1851. 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
75 
trade regularly in the old country. Probably there is 
no department in our practical agricultural operations, 
where a greater improvement has been made of late 
years, than in that which relates to plows and plowing. 
The construction of the implement, and its proper use, 
have alike been made special subjects for study and ex¬ 
periment. Plowing matches; in connection with the 
agricultural fairs, have contributed in a striking manner 
to this result, and it serves to show how much we may 
do in other directions, if we will make a corresponding 
effort. 
Notwithstanding a heavy rain, my address was attend¬ 
ed by a very crowded audience. The room was densely 
packed, and quite a number were unable to obtain even 
standing room within the doors. The subject was, “ the 
necessity of a special education for the farmer,” and my 
observations were received with the same lixed attention, 
and the same evident interest in the theme, that I had 
occasion to notice in all this region. 
I mention this no\t, as connected with a few remarks 
upon the general state of things in these counties, which 
I design to make in closing this series of letters. With 
all the home prejudices and all the attachment to New 
England, of a thorough Yankee, I ani constrained to ob¬ 
serve, that there are very few Counties in Connecticut, 
or even in Massachusetts, where such audiences could 
have been collected in such weather, and scarcely one 
where I could have Carried my hearers with me so com¬ 
pletely. I say nothing of Vermont, New Hampshire, 
Maine, or Rhode Island, but have no reason to suppose 
that these States are in advance of the others. So far 
as thy experience go'es, the conviction that science can 
do much for agriculture, and the disposition to learn 
from scientific men, does not seem by any means so 
widely diffused in New England, as in many portions of 
Western New-York. Yet if they were but aware of the 
fact, the Yankee farmers need instruction sadly in many 
points-. One of the things most to be sought is, to over¬ 
come that prejudiced attachment to certain old courses, 
which the western man, owing to his location in a newer 
country, has never formed. There are thus greater en¬ 
couragements to the advocates of scientific agriculture 
in attempting to influence a western than an eastern 
audience, as he knows that his hearers may be more 
readily brought to see advantage in something that has 
not been sanctioned by old usages. 
In the New England States, and in the State of New 
York, may unquestionably be found the greater portion 
of our best farmed districts, and still there are in the 
farthest advanced of these, Striking defects of manage¬ 
ment. The general fact often presents itself while tra¬ 
veling, and surveying farms, that in the actual cultiva¬ 
tion and management of the soil itself, the farmers have 
not as a class attained that proficiency which they ex¬ 
hibit in the other departments of their practical busi¬ 
ness. Improved animals have been largely introduced, 
and we are yearly importing the best sheep, the best 
cattle, the best horses, and the best swine, that the 
world can afford, thus constantly contributing to elevate 
the character of our stock. In the character of our im¬ 
plements, the past few years have witnessed a most 
astonishing change; the old awkward tools have been 
made light, efficient, and cheap, in a degree that would 
formerly have been thought almost incredible; while 
busy invention has been constantly employed in con¬ 
triving such simple and yet effective machinery, that al¬ 
most every operation can be far more easily and more 
economically performed than ever before. In the con¬ 
struction of farm buildings, of farm fences and in the 
feeding of stock, an increasing and judicious expenditure 
of capital is to be observed. In most of these respects, 
I do not hesitate to say that we have advanced in a man¬ 
ner worthy of our own great country, in a manner that 
no farming community has ever surpassed, if ever 
equaled. 
Now I would ask any man of observation, has the 
soil during this period of rapid progress elsewhere, been 
improving in a corresponding degree. There are many 
single fiti'ms scattered about the country, where such a 
corresponding improvement is to be found; there are also 
a few districts that can be cited as honorable exceptions, 
but of many others, the most that can be said is, that the 
quality of the land has remained nearly unchanged. 
Of the greater number of farms, my own opionion is, that 
the change has been for the worse; that there are nu¬ 
merous townships in New-York and New England, where 
the land produces less per acre than it did ten years ago. 
1'he reports of many reliable practical men bear me out 
in such a conclusion, and any reader who doubts my 
correctness will, I venture to say, be soon satisfied if 
he institutes a strict inquiry in his own county or State. 
It is obvious then, that if these remarks are correct, 
the land itself has not been so much the subject of im¬ 
provement as the stock which it supports, or the imple¬ 
ments which are to till it; that in short, it is not at pre¬ 
sent, as I said at first, generally so good, as are our 
animals and our tools. We often see this exemplified, 
by the presence of fine cattle, sheep, or horses, on farms 
that are constantly growing poorer and poorer, as to 
their productive power. 
This seems to me like beginning, in part at least, at 
the wrong end; I would be the last one to discourage 
the improvement of our stock, but think that the soil 
should be brought up at the same time. 
The necessity of this I wish to impress with especial 
earnestness upon the farmers of the West, where the 
land is still for the most nart fertile, and in no case ex¬ 
hibits the utter exhaustion which may often be seen at 
the East. The western farmer should consider that he 
has not only to better his stock and implements, butthai 
he has also, as an equally important duty, to keep his 
land up, and even improving; if it has already begun to 
fail, let him turn his attention above all things else, to 
restpring its productiveness. The land is the foundation 
of the farmer’s prosperity; if that is fertile, and kept in 
good order, all the other requisites of profit and of good 
farming, will naturally follow. 
If the farmers of the "west will be warned in time, if 
they will pursue the course which even a trifling amount 
of study will make plain, they will never find them¬ 
selves called upon to engage in that slow and toil¬ 
some process of renovation, which has become so neces¬ 
sary in the older States. 
In the counties which I have visited, and which have 
furnished the subjects of the three foregoing letters, na¬ 
ture lias provided exhaustless supplies for restoring and 
