THE CULTIVATOR. 
awaken kind feelings towards each other, and excite 
reverence and love for the Most High, than a familiar 
acquaintance with the wonders and beauties of His ve¬ 
getable kingdom. Did you ever know a misanthrope, 
or a miser, who was an admirer of flowers? I would 
not recommend the neglect of more important duties, 
for the culture of a flower garden: yet when there is 
ability or leisure, and these may be found to a greater 
or less extent in almost every family, a taste for floral 
beauties should be inculcated in the young, not only as 
a source of rational pleasure, but as a salutary precau¬ 
tion against bad companions and bad habits. The mind 
must be employed, and must have recreation. It is bet¬ 
ter to direct it to the works of the Creator, than to the 
works of man. Lord Bacon has said of the garden, 
“ it affords the purest of human pleasures—the greatest 
refreshment to the spirits of man—without which build¬ 
ings and palaces are but gross handiworks.” 
But I am forgetting myself. In my ardor to commend 
horticulture, for its useful, elevating, and purifying in¬ 
fluence upon the habits and manners of society, I did 
not recollect that I am addressing the highly polished in¬ 
habitants of a classic city, who have long since demon¬ 
strated, in practice, the truth of the lessons I would in¬ 
culcate. I will therefore dismiss this branch of my sub¬ 
ject, and turn to the more rugged, though not less impor¬ 
tant topic of agriculture ; barely adding,— 
That in all endeavors to improve the condition of so¬ 
ciety, whether religious, moral, or industrial, individual 
efforts and example can affect butlitlle ; and hence, that 
in every great work of reform or improvement, the con¬ 
centrated strength of many has been resorted to, and 
brought to a focus, by means of associations; and that 
the great objects of society are not likely to be promot¬ 
ed in a more eminent degree, by any, than by associa¬ 
tions formed for like purposes with those which I have 
now the honor to address. 
Being a native of this state, and having spent my ear¬ 
ly days within its borders, I can well remember the 
farming practices that were wont to prevail. The farm 
was, to use the commendatory language of that day, 
“ suitably divided into meadow, pasture, and plough 
land,” and each division was exclusively devoted to its 
object, until most of the nutritious grasses had “run 
out,” in the meadow, and the plough land had become 
too much impoverished to bear a remunerating crop.— 
Many an acre was turned into “ old field” or commons, 
destitute alike of natural or artificial herbage, affording 
scanty gleanings to half famished cattle. I beg not to 
be misunderstood. I am describing what was a badfea- 
ture in Yankee husbandry. Farming has no doubt re¬ 
cently undergone great improvements in Connecticut, as 
it has elsewhere. Yet on a fair comparison with highly 
cultivated agricultural districts, I believe that it wiil be 
found that the husbandry of this state, in the main, is 
susceptible of great improvement. The lands of Con¬ 
necticut were originally rich and productive. The ear¬ 
thy elements remain in a great measure unchanged; the 
seasons are about as propitious as they were wont to 
be; and the lessons in improvement that have been 
taught elsewhere, leave little reason to doubt, that, un¬ 
der proper management, they may again be restored to 
their original fertility. 
In a late tour which I made through parts of New- 
York and New-Jersey, I found many evidences of recent 
improvement, and I doubt not similar ones abound in 
my native state. In a part of Dutchess county, which 
I visited, the best farms have been sold within my re¬ 
collection, with improvements and buildings, at from 
seven to seventeen dollars an acre. They cannot now 
be bought for one hundred dollars an acre; and one was 
sold last year at auction, without buildings, at one hun¬ 
dred and thirty dollars an acre. Fifteen years ago, a 
farm in Western New-York, of 400 acres, exhausted by 
bad husbandry, was bought by a Scotch farmer for 
$4,000. This farm has been so improved by good hus¬ 
bandry, that the owner was last year offered for it $40,- 
000. He refused the offer, upon the ground that it ac¬ 
tually netted him the interest of $60,000, or $10.50 the 
acre. A farm was pointed out to me in New-Jersey. 
which was recently sold for $7 the acre, and that was 
all it was said to have been worth in its then condition. 
By a liberal outlay in draining, it being level and wet 
ground, and in liming, manuring, &c. it is now consider¬ 
ed worth $125 an acre. I went over another farm which 
a few years ago was bought at the same price, and 
which now, on account of the improvements which have 
been made upon it, is considered worth $100 per acre. 
I am informed on the best authority, that similar cases 
of the rapid increase in the products and value of farms, 
consequent upon an improved system of management, 
are to be found in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Mary¬ 
land. Although these cases are isolated ones, they ne¬ 
vertheless serve to show the practicability of vastly in¬ 
creasing the value and products of our exhausted lands. 
Among the causes which have essentially contributed 
to the deterioration of our lands, and the consequent 
depression of our agriculture, I consider the following 
as prominent: 
Ignorance of the principles of agriculture ; 
The want of a sufficient outlay in the management of 
our farms; and 
The low estimation in which the employment has 
been held by all classes, including farmers themselves. 
Agriculture has too generally been considered a busi¬ 
ness requiring mere physical power, with which the 
principles of natural science had little or nothing to do. 
To plough, sow, and gather the crop, has been the ge¬ 
neral routine of farming operations, regardless of the 
poverty which our practice was inflicting upon the soil 
and upon our children. Like the reckless heir of wealth, 
we found ourselves in possession of a treasure; and 
without inquiring for what purpose it came into our 
hands, or realizing our obligations to husband and pre¬ 
serve it, for others, we have squandered it lavishly, 
through our ignorance or our folly. True, we have 
been occasionally admonished of our error, by the school¬ 
men; who, wrapped in abstract science, and knowing 
little practically of its application to husbandry, have as 
often tended to confuse and mystify, as to enlighten and 
instruct. Hence the prejudice which has arisen against 
book-farming. But science and art are now uniting their 
labors, and are deriving mutual aid from each other, on 
the farm, as they have for some time been doing in the 
manufactory and in the shop of the artizan. A new era 
is dawning upon the vision of the farmer; new light is 
illuming his path, and a new interest and new pleasures 
are urging him on to improvement. He begins to study 
the laws which Providence has ordained for the govern¬ 
ment of improved culture, and he finds, in their appli¬ 
cation to his labors, the means of increasing profits and 
high intellectual enjoyment. And the more he studies 
and is guided by these laws, the more does he become 
satisfied of former errors, and of his comparative limit¬ 
ed sphere of usefulness. Science is probably capable 
of rendering more important services to husbandry than 
to any other branch of labor, and presents a wider field 
of useful study to the cultivator of the soil, than to any 
other class of society. 
The deficiency in farming capital, or rather the stin¬ 
giness with which capital is employed in improving and 
maintaining the condition of our lands, is another cause 
of declension in the profits and character of our agricul¬ 
ture. The farmer is too prone to invest his surplus 
means in some new business, or in adding to his acres, 
instead of applying them to increase the profits of his 
labor and the products of his farm. He either works 
more land than he can work well and profitably, or he 
diverts to other objects the means which would yield a 
better return if applied to the improvement of the farm. 
He is apt to consider twenty or thirty dollars an enor¬ 
mous and wasteful outlay upon an acre of land, or upon 
a choice animal; and yet the interest of this outlay will 
be ten times paid by the increase of crop or the increase 
of the animal; and in most cases the principal also will 
be returned to him in the course of two or three years. 
Many of the most thriving farmers in southern New- 
York, New-Jersey, and Pennsylvania, make a quadren¬ 
nial expenditure of twenty dollars or more to manure 
an acre; and it has become a maxim with them, that the 
more the outlay for manure, the greater the nett profit 
of their lands. But it is not the outlay for manure alone, 
that demands a liberal expenditure of capital. Good 
seed, good farm stock, and good implements, are all es¬ 
sential to the economy of labor, and to neat and profita¬ 
ble farming. And I think it will appear from the cases 
I have quoted, that in many locations, capital may be 
very advantageously employed in reclaiming wet and 
marshy grounds, generally rich and the most productive 
when laid dry. 
When our cattle grow lean and threaten to disap¬ 
point our hopes of profit, we do not hesitate to impute 
the evil to the want of food, or to inattention in the 
herdsman. And if we are prudent managers, we at 
once graduate our stock to our food, knowing that one 
well fed animal is of more value in the market, than two 
animals that carry but skin and bones, and take care 
that the food is properly fed out. When our crops be¬ 
come lean, we need not hesitate to ascribe the decrease 
in product to like causes—want of food, or want of at¬ 
tention in the farmer; and prudence and profit in like 
manner require, that our crops, like our animals, should 
be limited to the food and labor which we have to be¬ 
stow upon them. In other words, an acre well manur¬ 
ed and well worked, will be found to be more profitable, 
than four poor acres badly worked. 
I may here be asked, from whence are to be obtained 
the vast supplies of manure requisite to manure our old 
lands? I answer, from a multiplicity of sources around 
us, from every animal and vegetable substance within 
our reach. Nothing that has once been part of an ani¬ 
mal or a vegetable, butcanbeconveited into corn, grass 
and roots. I think I may'assume as facts that upon an 
average, not half the manure is saved upon our farms 
that might be, and that this moiety is half lost before it 
is applied to the soil. Every horse, ox or cow, winter¬ 
ed upon the farm, if well fed, and littered with the straw, 
stalks, &c. of the crop, should make from six to ten cords 
of good manure. Dr. Coventry, late professor of agri¬ 
culture at Edinburgh, estimated that the straw of an or¬ 
dinary acre of grain, computed at 21 cwt. may be con¬ 
verted by the urine and liquids of the stables and cattle 
yards, into three and a half tons of manure ; that mea¬ 
dows that cut one and a half tons of hay will give four 
tons of manure; clover, the first year, six tons, and the 
second year, five and a half tons per acre; and that 
with the extraneous substances which may, with due 
care, be collected without expense from the roads, the 
ditches, the ponds, and from refuse of every kind about 
the house and premises, the acreable amount should be 
amply sufficientfor a full supply of manure once during 
every course of the four year system of husbandry.— 
Arthur Young, with 6 horses, 4 cows, and 9 hogs, which 
consumed 16 loads of hay and 29 loads of straw, obtain¬ 
ed 118 loads of manure, 36 bushels to each; and from 
45 fatting oxen, well fed and littered, 600 tons of rotten 
manure. But an American lawyer,* and an excellent 
practical farmer withal, has gone beyond these estimates. 
I visited his farm a few weeks ago, which lies upon the 
sea shores It consists of about 200 acres, most of which 
__19J 
was in a course of crops. The crops of the season had 
all received an ample supply of manure, as their ap¬ 
pearance indicated—and yet I was shown masses of well 
prepared compost, in reserve, consisting of yard manure’ 
peat ashes, peat earth, seaweed, and fish—estimated at 
twenty-five hundred loads— all produced upon his own 
farm. 
The third obstacle to agricultural improvement, which 
I propose to notice, is the subordinate rank to which 
this employment has been consigned, and to which the 
farmers themselves have contributed, by a want of re* 
spect for themselves and respect for their vocation. The 
wholesome habits of society have been so broken up, by 
the civil and political convulsions of the age, and the in* 
ordinate thirst for acquiring wealth and fashionable con^ 
sequence, through mercantile and other speculations^ 
that honest productive labor has been thown entirely in* 
to the background, and considered not only ungenteel, 
but menial and servile. Yet I venture to lay down thit 
proposition, that he who provides for the wants and 
comforts of himself and family, and renders some ser¬ 
vice to society at large, by his mental and physical in* 
dustry, performs one of the high duties of life; and will 
ultimately be rewarded in the conscious rectitude of hi# 
life, by a greater measure of substantial happiness, than 
he who makes millions by fraud and speculation, to ba 
squandered in extravagance or wasted in folly, by hi# 
children or grand-children. The revolutions that are 
constantly taking place in families, sufficiently admonish 
us, that it is not the wealth we leave to our children, 
but the industrial andmoral habits in which weeducato 
them, that secures to them worldly prosperity, and the 
treasure of an approving conscience. 
The farmers, I have remarked, share in the errors of 
the day. N ot content with the gains which are ever the 
reward of prudent industry, and which might be greatly 
increased by the culture of the mind,—nor content with, 
one of the most independent conditions in society, hun¬ 
dreds and thousands of them seek other and new em¬ 
ployments, and some of truly menial character, to get 
rid of labor, the greatest blessing to man, and to raise 
themselves in theimaginary scale of fashionable society. 
And if they cannot participate themselves in this ima¬ 
ginary greatness, and it is seldom any thing more than 
imaginary, they are anxious to inflict the evil upon their 
posterity,—to rear their sons to the law, the rail-road to 
office,—to political power and turmoil; to make them 
merchants, a useful, butgreatly overstocked business, or 
to place them in some other genteel employment, which 
shall exempt them from the toils of labor, the salt that 
best preserves from moral corruption. 
Mistaken men ! What class in society have within 
their reach so many of the elements of human enjoy¬ 
ments—so many facilities for dispensing benefits to oth¬ 
ers—one of the first duties and richest pleasures of life 
—as the independent tillers of the soil? “ The farmer,” 
says Franklin, “ has no need of popular favor; the sue- 
cess of his crops depends only on the blessing of God 
upon his honest industry.” If discreetly conducted on 
the improved principles of husbandry, agriculture offers 
the certain means of acquiring wealth, and as rapidly 
as is consistent with the pure enjoyments of life, or with 
the good order and prosperous condition of society.—• 
Agriculture is the golden mean, secure alike from the 
temptations of mushroom opulence, and the craven sy¬ 
cophancy and dependence of poverty. “ Give me neither 
poverty nor riches,” was the prayer of the wise man of 
Scripture “lest,” he added, “lest I be full and deny 
thee, and say, who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and 
steal, and take the name of my God in vain.” 
When we consider that agriculture is the great busi¬ 
ness of ihe nation—of mankind ; that its successful pro¬ 
secution depends upon a knowledge in the cultivators of 
the soil, of the principles of natural science,—and that 
our agriculture stands in special need of this auxiliary 
aid,—we cannot withhold our surprise and regret, that 
we have not long since established professional schools, 
in which our youth, or such of them as are designed to 
manage this branch of national labor, might be taught, 
simultaneously, the principles and practice of their fu¬ 
ture business of life, and on which, more than any oth¬ 
er branch of business, the fortunes of our country, mo¬ 
ral, political, and national, essentially depend. We re¬ 
quire an initiatory study of years in the principles of 
law and medicine, before we permit the pupil to practice 
in these professions. We require a like preliminary 
study in our military and naval schools, in the science 
of war and navigation, ere the student is deemed quali¬ 
fied to command. And yet, in agriculture, by which, 
under the blessing of Providence, we virtually “live, 
and move, and have our being,” and which truly embra¬ 
ces a wider range of useful science than either law, me¬ 
dicine, war or navigation, we have no schools, we give 
no instruction, we bestow no governmental patronage. 
Scientific knowledge is deemed indispensable in many 
minor employments of life; but in this great business, 
in which its influence would be most potent and useful, 
we consider it, judging from our practice, of less conse¬ 
quence than the fictions of the novelist. We regard 
mind as the efficient power in most other pursuits ; 
while w r e forget, that in agriculture, it is the Archime¬ 
dean lever, which, though it does not move, tends to fill 
a world with plenty, with moral health, and human hap¬ 
piness. Can it excite surprise, that under these circum¬ 
stances of gross neglect, agriculture should have become 
among us, in popular estimation, a clownish and igno¬ 
ble employment? 
In the absence of agricultural professional schools* 
* W. A. Seeley, Esq. of Staten Inland, 
