FARMS. 3 



Letter to the Committee on Farms. 

 Hon. J. W. Proctor, Chairman, fyc. : — 



Dear Sir: — Having unfortunately been denied tlie pleasure 

 of visiting, with the committee, the farm of Col. Newell at 

 West Newbury, and of Mr. Ware at Marblehead, I accepted 

 your invitation to visit a few of those in this vicinity as my 

 engagements have permitted. I believe that to yourself be- 

 longs the honor of having originated the plan of visiting farms 

 known to be well managed, but not offered for premium through 

 the modesty of the owner. There are certainly but few men 

 in our country, who, like Mr. Mechi, of Tiptree, in England, 

 would wish to '"'invite inspection, in order, by the force of ex- 

 ample, to give an impulse to improved cultivation." It will be 

 long, no doubt, before three hundred or three hundred and fifty 

 gentlemen farmers and statesmen, from remote parts of the 

 country, will be drawn together among us to see the crops and 

 the mode of management upon any farm, as was the case a few 

 months ago at the above-mentioned place. Not that I think 

 the English farmer has all the advantage on his side. It is 

 said he makes some failures — goes to work expensively some- 

 times ; and it seems to be intimated that, with all the good he 

 has done, his balance-sheet does not always exhibit the most 

 abundant income. Neither, since calling on some of our farm- 

 ers, am I willing to admit that Mr. Mechi is the only man 

 who can take his visitors, few or many, from field to field, 

 " explaining every thing upon which information is desired " — 

 not the only one who can, while making the round of the farm, 

 "deliver a succession of peripatetic lectures on almost every 

 point connected with agriculture." There are good humor and 

 volubility among American farmers, you may depend, as well 

 as over the water; and if Mr. Mechi's "field preaching is 

 worth travelling a long distance to listen to," so have I found 

 it in some of our own county, and that, too, without even so 

 much of a mixture of forth-putting as to allow them to do 

 more than merely consent to a visit actually sought by tho 

 committee as a privilege. 



The only objection to this mode of obtaining information is 



