1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



271 



" 'My 3'oung cattle, with similar food, and exposure 

 to cold, drenching rains, were very thin. But most of 

 them lived through, and having no land prepared for 

 spring crops, I concluded to change my plan, and try 

 corn and cattle. Some of my ox teams were sold to 

 meet most pressing wants — a rigid system of economy 

 adoi^ted, and with all the corn I could reasonably get 

 in, I commenced another year. Wheat grew finely, 

 chinch Img damaged it some, but it matured and 

 yielded more than "enough to pay expense of raising, 

 selling it at 60 cents per bushel. So with my corn and 

 some tat steers I shall make a better season than ever 

 before, paying some of the losses of preceding years.' 



"This is a correct history of the efforts of an 

 intelligent farmer, whose habits are unexception- 

 able, and who could have had no idea of anything 

 but success when he undertook farming on prairie 

 land." 



The above is not given as an illustration of the 

 general result of prairie farming, but only to illus- 

 trate the fact that no capital is employed in 

 Western agriculture. The whole cost of putting 

 in 150 acres of wheat is set down at three dollars 

 per acre, and the crop of twenty bushels to the acre 

 hardly paid the first cost ! The land was plun- 

 dered of an exhausting crop, and nobody bene- 

 fited, and millions of acres are treated in substan- 

 tially the same way every year. It is doubtful 

 whether, under the system practiced in any new 

 States, the country is not the poorer by nearly 

 the value of all the wheat produced ! If we cut 

 off from a farm all the wood and timber, and send 

 it to market, we know that, by so much, the actu- 

 al value of the land is lessened. Is it any less 

 certain than when we take out of the land the el- 

 ements of fertility, in the form of corn and wheat, 

 and send them away, never to be returned, we in 

 fact send away the soil, and sell the very capital 

 which produces our annual income ? 



CAPITAL NECESSARY IN AGRICULTURE. 



The distinction between good and bad hus- 

 bandry might almost be said to be, that the for- 

 mer increases, while the latter lessens the pro- 

 ductive capacity of the soil. A farmer in Eng- 

 land who hired a farm of 1000 acres, assured us 

 that he eisiployed $50,000 in stock, implements, 

 labor, manure, and the like, to conduct his farm 

 profitably. His crop of wheat, usually 250 acres, 

 averaged nearly thirty bushels to the acre. The 

 wheat crop over all England averages about 28 

 bushels to the acre, while in the United States, it 

 averaged, by the census of 1850, but 9i bushels, 

 in the States of New York and Indiana, but 12, 

 in Illinois but 11, in Iowa but 14, and in no State 

 above 16 bushels to the acre. 



Ireland, at the time we speak of, was like an 

 exhausted, worn-out farm. To have furnished 

 that country with the capital which she lacked in 

 sheep alone, as compared with England, would 

 have required one hundred millions of dollars, 

 and double that sum to have stocked the farms 

 equally with England with other kinds of cattle! 

 A French writer, who has carefully observed the 



agriculture of his own country and that of Great 

 Britain, says that fifteen hundred millions of dol- 

 lars, which, by the way, is not quite fifty dollars to 

 the acre, would not, in 1846, have furnished Ire- 

 land, as an agricultural country, with the capital 

 actually invested in England in the improvement 

 of her soil. The general aspect of the two coun- 

 tries supports this assertion, astounding as it may 

 seem. While the traveller in England beholds 

 on all sides, magnificent estates, with castles and 

 palaces, and spacious parks filled with cattle and 

 sheep and deer, and beyond, and all around, sub- 

 stantial farm-houses, in the midst of extensive 

 fields waving with grain, or verdant with vegeta- 

 ble growth, or clothed all over with cattle and 

 sheep, while on every side springs up to view, 

 evidences not only of present prosperity and 

 plenty, but in the fine old trees — in the cathe- 

 drals — in the permanent bridges and well-built 

 roads, are seen the proofs that affluence has long 

 prevailed, and men have had time to care for pos- 

 terity — in Ireland, nothing like this is seen. 

 There is enough of verdure to indicate the natu- 

 ral fertility of the land, but in passing through its 

 whole extent, except near the large towns, we 

 scarcely beheld an ornamental tree, or a fruit 

 tree, or a hedge. The country looks sad and des- 

 olate. The miserable hovels of the laborers, the 

 small holdings, now being united into larger es- 

 tates, the Avant of substantial farm structures, and 

 of the fat and heavy teams of England, give one 

 the impression of poverty now, and poverty long 

 endured, of a country whose people in their strug- 

 gle for existence, had given no thought to any- 

 thing beyond the bare necessities of life. 



Within the past few years, under an Act of 

 Parliament for the sale of Incumbered Estates, 

 the lands of Ireland are changing hands, and pass- 

 ing into the possession of a class mostly of Irish- 

 men, but of men who have capital to employ on 

 the estates which they purchase for their homes, 

 but generations of prosperous and energetic la- 

 bor must pass by, before this abused and worn- 

 out country can be restored to fertility. In the 

 history of Irish agriculture and its train of evils, 

 let us learn the lesson taught so plainly, that a 

 system which impoverishes the soil, must at last 

 bring poverty and ruin. 



Turning and Bopjng Glass. — The London 

 Magazine states that John Chedgey, of that city, 

 has succeeded in turning and boring glass, and 

 has thus rendered it more applicable to a great 

 variety of useful purposes. He makes glass- 

 cylinders perfectly round and smooth ; also very 

 strong glass pipes as substitutes for metal in con- 

 veying acids and alkalies, and his cylinders are 

 eminently adapted for the barrels of pumps. Glass 

 tubes of moderate bore are quite common, but 

 they are never made with a uniform size of bore. 



