178 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
most cases, greater natural fertility, had been permitted 
to lie uncultivated and waste, for want of draining or 
embanking, a nuisance to the public eye, and the proli¬ 
fic source of disease and death. _ The farmers were 
growing poor—were degraded by ignorance and apathy 
_were seeking for more lucrative employments, or fly- 
in 0, to the west, in search of new and unexhausted soils. 
No cultivated grasses, no alternation of crops, no eco¬ 
nomy in manures, no thorough draining, and but poor 
attention to farm stock, our lands were going down, 
down, down, in fertility, till many of them no longer paid 
for their culture. The character of the agriculturist 
sunk in a corresponding degree. Men shunned it as an 
unprofitable, irksome, and servile employment; and 
every young aspirant to fame and fortune sought to gra¬ 
tify his ambition at the bar, the counter, or even in the 
humble employments of life, rather than in the business 
of farming, 
Let us now cast our eyes to the parallel history of ag¬ 
riculture on the old continent, and see what changes 
have taken place there, while our own soil was being 
deteriorated and exhausted of its fertility. I will cite 
for illustration, the husbandry of Great Britain, and of 
Flanders, though if I should carry the comparison into 
the German States, Holland, &c. the contrast might be 
equally remarkable and mortifying. 
Great Britain has doubled, and her Scottish territory 
■trebled, the products of their agriculture. The agricul¬ 
tural products of Great Britain now annually exceed, 
in amount, those of 1775, according to President Hum¬ 
phreys, three hundred and fifty millions of dollars; and 
yet, in the opinion of her most intelligent men, the Bri¬ 
tish soil is capable of being made to double its present 
products. 
Of Flemish husbandry, I will enter somewhat more 
into detail; because, in climate, in soil, and in the gene¬ 
ral make of the country, Flanders bears a close resem¬ 
blance to the southern part of New-Jersey. The cli¬ 
mate of Flanders is very similar to this; the surface of 
the country is flat, and was naturally wet and cold ; the 
soil generally sandy and poor, except upon the streams 
coming from the interior, and at their embrouchere into 
the ocean. And yet, with all these natural disadvanta¬ 
ges, there is probably no country in Europe richer in 
the products of the soil, owing principally to her excel¬ 
lent system of husbandry ; and no where, apparently, 
is the condition of the agricultural population better— 
and the country more exempt from pauperism and crime, 
than in Flanders. Every acre, it is said, is made to 
maintain an inhabitant. This high state of improve¬ 
ment, it is true, has been the work of ages. But the 
sooner a work of improvement is begun, the sooner it 
will be completed, and the sooner it will return a profit 
on the outlay. The difficulties to be overcome in Flan¬ 
ders were great. In some cases, in order to lay the land 
dry, it was cut into small divisions, which were surround¬ 
ed by deep trenches, to receive and conduct off the wa¬ 
ters, and the surface graded so as to slope from the cen¬ 
tres to the borders. In other cases seeds of larch were 
sown upon very poor grounds, to produce, by a process 
of years, a vegetable mould, from the falling foliage, 
sufficient to nourish a crop ; and when this was obtain¬ 
ed, the trees were cut down, and the soil subjected to 
careful tillage. These extraordinary cases are not stat¬ 
ed for imitation, but to show the persevering labors of 
that industrious people. 
The characteristics which distingush Flemish hus¬ 
bandry, and which have rendered it so uncommonly pro¬ 
ductive and profitable, are: a thorough draining of the 
land; a perfect pulverization of the soil, by frequent 
and deep ploughings, or by trenching; the subjecting 
the lands to alternate husbandry; the extensive culture 
of clover, of root-crops, and of tares, for soiling and 
winter feeding their cattle; the careful extirpation of 
all weeds ; a remarkable attention to the saving, and a 
judicious application, of manures, particularly of liquid 
manures; a constant occupation of the ground with crops 
or herbage; and a judicious rotation, differing in almost 
every district, on account of the difference in soil, and 
adapted and settled, after long experience, such as is 
best suited to the local market—as will best repay the 
farmer’s cost and toil by an abundant return—best cul¬ 
tivate the soil for a succeeding crop—best enrich it for 
the purpose of increasing fertility, and most effectually 
prevent, by judicious alternation, that natural disgust 
which even good soils manifest to reiterated crops of the 
same description; the small size of farms, and the keep¬ 
ing them in constant crop, no man attempting to manage 
more than he can manage well; the cutting of the fo¬ 
rage, and grinding the grain, for farm stock, thereby 
greatly lessening this heavy item of expenditure ; and, 
finally, the farmers giving their undivided attention to 
their farms, and their industrious frugal habits ofliving 
—no lumbering, no fishing, no speculation, no hankering- 
after office. 
I will take the liberty of making a brief comparison 
here, of the products of Flemish and Scotch husbandry, 
on the one hand, and of American husbandry on the 
other, in some of the staple productions of both conti¬ 
nents, as the former were rated twenty, and the latter 
forty years ago. 
The Rev. Mr. Radcliffe, who was sent to Flanders for 
the purpose of studying its husbandry, stated the ave¬ 
rage product of its soil to be—in wheat, 32 bushels; rye, 
32| do ; oats, 52 do ; potatoes, 350 do, per acre. 
Sir John Sinclair, whose reputation and veracity are 
well known, in his Code of Agriculture, states the ave¬ 
rage product of Scotch agriculture in good soils, as fol¬ 
lows : wheat, 32 to 40 bushels, barley, 42 to 50 do; oats, 
52 to 64; turnips, 30 tons; clover, three tons; and po¬ 
tatoes, from 8 to 10 tons; Or, allowing 60 lbs. to the 
bushel, from 266 to 333 bushels. 
Mr. Strickland, an eminent British farmer who resided 
some time in Maryland, and who travelled much in the 
United States, 40 or 50 years ago, in a communication 
to the British Board of Agriculture, stated our average 
wheat crop at 12 bushels the acre, except in the county 
of Dutchess, in New-York, where he allowed it to 
amount to 16 bushels the acre. 
Gen. Washington, in 1790, in a letter to Sir John Sin¬ 
clair, computed the average crop in Pennsylvania, which 
he then considered the best cultivated state, as follows: 
—wheat, 15 bushels; rye, 20; oats, 30; Indian corn, 25; 
potatoes 75. 
It will readily be perceived from these estimates, that 
our acreable products were not half as great as those 
of Flanders or Scotland; or, in other words, that a day’s 
labor on the farm did not effect half the benefit here 
that it did there. Was this owing to any natural infer 
lility in our soil? Certainly not. Nature had been 
equally bountiful to both continents. But we had abus¬ 
ed and wasted her bounties, while they had preserved 
and improved them. Our decrease grew out of a bad 
system of farming; their increase resulted from a more 
rational and improved system. The disparity arose 
from the science which guided labor in one case, and 
the want of it in the other—to that science which is 
still courting our acquaintance, and which we must be¬ 
come familiar with and apply, if we would profit large¬ 
ly from those privileges which God has bestowed alike 
upon us all. 
But the sombre picture of our agriculture has under¬ 
gone material changes for the better within the last 
forty years. In many districts, and on particular farms, 
the fertility of the soil has been renovated; draining 
has been commenced; manures have been better econo¬ 
mised and applied, and new materials of fertility disco¬ 
vered and employed ; root culture has obtained a foot¬ 
ing; artificial grasses have been cultivated; our herds 
and flocks have been better selected, and better fed; 
new labor-saving implements have been brought into 
use; the alternating system has been adopted to a con¬ 
siderable extent; and last, though not least, the princi¬ 
ples of agricultural science have been more extensively 
diffused, better understood, and more generally applied, 
and a knowledge of the improvements and better prac¬ 
tices in farming promulgated through the instrumentali¬ 
ty of our agricultural periodicals. Wherever these in¬ 
novations upon ancient practice have been made, a cor¬ 
responding benefit to the cultivator, and to the neighbor¬ 
hood, has been palpaple; lands have been enhanced in 
value; the husbandmen has increased his wealth, and 
advanced in respectability and usefulness, and every 
department of business has felt and acknowledged the 
vivifying influence of the happy change. 
I have seen large tracts of land, in the valley of the 
Hudson,originally fertile, so worn out by bad husbandry, 
as to be thrown into old fields and commons, and thought 
unworthy of culture. 
I have seen many of these same lands, in a period of 
thirty years, again restored, by good husbandry, to their 
natural fertility, and selling, for farming purposes, at 
one hundred, and one hundred and twenty dollars an 
acre. 
It is to accelerate these improvements in the cultiva¬ 
tion of our soil, that agricultural associations have been 
formed, and are forming, in every part of our country ; 
and where they have been conducted with spirit, and 
with a view to public improvement, they have been emi¬ 
nently useful. It is to co-operate in these praiseworthy 
efforts, that the Association, which I have now the ho¬ 
nor to address, has been established. It can do much 
in the good cause— it will do much in dispelling the 
clouds of prejudice and ignorance, which still oversha¬ 
dow our agricultural operations, and in diflusing light 
and knowledge and laudable emulation—if its members 
will persevere in the philanthropic determination, which 
I trust has brought them together—of rendering a 
substantial service to others, as well as to themselves. 
Let us, for a few moments, descend to particulars. I 
think I have seen, on my passage, at various times, 
through New-Jersey, much land under culture, that does 
not give, what may be termed, half a crop, and which 
can hardly yield a nett profit, above the expense of ordi¬ 
nary labor and charges; but which might be made to 
yield, under the Flemish, or Scotch, or improved Ame¬ 
rican system of management, a handsome income to the 
proprietors. Let us suppose that it would require an 
outlay of fifty dollars an acre, in draining and manur¬ 
ing, to bring thousands into a highly productive state, 
as productive as are now the soils in the land of promise 
—upon the borders or in the valley of the Mississippi 
—and I believe this is a very liberal allowance for the 
outlay—the interest of this sum would be three dollars 
an acre per annum. To offset against this three dollars 
a year, the proprietor or cultivator would probably re¬ 
ceive an additional ten or fifteen bushels of wheat, an 
increase of his corn crop of twenty or thirty bushels 
the acre, and of other crops in proportion. A difference 
of ten or fifteen dollars a year, or even of five dollars, 
in the acreable profits of a farm, will, in a few years, 
make a wonderful difference in the condition of the good 
and bad farmer. The labor upon a good soil is no great¬ 
er than that required upon a bad soil; while the plea¬ 
sure of working the former, admits of no comparison 
with the disgust which one feels in working the latter. 
Does any one fail to see, in this estimate, the palpable 
benefits which would result from the limiting our capi¬ 
tal and labor to the acres that we can cultivate well ? 
I could give many individual illustrations of the fact 
that I am now assuming, viz: that capital and labor 
may be more profitably expended in cultivating a few 
acres well, than in cultivating many acres badly. I will 
mention but a few; for no gentlemen present can have 
failed to notice the vast disparity in profits between well 
and ill cultivated farms. 
A farm of 400 acres, naturally excellent wheat land, 
in the vicinity of Geneva, N. Y. had become so exhaust¬ 
ed by the skinning system, that the owner thought he 
obtained a good price when he sold it at $10 the acre, or 
for $4000- The purchaser happened to be an intelli¬ 
gent Scotch farmer. With lime, sheep, and manure, and 
Scotch management, in ten years he so raised the value 
of these lands, that he was offered $100 the acre, or 
$40,000 for the farm. He declined the offer, declaring 
that it gave him a nett income, over the charges and ex¬ 
penses of his family, of $4000, or ten dollars an acre, 
equivalent to the interest of $150 an acre. And Mr. 
Robinson, the present proprietor, considers his improve¬ 
ments as but well begun. 
A Mr. Harris, near Poughkeepsie, lately gave a state¬ 
ment of the farm produce actually sold from his farm in 
one year, which, after deducting the moneys laid out for 
labor, &c. left him an annual income of more than 17 
dollars an acre on every acre of his farm. His farm, 
forty years ago, would not have brought over $25 an 
acre. It would now sell for $125 an acre. 
The sandy lands of Kinderhook plains, which, in my 
recollection, sold from three to seven dollars an acre, 
now sell at 60 or 70 dollars an acre, in a state of modern 
improvement. 
Mr. Merritt, of Dutchess, purchased 64 acres of land, 
which then maintained one yoke of oxen, two cows, and 
one pair of horses. It now maintains two pair of hor¬ 
ses, one yoke of oxen, four cows, twenty hogs, and two 
hundred sheep. 
Mr. Hawkins, of the Shakers Society at New-Leba- 
non, a few years since bought of the now President of 
the United States, the half of a farm of 240 acres, the 
whole of which then cut but twenty-five tons of hay.—■ 
By manuring and good management, he is now enabled 
to cut on this half 120 tons of hay, and to keep in til¬ 
lage some acres more than is appropriated to arable 
crops on the other half. 
Cases have been cited, by highly respectable authori¬ 
ties, of instances in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Mary¬ 
land, of lands, once poor, being made to yield an income 
equal to the interest of 200, 300, and even 500 dollars 
per acre. I feel warranted in saying, from what I have 
seen and heard, that every tolerable good acre of land, 
lying contiguous to navigable waters, to market and 
manure, may be made to give an income ol fourteen 
dollars—thus giving to the land an intrinsic value of 
$200 per acre. 
If a man has five hundred dollars, which he wishes 
to expend upon a dwelling foi his family, would he be 
wise or prudent in exhausting his means upon the frame 
and covering of a large building, or upon the frame, fi¬ 
nish and furniture of a snug neat dwelling, which should 
afford room enough and be infinitely more comfortable 
than the big house, even were it finished and furnished 
to his mind ? No one will hesitate to say, that the five 
hundred dollars ought to be expended upon the comfor¬ 
table, in preference to the large house. Apply this prin¬ 
ciple to agriculture. A farmer had belter expend his 
five hundred dollars in bringing a small piece of land 
into high and profitable culture, than to waste it upon a 
la,rgefarm, which he does not, or cannot, cultivate well, 
and which netts him mere nominal profits. Capital and 
labor are the true sources of wealth. If concentrated, 
they produce, in agriculture, as in every other business, 
a more potent effect than when they are divided, and 
spread over a broad field ol operations. It is not the 
number of men that constitutue the efficiency ol an 
army; but the intelligence and skill of its leader, and 
the subordination and discipline of the corps. It is not 
the extent of lands that determines the farmer’s profits, 
but the intelligence and skill of the master, and the high 
state of culture to which he brings them. The profits 
on fifty acres, well managed, are often greater than the 
profits of hundreds of acres badly managed. 
The farm I occupy was naturally as poor, and as for¬ 
bidding in appearance, as the poor lands of New-Jersey. 
It was considered a barren sand ; and I became the butt 
of ridicule to some of my acquaintance, for attempting 
to bring it under profitable culture. It was a lean sand, 
abounding in springs, swamps, and low wet grounds.— 
In twenty years, however, it has assumed quite a dilie- 
rent appearance. It is now worth $200 an acre for farm¬ 
ing purposes ; that is, it netts me more than the interest 
of $200 per acre. My average acreable product in corn 
is 80 bushels; in grass, nearly or quite 3 tons ; in pota¬ 
toes, in favourable seasons, 300 bushels; and my other 
crops are in proportion. And these crops are grown at 
less expense, for culture, than they can be on lands that 
are more stiff, and naturally more fertile. These im¬ 
provements, it is true, have required a considerable out¬ 
lay of capital, in draining, clearing, manuring, and in 
some portions to the extent, probably, of $50 the acre. 
Without the outlay, these reclaimed lands were value¬ 
less; with it, they are highly productive, and give me a 
liberal per cent on the money expended; and I have no 
doubt I could readily sell for cost and charges. I beg 
to be pardoned for this allusion to my own farming. I 
runlce it merely in confirmation ofi the finct, timt snndy, 
wet lands, can be profitably reclaimed and cultivated, on 
this, as well as on the old continent. 
Money is the sinew of agricultural improvement, as 
well as of war—with this difference, that agriculture is 
the parent of plenty, and war the cause of misery and 
