1817. 
155 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
“ What American farmers want, as we conceive, at 
the present moment, are plain and sensible reasons for 
our best agricultural practice, as it is, and equally com¬ 
mon sense hints and directions for its improvement . 
Books written upon such a plan, by competent men, 
will go a thousand times farther toward making good 
husbandmen, and improving those already skillful, than 
a republication of all the elaborate French, English, or 
German systems of draining, subsoiling, and irrigating, 
that the best authors on the other side of the Atlantic 
have yet produced.” 
Now Mr. Downing has done more than any one else 
to give an impulse, in this country, to an improved taste 
in rural architecture, landscape gardening, and horti¬ 
culture; but what sort of figure would his book on archi¬ 
tecture have made, had he been limited to the ground 
he marks out for agricultural writers ? How would it 
sound to him to be bidden to write a book of “ plain and 
sensible reasons for our best architectural practice as it 
is, and equally common-sense hints and directions for its 
improvement?” It does not accuse him of plagiarism 
to say that without recourse to Gilpin, Price, Loudon, 
and others, his works wouid hardly have been so com¬ 
plete. Nay, he will probably allow that no one can 
have a sound judgment in architectdfe who is not ac¬ 
quainted with the theory and practice of the best mas¬ 
ters in all the styles. 
This mode of treating a subject, and this alone, raises 
it to the rank of a liberal art or profession. We demand 
that the soil shall cultivate the man, while the man cul¬ 
tivates the soil. Again Mr. Downing says, 
‘‘It is idle to lay before farmers, in a country 
like ours, where capital is rarely or never employed in 
farming—where land is plentiful, but labor scarce and 
dear—systems of farming, based on just the contrary 
state of things—where farming is carried on with abun¬ 
dant capital, and where the price of labor and means of 
tillage are such, that it will pay a good interest upon 
the capital employed. It is very much like discoursing 
to the keeper of. a ‘ country store,’ upon the large prin¬ 
ciples of commerce which 1 govern the transactions of such 
houses as the Barings, or Brown, Brothers & Co.” 
Now, I would contend that the principles of com¬ 
merce, by which the storekeeper is to be guided, are 
identically the same with those by which Browns or 
Barings must be guided. It is only the practice, the 
detail, that differs. And this makes the difference 
between man and man, that one sees only the detail in 
what he does; the other sees the principle that must 
apply in all similar cases. There can be no thorough 
knowledge of the principles of any art, without a know¬ 
ledge of the practice in all those places where the art is 
best practised. 
I cannot agree that our farmers have no capital. 
Every farmer has a farm, house, barn, stock, crops, per¬ 
haps $5000, perhaps $10,000. Is not this a capital? 
It is invested, to be sure, in his business, like- that of 
every other business' man. Moreover, he has an in¬ 
come, say $250 or $500 in cash, over and above the 
living of his family. What does he do with it? .Buys 
more land, or lets it out on interest. And this I con¬ 
ceive to be one of the greatest evils in our farming—the 
abuse of capital. It is not universal, but it is too com¬ 
mon that the farmer who has risen to wealth, who has 
his $5,000 or $10,000 at interest, owns no more plows, 
and has no better stock, or barns, than his poorer neigh¬ 
bor. 
I am no advocate of English practice for our farmers; 
but I am an advocate of principles whereever I find 
them. Any man would be a better farmer for reading 
Jethro Tull’s book on Horse-hoeing Husbandry, yet Tull 
will persuade no man to forego the use of manure. Any 
man will be a better pldw-maker for reading Stephen’s 
account of the Scotch plow, yet he will not attempt to 
persuade our farmers to buy plows at $25 apiece. Judge 
Buel, in the Farmer’s Instructor, gives instructions in 
plowing “compiled” from Low’s Agriculture, that 
will make any man a better plowman; yet we need not 
enter into all the mysteries of “ twice-gathering ” and 
“ cleaving down with gore-furrows.” 
But after all, what do we not owe to English agri¬ 
culture; for we are bound to be just, and “ give the 
devil his due.” In the plow, if they owe something to 
us, we owe vastly more to them. The cultivator is 
English, and our cultivator is yet far behind several of 
theirs. The harrow we have not improved upon in any 
essential. The subsoil plow is English. We have 
adopted all these things with great skill. We have ex¬ 
cellent plows at a fourth the cost; we make our im¬ 
plements light, cheap, and strong; but not yet so 
thorough nor so perfect in their work. 
But I am getting away from my object, which was to 
deprecate, and enter my protest against the disparage¬ 
ment of any attempt towards the formation of a library 
for our farmers, not of books only that shall be written 
expressly for them, on the principle of a Sunday school 
library for children, where pains are taken that they 
may learn no harm, but of books from any language, in 
the reading and choosing and application of which, far¬ 
mers may use their own faculties, and learn to apply 
principles from whatever quarter they may come. W. 
Lenox, 18 th Feb., 1847. 
To Improve an Agricultural Paper. —In a re¬ 
cent number of your periodical, we threw out a few 
hints in reference to obtaining subscribers for that and 
similar publications. We now propose, as many of our 
farmers are not satisfied in regard to the practical 
value of such papers, to offer a few suggestions, which, 
if they, the Sfegmers, will carry into practice, we have 
no doubt will render them so truly acceptable that they 
will be considered an indispensible requisite of every 
farming establishment. 
First, then, we say to you, farmers, subscribe for an 
agricultural paper forthwith, and pay in advance, for 
much depends on the number of subscribers, and the 
promptness of payment in making these papers truly 
valuable. The editor must study much in order to meet 
all the exigencies that await him ijj furnishing his pat¬ 
rons with intellectual food, and in order to do this he 
must have scientific works around him for reference and 
comparison, in order that he can bring forth facts in 
their most substantial and living form, to establish fixed 
and immutable principles. Such works as are not only 
convenient but necessary for him to possess, are not to 
be found among the cheap literature of story and song 
which some shallow-brained novelist or shattered poet 
has written, to while away an idle hour, and gull a host 
of voracious readers, whose imaginations are as sickly, 
and whose ideas are as vapid as his own. Such works 
as he must have are expensive; they are the fruit 
of minds given to toil, and who, after all their labor, it 
may be, meet with but a scanty reward for the service 
they have endured. 
Then, again, the illustrations are expensive. Their 
importance in giving value to agricultural works, no 
one will question. They explain the mysterious and 
illuminate the dark. They place subjects before the 
mind clearly, which without their aid would be incom¬ 
prehensible. But they cannot be formed *of soap bub¬ 
bles. No, they must be drawn on solid basis, with 
taste and correctness or they are valueless. This, too, 
is an expensive business, and one that can be supported 
only by those who appreciate and stand with open hands 
to sustain it. Every name that is added to the sub¬ 
scription list, then, goes to help improve the character of 
the paper, by giving the editor new means of increasing 
his own amount of knowledge, and placing funds in his 
