438 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Sept. 



III. The sap tending always to the extremities 

 of the shoots, causes the terminal bud to push 

 •with greater vigor than the laterals. 



IV. The more the sap is obstructed in its circu- 

 lation, the more likely it Avill be to produce fruit 

 buds. 



V. The leaves serve to prepare the sap absorbed 

 by the roots for the nourishment of the tree, and 

 aid the formation of buds on the shoots. All trees, 

 therefore, deprived of their leaves, are liable to 

 perish. 



VI. Where the buds of any shoot or branch do 

 not develop before the age of two years, they can 

 only be forced into activity by a very close prun- 

 ing, and in some cases, as the peach, this even 

 will often fail. 



ADVANTAGES OF SMALL FAKMS. 



It has always been a question among political 

 economists, whether large or small farms were 

 most advantageous to the State. Without un- 

 dertaking to settle the controversy, we will make 

 an interesting extract in relation to this point, 

 from the Abbe St. Pierre, who thought that the 

 laws ought to prescribe bounds to the accumula- 

 tion of landed property. The reader will observe 

 that his inquiry is, as to which "is most advan- 

 tageous to the State ?" We presume that in the 

 matter of agriculture, what is the best for indi- 

 viduals will prove to be the best for the State. 



Whether a man can manage a large, or a small 

 tract of land to the best advantage will usually 

 depend upon two things, — capital and skill. If 

 he possesses enough of these, why should he not 

 manage a thousand acres as well as one hundred, 

 in a country like ours, where land is abundant ? 



As a general thing, however, with the resources 

 that our New England farmers possess, we have 

 no doubt that a lai-ger per centage is realized on 

 moderately small farms, than on large ones. The 

 Abbe says : — 



The Romans had censors, who limited, in 

 the first instance, the extent of a man's possessions 

 to seven acres, as being sufficient for the sub- 

 sistence of a family, understanding hy an acre 

 as much land as a ijoJce of oxen could plow in one 

 day. As Rome increased in luxury, it was ex- 

 tended to five hundred acres ; but even this law, 

 thougli indulgent in the extreme, was soon in- 

 fringed, and the infraction liastened rapidly the 

 ruin of the republic. "Extensive parks," says 

 Pliny, "and large domains, have ruined both our 

 own Italy and the provinces which the Romans 

 have conquered ; for the victories which Nero, 

 (the consul,) obtained in Africa, were simply owing 

 to the circumstance of six men being in possession 

 of nearly one-half of Numidia." Plutarch informs 

 us, that in his time, under Trajan, a levy of three 

 thousand men could not have been eflfected in all 

 Greece, which had formerly furnished armies so 

 numerous ; and that sometimes you might have 

 travelled a whole day, on the high-roads, without 

 meeting a human being except now and then, per- 

 haps, a fev,' solitary shepherds. The reason was 

 that Greece had been })arcelled out among a few 



wealthy proprietors. In countries where proper- 

 ty is so unequally divided, conquerors have al- 

 ways met with a "feeble resistance. We have ex- 

 amples of this in all ages, from the invasion of the 

 lower empire by the Turks, to that of Poland, in 

 our own days. Overgrown estates destroy alike 

 the spirit of patriotism, in those who have every 

 thing, and in those who have nothing. "The shocks 

 of corn," says Xenophon, "inspire those M'ho have 

 raised them to defend them. They appear in the 

 fields as a prize exhibited in the middle of the 

 theatre, to crown the conqueror." 



Such is the danger to which the great inequality 

 of property exposes a state from without : let us 

 view also the mischief which it occasions within. 

 An old comptroller-general having retired to his 

 native province, made a considerable purchase in 

 land. His estate was surrounded by about fifty 

 small manors, the annual rent of which might be 

 from sixty to eighty pounds sterling each. The 

 proprietors were honest country gentleman, who 

 for many generations had furnished their country 

 with gallant officers, and respectable mothers of 

 families. The comptroller-general, desirous of 

 extending his lands, invited them to his castle, en- 

 tertained them magnificently, gave them a taste 

 of Parisian luxury, and concluded with an offer 

 of twice the value of their estates, if they thought 

 proper to dispose of them. The guests, to a man, 

 accepted his ofier, imagining they were about to 

 double their revenue, and filled too with the hope, 

 no less fallacious to a country gentleman, of se- 

 curing a powerful protector at court. But the 

 difficulty of placing out their money to advantage, 

 a taste for expense, occasioned by the possession 

 of sums which they had never before seen in their 

 coff'ers, and frequent journeys to Paris, soon re- 

 duced the price of their patrimony. By degrees 

 these respectable families disappeared ; and thirty 

 years after, one of theii- sons who could reckon 

 among his ancestors a long succession of cap- 

 tains of dragoons, and knights of St. Louis, was 

 found wandering on foot over his paternal inher- 

 itance, soliciting the place of a keeper of a salt 

 office, to keep him from starving. 



Such is the evil iufficted on the citizens by the 

 accumulation of many estates in the hands of a 

 single proprietor ; and the injury done thereby to 

 the land itself is not the less to be deplored. I 

 was some years ago, at the house of a gentleman 

 in affluent circumstances, in Normandy, who cul- 

 tivated himself a very considerable grass farm, 

 situated on a rising, ground, of a very indiff'ercnt 

 soil. Wo walked together round his vast enclos- 

 ure, till we came to a large space completely over- 

 run with mosses, liorsetail and thistles. Not a 

 blade of good grass was to be seen. The soil in- 

 deed was at once ferruginous and marshy. He 

 had intersected it with many trenches to drain clT 

 the water, but all to no purpose : nothing would 

 grow. Immediately below there was a series of 

 small farm-houses ; the land belonging to them . 

 M'as clothed with grassy verdure, planted with ap- 

 ple trees that were loaded with fruit, and enclosed 

 with tall alders. The cows were feeding among 

 the trees of the orchards, while the country girls 

 sat at the doors of their houses, with their spinning 

 wheels, singing as they worked. Their rustic and 

 simple lays, repeated from distance to distance, 

 under the shade of trees, communicated to this 

 little hamlet a vivacity which increased the de- 



