22-2 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



JAN. 1, 1840. 



for vears, should he bo so fortunate as to 

 them : his children after him, if necessity 

 teach them to be industrious and enterprising, 

 might live in that precise age of every new coun- 

 try that should be llio most prosperous; nnd of 

 course tlie chance would be increased tliat they 

 might make themselves indepeiident for life. 



There are classes of people wlio, if they will ven- 

 ture the risque of diseases of the climtito, may do 

 well to emigrate to the West. Professional young 

 men, lawyers, physicians, a.-,d perhaps clergymen, 

 may stand a chance of more immediate introduc- 

 tion to business and of the promotion which results 

 from success in a new and growing country tlian 

 they can in an old. As there is more litigation and 

 of course more misery iir the one country than the 

 other, so the lawyer will find most business ; and 

 as there are more fevers and agues, more sickness 

 in such a place, so the physfcian will find more sure 

 and profitable employment ; and even t'le clergy- 

 man, if men and women could be driven to be more 

 religious from the chance of sooner dying, would 

 find greater inducements for his labors in the far 

 west than he finds in this land overrunning with 

 Christian ministers and churches. 



Men with moderate farms, which cannot be ad- 

 vantageously subdivided, having families of some 

 half a dozen to a dozen sons and daughters, might 

 emigrate to advantage to the cheap and fertile lands 

 of the West, making themselves sure before they 

 leave, that their pitch is to be made in an eligible 

 position and in a neighborhood where themselves 

 and families may not pine in discontent, and sigh 

 for the associations and enjoyments which they 

 have left. 



Men of great enterprise, who have nearly dissi- 

 pated tiieir means in grasping afeAoo nuuh and be- 

 coming rich in a hurry, tempered' down to the an- 

 ticipation of latiojial gains from rational means, 

 rnay perhaps better repair their Iisfees and gain 

 property by going to tlie West than by tarrying in 

 the neighborhood where it will be mortifying to 

 take a position lower than the elevation which was 

 their first starting point. 



After all there is an objection weightierthan all 

 others, to the removal of the people of New Eng 



urvive fie had been sick nearly all the time he had been 

 hould absent, and he thought himself to be so clearly ac- 

 climated, that liis present intention was again to ^ 

 return to the West, but not to the precise spot where ' 

 he had suifered, when his liealth should be restored 

 after his arrival at his own paternal roof in New I 

 Hampshire ! The case of a worthy physician do- '• 

 ing a good business and having accumulated a 

 handsome estate by practising in an extensive reach . 

 in a healthy region of the county of Merrimack, is 

 well known to the people of this neighborhood. [ 

 That physician, before he attained to middle age, 

 sold liis stand and farm, removed with liis wife and 

 family, and settled down at Peoria in Illinois, where 

 in the course of a single year he took the lead of 

 all others in his profession: he had here extensive 

 business, more than he could attend to. He was 

 called in all directions by night and by day, for ev- 

 ery body was sick and needed medicine. But he 

 soon took the disease himself, and others in his 

 family were attacked ; his brief career was arrest- 

 ed, and a few short months witnessed the commit- 

 tal of both husband and wife to an untimely grave. 

 If no other objection than the diseases wliich are 

 almost sure to attack the emigrant to all new set- 

 tlements of the West existed, this alone would in- 

 duce all such inhabitants of New England as now 

 enjoy tolerable competence and prosperity, to pause 

 before they changed their position. But, as the 

 writer we have quoted^ Jias attributed to us the in- 

 dividual reason of contentment with remaining in 

 New England, with that reason existing in his own 

 fancy alone — a reason that we possess resources to 

 purchase "the abundant products of the West" 

 from means not participated by the farmer and la- 

 borers generally — we do not hesitate here to take 

 the broad ground that the men who have not ahun- 

 dancf, the small farmer who is not free and inde- 

 pendent, and the person who labors at day's Works 

 for his daily breail, have a better chance for obtain- 

 ing a livelihood and the means of enjoyment, to re- 

 main where they are, than they do to remove to 

 the West, even to the <;heap and fertile alluvion 

 bottoms of the Wabash. While we have no dis- 

 position to condemn the "bold and enterprising" 

 who remove there, we cannot admit the sequence 



land in mass to the West; and this is, the nearly that all who do not go there are " timid and faint- 

 absolute certainty that all who go there will have ' hearted." The man who refuses a challenge to a 

 to encounter repeated attacks of chills and fevers j duel may be stigmatised as timid, when it will re- 

 and severe bilious complaints before they become i quire a greater degree of moral courage to repress 

 acclimated'. To ren]Ove at this time to Michigan • than to indulge the passion for fight. So the man 

 or Illinois, Wisconsin or Iowa, there is at least an \ who encounters and overcomes all obstacles at 

 equal chance that the emigrant will not survive ; home and advances to wealth by his own exertions 

 five years. Nay. old as are the settlements of Ohio, ; in a country so unpromising as this, may claim cre- 

 the two last persons we have seen from that State i dit for at least equal courage and enterprise with 

 returned with the cadaverous, pale faces of appa- 1 him who makes a dash at the far West, in the 

 rent consumption. They came back to get their j prospect that a rich and fertile soil will at once 

 health ; and we were happy to be told that although j give him competence without the necessity for fur- 

 the flesh had retreated until their bodies iiad be- j ther effort or enterprise. 



come mere skeletons, and the labored perspiration j if five years' industry and exertion are j)nly ne- 

 and the glassy eye looked very like a speedy disso- | cessary to make ^ m^jfcidependenpln tne valley 

 lution, they only wanted the fresh mountain air of the Wabash, is tnBPPriter quite sure that an 



and the pure granite water of rough Now England 

 to restore them to perfect health in the course of 

 two or three months. A young gentleman from 

 this county, who had finished a collegiate educa- 

 tion and who had been to Ohio two years, met us 

 the day ol this present writing "cadaverous and 

 pale." He said Ohio was a fine State, as it un- 

 doubtedly is — that it was fertile and flourishing ; 

 but he said it was not, after all, what it was repre- 

 sented to be ; and that almost all such as went 

 there with raised expectations were disappointed. 



equal effort will not do as much in many parts of 

 New England? The face of the whole country i.-i 

 so inviting, that like the discontented cow or ox 

 turned into a new and abundant field, the men who 

 occupy the soil for its products, bite a little hei 

 and there, and roam from place to place, not sati: 

 fied with the abundance before them, but looking 

 for a greater abundance at points not yet reached 

 In almost all directions — in New England itself 

 when the forest is firstcut down — the ground teems 

 with production; it yields abundantly for a fe 



years. This spontaneous abundance cannot i 

 ways continue without compensation is made 

 mother earth for the successi7e crops taken fri 

 her bosom. The great misfortune of our agric 

 ture has been, and is likely to be, that the richni 

 of the primitive soil lead.s to a course of cultii 

 tion wliich is sure to end in sterility. Discouraj 

 menl, if not abandonment, follows this sterilit 

 the occupant is presented with a strong indue 

 ment to leave the ground no longer productive 

 occupy other ground which will yield more abt 

 dantly. 



Repeated experiment has proved, that to the 

 dustrioiis and enterprising, the deteriorating me 

 od of cultivation is not the true policy: those gi 

 the niost who by the product and application of n 

 nures keep up the original richness of the soil. 

 Even for present profit, more is gained in prop 

 tion to the labor, from well prepared ground, ki 

 rich by fertilising manures. There are vari< 

 substances besides mere animal and vegetable r 

 nures that may enrich the soil — there are calca 

 ous substances, partaking of the nature of lit 

 which merely act on the soil without imparting a 

 internal fertility — there are kinds of earth mij 

 with other kinds of earth having a similar eff« 

 The discoveries of science, the development of I 

 constituents of different soils by analyzation, n 

 hereafter enable every farmer to decide at oi 

 what is the best ingredient for his particular locati 

 A cliange in New England cultivation, beo 

 several years ago in some places near the si 

 board, is rapidly extending to the interior. It 

 found tl'.at our soil may be made to produce 1 

 times as much as it has produced ; and the sec 

 has gone abroad that Ihose farmers malte the m 

 money from their labor who most fertilize the i 

 which they cultivate. 



The examples of Indian corn crops upon the 

 lands of Winnipisseogee lake in New Hampshi 

 challenge competition with the crops even in ■ 

 fertile regions of the valley of the Wabash. Th 

 is no danger that the population of New Engh 

 will become too compact or too numerous. 1 

 growth of commercial and manufacturing toT 

 will create a necessity for improved agriculti 

 everywhere within the reach of those towns. C 

 ate a demand for the productions of the earth 

 yond the present .supply, and there will always 

 found sufficient enterprise in the New Engli 

 population to progress in the march of impro 

 ment. When the abundant tracks of land n 

 neglected shall be brought into use by all the i 

 provements of which they are susceptible, no f 

 cied fertile elysium of a distant country can ter 

 away froi!' their homos the intelligent populati 

 who are already reaping the benefits of their o 

 perseverance and industry. 



The West is destined to flourish, as well b 

 natural and proper emigration from the east 

 States as from acquisitions of eniigrants from 1 

 rope and other foreign lands: its more legitiin 

 increase will, however, be from the reproduction 

 its present population. The Atlantic States, f 

 ticularly the States of New England, nqjv stanc 

 a point presenting the strongest inducements i 

 the greatest encouragements to that bold ent 

 prise which deserves success because it alwi 

 earns it. Our young men will find the prospect 

 success equally auspicious here as in any oti 

 part of the world ; and those only will leave 

 from discontent who wish to make money by tli 

 wits rather than by productive industry." 



