No. 1. 



AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL. 



higher, in Englniul, while all the mnterialsof raising 

 it are miich higher there — so that, on the whole, 

 farm labor ought to he as lucrative in Pennsylvania ae 

 England. 



"With regard towages, it may sound strangely, 

 yet I believe it to be true, that the real interest of all 

 farmers is, that wages should be high, and for this rea- 

 son. A laboring nina is not a mere machine — a hu- 

 man poor-box, int J whose mouth is put a daily num- 

 ber of cents never to re-appear, but a living being 

 wiili wants and desires, which he will not I'ail to grat- 

 ify the momciit he possesses the means. If he can 

 earn only a scanty pittance, just enough to keep him 

 ftlive, lie starves on accordingly — bis food, bread and 

 ■water, a half-fed, half-clad, wholly untaught animal, 

 with a useless mouthliil of carnivorous teeth. But if 

 his wages increase, be instantly employs them in com- 

 forts; in clothes for himself and family; and as he rises 

 in the scale, ventures on the taste of meat. He em- 

 ploys a tailor — a shoemaker — a hatter — a butcher — 

 and these in turn, purchase the materials of their 

 tradefrom the farmer himself. The laborer becomes 

 thus a customer of himsi-lf, and the buj'er of other 

 customers — and the farmer receives back, with abun- 

 dant interest, the difference which he advances in the 

 first instance between high wages and low wages. It 

 is for this reoson that one of our shrewdest farmers 

 used to say, yes, give our laborers good wages, and 

 they will buy our beef. Thus, too, the bounties of 

 Providence go around, a beneticient circle — and, after 

 making the laborer better fed, better clad, better 

 taught — in short a better man, the farmer himself is 

 richer for the very benelits he dispenses. Depend up- 

 on it, there is no surer sign of national prosperity 

 than high wages — and God grant ibat for many a 

 ong year it may be the lot of our countrymen who 

 subsist by the labor of their hands, to work well — to 

 be paid well — and to live well. 



"And now we come to the reason whyour crops do 

 not equal those of England. It is, that our farms are 

 all too large — too large for the means we employ in 

 farming ibem. Agriculture is the only pursuit I 

 know, where the owner does not employ his capital 

 in his business. He rents or buys a large form, and 

 then has nothing left to stock it with. He might as 

 well rent a large store without goods enough to till a 

 single corner of it. In England, it is supposed ne- 

 cessary, before renting land, that the tenant should 

 have a working capital, of thirty or forty dollars an 

 acre, to employ. It is calculated that, besides lime 

 and other enriching substances, the cost of the mere 

 animal manures applied to the soil of England, 

 amounts to three hundred millions of dollars; being 

 more than the value of the whole of its foreign com- 

 merce, yet the grateful soil yields back with interest 

 all that is thus lavished upon it. And so it would do 

 here, if we would only trust the earth with any por- 

 tion of our capital. But this we rarely do. A farm- 

 er who has made any money spends it not in his busi- 

 ness, but in some other occupation. He buys more 

 land when he ought to buy more manure; or he puts 

 out his money in some joint slock company, to convert 

 sunshine into moonshine; or else he buys shares in 

 some gold mine or lead mine. Rely upon it, our rich- 

 est mine is the barn-yard, and that whatever tempta- 

 tions stocks or shares may offer, the best investment 

 for a farmer is lire stock and jiloughshares. 



"Another thing which we'should strive to amend, is 

 the unfarmerlike and slovenly appearance of our fields. 

 Clean cultivation is like personal neotneeeto an indi- 

 vidual, a great attraction to a farm; but who can see 

 without mortitication, our fields of Indian corn and 

 potatoes, ju^t as they are verging to maturity, outtop- 

 ped and stilled by a rival crop of weeds which seem 

 waiting with impatience for the removal of the real 

 crops, when they and all their seed may take e.xelu- 

 sive possession of the ground. The rule of farming 

 should be, never to let any thing grow in our fiekl 

 which we did not put there; and the value as well as 

 the beauty of the crop would more than pay the ex- 

 pense of removing these noxious intruders. 



"Nor do we pay snfiicient attention to our gardens. 

 We are too often content with a small enclosure where 

 a few peas and beons and a little salad are left to strug- 

 gle with a gigantic family of weeds, not to speak of 

 the frequent inroads from the pigs; and what con be 

 saved comes at last on our table the scanty compan- 

 ions of the masses of animal food which form almost 

 our exclusive subsistence. For such a wilderness, 

 how easy would it be to substitute the cheap and 

 wholesome luxury of many vegetables which would 

 grow without the least trouble, and, while they gave 

 variety to our tables, would diminish our eX(;eESive 

 andexpeiisive use of animal food. 



The same want of neatness pervades the exterior of 

 our dwellings. We look in vain for the trim grass- 

 pi t, the nice border, the roses, the climbing vines, 

 and all the luxuriance of our native wild llowers. 

 These chea]) and easy works — which seem trilles — 

 make up a gicat mass of enjoyments: they arc the in- 

 nocent occupation of the young tuembers of the family 

 — the elegant luxury of them all; and they impress 

 even a passing stranger with a sense of the taste and 

 ease of the former. 



" In fruits, too, we are deficient. Our climate in- 

 vites us to plant; and there is scarcely a single fruit 

 which will not grow in the open air, and all of them 

 prosper with a little eheltcr. Undoubtedly there are 

 insects whicb iid'est them; but these, care will exter- 

 minate. Undoubtedly some species are short-lived: 

 but it is easy to provide a succession — and even rrany 

 productions which we used to think uncongenial tt) 

 our climate, will succeed if we only try them. For 

 instance, I am satisfied, from my own experience, 

 that every farmer may have his patch of grapes quite 

 as readily as he can his patch of beans or peas. He 

 has only to plant his cuttings, as he would Indian 

 corn, at sufticient distances to work them with the 

 hoe-harr.iw. 'I'hey will live through the winter 

 without any covering and with less labor than Indian 

 corn, because the corn retpiires planting every year, 

 while the vines will last for a century. Pie will thus 

 provide a healthy pleasant fruit for bis family use, or 

 a profitable article for the market. 



I have spoken of farms and of farming, let mc add a 

 few words about the farmer. The time was when it 

 was the fashion to speak of the Pennsylvania farmer 

 as a dull, plodding person, whose proper representa- 

 tive was the Conestoga horse by bis side; indillerent 

 to the education of hia children, anxious only about his 

 large barn, and when the least cultivated part of the 

 farm was the parlor. These carricntures, always ex- 

 aggerated, have passed away, and the Pensylvania 

 farmer takes his rank among the most intelligent of 

 his countrymen, with no indisposition for improve- 

 ments beyond the natural Ciiution with which all new 

 tilings should be considered befiire they are odopted. 

 Cut 1 1 unwillingness to try what is new, forms no 

 part of the American character. How can it be. 

 since our whole government is a novelty ; our whole 

 system of laws is undergoing constant changes — and 

 we are doily encountering, in all the walks of life, 

 things which startle the more settled habits of the old 

 world. When such novelties are first presented, the 

 European looks back to see what the post would think 

 of it — the American looks forward to find how it will 

 affect the future — the European thinks of his grandfa- 

 thers — the American of his grandchildren. There 

 was once a prejudice against oil these things — against 

 what was called theory and book farming — but that 

 absurdity has passed away. In all other occupations, 

 men desire to know how others ore getting on in the 

 same pursuits elsewhere, they inform themselves of 

 what is passing in the world, and ore on the olert to 

 discover and adopt the improvements. The formers 

 hove few of these advantages; they do not meet daily 

 atexchanges to concentrate all the news of commerce; 

 they have no factories, where oil that is doing among 

 their competitors abroad is discussed; no agents to re- 

 port the slightest movements which may affect their 

 interests. They live apart — they rarely come toge- 

 ther, and hove no concert of action. Now, this de- 

 fect can best be supplied by reading works devoted to 

 their interests, because these may fill up the leisure 

 hours which might other^vise be wasted in idleness or 

 misemployed in dissipotion; and as some sort of news- 

 paper is almost necessary of life, let us select one, 

 which, discardi ng the eternal violence of party politics, 

 shall give us all that is useful or new in our profes- 

 sion. This society has endeavored to promote such a 

 one in the Farmer's CvniNET, a monthly paper, ex- 

 clusively occupied with the pursuits of agriculture — 

 where we may learn what is doing in our line over all 

 the world, and at so cheap a rate, that tor a dozen 

 stalks of corn, or a bushel of wheat or potatoes, we 

 may have a constant source of pleasing and useful in- 

 formation. 



" I think, however, that we must prepare ourselves 

 for some starding novelties in farming. We were 

 taught in our youth to consider fire and water as the 

 deadliest foes. Tbey are at last reconciled, and their 

 union has produced the master-work of the world. 

 Steam baa altered the whole routine of human labor 

 — it bns given to England olone. the equivalent in la- 

 bor of four hundred millions of men As yet, com- 

 merce and manufactures alone have felt its inllnenco, 

 but it cannot be that this gigantic power will long he 

 content to be riiut up in factories and ships. Rely 



upon it, steam will ero long run otf tlin track into tha 

 fields, Icirofall human employments, furmwork is at 

 this miunent the most dependent on mere manual la- 

 bor, lie not, therefore, surprised if we yet live to see 

 some steam plough making its hundred furrows in our 

 fields — or some huge engine, like the extinct mam- 

 moth, roving through the western forests, ond mow- 

 ing down tlie woi.ds, like a cradler in the horvest-lield. 

 Wild as this seems, there is nothing in it stranger 

 than what wu have all witnessed already. When Ful- 

 ton and Oliver Evans first talked to us about the stcum- 

 iioat and the rail-road, we thought tlicni insane, and 

 already we enjoy more than they ever antii:ipatcd in 

 their most sanguine moments. One of these opplica- 

 tions of steam — the raising of water for ngriculturc^ 

 I have already attempted in my own small way. You 

 know that the greatest enemy of our forming is tha 

 drought of mid-summrr, when oil vegetation withers, 

 and the decaying crops reproach us with sulleriiig the 

 magnificent rivers by their side to pass away. In tho 

 soutbcrn climates ot the old world, men collect with 

 great toil the smallest rills, and make them wind over 

 their fields — the hand-bucket of Egypt, the water- 

 wheel of Persia, all the toilsome contrivance of man- 

 ual labor, ore put in requisition to carry freshness ond 

 fertility over fields not wonting them more than our 

 own. With far greotcr advontagea absolutely nothing 

 has yet been done in that branch of cultivation; may 

 we not hope that these feeble means of irrigation may 

 be superseded by steam, when a tew bushels ot coul 

 may disperse over our fields, from our exhaustless li- 

 vers, abundant sujiplics of water. 



"All these improvements which may adorn or ben- 

 efit our farms, ore recommended to us not only by our 

 own individual interests, but by the hig'ier sentiment 

 of our duty to the country. This is essentially a na- 

 tion of farmers. No where else is so lorge o portion 

 of the community engoged in farming; no where else 

 are the ctdtivntors of the earth more independent or so 

 powerful. One would think that in Europf the great 

 business of life waste put each either to death; for so 

 large a proportion of men arc drawn from the walks 

 of productive industry ond trained to no other occu- 

 pation except to shoot foreigners ulwai/Sy and their osvn 

 countrymen occasionnlltj; while here, the wliole en- 

 ergy of all the nation is directed with intense force up- 

 on peaceful labor. A strange spectacle this, of one, 

 and one only, unarmed nation on the face of the eartht 

 There is abroad a wild struggle between existing au- 

 thorities and popular pretensions, and our own exam- 

 ple is the common theme of opplonse or denunciation. 

 It is the more important then for the farmers of this 

 country to be true to their own principles. The soil 

 is theirs — the government is theirs — and on them de- 

 pends mainly the continuance of their system. Tliot 

 system is, that enlightened opinion, and the domestic 

 ties, are more stable guarantees of social tranquility 

 than mere force, and that the government of the plough 

 is safer, and when there is need, stronger than the go- 

 vernment of the sword. If the existing dissensions of 

 the old world are to be settled by two millions of sol- 

 diers, all ours will soon he decided by two millions of 

 voters. The instinct of ngrieidture is for peace — for 

 the empire of reason, not of violence — of votes not of 

 bayonets. Nor shall we, as freemen and members of 

 a domestic ond fireside profession, hesitate in our 

 choice of the three moster influences which now rulo 

 the world — force, opinion, ond aficction — tho cart- 

 rul<rc-hoXf theliallot-ltvj-, and the band-Oox.^' 



Post Office. 



There are more thon 21,000 Post Offices in the V. 

 States. By the law of the hind, the annual compen- 

 sation is not to exceed .•jji'JOOO. In only thirty-nine of- 

 fices does the regulor commission or per cenlnge al- 

 lowed to a Postmaster amount to that sum. Of these, 

 seven only ore in the New England Stales; six in 

 New York; four in Pennsylvania: two in Majylond; 

 two in District of t'olunibia: three in Virginia; three 

 in Georgia; two in Alabama; three in Ohio; and one 

 in each of the States of North Carolina, Louisiana, 

 Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana and Mis- 

 souri. In eighty Post Offices, the compensntion ran- 

 ges from $1000 to .'Jl-.iOO. A very laigo number of 

 Postmasters receive a compensation ranging from 

 $500toS-1000. 



I.icREASF. OF PoriLATiov. — .According to the offi- 

 cial returns in the the bonds of (he U. S. Marshals, 

 civin" the poptdotion of the whole State of New 

 Yorkr it oppeors that, in 1830, the State contained 

 1 918,608 in 1840 it contains 2,429,476 souls. In- 

 crease in ten years, .M0,8(i8. 



"The rust of the mini (idleness) is the b'ijjljt of 

 gcni us. " — St«MW> 



