THE GENESEE FARMER. 



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B. Wliat is it made from, and does it do as raucli good for wheats corn, and potatoes, as for tumeps? 



A. In England it is made from what is called coprolites, or brown stones that look jast like gravel. 

 They are ground by machinery to a fine powder and treated with sulphuric acid, which makes the 

 valnable portion of them soluble, and therefore directly available for the plant. Some farmers make 

 the article themselves from ground bones, and it is said that made from bones is much tlie beet. 

 As regards its value as a manure for wheat, I took considerable pains to inquire on that point, and 

 from all I could learn, it has never been known to do much good on either wheat or barley. One 

 thing is certain, — and it is a significant fact, — it is never used as a manure for wheat, and is not 

 recommended for that purpose by the manufacturers. 



B. I can, from your account of English farming, easily understand the cause of their superior 

 agriculture. The winters are not anything like so severe as ours, so that they can winter their 

 sheep out of doors, and by growing so many turneps keep a vast number of them ; and with the use 

 of oil-cake, guano, and this stone, bone, or what manure is it, — superphosphate ? — they certainly 

 ought to raise large crops. Besides, too, they don't pay half so much to their hired help as we do, 

 and money is not worth more than half as much as with us ; so that it pays better to invest money in 

 improvements there than it would here. But from what you say, many parts of England are most 

 wretchedly farmed, and an industrious, wide awake Yankee would make great improvements and do 

 well there. 



A. I think many of the farmers pay as much for a given amount of labor as we do. It is true we 

 give double wages per day, but a smart, well fed Yankee wUl do as much again woi-k in a day as 

 some of tbc.<e English laborers who lire on notliing but beer. 



B. I suppose they do drink prodigiously. I have an Euglislunan working forme that hfisjust come 

 over, and he complains most bitterly that we have no beer; and he is so home sick, or love sick, or 

 work sick, or beer sick, that I believe he would go back again if he could get money enough. 



A. Before I went to Europe I was much puzzled to account for the apparent discontent and disap- 

 pointment of English laborers with our institutions ; but I can now readily understand how it is. 

 As I have said, in England they do not work so hard, or so many hours, as we do here ; in the 

 summer months they have long evening twilights ; it is light and delightfully pleasant for three or 

 four hours after the sun has gone down. They quit work at six o'clock and spend the evening in 

 some kind of sport or games, and appear as happy as the day is long. They think America is a 

 perfect paradise, where people live without work, and have as much beer, and beef, and butter, and 

 brandy, as they want, for little or nothing. When they come here they are of course disappointed ; 

 they find, as they express it, " nothing but work, work, work, from daylight to dark, with nothing 

 to drink but water and tea, and nothing to eat but pork, pork, pork, three times a day." It is true 

 they obtain much better wages, and if they are steady, saving, and industrious, they can improve 

 their condition and secure a competence for themselves and a good education for their children, 

 neither of which they can get in England. But I verily believe that if the English laborei-s thought 

 that American farmers did not allow their help beer, they would give us a wide berth. 



B. I recollect that Horace Greeley, in one of his lettere from England, says that though every 

 one drinks, ladies and ministers, saints and sinners, high and low, rich and poor, there was not any 

 more real drunkenness than with us. 



A. It is a pretty difficult m'atter to tell what is understood by drunkenness. Some think that so 

 long as they can manage to stand and speak at all, they are quite sober ; others, Avhen tliey see two 

 candles burning in the same stick, are only comfortable. If a man must be wallowing in the gutter 

 before he can be pronounced drunk, I will admit there is no more of such drunkenness there than 

 with us; for as every one drinks regulai-ly and habitually it is not a little that will upset tliem, for 

 they are " mighty to drink strong drink." In many parts of England the common allowance to the 

 men during harvest time, is six quarts of strong beer per day, and one farmer told me lie had known 

 his men to drink nine quarts per day, when allowed as much as they liked. Fancy! Quite as much 

 barley is grown in the country as wheat, and nearly all of it is made into beer and "drank on the 

 premises." 



B. Did you see McCormick's or IIussky'b Reaping Machines at any of the trials in England. I 

 suppose John Bull begins to see that we Yankees are some pumpkins ; certainly the papers do not 

 speak of Brother Jonathan in such a supercilious, contemptuous manner now as they did a few 

 years ago. 



A. I waa at two of the trials, and I wish you could have seen the sturdy, red-faced, self-satisfied 



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