AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER 



"pi^DZist^^r^T^^S^^BRECK fc CO.. NO. 52 NO^T^tHv^I^IcirST^ET, (AoB.cr.TOHAL Wahehouse.) 



^ 



Ot. XVTII.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 18, 1839. 



ISO. a*. 



AGRICULTURAL. 



ADDRESS 



iaivered before the ^Agricultural and Hortictdtural 

 Societies ofXew Haven County, Sept. 35, 1839.— 

 Bt Ho.n. Jesse Bdel. 



[Concluded from page 198.] 

 In a late tour which I made through parts of New 

 fork and New Jersey, I found many evidences of 

 ecent improvement, and I doubt not similar ones 

 .bound in my native state. In a part of Dutchess 

 ounty, which I visited, the best farms have been 

 old, within my recollection, with improvements 

 nd buildings, at from seven to seventeen dollars 

 n acre. They cannot now be bought for one liun- 

 Ired dollars an acre ; and one was sold last year 

 .t auction, without buildings, at one hundred and 

 hirty dollars an acre. Fifteen years ago, a farm 

 n western New York, of 400 acres, exhausted by 

 lad husbandry, was bought by a Scotch farmer for 

 MOOO. This farm has been so improved by good 

 msbandry, that the owner was last year offered for 

 t $40,000. He refused the offer, upon the ground 

 hat it actually netted him the interest of $00,000, 

 Dr 810.50 the acre. A farm was pointed out ' > me 

 n New Jersey, which was recently sold for Jj. -He 

 icre, and that was all it was said to have been 

 worth in its then condition. By a liberal outlay in 

 draining, it being level and wet ground, and in lim- 

 ing, manuring, &c., it is now considered worth ] 

 $125 an acre. I went over another farm which a 

 few years ago was bought at the same price, and 

 which now, on account of the improvements which 

 have been made upon it, is considered worth $100 

 per acre. I am informed on the best authority, 

 that similar cases of the rapid increase in the pro- 

 ducts and value of farms, consequent upon an im- 

 proved system of management, are to be found in 

 Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. Although 

 these cases are isolated ones, they nevertheless 

 serve to show the practicability of vastly increas- 

 iDg the value and products of uur exhausted lands. 

 °Among the causes which have essentially con- 

 tributed to the deterioration of our lands, and the 

 consequent depression of our agriculture, I consid- 

 er the following as prominent : 



Ignorance of the principles of agriculture ; 

 The want of a sufficient outlay in the manage- 

 ment of our farms ; and 



The low estimation in which the employment 

 has been held by all classes, including farmers 

 themselves. 



Agriculture has too generally been considered a 

 business requiring mere physical power, with which 

 the priric.ples of natural science had little or noth- 

 ingtodo. To plough, sow, and gather the crop, 

 has been the general routine of farming operations, 

 regardless of the poverty which our practice was 

 inflicting upon the soil and upon our children. Like 

 the reckless heir of wealth, we found ourselves in 

 possession of a t-easure; and without inquiring for 

 what purpose it came into our hands, or realizing 

 our obligations to husband and preserve it, for oth- 



ers, we have squandered it lavishly, through our ig- 

 norance or our folly. True, we have been occa- 

 sionally admonished of our error by the schoolmen ; 

 who, wrapped in abstract science, and knowing lit- 

 tle practically of its application to husbandry, have 

 as often tended to confuse and mystify, as to en- 

 lighten and instruct. Hence the prejudice which 

 h^s arisen, against book-farming. But science and 

 art are now uniting their labors, and are deriving 

 mutual aid from each other, on the farm, as they 

 have for some time been doing in the manufactory 

 and in the shop of the artisan. A new era is dawn- 

 ing upon the vision of the farmer; new liglit is il- 

 luming his path, and a new interest and new plea- 

 sures are urging him on to improvement. He be- 

 gins to study the laws which Providence has or- 

 dained for the government of improved culture, and 

 he finds in their application to his labors, the means 

 of increasing profits and high intellectual enjoy- 

 ment. And the more he studies and is guided by 

 these laws, the more does he become satisfied of 

 former errors, and of his comparative limited sphere 

 of usefulness. Science is probably capable of ren- 

 dering more important services to husbandry than 

 to any other branch of labor, and presents a wider 

 field of useful study to the cultivator of the soil, 

 than to any other class of society. 



The deficiency in fanning capital, or rather the 

 stinginess with which capital is employed in im- 

 proving and maintaining the condition of our lands, 

 is another cause of declension in the profits and 

 character of our agriculture. The farmer is too 

 prone to invest his surplus means in some new busi- 

 ness, or in adding to his acres, instead of applying 

 them to increase the profits of his labor and the 

 products of his farm. He either works more land 

 than he can work well and profitably, or he 

 diverts to ocher objects the means which would yield 

 a better return if applied to the improvement of the 

 farm. He is apt to consider twenty or thirty dol- 

 lars an enormous and wasteful outlay upon an acre 

 of land, or upon a choice animal ; and yet the in- 

 terest of this outlay will be ten times paid by the 

 increase of crop or the increase of the animal ; and 

 in most cases the principal also will be returned to 

 him in the course of two or three years. Many of 

 the most thriving farmers in soutliern New York, 

 New Jersey and Pennsylvania, make a quadrennial 

 expenditure of twenty dollars or more to manure 

 an acre ; and it has become a maxim with them, 

 that the more ihe outlay for manure, the gre'iter the 

 net profit of their lands. But it is not the outlay 

 for manure alone, th;it demands a liberal expendi- 

 ture of capital. Good seed, good farm stock, and 

 good implements, are all essential to the economy 

 of labor, and to neat and profitable farming. And 

 I think it will appear from the cases I have quoted, 

 that in many locations, capital may be very advan- 

 tageously employed in reclaiming wet and marshy 

 grounds, generally rich and the most productive 

 when laid dry. 



When our cattle grow lean, and threaten to dis- 

 appoint our hopes of profit, we do not hesitate to 

 impute the evil to the want of food, or to inatten- 



tion in the herdsman. And if we are prudent raan- 

 ao-ers we at once graduate our stock to our food, 

 knowing that one well fed animal is of more value 

 in the market, tban two animals that carry but skin 

 and bones, and take care that the food is properly 

 fed out. When our crops become lean, we need 

 not hesitate to ascribe the decrease in product to 

 like causes— want of food, or want of attention in 

 the fanner; and prudence and profit in like man- 

 ner require, that our crops, like our animals, should 

 be limited to the food and labor which we have to 

 bestow upon them. In other words, an acre well 

 manured and well worked, will be found to be more 

 profitable than four poor acres badly worked. 



I may be here asked, from whence are to be ob- 

 tained the vast supplies of manure requisite to ma- 

 nure our old lands ? I answer, from a multiplicity 

 of sources around us— from every animal and vege- 

 table substance within our reach. Nothing that 

 has once been part of an animal or a vegetable, but 

 can be converted into corn, grass, and roots. I 

 think I may assume as facts, that upon an average, 

 not half the manure is saved upon our farms that 

 miaht be, and that this moiety is half lost before it 

 is applied to the soil. Every horse, ox or cow, win- 

 tered upon the farm, if well fed, and littered with 

 the straw stalks, &c., of the crop, should make from 

 six to ten cords of good manure. Dr Coventry, 

 late i>rofessor of agriculture at Edinburgh, esUma- 

 ted thatthestiaw of an ordinary acre of grain, com- 

 puted at 21 cwt., may be converted by the urine 

 and liquids of the stables and cattle yards, into 

 three and a half tons of manure; that meadows 

 that cut one and a half tons of hay, will give four 

 tons of manure ; clover, the first year, six tons, and 

 the second year, five and a half tons per acre ; and 

 that with the extraneous substances which may, 

 with due care, bo collected without expense from 

 the roads, the ditches, the ponds, and from refuse of 

 every kind about the house and premises, the acre- 

 able amount should be amply sufficient for a full 

 supply of manure once during every course ot the 

 four year system of husbandry. Arthur Young, with 

 horses, 4 cows, and 9 hogs, which consumed 6 

 loads of hay and 29 loads of straw, obtained 118 

 loads of manure, 3(J bushels to each: and from 45 

 fattintr oxen, well fed and littered, GOO tons of rot- 

 ten manure. But an American lawyer,* and an 

 excellent practical farmer withal, has gone beyond 

 these estimates. I visited his farm a few weeks 

 aero, which lies upon the sea shore. It consists of 

 .bout "00 acres, most of which was in a course o 

 crops The crops of the season had all received 

 an ample supply nf manure, as their appearance in- 

 dicated—and yet I was shown masses of well pre- 

 pared compost, in reserve, consisting of yard ma- 

 nure, peat ashes, peat earth, sea weed, and hsh— 

 estimated at twentyfive hundred loads— all produc- 

 ed upon his own farm. 



The third obstacle to agricultural improvemen , 

 which I propose to notice, is the subordinate rank 

 to which this employment has been con.=igned, and 

 to which the farmers themselves have contributed, 



*W. A. Seeley, Esq., of Statcn Island. 



