vol,. XVII X- 



A N ly K R T I C U L T U R A L REGISTER, 



355 



lis ; for the sentiment of Dean Swift is not less 

 true now than when first published, "that whoever 

 ould make two ears uf corn or two blades of grass 

 to grow upon a spot of ground whore only one grew 

 before, would deserve better of mankind and do 

 more essential service to his country, than the 

 whole race of politicians together." 



Allow me then, in conclusion, to appeal to your 

 pride of character, to your patriotic feelings and to 

 your patriotic energies, by addressing to you the 

 language once applied to our profession by that ripe 

 scholar and able financier, who has since won gold- 

 en opinions for himself as President of the Bank of 

 the I'nited States: "In this nation, agriculture is 

 p;-ol) ibly destined to attain its highest honors. The 

 pure and splendid institutions of tliis people have 

 embodied the brightest dreams of those high spirits 

 who, in other times and in other lands, have la- 

 mented or struggled against oppression ; they have 

 realized the tine conceptions which speculative men 

 have iinaginftd, which wise men have planned, oi 

 hiav" men vainly perished in attempting to estab- 

 lisli." * * "The American farmer is the ex- 

 :lusive, absolute, uncontrolled proprietor of the soil. 

 His tenure is not from government. The govern- 

 ment derives its power from him. There is above 

 him nothing but God and the laws ; no hereditary 

 authority usurping the distinctions of personal ge- 

 nius ; no established church spreading its dark shad- 

 ow between him and heaven. But his character 

 assumes a loftier interest by its influence over the 

 public liberty. It may not be foretold to what dan- 

 gers this country is destined, when its swelling 

 population, its expanding teiTitory, its daily com- 

 plicating interests, shall awaken the latent passions 

 * af men, and reveal the vulnerable points of our in- 

 I stitutions. But whenever these perils come, its 

 naost steadfast security, its unfailing reliance, will 

 oe on that column of landed proprietors — the men 

 3f the soil and of the country, standing aloof from 

 ■ the passions which agitate denser communities, 

 (well educated, brave, and independent — the friends 

 t of the government without soliciting its favors, the 

 (advocates of the people without descending to flat- 

 ter their passions ; these men, rooted like their own 

 forests, may yet interpose between the factions of 

 the country, to heal, to defend and to save." 



OorssA Wheat. — Six thousand miles from New 

 York, in the interior of the eastern continent, and 

 in the heart of the most despotic government on 

 earth, is a city containing sixty thousand inhabi- 

 tants, sprung up where but forty years since only a 

 few fishermen's huts existed, and at the wharves of 

 which now, two hundred vessels are sometimes seen 

 at a time, exchanging the various products of the 

 east and the west. That city is Odessa ; and the 

 wheat shipped from this place in large quantities to 

 the countries of the Mediterranean, Portugal, Spain, 

 Great Britain, and to the shame of American agri- 

 culture be it said, to this country also, is known by 

 the name of Odessa wheat. The whole immense 

 extent of Southern Russia, including the Crimea, 

 is a vast plain, rich in soil, and wherever cultivated, 

 producing as does the same range of country in Po- 

 land, and the north of Germany, the most luxuriant 

 crops. It is divided off into immense seignories, 

 or as it would be called at the south, plantations, 

 cultivated by white slaves, of whom some of the 

 proprietors own from twenty thousand to one hun- 

 dred thousand ; and these men clothed in undressed 

 sheep skin, and performing all their operations in 

 the most primitive, barbarous manner, are still able 



to send wheat to this country, and it is said at a 

 handsome profit. To England the trade in Black 

 Sea or Odessa wheat, is an object of consequence ; 

 and now when in consequence of the pai'tial failure 

 of the crop, the ports are thrown open for the im- 

 portation of grain, the supply from this souixe prom- 

 ises not to be the least abundant in meeting the 

 wants of a half famished population. 



Plain Diet. — This is what children ought on 

 every account, lo be accustomed to from the very 

 first. It is vastly more for their present health and 

 comfort, than those little nice things with which 

 fond parents are so apt to vitiate their appetites ; 

 and it will save them a great deal of mortification 

 in at\er life. If you make it a point to give them 

 the best of every thing, to pamper them with rich 

 cakes and sweatmeats, and sugar plums, if you al- 

 low them to say with a scowl, "I don't like this, 

 and I can't eat that," and then go away and make 

 them a little toast or kill a chicken for their dainty 

 palates, depend upon it you are doing them a great 

 injury ; not only on the score of denying them a 

 full muscle and a rosy cheek, but of forming one of 

 the most inconvenient habits that they can carry 

 along with them into after life. Betterj.efar to put 

 them upon water gruel or brown bi'ead, till their 

 appetite comes, and they can be satisfied with such 

 food as others eat at the same table. If you accus- 

 tom your children to " eat what is set before them, 

 asking no questions," they vvill always find some- 

 thing, among whatever class of people they may 

 afterwards be thrown, upon which they can make a 

 comfortable meal ; whereas, if you allow them to 

 mince and find fault at your own table, when they 

 come to leave you, they will not half the time find 

 anything they CPU eat, and thus you will prepare 

 them to go chafing along through life, the veriest 

 slaves, almost, in the world Yankee Farmer. 



The following letter from a highly intelligent 

 friend, who has returned from this country to Eng- 

 land to take possession of a farm, has so much good 

 humor and piquancy about it, and in the operation 

 of the English game laws, presents sr.ch a striking 

 contrast with the condition of things in our own 

 country, that, though an entirely private letter, we 

 take the liberty of publishing it, because we know 

 it will be read with much interest by our country 

 friends. H. C. 



"JVear Lincoln, 'i'ith monlli. 

 Here I am, up to the ears in farming projects, 

 and I like the pursuit vastly well, only I would 

 rather farm where game laws and tithes are not 

 quite so much in vogue^ My estate is a ragged 

 one, and I shall have much to do to put a decent 

 face upon it. But this does not disturb me, for I 

 like the planning of improvements. I intend to go 

 over each farm with a gang of men, repairing and 

 building, hedging and ditching, ieveUifl^and drain- 

 ing, and when all this is done, I hope- f shall see 

 old Salem, where my heart only finds its home. 

 Were it not for the hope of recruiting the wasted 

 health of my family, I would not be long here ; pe- 

 cuniary considerations should not keep me. They 

 do not — for, of a truth, my property is only yielding 

 2 3-4 per cent, at most. We have been too long 

 from old England. Had we always lived here, our 

 situation would be enviable, for we have really 

 much to make us happy. Thou knowest that liv- 

 ing in England on one's own acres, is a condition 

 not to be grinned at. We are something like the 



English who go to the East Indies. They place 

 all their hopes of happiness upon the period of their 

 return, and expect supreme felicity in spending 

 their last days in England : they come back stran- 

 gers by long absence, and hurry back to the East 

 as fast as they can. 



I wish thou wast hero : we have partridges in 

 abundance, arrd I know where to go for a hare at 

 any time. But thou knowest the color of my cloth ; 

 I have done with guns: and acting with some lit- 

 tle sternness of principle, I will not allow other 

 people to use them on my proper-ty. If thou wast 

 here, I would relax a little in thy favor ; for I take 

 thee to be a/most humane sort of a gunner. The 

 passion for field sports ia as rife among the Eng- 

 lish people as ever it was ; and if it were merely a 

 wholesome exercrse, and not connected with cruel- 

 ty to animals, I should not have much to say. I 

 alrrrost envy the fine looking fellows I sometimes 

 meet, rushing on horseback to the rendezvous, with 

 faces flaming with ruddy health and almost eclips- 

 ing the scarlet of their jackets. And the age too 

 at which they will follow the hounds, astonishes me. 

 It is not so much the foible of the young as of el- 

 der men. flfen with heads white as silver, or with 

 no hair at all, Irke the bald-pated knight in the 

 fable book, are far more,conimonly seen than those 

 of youthful appearance. What an outrage upon 

 common deivency are the game laws of this coun- 

 try ! I despise them from the very bottom of my 

 heart. Why, I can't shoot a hare upon my own 

 property if I were inclined to, without paying that 

 little slut up there somewhere about Lunnen, some- 

 thing like twenty dollars a year. Is it not mon- 

 strous ? If I were king absolute for only one two 

 { hour's, I would sw^ep the whole code of game laws 

 from the statute book with the besom of destruc- 

 tion. The entire thing seems just contrived for the 

 very special purpose of setting the rich and tlie 

 poor at loggerheads. Two or three keepers and 

 two or three poachers have been killed already this 

 season. I have told my tenants what / should do 

 upon finding miss pussy eating my turnips, and no- 

 body nigh — knock her over ; — they may do as they 

 please. When the laws are vicious, obedience is 

 scarcely a virtue. Perhaps I might be willing to 

 take back a little of this doctrine ; but it does gall 

 me to think that a rich man may come on to my 

 land with a license in his pocket, and kill my game, 

 and the worst that I can make of it is simple tres- 

 pass. But if a poor man come on without a license, 

 it is felony. This is not right. The common sense 

 of every man tells him that wild animals are not, in 

 fact, any man's property. And th« most ignor-ant 

 know full well that game laws are not founded on 

 principles of natural justice. Thanks to the school- 

 master, they cannot last long : they will all go to- 

 gether — the game laws and the old — — -. I wont 

 hurt thy feelings by even a distant hint against the 

 venerable establishment thou lovest so well. 



Altogether absorbed in the improvement of my 

 estate, I know nothing of politics. However, I 

 know this : the tories can never govern this coun- 

 tr-y for long. The whigs have the nibble and the 

 radicals, like Blanch and Tray at their heels, and 

 if the tories should gain the ascendant, they have 

 only to set on the dogs. The tories cannot do 

 this if they would, nor would they do it if they 

 could." 



A new article of marketing. — Morus Multicaulis 

 leaves were selling in the Philadelphia market last 

 week, at five for a cent ! 



