1860. 



NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 



185 



him but one chance 



"ADVIC3" ABOUT FARMING. 



Farm described — Advice asked — Uplands exh:iusteil — Deficien- 

 cies made up by income from woodland — Wliy lands are not 

 prolific — Meridian of life passed 

 —Profits of farmin;;— $600 ex- 

 pended and nothinpr trained by it 

 — Means of making old ac;e com- 

 fortable — Cranberry culture — 

 True farming very little under- 

 stood. 



E HAVE a letter before us 

 from "W. J.," Wells, Me., 

 describing his farm of 80 

 acres, in general terms, 

 and one or two portions of 

 it in special terms, and 

 asking our "advice," as to 

 what course he shall take 

 to make it more profitable. 

 The writer states that he 

 "is past the meridian of 

 life, and there seems to 

 more to see the old farm 

 brought up." This chance, if we understand him 

 correctly, lies in the reclamation of a swamp and 

 appropriating it to cranberries. He adds — "my 

 ujplandis very much exhausted, and my timber lot 

 is also on the decline, which I, as well as my 

 neighbors, have had to resort to, to fill up the va- 

 cancies.^' To fill up the vacancies ! Those words 

 are quite significant. They mean, probably, that 

 the cultivated products of the farm have not sup- 

 ported the family, and the spontaneous growth of 

 the forest has been resorted to, to make up the de- 

 ficiency, or in the expressive language of the wri- 

 tLT, "to Jill up the vacancies." 



Now these "vacancies" are just as much the 

 natural result and consequences of an exhausted 

 upland, as it is a natural result that water shall 

 run down hill, — or that the store-keeper should 

 sooii have nothing to sell from shelves which he 

 is exhausting every day, and which he does not fill 

 again. It is as unreasonable to expect that land 

 can be perpetually cropt, and still continue pro- 

 ductive, as it would be that the meal chest or flour 

 barrel should continue full without ever adding to 

 them. 



The wise and beneficent Author of nature has 

 so ordered things, that we are to supply our ne- 

 cessities and comforts by our industry and skill, 

 and without the exercise of these we shall gradu- 

 ally go back to an aboriginal condition, the first 

 indications of which, with the farmer, is "exhaust- 

 ed uplands," and a resort to the products of the 

 forest or the sea, in order to eke out sufficient for 

 subsistence. 



The very fact that the uplands fail to produce 

 their former supply, that they give evidence of 

 gradual inertness and exhaustion, is as much 

 cause for alarm to the farmer as to the merchant, 

 when he finds his sales returning him less than 

 his goods cost. Both inevitably lead to bank- 



ruptcy ; but with this difference, — the loss on the 

 merchant's goods does not cut off" the prime arti- 

 cles of life, while that of the farmer strikes at the 

 very means of existence, because what he pro- 

 duces sustains not only himself, but his surplus 

 sustains all others, gives speed to the locomotive, 

 wings to commerce, and life and activity to the 

 loom and anvil, as well as every literary, artistic 

 and scientific pursuit of man. 



Our correspondent adds, "I have two sons, one 

 of whom is of age, and he will take hold with me, 

 if I can make him believe that farming can be 

 made profitable." Have you not made him believe 

 it ? How did you begin life ? Did the 80 acres, 

 with their buildings, come to you by descent, or 

 have you earned them as thousands of others have 

 done, with your own hands ? If you earned them, 

 and have supported yourself in the mean time, 

 there is the evidence of profit. If you inherited 

 them, have they not sustained you, and enabled 

 you to bring up the family, providing them with 

 a tight roof, a good bed and ample table all their 

 days ? And after food and shelter has been sup- 

 plied, have they not always enjoyed that other 

 prime blessing of life, a home to turn to, when 

 sickness, or hunger, or fatigue has claimed relief? 

 Have not the profits of farming furnished all these, 

 and a thousand times more, even though your up- 

 lands have become exhausted, and your lowlands; 

 have produced but little, compared to what they 

 would have done under skilful management ? 



We are sincerely desirous to give you profitable ■ 

 advice, and the more beneficial it should prove to 

 you, the more happiness it would confer upon us. 

 But how can we do it ? We know nothing of the 

 nature of your soil — its composition, accessibility, 

 locality, whether it is arable or not, what are its 

 advantages for drainage, and other means of 

 amelioration ; nor any thing of your markets, or 

 of the prices which products might command. 

 Nothing short of a personal examination could 

 enable a person to answer profitably, the ques- 

 tions you propound. A gentleman once asked us 

 similar questions, after having expended $600 to 

 improve a large field, without accomplishing his 

 desires. We could not advise him satisfactorily, 

 without looking upon his land, any better than he 

 could judge of the value of this paper, without 

 ever reading, or hearing a word of its contents I 

 After visiting the land, and the suggestions we 

 made were carried out, he informed a neighbor 

 that the advice springing from a single hour's ex- 

 amination was worth $200 to him ! But, like 

 most persons, he supposed heunderstood all about 

 farming, and it was not until he had expended 

 $600, and suffered two years' delay, that he felt 

 compelled to refer to those who had made the 

 special improvements he had in view,, a practice, 

 and a study. 



