36 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
practicable, the cost of raising- whatever we have to 
sell? 
Many of us have sons whose condition in life and 
standing in society, will depend on their ability to make 
property by farming; and I will add their ability to keep 
what their honest labor shall command, from the “ itch¬ 
ing palms” of those that study to acquire, not produce ; 
the good things of this world. The science of keeping 
property, as well as that of producing it by the success¬ 
ful cultivation of the earth, 1 regard as a matter worthy 
to be taught in agricultural schools. Indeed, I have long 
contended that instruction in this useful branch of know¬ 
ledge is too much overlooked in all-our public schools 
and higher seminaries of learning. 
Notwithstanding all the improvements in the useful 
arts, in science, and in labor saving machinery, by which 
one man performs the work of ten, the statistics of all 
civilized nations reveal the startling facts that Pauperism, 
Crime, and Insanity, increase faster than population. It 
is known that steam in Great Britain does the work of 
millions of human beings, and yet Mr. Colman 3tates 
on what he regards as good authority, that there are in 
England and Wales a million and seventy thousand pub¬ 
lic paupers! In our own state the expense of supporting 
the poor last year, if I mistake not, exceeded $700,000. 
Over $17,000 “poor accounts,” or accounts for taking 
care of the poor, have just been allowed by the board 
of supervisors in Erie county: nor is this an unusual 
sum. As God has given to each person but one pair of 
hands to work and provide food for one stomach, which 
must be fed three times every day—to work, and provide 
clothing for one naked back, a shelter for one houseless 
head, and for all its physical wants in infancy, sickness, 
and old age, it is plain that, if one person shall acquire a 
gum equal to the entire earnings of ten pairs of hands, 
gome of the mouths attached by nature to these ten pairs of 
hands may go hungry. They may lack clothing and lack 
shelter, simply because they do not know so well how to 
keep and enjoy the fruits of their own industry, as other 
members of the society in which they live know how 
to exchange their shadows for the laboring man's sub¬ 
stance. 
Of what avail is it to a man that the annual product of 
his labor be increased fivefold, if he despise knowledge 
and allow his joints to be treated like gudgeons running 
snder water, that never receive one drop of oil? 
Farmers are much in the habit of changing work with 
merchants and professional gentlemen. The exchange 
ts generally made after this fashion: The man who has 
levoted his life to the study and practice of agriculture, 
gives six days of his labor for one of the merchant or 
of the dealer in law or medicine. If either of the latter 
can find employment at this rate throughout the year, he 
may consume the entire product of one pair of hands, 
and lay up a sum equal to the whole earnings of five til¬ 
lers of the soil. Estimating the value of this agricultu¬ 
ral labor at $200 per hand, or at $1,000 for the five, in¬ 
stead of paying $70 a year to the laboring man who cre¬ 
ated this property, in the shape of interest, the man who 
has acquired it, lends it to the very men that produced 
it, and to their children after them, as a fair equivalent 
for 100 days work every year at 70 cents a day! 
Let me suppose there was property sold in the year 
1820, at 150 millions of dollars, in this great state, sub¬ 
ject to an interest (less than 7 per cent) which would 
double the principle in 12 years. Call the population of 
the state at that time 1,250,000, which is not far from the 
truth. Since 1820 the population has doubled, or it is 
now 2,500,000. Look now after the property of $150,- 
000,000 at interest. In 1832 it was 300 millions, in 1844 
600 millions. While this dead matter, called sometimes 
gold and silver, at others something else, which can nei¬ 
ther move, think, nor do the least thing whatever, has 
increased fourfold, and drawn from human thought and 
muscle 450 millions, without paying the debt, the num¬ 
ber of laboring hands in the state to work and pay the 
interest on 600 millions is only double the number which 
had to pay the interest on the original debt of 150 mil¬ 
lions. If the tax on labor increase twice as fast as pop¬ 
ulation, what but increasing poverty and crime can re¬ 
mit? 
I have stated the above facts to demonstrate the reason 
why, pauperism is increasing so rapidly in the Empire 
state. In this free and civilized land we call the annual 
service of $5,000 in gold, which needs no food nor rai¬ 
ment, and which will last a thousand years, worth $7 per 
cent, or $350. To pay this, in the plenitude of our kind¬ 
ness to humanity, which unfortunately must be fed and 
clothed, we usually allow for labor one dollar a day. In 
England they lend gold at 3^ per cent, and credit labor 
fifty cents a day. In France and Germany gold is loaned 
at 2 per cent and labor credited about 25 cents a day. 
The great error in all this matter is committed by the 
borrower, not the lender, in each of these countries. No 
man, as a general rule, is compelled to run into debt, 
when he begins in the world. If all interest on money 
were abolished, it would not prevent in the least, igno¬ 
rant or foolish men, from selling their labor, or its pro¬ 
ducts, at a price less than their value. Knowledge is the 
one thing indispensable, not less to keep, than to produce, 
the comforts of life. By trading and gambling a man 
may draw a prize; but the chances are that he will buy 
a blank. When every human intellect shall know how 
to make one pair of hands work to the best advantage; 
and also how to keep and enjoy what they produce, to 
bless himself and his own household, pauperism, crime 
and insanity will be nearly banished from the world. 
When no man can obtain wealth except by the sweat of 
his own face, over and above what he consumes, he will 
no longer cherish that morbid “ love of money” which 
the Bible denounces as “the root of all evil.” The 
equality of condition, which would result from every 
man’s keeping the fruit of his labor or a fair equivalent, 
would remove the exciting cause of much of the pride, 
envy, extravagance, idleness, vice and disease, which 
now afflict those that needlessly violate the laws of their 
being. If our Maker designed that one rational being 
should consume the entire products of three hands, and 
another live on the products of one hand, would he not 
have given three hands to the body which needed their 
mechanical service, and only one hand to the body which 
required the labor of one only? 
Buffalo, Nov. 27, 1844. D. Lee. 
INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF IRON IN SOILS. 
L. Tucker, Esq. —Much has been said and written, 
not only on. the source whence plants derive their sub¬ 
stance, but on their ability (instinctive?) to select their 
appropriate food and to reject all other. 
I think there are some facts, which go to show that 
plants are not much more intelligent than animals in this 
respect. We have lately had statements in relation to 
the effects of common salt on fruit trees, good or bad ac¬ 
cording to quantity or other circumstances, and in one 
instance it has been averred that the salt went into and 
destroyed the flavor of the fruit. 
I have about two acres on one side of my farm, lying 
about two feet below the general level, which, when first 
cultivated, had a dark brown, and what was thought an 
extremely rich appearance. But, alas, nothing valuable 
would grow on it. I satisfied myself that the sandy loam 
contained large quantities of iron, (perhaps sulphuret of 
iron or pyrites.) Most of this I have thrown into ridg¬ 
es, and drained it as well as the position admits, and sup¬ 
plied it pretty liberally with quick lime. It has pro¬ 
duced a good crop of oats and peas, and the clover on ifc 
looks well. 
Now for a fact, which I think is a proof that plants ab¬ 
sorb by their spongioles or rootlets, substances which 
are not only poisonous, but which they can neither re¬ 
ject nor expel. My cornfield had a small corner project 
into this low plat, which had not been limed. Until the 
plants were some inches high, no difference was observ¬ 
ed ; but then it began to falter, and soon the leaves were 
beautifully striped with various shades, from a crimson 
to a corboo or reddish brown color. In another spot, 
some rods distant, in the midst of a healthy growth, was 
a patch of about a square rod, in which the appearance 
was the same. On this, the plants never exceeded 12 or 
15 inches in height. On examining the roots, tftey were 
• found corroded and eaten off in ail directions, and thou- 
