brow, it is supposed by some tbat after the flood this curse 

 was removed when the Supreme Being- said lie would no more 

 curse the earth for man's sake. Others suppose the earth to 

 be still under the influence of this malediction. We must 

 leave this question to be settled hy learned divines. It is suffi- 

 cient for 'is as practical farmers to know that man must -till 

 get his bread by the sweat of his brow, that to the slothful the 

 earth still brings forth thorns and thistles, but that she abun- 

 dantly rewards the cares and labours of the active, industrious, 

 and skilful husbandman. Our beneficent Creator has placed us 

 here to cultivate the earth, and all the seeming difficulties and 

 hardships attending it are tempered with much kindness, and 

 many mercies. They quicken and invigorate the corporeal 

 and mental powers, and may in their ultimate consequences be 

 real blessings. 



One of the most important objects for the attention of a far- 

 mer is, by what means the soil can be rendered sufficiently 

 fertile for the production of good crops, and where it is already 

 fertile, by what means its fertility can be continued or increa- 

 sed. It is unfortunately the case in many parts of the United 

 States, especially those bordering on the Atlantic, that lands 

 originally fertile, have been so exhausted by a succession of 

 crops in tillage with little or no manure, as to be of small 

 value. In some of the Southern states this system of killing 

 land as it is termed by one of their best farmers has been car- 

 ried to such an extent, that there are many tracts of land Vi^hich 

 once produced great crops, now entirely exhausted and con- 

 verted into a barren sand. In our own state and county per- 

 haps there are not many instances whore the impoverishment 

 of the soil has been so extreme, but I apprehend that the fer- 

 tility of a considerable portion of our land has been diminished, 

 that in many instances it is now on the decline, and that there 

 is much land in New-England, that will not produce more than 

 one half of what it formerly did. 



This practice cannot be too much reprobated. It is dis- 

 graceful and ruinous to the farmer, a criminal abuse of the 

 bounties of nature, and if universally carried to the extent to 



