1848. 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
143 
AGRICULTURE <®F TEBMOIT. 
Editors of the Cultivator—I noticed that at the 
last meeting of the Oneida County Agricultural So¬ 
ciety, Mr. Hithcock in his address, spoke of the preju¬ 
dice that still exists against what some are pleased to 
call book-farming. Farmers, he remarks, communi¬ 
cate the results of their experience in raising cattle, 
the most economical mode of manuring their lands, &c> 
“ These results being printed, constitute the book 
against which such untenable and unfounded prejudice 
exists.” If the results of the experience of the great 
mass of our practical farmers were printed, we should, 
I believe, have books quite as useful, though very dif¬ 
ferent, from some we now have. That there are many 
interesting articles in our agricultural papers, no one 
will dispute. Those of Prof. Norton are of a practi¬ 
cal character, and cannot well be too highly prized. 
But to follow the rules laid down by most of the writers 
would ruin nine-tenths of the farmers of Vermont. 
Gentlemen of large property, or high salaries, owning 
from 50 to 200 acres of land near a good market, may 
farm it according to the hook , and talk learnedly of 
“ rural architecture •” but in the latitude of Vermont, 
where the pitch-fork is kept bright seven months in the 
year, and where the farmer possesses no other means 
for the support of his family than what he obtains by 
his own industry, he finds it very difficult to manage 
his farm according to the book. , 
Our farming, I fear, is coming too much under that 
influence which governs our common schools. There 
is now twice as much expended annually in the support 
of teachers and building elegant school-houses, as was 
expended for that object 20 or 25 years ago. The 
public treasure was never more lavishly poured out. 
and yet our district schools do not flourish. The diffi¬ 
culty I apprehend can in some degree be attributed to 
the sources from which w 7 e draw our knowledge. Our 
teachers are taken too exclusively from our high-schools 
and colleges, and few of them have ever entered a dis¬ 
trict school-house. They understand well the higher 
branches of science, but know little of first principles. 
Few of our farmers w r ho write for agricultural papers, 
ever hardened their hands with hoe or pitchfork, or 
brought up the cows from a lowland meadow barefoot 
in a frosty morning.* 
But a small proportion of the farmers of Vermont 
are now 7 able to make very extensive improvements, 
and it w r ould be unwise to involve themselves in debt 
in their endeavors to imitate their more wealthy neigh¬ 
bors. Let the improvements commence upon scientific 
principles and progress gradually, and most of our im¬ 
poverished farms may be made to produce bountifully 
at an expense far less than would be necessary to clear 
up a new farm, and erect the necessary buildings to 
make a family comfortable. 
There is a spirit of improvement in the management 
©f the farms of Vermont which, if properly directed, 
©annot fail to produce great and beneficial results; and 
no common observer of the times can fail to attribute 
the awakening of this spirit to the influence of our ag¬ 
ricultural papers; and notwithstanding I may appear 
\\ e think our friend Pettibone is under a great mistake in this 
assertion. We speak more particularly in reference to the writers 
for the Cultivator, of whom at least five out of six are men who 
hold the plow,” and handle both “ the hoe and the fitch-fork.” 
They belong to the same class with Mr. Pettibone. They are men 
"who have supported themselves and their families by the tillage of 
the soil men whose good common sense has led them to adopt 
every suggestion by which their condition could be improved, 
whether it was received orally or from books— Eds. 
a little opposed to hook-farming, I should rejoice to see 
every farmer in Vermont a subscriber to the Cultiva¬ 
tor. Yet until our population becomes more dense— 
lands dearer-—labor cheaper, and farmers richer, farm¬ 
ing upon the European plan cannot be profitably intro¬ 
duced or practiced here. 
Our lands which were, once productive, experiments 
have demonstrated can be made as productive, by 
proper management, as w 7 hen first brought under the 
plow. The natural strength of the soil is first spent 
by the production of grain. To restore the strength 
of the soil requires the exercise of the faculties of the 
mind, and a change in the mode of farming. When 
and how this change is to be affected is the important 
inquiry—much more important than to know 7 how a 
great crop of corn—a twelve pound fleece of u well- 
washed woolf or a great calf can be produced. For 
a good soil, with an abundance of manure, with a good 
team, and a good hired man, will produce the corn; 
seven pounds of gum and grease will produce the well- 
washed fleece,- and two good cow 7 s a great calf. 
My attention w 7 as first called to this subject by the 
removal of so large a portion of our population to the 
w T est. From 1820 to 1830, the increase of the popula¬ 
tion of Vermont w-as 40,000, from 18S0 to 1840 only 
11,000, and this increase was mostly confined to the 
manufacturing districts. It is also very evident that 
very few of those removed, have bettered their condi¬ 
tion, after all the privation and suffering incident to a 
new settlement. I have lived sixty years on the farm 
on which I was born, and have witnessed the change 
in the mode of farming during this period, and the 
manner m which that change has been effected. 
This was orce a w T heat-growing country. It pro¬ 
duced as good wheat and as abundant crops as any of 
the western States. By a constant cropping of wheat 
for nearly half a century, the soil became too poor to 
produce it, and crop after crop failed. We then tried 
meslins [mixed crops;] then clear rye, and became 
bankrupt under buckwheat. A change in the mode of 
farming—starvation, or removal to the west, w 7 as 
forced upon us. The farms in general had become too 
poor to produce grass, and the farmer is too. poor by 
the failure of crops to procure the small amount of 
stock the farms would then support. The utmost econ¬ 
omy and industry w 7 ere necessary to produce this change. 
The change has been effected, not by compost, for this, 
if they had known its value, the farmer had not the 
means to produce. The change has been effected, and 
those fields which were once covered w 7 ith wheat are 
now covered w-ith sheep. Vermont is now a stock and 
wool-grow 7 ing State. 
It would be well for the farmers of Western New- 
York to look to the history of Vermont. For the same 
process is now going on at the West that I have wit¬ 
nessed here. Their fields will not always yield their 
crops of wheat, and it would be much better to change, 
in some degree, from grain to stock, before the strength 
of the soil is entirely exhausted. 
But I leave the New-York farmers to manage their 
own affairs, and attend to the farming of Vermont, 
which was my design when I commenced writing. 
From our system of direct taxation, I have been able 
to obtain a collection of facts, which if carefully exam¬ 
ined will, I think, check that fever which has carried 
off* so many of our most enterprising inhabitants. 
Some have been too much influenced, I fear, by the re¬ 
ports of the large crops of wheat which the Western 
