HIGH FARMING. 503 



HIGH FARMING. 



From an Address before the Plymouth Society. 



BY It. MORRIS COPELAND, ESQ. 



High farming means good farming, thorough cultivation, a 

 comparative disregard of drought, large crops, well-filled barns, 

 and happy faces ; and as it matters not how much manure you 

 put upon badly-prepared land, or what seed you sow, we will 

 devote the balance of our time to a few considerations as to 

 the best method of getting the land itself into the best possible 

 condition. The greatest obstacle in the path of successful 

 culture is the excess or want of water ; and if any means can 

 be found to render us independent of it, the remainder of good 

 culture is easily learned. No idea now is more generally prev- 

 alent than that if we should abandon, perhaps, the cultivation 

 of some of our barren uplands, and subdue the rich lowlands, 

 we should more rapidly increase the yearly balance ; and this 

 is very true ; and yet but few have any real idea how or why 

 lowlands can be made the best part of all our farms. 



The Report of the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture 

 says that six thousand acres are annually reclaimed, and when 

 properly reclaimed will be able to yield from two to three tons 

 of hay to the acre per anmuin. As hay has had in the eastern 

 part of the State, for the past few years, a net value of ten 

 dollars, this land would yield as interest upon the cost, then, 

 from twenty dollars to thirty dollars per annum ; and yet it 

 would be safe to say that not five hundred of those acres are 

 properly reclaimed or capable of doing their best. Drain- 

 ing is the chief step in improving our land. The removing 

 Standing water is not the whole effect. There is a meaning 

 to draining much deeper than is commonly supposed ; and 



