^IBm' 



AND GARDENER' S JOURNAL. 



^ 



PUBLISHCD BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO., NO. 52 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Agricultural Warehouse.)— T. G. FESSENDEN, EDITOR. 



VOI<. XV. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 16, 1836. 



NO. 19. 



^^m2-^ws>s'Wi2i<a.s,a 



BErOKE THE 



SIIDDIiESBX AGRICVLTURAL. SOCIBTr, 



OCTOBER 5, 1836. 

 Hy Albert H. BTelsou of Concord* 



The science of Agriculture has been so learned- 

 ly and laboriously investigated of late years, that 

 much novelty on the subject cannot be ex()ected. 

 Few new ideas can be gleaned up on any subject 

 wliich has occupied so much of the public atten- 

 tion as has this. I shall not therefore attempt to 

 amuse you in that way, I feel wholly incompetent, I 

 know that it would be presumptuous in me to attempt 

 to give anything like a practical treatise, or to sug- 

 gest any new agricultural improvement, or any 

 new implement, or any new kind of manure, or 

 any important variation in the present improved 

 method of ploughing, sowing, and cropping. 1 

 feel gratified, and as I am interestcil in the success 

 and prosperity of this Society, proud, that such a 

 course has been rendered less essential by the 

 learned and elaborate discourses heretofore pro- 

 nounced in this place, on similar occasions, by 

 jiracticul farmers, who have united profound re- 

 search with actual experiment. As my object is 

 not, therefore, to give a practical treatise, so neith- 

 er do I intend to start unfounded theories: but I 

 wish, by stating the result of theory and practice 

 combined, to draw attention to the advantages of 

 scientific farming ; or in a word, to what has been 

 opprobiously and sneering called "Book Farm- 

 ing." 



Of course it is unnecessary for me to speak of 

 Agriculture in a general point of view ; and much 

 less of its dignity as an employment, there is none 

 no doubt on these matters. It possesses, howev- 

 er, a jieculiar importance here in New England. 



We generally divide labor into three parts : 

 commercial, manufacturing,and agricultural. And 

 we are, again and again, told that New England is | 

 only a manutiicturing and commercial country. 

 We feel proud of our success in these great branch- 

 es : we foster and encourage them in every way. 

 But at the same time, this is an agricultural coun- 

 try, and must become much more so than it now 

 is. The truth seems to be that these three great 

 branches of human industry are all closely allied : 

 that they exist and must exist together. The his- 

 tory of England, of France, of Germany, of the 

 whole world, i>roves that wherever commerce and 

 manufactures are existent, agriculture is a science, 

 and is prosperous just so far as they are prosper- 

 ous. Anil in this land they have progressed hand 

 in hand, and step by step. As the number and 

 value of our ships have increased, as our manu- 

 facturing establishments have sprung up, and 

 flourished and strengthened, our farms and fariuing 

 has grown better and better and the amount of 

 produce greater and greater. In appearance 



to be sure, they are widely different. The 

 amotmt of exports and imports are yearly regis- 

 tered and published. The manufacturing villages 

 that are springing up on the banks of every river 

 and brook in the land, and which are growing in 

 such an unparelleled liegree, are objects of interest 

 to, and are known by every one. They meet our 

 turn at every corner : their busy limn reaches every 

 nook : accounts of them fill every newspaper. But 

 the improvements in the appearance of^ the farms 

 we see every day, strikes not the eye so readi- 

 ly. We perceive not, quickly, the difference be- 

 tween a crop of 30 and one of 60 bushels of corn to 

 the acre : and such a fact makes a most insignifi- 

 cant item in a newspaper. There is no popular 

 excitement about raising 500 rather than 100 bush- 

 els of potatoes to the acre : or 35 rather than 5 of 

 rye. We hear no extravagant predictions of fu- 

 ture wealth becaus ; our swine and our beeves 

 are a third heavier, and twice as good as formerly.' 

 or because our cows give twice as nuich milk, or 

 because we cut twice as much hay, or make twice 

 as much manure as we once did. We hear and 

 see but little of these things : and yet these results 

 which have been attained are as important, and as 

 astonishing, astheofttcid wonders of labor-saving 

 machinery. 



Notwithstanding the drains of a constant emi- 

 gration, our wealth and population are increasing 

 in an unprecedented maimer. Land consequently 

 has ri.sen in value, because, as population increases, 

 the products raised for its supjiort must also in- 

 crease. To make this land, with its raised value, 

 profitable, to pay its greater worth, the articles 

 which it iM-odiices must either be of greater value 

 or quantity, or better still, in both these requisites. 

 Our ]and, then, must be better cultivated, and for 

 the reason already assigned ; — that those living on 

 it must be fed. We have not arrived at the limit 

 (if production : we know not yet the immense 

 productiveness of a single properly cultivated 

 acre. As then our land can produce more, and 

 ought to produce more, it must and will produce 

 more. We cannot fix the limits of improvement 

 in agriculture, until we can fix the limits of man- 

 ufacturing power, in New Enghnd, and as this is 

 inexhaustible, there is reason to believe that this 

 very New England is destined to become ene 

 of the greatest farming countries in the world, if 

 not the greatest. And our farmers should be aware 

 of this fact: they or their descendants — the day 

 is not far distant — must take the lead of the 

 world in this matter: and knowing more, must 

 produce more than any others. Much has al- 

 ready been done. The face of things has been 

 changed. The day of little things, of poor farms, 

 and poorer farming, lijis gone by. Great improve- 

 ments have been slowly made : they are slowly 

 making. But something more remains to do, and 

 something more can be done. Improvements are 

 not at an end. The Farmer's course is '' still on- 

 ward :" is » still to do better." And the only ques- 

 tion is, how ? In what manner, can we avail onr- 



us, and certainly will to our posterity. 1 answer, 

 by a closer study of nature, and natural |)hiloso- 

 phy; by a study of scientific principles: by an 

 acquaintance with the scientific experiments that 

 have been made. 



There is an unwarrantable prejudice cxistnnt 

 in the minds of most farmers agaira: what ik y call 

 " Book farming." When mentioned, a smile is 

 excited ; when one is bold enough to avow his 

 determination to farm in that way, he is greeted 

 with an open laugh. "Experience — experience 

 — you must leain by experience, it is said. That 

 alone is worth anything: that alone will jirevent 

 you from failing, or will ensure you success. 

 Your fiirm must be your book — and vour 

 ploughs your hoes, and your tearas, the letters by 

 which you read out your lesson." Now certain- 

 ly experience is not to be despised : it cannot be 

 too highly praised. But it is put in opposition 

 to scientific husbandry by those who argue in this 

 way: and let ns examine what this bugbear may 

 be. We say that a man is a book farmer, when 

 he takes books written on the subject of airricul- 

 tnre, and farms according to the nrinciples, and 

 performs the exjieriments, therein contained. 

 Book farming, then, is another term for the sci- 

 ence of farming : it is an exact description of the 

 art, written down in letters. It is the collected 

 wisdom ofthe best cultivators of the earth: it is 

 the noted result of experiment : the detail of theo- 

 ry confirmed. In a word, it is a history of the 

 developement of the principles of fanning, from 

 the first imperfect effort of ignorant and isolated 

 means up to the present time. Now farming is a 

 science as much as is geometry : and it is a knowl- 

 edge of its principles which makes a man a good 

 farmer. A knowledge of these principles can on- 

 ly be obtained by experience, but this experience 

 may he taught in books, and is so taught. So 

 that, af\er all, we find that a scientific, or book 

 farmer does practice on experience: save that he 

 takes the experience of the whole world, through 

 all time, instead of taking that of his immediate 

 neighbor: and instead, untaught and ignorant, of 

 his own. 



We may learn the principles of farming, then, 

 by study, and why in the name of common sense 

 may we not study books ? Why should we be 

 obliged to grope along, to stumble on in the thick 

 darkness which our ancestors have exerted them- 

 selves successfully to dissipate, when we may walk 

 firmly and surely, would we but open our eyes. 

 To illustrate my meaning. A young man comes 

 into possession of a farm composed entirely of light 

 sandy soil. His predecessors have year by year 

 raised, by dint of much labor, a small crop of burnt 

 up hay, a small crop of |,otatoes, and smaller crop 

 of stinted corn. Now shall he toil on all his days, 

 ploughing, sowing and cro])piiig tlie same fields, in 

 the .same way, and with the same results, as did 

 his ancastors.' Or would it not be far better for 

 him to farm a little by hook .' To study the ar- 

 ture of calcareousand silicious soils, to learn the 



selves of those advantages which may accrue to I different effects and qualities of 



manures, to 



