TO IMPROVE THE SOIL AND THE MIND. 
New Series. ALBANY. APBIL, 1852. Yol. IX.—No. 4. 
Inaccuracy in Farming. 
We are unwilling to believe the frequent remark that 
farmers are less intelligent than other classes of the com¬ 
munity, or that their business is less perfected than that 
of many other professions. A great deal of uncertainty 
and conflicting views exist, it is true, with regard to many 
points in their practice. But we must not forget that 
even what are termed, by way of eminence, the learned 
professions, furnish plenty of examples of similar differ¬ 
ences of opinion. The “ glorious uncertainty of the 
law” is proverbial, in spite of the thousands of wise 
heads which have exerted their shrewdness for centuries 
to establish uniform justice; for even at the present day 
the most profound jurist is in some cases at a loss to say 
whether he may or may not be actually committing a 
crime against the law; and the greatest giant in legal 
achievement is he who can creep through the smallest 
key-hole of technical evasion. If we look at medicine, 
we shall hardly regard all difficulties settled, when there 
are almost as many systems for keeping the corporeal 
machine in repair, as there are changes in Parisian fash* 
ions,—while cold water, hot water, steam and red-pepper, 
alternately exert their powers on the same disease j and 
cakes of ice and cantharides, mineral poisons and vege¬ 
table poisons, mercury and mesmerism, are in the same 
moment lauded and denounced. Nor shall we, in taking 
large masses of people together, find more general intel¬ 
ligence among carpenters, tailors, blacksmiths, brick¬ 
layers, and butchers, than in the agricultural community. 
All of them furnish occasional examples of brilliant men¬ 
tal achievement, and many of singular stupidity. 
But there is one particular in which the farmers are 
decidedly in the back ground. It is one in which they have 
no adequate idea of the immense loss they are sustaining. 
A thorough reformation in this particular, the country 
over, would effect as great a change in the art of tillage, 
as railroads have achieved in the art of travelling, or 
steam engines in manufactures. The deficiency we here 
refer to, is the want of rigid accuracy, by weighing and 
measuring, in conducting the various operations on a 
farm, and recording the results systematically. 
The correction of this evil would immediately do more 
to improve and render profitable this great art of arts, 
than all that chemistry, botany, geology., subsoiling, and 
tile-draining could ever accomplish without it. It would 
be perfectly astonishing what an amount of fog and cob¬ 
webs would be cleared away from agriculture in a few 
years, if it could be thoroughly and universally applied 
in practice. We have heard of a certain Yankee ship- 
captain who kept his ‘ ‘ Reckoning” upon a shingle; which 
answered a very good purpose in connexion with some 
shrewd guessing, until a fellow-countryman on board, in 
a idle hour thoughtlessly whittled it all away. Yet he 
possessed a decided advantage over many farmers, who 
keep no reckoning whatever. They find out perhaps at 
the end of the year or at the end of the third year at 
farthest, by the amount of their debts, which way their 
vessel is drifting, or whether they are making any pro¬ 
gress,* but what it is that gives the impetus,—whether 
favorable gales, turned to the best advantage,—or beat¬ 
ing against the wind to great disadvantage,—or even row¬ 
ing with main strength with no wind at all,—they have 
an exceedingly indefinite knowledge at best. 
To come a little more to particulars. There is not one 
farmer in a hundred but will apply his most skilful ma¬ 
thematics in reaching the precise value of what passes out 
of his hands—the produce dealer cannot defraud him of 
a single half-dime. The most accurate balance, and the 
most correct measure, give the true amount of all he 
sells. But in all the transactions with his own farm— 
transactions in which it is of the highest moment that he 
should know whether he is gainer or loser—-everything 
is enveloped in the darkness of uncertainty. He may 
not know after years of trial, whether his profits or losses 
preponderate in the making of pork,—in the fattening 
of beef,—In the manufacture of cheese,—in the cultiva¬ 
tion of grain,—in deep or shallow plowing,—in coarse or 
fine wool sheep,—in rounded Berkshires, or clipper-built 
land-pikes,—or in anything else which may be done or 
managed in two ways. A good farmer informed us that 
he had found “ a decided benefit” in a dressing of leach¬ 
ed ashes to his fields; but the measured amount of bene¬ 
fit, or the number of bushels applied per acre, were hid 
in the mists of conjecture; consequently he was unable 
to say whether it would pay to draw ashes for manure 
two miles or ten. Another had used shell-marl under 
the same circumstances and with a like unknown result. 
A third had found an increase in his crops from the use 
of swamp-muck, but whether this increase would repay 
the expense, double, or quadruple it, remained locked 
up with the secrets of the unknown. 
What should we think of a railroad company that 
should conduct all their internal arrangements by guess¬ 
es ; which should spend days at the end of each half year 
in discussing, arguing, and trying to estimate the profits 
of the road, with a view to declaring a dividend? The 
balance sheet of a bank or other corporation must not 
