where the capabilities for improvement are obvious to 

 every eye, but the disposition to iinprove is not to be 

 perceived. How many farms, too, there are, upon 

 which Nature has been chary in bestowing gifts, but 

 such as are yielded have been seized upon with avidity 

 and turned to the most profitable account. On one farm, 

 a bank of clay has furnished the means of enriching a 

 sandy soil — on another, a peat meadow has supplied 

 material, w^hich, by skillful preparation and admixture 

 with the contents of the hog and barn yards, has 

 doubled the amount of its manure. On a third, low, 

 swampy grounds, where cattle once mired to the breast, 

 have by thorough ditching and draining, been transform- 

 ed into the best of English mowing. The difference 

 then between good and bad husbandry does not consist 

 altogether in the difference of the land cultivated — the 

 poverty of much of our soil is not, as t conceive, the 

 principal cause of the impoverishing cultivation which it 

 receives. 



Again, it is said, that want of capital prevents the 

 majority of our farmers from making progress in agri- 

 cultural improvements. Undoubtedly, this, to a consid- 

 erable extent, is the fact. It is often hard w^ork to get 

 from a farm, by the greatest industry and frugality, suf- 

 ficient income to meet its expenses and those of the 

 household. This unquestionably should be, as it is, the 

 first and main object; for it is not advisable, as a gen- 

 eral rule, for those who are in receipt of so little gain 

 as most of our flirmers are, and that too, in driblets, to 

 run in debt even for improvements. A mortgage is of- 

 tener an incubus than an incentive to exertion; six per 

 cent, annually, makes a large draft on the proceeds of 

 the season, and to meet the principal, the farm itself is 

 frequently sacrificed. The habits and circumstances of 

 our yeomanry, so diverse from those of the English 

 land-holders and tenants, will not warrant such an out- 

 lay of borrowed capital by the former, as is made by the 

 latter. Neither is the practice of our manufacturers 

 and merchants, in this respect, a safe guide to our agii- 

 culturalists. 



