of two hundred years ago, an observer of the 

 "carefid hushanchiian" who found in the common 

 events of life a practical lesson tor the moralist 

 and the man of religion. 



Unfortunate has it been for the cause of Hus- 

 bandry in America, that necessity here did not at 

 first teach us to t foovvhl|e course of Flavel's 

 "carefid husbandman." The first cidtivation of 

 this country opened fields of boundless extent. 

 All lands when first cleared are most fertile : when 

 these have been spent by a series of exhaustuig 

 crops, resort is had to other spare lands of equal 

 fertility, rather than to encounter the labor and 

 expense of preventing the exhaustion, or of reno- 

 vating the laud spent nut by tillage. Crop suc- 

 ceeds crop imtil the land will no longer repay the 

 labor. The husbandman in this manner runs 

 over the whole surface of the laud which he owns ; 

 and in a few years after he has conqjleted the 

 task of clearing, he finds the whole "spent out 

 by tillage ;" and the business of renovating it so 

 hard a task, that he prefers the abandonment of 

 it for a trifle, and going into the forest in pursint 

 of new lands, to be treated in the same way, rath- 

 er than seek for the means whicli shall restore to 

 iiis farm its first fertilily. 



When ground has once been so long followed 

 by a course of exhausting crops as to become 

 comparatively barren, the natural idea is that no 

 good can be obtained iiom that soil ; that it pos- 

 .sesses nothing valuahlc to be combined with oth- 

 er elements; that it is only the ri^ciqitacle of val- 

 ues to be added to it, whicii will cost the owner 

 all the worlh of the produce wliicii they bring. 

 In short, the common, sterile, worn-out laud looks 

 upon its face the same poverty to those who shall 

 attempt to live iqion it, as the naki-dncss in which 

 i! lies before lis in its deserted state. 



Now it can but be gratifying to iis to make the 

 discovery, that nearly two humlred years ago, in 

 other countries, the (m i;ici|ilcs of tiiie liusbandiy 

 were known and prarlis^-d ; that tin- c:\ii'hd Im;-- 

 bandman had many v, a;,-, where hi-: liuld had be- 

 come exhausted from any Ciinse, "to recover and 

 bring it in heart again :' that he understood the 



value of "sand, lime and compost ;" I'.iat he knew 

 how his product might be increased by flowing 

 vith a current of water," and considered "the 

 float of the ways, after a fall of rain" to be no less 

 enovating :o the earth than "a spring of new 

 ilood to a consumptive body." 



Influenced by the coiiunon estimation in which 

 nucli of the S'jrface of the country is held, for 

 nany \e us I had placed a low estimate on the 

 aliicof niucii of the soil of New England. Look- 

 iig u|iciu the linle produce yielded year afteryear, 

 1 miglit appi'.ir that the common estimate was 

 orrici. i?ut it has been among those pleasant 

 liiiigs wliirh have warmed my zeal in the cause 

 it' Agricidtme, to find new and increasing de- 

 niinslratinn of the truth, that there is no soif too 

 li-iile to lorbid attempts at cultivation ; that there 

 s si-.ircciy a point of the earth where the waters 

 III not overflow or where the light of the sun is 

 lot shut out, where the hand of inan tnay not be 

 advantageously employed in the work of renova- 

 tion and improvement. 



would not, to be sure, go to work in a dry 

 sand bank to the neglect of a space of gronnrl 

 covered with rich vegetable mould ; but I take 

 the position that there is much less difference than 

 enerally sup|iosed between sandy plains which 

 at first seem to derive little benefit from manure, 

 nd more fertile and green fields which appear 

 longer to retain the good efTects of both manure 

 and moisture. 



The sandy pine jilain lands are not the poor 

 lands they have been generally set dovvii to be. 

 I know tills from my ovvn experience ; and I am 

 glad that the experience of others has led them 

 to an acknowledgement of this fact. Tlie lighter 

 lands require a diflirent management ; but in this 

 country as in Europe, they will in the end be 

 found the most profitable and the most enduring 

 lands for cultivation. The husbandry of the Flem- 

 ings, upon the continent of Europe, has become 

 proverbial for its excellence : and the most beau- 

 tiful fields of that beautiful country are said to 

 have been made from a sandy soil, originally as 

 sterile as the poorest i)lain lands of this country. 

 The extensive cultivated lands of the late Earl 

 of Leciester, in Norlblk, England, which have 

 been increased ten-fold in value, and whose in- 

 come beyond their expenses has been constantly 

 on the increase for the last fifty years, were for- 

 merly as the naked sand-plains of the desert, or 

 the barren heaths whose productions would 

 scarcely afford a cover sntHcient tor the protection 

 of rabbits or quails. That distiiiguisli( (i patron 

 of British Husbandry has proved to the world the 

 practicability of the pi ofitahle application of cap- 

 ital to poor lands, and the feasibility of most in- 

 creasing individual wealth by contributing the 

 greatest share of sustenance and comtbrt to the 

 needy and depi.-ndent. The death of tliis great 

 ])liila'iitliro|iist ami statesman occurred but a few 

 months since. His works and his example will 

 be long felt in the highly improved agricultural 

 estates which he has left ; antl greater than the 

 memory of warrior or statesman, because more 

 grateful to the fiieuds of benevolence and im- 

 provement, shall be the name of Coke, the illus- 

 trious farmer of Holkham. 



These preliminary remarks bring me to the 

 more particular consideration of the matter which 

 had been marked as the stdiject of this discourse ; 

 and this is an essay on the Management of the 

 Farm. 



This subject, in its extent, would cover the 

 whole ground of an improved sy.stem of Agri- 

 culture. The management of the Farm is as va- 

 rious as the condition of individuals, the |insitinn 

 in relation to markets, the different kinds ol' soil 

 of which it is composed, and the 



my ohj 



fiom reading, from conversation with tnen of ex- 

 perience, from my own limited practice, and from 

 personal obsi-rvation, some of the methods of 



compose<i 



lands to be improved. 



oint out from the best li; 



*The same AdJrcss 

 Somerset Ajricultura 

 before the <j;uint>oi-lan 

 the same State, Oct. 1 



■iriil'tural Society at CJray, in 

 11, and at ,\c«b'.ir)-, V"t. Nov. 



The (lunt.uinii I have presented at the coni- 

 niencemunt uf this essay, pi'oves that the true sys- 

 tem of Hiisliiiidry was understood in England 

 iiearlv two Imndred years ago. To men of for- 

 tmie and wealth in that country, agriculture has 

 been pursued as a business for profit. What can 

 prevent the same occupation being pursued in the 

 United States, in New England, by the satiie de- 

 scription of persons, in the same classes of life ? 

 One renson is, that in this country there is not the 



same division of labor as in England, furnishing 

 the assurance of a constant market, commanding 

 prices which shall always repay the wages of la- 

 bor. In Great Britain, of the different occupa- 

 tions of labor, only one in four is employed in 

 Agiiculture— while in the United States, four out 

 five follow that employment exclusively. This 

 state of things makes the one independent of a 

 foreign market for the sale of a surplus, while 

 we are constantly discouraged with the prospect 

 of ail oviM-sii|iiily. If more of our population 

 could be (■mplu\ ;(l in other occupations which 

 ni.ay be made productive — not in speculation or 

 the trades and professions which add nothing to 

 the inean.=i of feeding and clothing and making 

 the people comfortable^then would there be a 

 more sure demand for the surplus of the farmer: 

 then would it be a safe calculation to make an in- 

 vestment in lands for cultivation, and in improve- 

 ments requiring an outlay looking on a time to 

 come for its remuneration. 



Believing that such must sooner or later he- 

 come the condition of the country, I will consid 

 er, first, 



THE MANAGEMENT OF THE FARM BY A MAN OF 

 WEALTH AND -SUFFICIENT MEANS. 



It will be his choice to pitch upon a location 

 of from one to five hundred, and jierhaps a thou- 

 sand acres. The management of the larger farm, 

 if the owner did not give it his personal atten- 

 tion, should be on the English system : it will re- 

 quire an overseer to direct in every department. 

 Here the system may be carried out to the extent 

 of numbering the hours of the day in which the 

 workmen shall he engaged— the kind of employ- 

 ment allotted to each — the rotation of crops upon 

 the ground— the particular quantity of manure to 

 each field — tlie time and season of preparation 

 for sowing and idanting— for ingathering and 

 securing the crops — the best method of feeding 

 and keeping the stock — for keeping accounts of 

 expenses and sales — tor ascertaining the profit or 

 loss for each particular field — for ascertaining the 

 most productive article raised upon the ground, 

 and that to which it is best adapted: in short, 

 system may be introduced so as to leave little to 

 certainty or to the discretion of the overseer 

 tlie individuals who perform the labor. The 

 siness of a liirin, like that of a large factory es- 

 tablishment, might be reduced to a system which 

 shall leave little to contingency.and give'assurance 

 not only that the work shall be done in season, 

 hut that, without straining any point, it shall be 

 done with certainty and well done. 



lis conntrj', the young man who inherits 

 property, or w ho has gained property, very rare- 

 ly turns his attention to the farm as a regular 

 siness: even those who have acquired proper- 

 ty from the cultivation of the ground generally 

 have been spurred to exertion by the prospect of 

 being able to engage in some more lucrative busi- 

 ness. I have satisfied my ovvn mind that there is 

 nore sure prospect of success in this country 

 the pursuit of the agricultural occupation, than 

 the pursuit of extended trade or manufactures. 

 If fortunes are sometimes made by commerce 

 \nd trade, the (jroporlion of those who fail or are 

 mined is far greater than of those who depend 

 on the cultivation of the earth. 



The son of a family of country fanners goes 

 to the city: he commences the apprenticeship of 

 the counting-room or the mechanic's shop, in the 

 emi>loyment of others. If he is faithful and dil- 

 igent, he finds friends who assist him into busi- 

 ness on his own account. From time to time ho 

 rL-ttiriis to his family, imi)roved by the city dress 

 and manners, and contrasting to the disadvantage 

 of the hard hands and homespun exterior of the 

 brothers who have delved in the home service.— 

 Hi; is decidedly the favorite of that class of fe- 

 males who prefer the piano to the needle and the 

 spi.'iiiing-«lieel. Every thing fa.scinating, the 

 more refined manners, the better and higher aa- 

 sociatioiis, an easy life without hard labor, con- 

 spires to sow the seeds of discontent to the am- 

 bitions country boy: he looks upon the farm and 

 the farm work at first as placing him where he 

 cannot rise into respectability and the better en- 

 joyments of life : the sight of the fields which re- 

 quire his attention and labor soon becomes odious 

 to him. His more favored city brother seems to 

 have been advanced to a superior order of the 

 human race, and he determines in his own mind 

 that he will change from a disagreeable to an a- 

 greenble position the first opportunity. The 



