A MONTHLY PUBLICATION, DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE 
I KNOW OF NO PURSUIT IN WHICH MORE REAL AND IMPORTANT SERVICES CAN BE RE NDERED TO ANY COUNTRY, THAN BY IMPROVING ITS AGRICULTURE.— Wash. 
"Vol. VI. NOT^WASHINGTON-ST. ALBANY, N. Y. JULY, 183a No. 5. 
Conducted by J. SIJE1, of Albany. 
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THE CULTIVATOR. 
TO IMPROVE THE SOIL AND THE MIND. 
The GREAT Business of our Country is Agricul¬ 
ture,^— 
1. Because it feeds us, and furnishes the materials for 
our clothing: 
2. Because it gives useful employment to five-sixths 
of our population; 
3. Because it is the primary source of our individual 
and national wealth: 
4. Because it is the nursing mother of our manufac¬ 
tures and commerce—neither could prosper or 
long exist, without it: 
5. Because it is essential to national independence. 
And hence it follows, as a corollary, and an implied 
duty, that we should give to this great branch of nation¬ 
al industry, all the light, stimulus and reward which its 
importance demands. 
We possess no statistical data of sufficient extent 
and accuracy to determine the amount of capital invest¬ 
ed in our agriculture, the value of its products, the ag¬ 
gregate of its profits, and its consequent relative im¬ 
portance; yet we can form a tolerable estimate in these 
matters, by an examination of the agricultural statistics 
of great Britain, which are furnished to our hand, and 
by then comparing her condition with our own. The 
following facts are gathered from a letter of James M’- 
Queen addressed to Lord Melbourne, on the subject of 
the corn laws. 
AGRICULTURAL PROPERTY. 
Value at 30 years 
Great-Bntain and Ireland. Rental. purchase. 
Land,.. 
Residencies, proprietors, &c. 
Timber, produce yearly,... 
Land tax, 1834,.. 
Yearly value of tithes,. 
Poor rates, perpetual charge, 
exclusive of rent,. 
Mines, minerals & fisheries, 
£63,395,684 £1,901,870,520 
5,000,000 150,000,000 
3,000,000 90,000,000 
1,203,578 34,107,340 
4,841,053 145,231,590 
5,434,890 163,046,700 
3,994,031 119,820,930 
Property of proprietors,.... £85,665,658 £2,604,077,080 
PRODUCE OF BRITISH AGRICULTURE. 
Grain of all sorts,.£134,000,000 
Potatoes,. 20,000,000 
Hay, grasses, turnips, straw,. 120,300,000 
Natural pasture,. 63,502,000 
Butchers’ meat, pigs, poultry, game, rab¬ 
bits, &c. 82,283,759 
Fisheries, food from,. 12,000,000 
Products of the dairy, vegetables & fruits, 48,500,000 
Allowed for consumption by farmers, in 
some articles not enumerated,. 2,500,000 
Wool, hops, seeds, flax, hemp and timber, 21,479,166 
Mines, minerals, coals, &c.... 33,970,276 
Total produce of agriculture,.. £539,036,201 
Equal to about $2,000,000,000. —~ ■ —— 
There are employed in these branches of productive 
labor, which the writer has classed all under agricul¬ 
ture, eighteen thousand families, which, at five and a 
half persons to each family, gives about ten millions of 
persons, or five million five hundred thousand effective 
men and women. 
SUMMARY OF POWER EMPLOYED IN AGRICULTURE. 
Direct human power, men and women,.. 5,500,000 
Horses, 1,609,176, each equal to 6 men,.. 9,655,068 
Oxen, 500,000, each equal to 5 men,. 2,500,000 
Total effective power direct,. 17,655,000 
CHARGES ON AGRICULTURE. 
On fixed capital, lands, tithes, land tax, mines, fisheries, 
farm stock, &c...£108,993,468 
Farm wages, cattle feed, &c. ... 280,838,628 
Tithes, church and highway rates, and la¬ 
bors in mines and fisheries,.. 42,228,748 
Carried forward,.£432,060,844 
5 
Brought forward,.£432,060,844 
Manures, bone dust, lime, wastage and re¬ 
placing live stock, dead stock, &c. 116,915,280 
Charges on agriculture,.£548,976,104 
Deduct dead stock,. 21,560,000 
Total charges on agriculture,.£527,416,104 
SUMMARY—AGRICULTURE. 
Total produce,.£539,036,201 
Total charges, rent at 3 per cent,. 527,416,104 
Farmers apparent profit,. £11,620,097 
The poor rates are paid as follows: 
Property in land, and tax on houses and 
occupiers,.. £8,099,414 
Allother classes of property,. 7,226,406 
Total,. £15,325,720 
Deduct charges and allowances,... 780,000 
Nett produce, ... £14,545,580 
MANUFACTURES. 
The capital vested in, and charges on, the manufactures 
of the United Kingdom, are stated to amount, in the 
aggregate, to.£205,773,872 
And their total produce per annum, to.... 259,412,709 
The total number of persons engaged in manufactures 
is stated at 8,200,000, one-half of which are effective 
men. These added to the steam power employed, give 
an aggregate power equal to 4,500,000 effective men.— 
With the addition that has recently been made to manu¬ 
factures, the writer states the comparison as below. 
Capital. Produce. 
Agriculture,.£3,25S,910,810 £539,036,201 
Manufactures,. 217,773,872 271,416,709 
or 15 to 1 in capital, and double in produce, with this 
further superiority, that in the agricultural capital it is 
all fixed and real. Agriculture expends nothing abroad, 
while manufactures pay to foreigners £20,000,000 annu¬ 
ally for raw materials. 
COMMERCE. 
The total exports for 1836, amounted, 
To foreign countries, to.£37,833,000 
To her colonies, to. 15,532,566 
£53,368,566 
Of these £12,425,605 (about $54,000,000,) were to the 
United States, for which she received principally our 
public stocks in payment. 
It appears from the preceding data, that the capital 
invested in British agriculture is fifteen times as great 
as that which is invested in British manufactures, al¬ 
though the latter excel in magnitude the manufactures 
of any other nation; that British agriculture pays most 
of the burthens of the government, supports a privileg¬ 
ed clergy, and contributes more than thirty millions of 
dollars annually to her poor rates;—that its products 
exceed in value, more than fourteen times the whole 
amount of her exports to foreign countries, although her 
commerce exceeds in that of any other nation -—and 
that her agricultural capital is fixed, and abiding as her 
islands, while the capital vested in her commerce and 
manufactures is subject to many contingencies, which 
may impair or destroy it. 
Now let us apply these facts to our own condition.— 
We will assume the population of both countries to be 
the same. Ten millions or one-hall of her population 
are assigned to agriculture. With the collateral branch¬ 
es, as mines, fisheries, &c. which are classed under agri¬ 
culture by Mr. McQueen, fifteen millions of our popula¬ 
tion may be assigned to this class. And the presump¬ 
tion is, that our agricultural capital and agricultural 
products, overbalance the capital and products of manu¬ 
factures and commerce, as much, nay more, than they 
do in Great-Britairi. From this view of the subject, it 
will be seen, that agriculture is really the GRExlT 
business of this nation; that it is worthy of the most 
liberal patronage of our governments, state and nation¬ 
al; that it ought to be enlightened, by a better educa¬ 
tion to the agricultural class; that it ought to be encou¬ 
raged. and patronized, by public bounties and rewards; 
that it ought to be respected, for its highly salutary in¬ 
fluence upon our republican institutions, and upon the 
good order of society; and finally, that it ought to he 
honored, at least according to its intrinsic merits, that 
it may be more followed, by men who have minds, as 
well as hands, to accelerate its improvement. 
We mean no disrespect, by these remarks, to the mer¬ 
chant or the manufacturer. We are not in the way of 
believing, that by attempting to raise one class, we sink 
the other classes. Manufactures and commerce are the 
hands and the legs, while agriculture is the body. They 
aie reciprocally useful to each other. The body may 
sustain life without the limbs, but the limbs will perish 
without the aliment which they derive from the body. 
But we believe the other classes have numerous and 
efficient advocates, who are able to take care, and who 
do take care of their interests; and that agriculture de¬ 
means herself, and compromits the best interests of the 
state, by her modest, passive, degrading acquiescense 
in total neglect. We wish to raise the agriculturists of 
our country to the condition which belongs to them—to 
that of intelligent, prosperous, high principled men— 
who know their rights and their duties, and will fear¬ 
lessly assert the one and faithfully perform the other. 
Then will our agriculture be made to double and tre¬ 
ble its products—to compete with the agriculture of 
other countries, and to supply all our wants; then will 
party interest be made to bend to the public good, and 
riot and outrage be made to give place to law and good 
order; then shall we truly become an independent na¬ 
tion, rich in all the elements of human happiness.— 
Even if we fail in all these fond anticipations, we can 
lose nothing by making the effort. We must be gainers 
in a less or greater degree. 
Lawyers and Farmers. 
We perceive by the news journals, that there were 
about one hundred attorneys and counsellors graduated 
or licensed, at the May term of the Supreme Court.— 
Assuming this to be the average number graduated at 
each term, the terms being four in a year, and counting 
only the number of attorneys, the annual accession to 
this corps must be two hundred! And these two hun¬ 
dred lawyers are to live and grow rich—how 1 By any 
branch of productive industry ? by adding to the wealth, 
the quiet and the substantial enjoyments ofsociety? We 
fear not. They must live by their profession, honestly 
if they can—but they must live; and with the latv- 
making, law-dispensing, and fee-regulating powers vir¬ 
tually in their own hands, is it to be wondered, that liti¬ 
gation increases, that the delays of the law are multi¬ 
plied, and the expenses of justice augmented? If one 
lawyer drains from the earnings of labor, two or three 
thousand dollars a year, what amount of these earnings 
will it require to support, in legal style, ten thousand 
lawyers? The answer, by the rule of three, would be 
twenty to thirty millions of dollars. Verily we may 
have too much of a good thing. Geo. Stevens, in his 
ingenious lecture upon heads, compares the law to fire 
or water,—a very good servant, but a very hard master; 
very useful and pleasant in moderate quantities, but ex¬ 
tremely inconvenient and mischievous when in excess. 
We have seen in the print shops, a carricature, very il¬ 
lustrative of George Stevens’ comparison—a portly, 
well dressed gentleman going to law —and a meagre, 
ragged skeleton of a man who had been to law. 
We are by no means disposed to fault the young gen¬ 
tlemen who are thus crowding to the temple of the law, 
for fame and fortune, however we may lament the fatu¬ 
ity which impels them on. Law is the great avenue to 
office, to wealth, to distinction, to fashion—by common 
consent—and the fond mistaken parents are generally 
as sanguine in their anticipations of honor and distinc¬ 
tion as the sons. There are many distinguished and 
eminent lawyers, useful and worthy members of socie¬ 
ty, and there are a great many who are quite otherwise, 
whose wants , rather than their wishes, lead very much 
to the increase of litigation—but who might have been 
useful members of the commonwealth, had they chosen 
a different and more suitable sphere of action. 
Now, if agriculture held the rank which legitimately 
belongs to it in the social scale—if it had schools of in¬ 
struction combining the useful wiih the agreeable, it is 
not improbable, that one-half of those who are annually 
crowding and burthening the legal profession, would 
become useful cultivators of the soil. What a vast im¬ 
provement would this effect, in a few years, in the con¬ 
dition of our state—in its agriculture, the basis of its 
wealth, in the intellectual condition of its inhabitants, 
and in their moral and economical habits. Such schools, 
should they ever be established among us, either by the 
wisdom of the legislature, or the well directed efforts of 
individual patriotism, would soon annually scatter over 
the state, hundreds of young men, distinguished alike 
for strength of mind, vigor of constitution, and exem¬ 
plary habits. These would carry with them a practi¬ 
cal knowledge of the best modes of farming, the best 
implements, the best seeds, the best fruits, and the best 
breeds of animals; and each in his future sphere of ac¬ 
tion, would become a living proof, to those around him, 
of the practicability of improving our agriculture, and 
an example to them of good habits and good manage¬ 
ment. Wherever we find a good farmer, we sep the 
benefits of his example in most of those around him, 
which diminishes as we recede. Were the good farm¬ 
ers multiplied at the rate of four or eight hundred a 
year, as they might be through the influence of schools 
ol practical and scientific agriculture, the advantages 
to the slate would he incalculably great. 
We take this occasion to apologize for the caption— 
Privileged Classes” —which was inadvertently placed 
