NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



Publishi-a every SaturdHv, by THOMAS \V. SHKI'AIU), Kogers' liiiildinj:, Congress Street, linvt.ii, ; at j;-2,50 per ami. in u.lvaiue, or $J,UO at the rluse ol the year. 



No. 8. 



Vol. I. 



BOSTON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21. 1822. 



CO.NSIDERATIONS 



ON THE NECESSITY OF F.STABLISHINti A.V 



AGKICULTUR.\L COLLEGE, 



and having more of the children of wealthy citizens 

 e<lucatcd for the 



PROFESSION OF FARMI.XC. 

 (Continued from p. 60.) 

 It is a mistaken idea that notiiing can be made 

 by farming. Universal tact proves llie contrary. 

 The chief part of our immense population lives 

 by it, and lives too in a comfortable, and very 

 many of it in a luxurious state. It is a fact, not 

 now noticed for the information of our country- 

 men, "ho all know it, but as a contrast to what 

 prevails on the other side of the Atlantic, where 

 probably it will be considered incredible, that 

 our farmers' tables are ordinarily furnished, 

 three times a day throughout the year, with as 

 much meat, besides a superabundance of vege- 

 tables, as their families and their laborers can 

 use, and that two, out of the three meals a day 

 have commonly coffee or tea, with sugar and 

 cream or milk for their accompaniments. It is 

 fervently to be wished, that a more economical 

 mode of living were adopted — but so is the fact. 

 Is this making nothing by farming? Which of 

 the other pursuits of life furnish more of the 

 means of comfortable living ? Do we not often 

 see it the source of riches and abv;ndance, while 

 many in other professions find it difficult to sub- 

 sist? It is the only one that is independent, in- 

 debted to his industry, and the ordinary good- 

 ness of providence alone, the farmer can live 

 should all others be annihilated. His bosom is 

 free from the anxieties which agitate others, 

 who have not the same certainty of enjoying a 

 competency, who know not whether there will 

 be suliiciont openings for their industry, wheth- 

 er their laliors will be duly appreciated, or 

 whether the chances on which success depends 

 will eventuate for or against them. 



Hope, which only can illumine the gloom 

 that envelops humanity, and assuage its suffer- 

 ings, holds her lamp, burning with a bright 

 equable tlame, before the cultivator of the earth ; 

 while to others, it appears and disappears and 

 appears again, like the wandering tire of an 

 ignis fatuus, or flutters like the faint light of a 

 glimmering taper, or like a meteor blazes in- 

 tensely for a while, then vanishes forever. 



Travel through our country, especially the 

 western parts of this state ; look at the groups 

 of rosy, well clad children, that swarm from 

 their dwelling, and cluster about the school 

 houses ; observe the neatness and elegance of 

 the farm houses as you pass them ; examine 

 their appendages of out-houses, gardens, or- 

 chards and fields, stocked with cattle, or en- 

 riched with crops ripening for the harvest, and 

 estimate their value ; go into the churches, 

 raised in all their magniticence, from the sur- 

 plusages of farms, and behold the brilliance of 

 appearances there, where not a single object, 

 with the marks of poverty on it, is found to dis- 

 figure the scene ; enter some of the stately a- 

 bodes which will meet you with frequent oc- 

 currence ; see the plenty, independence, com- 

 fort and happiness predominant in them, which 



the lords of palaces might envy, but which they poses, are comparatively but as a drop in 

 never can knoiv ; ask if these are the fruits of i bucket, or the small dust in the balance ! 



the 



a fortunate or prosperous ancestry ; you will be 

 told, no ! they have all been extracted from the 

 soil by a judicious and industrious application 

 of their present owners to the business of agri- 

 culture. After this say — is there nothing to be 

 made by farming ? 



Little do many think what they make by it. 

 Let them only calculate the amount of every 

 article that enters into the consumption of their 

 families, according to the prices which the in- 

 habitants of cities pay, and they may obtain 

 some idea of the produce of their farms. Some 

 of lliein, and those not of the wealthiest, will 

 no doubt, at the end of such a calculation, be 

 astonished to find that, with all their economy 

 and avoidance of extravagance, and notwith- 

 standing their previous very different belief, 

 they live at the rate of two or three thousand 

 dollars a year : a fact easy to be ascertained by 

 keeping regular accounts ; and yet many such 

 have accumulated no ordinary fortunes to be- 

 queath to their families. 



Englishmen, in their characteristic vain-glo- 

 rious manner, exult in the happy condition of 

 their farmers ; and what is that condition ? 

 They cultivate a soil not superior, but perhaps 

 on an average rather inferior to ours. The 

 price of their land, compared to that of ours, is 

 exorbitant, and rents of necessity are equally 

 exorbitant. They possess no incommunicable 

 arcana for managing their business ; on the con- 

 trary, the American genius is well calculated to 

 outstrip them, and will most undoubtedly do so, 

 under the influence of that spirit which has be- 

 come so active of late, in all the niceties of 

 husbandry. One third, probably one half, if 

 not more, of the fruits of their labor is taken 

 f'rom them, without remuneration — by tithes to 

 support an ecclesiastical nobility with its num- 

 berless dependents, — by taxes to pay the inter- 

 est of a national debt, of incomprehensible mag- 

 nitude, incurred for carrying on a savage war- 

 fare against the human race, almost without in- 

 termission, for centuries past, and for the sup- 

 port of an aristocracy, of which the thousands 

 that compose it, each must be supported in a 

 style of magnificence which the first magistrate 

 of this nation cannot afford — by the poor-rates 

 exacted from them to keep a great portion of 

 their immense population from actual starvation 

 — and by what is drawn from them in private 

 charities by that enormous mass of pauperism, 

 utterly inconceivable to Americans, which over 

 whelms the nation, and not being adequately 

 provided for by the public, continually assails 

 their humanity with irresistable importunities. 

 It is from this compulsive display of British hu- 

 manity, that Britons, proud Britons, have ob- 

 tameii a character at home so perfectly the re- 

 verse of what their public acts have indelibly 

 stamped on them abroad. 



If then the English Airmer, after having so 

 much of the fruits of his labor taken from him. 

 can, as represented by his own countrymen, live 

 10 an enviable style, what must we say of the 

 .\merican, whose contributions for the support 

 of government, and all needful charitable pur- 



O fortunatos 



si sua norint bona, colonos! 



But with all these superior advantages of the 

 American farmer, it is nevertheless true, and it 

 is no less true in regard to every other profes- 

 sion, that he who has not been in the way of 

 becoming thoroughly acquainted with actual 

 fiirming, will make nothing by it, or rather will 

 sink his fortune in the attempt. A rich young- 

 man, sent into the country to prosecute far- 

 ming, without an education for it, will, most 

 assuredly, be cozened and swindled out of pro- 

 perty, till all bo lost ; on the contrary, a com- 

 petent knowledge of his business, to be acquired 

 only by a regular education for it, would make 

 it to him, if not a mine of wealth, at least the 

 means of an atlluent living. 



The inference from all these facts and obser- 

 vations then is, that there is and must remain an 

 insurmountable barrier to prevent the sons of 

 men of other professions, and especially of the 

 rich, from becoming farmers, unless there be 

 some institution in which they can receive an 

 education for that profession in a manner differ- 

 ent from w hat is now possible : — That it would 

 be incalculably for the benefit of our country if 

 the surplus candidates for other profV^ssions, 

 cotild be diverted to this, the most useful of all : 

 — And therefore, that an institution specially in- 

 tended for this purpose is of the greatest impor- 

 tance — Ihat it is demanded by every -consider- 

 ation of the wisest policy, and Ihat the resources 

 of government cannot be better employed for any 

 other object for which governments are formed. 



It may be called an agricultural school, acade.' 

 Hii/ or co/Zfor, no matter which ; b;it if any ir-- 

 portance is to be attached to names, I would 

 give it the most respectable, and call it the ag- 

 ricultural COLI.KGE OF Tlin STATE OF NEW-YORK. 



Its primary object should be to teach the the- 

 ori) and practice of agriculture, with such branch- 

 es of otiier sciences as may be serviceable to 

 them: its secondary, to make improvements. 



This state has been liberal, almost to excess, 

 in Ihe endowment of other colleges. P^r the 

 [lurchase of but a little, almost useless, and now 

 nearly neglected appendage to the college of 

 physicians and surgeons — Hosack's botanical gar- 

 den — a sum has been given which alone would 

 place the all-important institution now advocated, 

 on a respectable footing. After this, an endow- 

 .iient of such an institution as this cannot be con- 

 sistently refused. 



If then an agricultural college is of the im- 

 portance thus clearly evinced — If the best inter- 

 ,jsls of the community so eminently depend on 

 It — If numbers of youth in the wealthiest fami- 

 lies must without it, be abandoned to dissipa- 

 tion, and finally to ruin — If the perplexities, 

 despair, and melancholy prospects of their par- 

 ents, in regard to the destinies of their children, 

 can be removed only by it, and if capital to an 

 mmense amount, otherwise devoted to annihi- 

 lation in the sinks of prodigality and vice, can 

 by it be drawn into the most productive em- 

 ployment, then surely must the agricultural 

 college share the patronage of government, at 



