1862. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



359 



marked. We need only recall the harsh and noisy 

 parrots, so similar in their peculiar utterance. Or 

 take, as an example, the web-footed family. Do 

 not all the geese and the innumerable hosts of 

 ducks quack ? Does not every member of the 

 crow family caw, whether it be the jackdaw, the 

 jay, the magpie, the rook, in some green rookery 

 of the old world, or the crow of our woods, with 

 its long, melancholy caw, that seems to make the 

 silence and solitude deeper ! Compare all the 

 sweet warblers of the songster family — the night- 

 ingales, the thrushes, the mocking-bu-ds, the rob- 

 ins — they differ in the greater or less perfection of 

 their note, but the same kind of voice runs through 

 the whole group. — Agassiz. 



Fur the New England Farmer. 

 POOR AND RICH LAND. 



Messrs. Editobs : — After having resided in 

 different towns in four different counties in New 

 England, for more than 75 years, and making 

 such observations on farmers and farming, on rich 

 land and on poor land, as I was able to do, I have 

 come to the following conclusions : 



First, that industry, economy and good calcula- 

 tions are absolutely necessary, and of main impor- 

 tance, on any kind of land, in conducting a farm. 

 The next consideration is for the farmer to select 

 good land if he can, but if destiny has decided 

 his lot, (as it will upon the greater number,) to 

 settle upon poor land, let him make the best he 

 can of it. Here, in New England, we find several 

 varieties of what is called poor land, as well as va- 

 rieties of rich land. Large tracts of pine plains, 

 swampy lands, barren knolls and mountain tops, 

 constitute the poor lands. Large swells, covered 

 with hard wood growth, or from where hard wood 

 has been removed, with alluvial valleys, and some 

 other varieties, are considered as a class belonging 

 to rich lands. 



Farmers that settle upon the rich lands, under 

 good management, get larger crops than those do 

 on the poor soil, we suppose, as a matter of course, 

 but when we take into consideration the extra 

 amount of labor necessarily expended on strong, 

 hard land, sometimes stony, more than what is re- 

 quired to cultivate the pine plain land, the result 

 as to profit would be doubtful. On strong, hard 

 land, 40 or 60 bushels of corn to the acre, in New 

 England, has been considered a fair crop, and on 

 the plains, from 30 to 40 bushels. Corn is but an 

 item, our marketable crops are roots of various 

 kinds, hay, wood and lumber, apples, pears, cran- 

 berries and other fruits, and when we come to look 

 at the lands most favorable to these productions, 

 we find many of them included in the category of 

 poor lands. I have lived in four or more differ- 

 ent towns composed of strong, hard soil, some of 

 it predominating with clay. I have lived in towns 

 where a thin, porous, plain soil, predominated, the 

 land easily cultivated, and susceptible to manure 

 with advantage. I have observed that in towns 

 consisting of strong, compact soil, that hay was 

 the staple, or principal commodity, and that wood 

 was of very tardy growth, if it would grow at all, 

 and that farmers complained bitterly, after selling 

 their hay and fruit, to be obliged to spend the 

 money, thus obtained, for manure, or let their 

 fields run to barrenness, and I have seen many ex- 



cellent farms, in other respects, that did not pro- 

 duce wood enough to supply the houses with fuel. 

 These strong land farms, situated upon beautiful 

 locations, make a splendid show, and are more 

 saleable than farms consisting of boggy, peat land, 

 cranberry meadows, sandy plains and growing for- 

 ests, that will produce a crop of wood and lumber 

 once in from 25 to 40 or 50 years. The advanta- 

 ges of the strong, heavy soils, are their aptitude 

 to produce hay and feed for cattle, apples, and 

 some other kinds of fruit, and heavier crops of 

 some kinds of grain and roots, than usually grow 

 on light land, with the important consideration of 

 its being a more saleable article. 



On the other hand, the pine plains and boggy 

 land produce peat for fuel, cranberries, the king 

 of fruits, without manure, wood in rapid succes- 

 sion, bog-hay, better than nothing, good, soft wa- 

 ter, a privilege worth more than a thousand acres 

 of prairie, with poison water, and also respectable 

 crops of grain, fruits, roots and other productions, 

 under a less laborious cultivation than is necessary 

 on the stiff, strong soils. 



I have seen numerous hard wood farms, or 

 farms originally covered with hard wood, pleasant- 

 ly located in the county of Essex, many of them 

 now almost destitute of wood for fuel. I have 

 been acquainted with numerous farmers and farms 

 in the county of Middlesex, the farms consisting 

 of the level, pine plains, swamps and bog-mead- 

 ows, and it is with difficulty that I can decide 

 which of the parties is best off. Those on the 

 hard land farms sell hay, butter, fruit of some 

 kinds, beef and vegetables. Those on the pine 

 land farms sell wood, lumber, cranberries and oth- 

 er fruits, some beef, butter, and various other lit- 

 tle commodities in common to both kinds of soil. 

 As far as I have investigated the conditions of 

 both classes of farmers, I have been inclined to the 

 opinion that the class of farmers living on the 

 plains have fewer mortgages to remove from their 

 lands, and more ready cash on hand for purposes 

 of convenience, and that their land is more easily 

 cultivated, if their crops are not so abundant to 

 the acre. I have supposed the farmers on both 

 kinds of soil to be equal in industry, economy and 

 skill. Silas Buown. 



North Wilmington, Mass., 1862. 



THE IRISHMAN IN IRELAND AND IN 

 AMERICA. 



The Irishman when he expatriates himself to 

 one of those American States loses much of that 

 affectionate, confiding, master-worshipping nature 

 which makes him so good a fellow when at home. 

 But he becomes more of a man. He assumes a 

 dignity which he never has known before. He 

 learns to regard his labor as his own property. 

 That which he earns he takes without thanks, but 

 he desires to take no more than he earns. To 

 me personally he has, perhaps, become less pleas- 

 ant than he was. But to himself! It seems to 

 me that a such a man must feel himself half a 

 god, if he has the power of comparing what he is 

 with what he was. 



It is right that all this should be acknowledged 

 by us. When we speak of America and of her 

 institutions we should remember that she has giv- 

 en to our increasing population rights and privi- 

 lesres which we could not give — which as an old 



