NEW ENGLAND FARMING. 53 



enjoying the profoundest repose. But beyond this space, in 

 the outer circle of civilization, the primitive and successful 

 career of our farming ancestors is at this day acted over again, 

 with this difference, that now there are thousands of outlets for 

 the surplus population — then there were none. Our New 

 England corn fields are steadily encroaching upon the forests, 

 and as they grow there in the shadow of those primeval woods, 

 they yield a reward for the hard labor and small capital invested 

 which is sure to result in competency and independence. 

 On this territory there is a farming population, constantly 

 increasing the number of acres brought under cultivation, and 

 preparing the way for all the refinements of life, who compose 

 one of the most active agents in developing our agriculture, 

 and whose new fields supply the places of those that are neg- 

 lected, useless and exhausted. It is this love of the virgin soil 

 among us, which accounts for the increased acres of cultivation 

 and the diminished products. And it is the occupation of this 

 soil which constitutes a prominent feature in the great agricul- 

 tural work going on around us. It has its merits. True, it is 

 not the farming of a Hudson or a Mechi ; but it is the conver- 

 sion of hard and unceasing labor into a position of comfort and 

 happiness ; it is the work which bone and muscle can do towards 

 the extension of education and refinement. It is a part of New 

 England farming that is almost entirely overlooked, but which 

 is that original and primitive agriculture begun by our fathers 

 on the " spot where first they trod," brought by them to the 

 perfection of rude productiveness, and carried in the vanguard 

 of our advancing civilizations, " the ark of the covenant " for 

 an enterprising and progressive people. 



It is not therefore the high farming in the neighborhood of 

 cities, nor the simple and rude agriculture of the frontier which 

 requires attention, but that middle ground whicli the skill of 

 the former has not reached, and from which the vigor of the 

 latter has passed away. The question is, how to make the 

 farming of all this great region profitable ; how to restore it to 

 its former prosperous condition ; how to convert it into what it 

 is designed to be, a flourishing agricultural district ? It is idle 

 to tell us that its prosperity has declined on account of bad 

 cultivation. It is not meeting the matter at all to tell us that 

 it is dying for the want of manure. Why is it not well culti- 



