22 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
suited to promote that virtue and intelligence. I close with a sin¬ 
gle remark, addressed to every member of this society: Do you 
wish to raise the importance of your farmer, mechanic and laborer? 
Do you wish to destroy personal influence arising from wealth and 
not character and measures? Do you wish quietly, without injus¬ 
tice and without violence; to equalize property as conducive to the 
greater safety ot the republic? And in fine, do you wish to foster 
any hope to preserve your republic ? Educate thoroughly your 
whole community. 
AGRICULTURAL STATE CONVENTION. 
At a meeting of delegates and others, from different parts of the 
state, in agricultural convention assembled, in the assembly cham¬ 
ber in the city of Albany, on Monday, February 8th, at 8 o’clock 
P. M. 
On motion of Mr. Dickinson, of Broome, the Hon. Judge Buel of 
Albany was temporarily called to the chair, and on motion of Mr. 
Leland of Steuben, D. L. Dickinson of Broome, and J. J. Viele of 
Rensselaer, were chosen secretaries. 
The chairman then rose and addressed the convention as follows: 
Gentlemen —Land and labor are the principal sources of public 
and private wealth. The more fertility we can impart to the one, 
and the more intelligence we can infuse into the other, the greater 
will be the returns they make, and the greater our means of hap¬ 
piness: for it L wealth, rightly employed, that enables us to multi¬ 
ply not only our own, but the comforts and happiness of those 
around us. Yet it is not a few very rich men, or very wise men, 
be the aggregate of wealth and talent ever so great, that give pros¬ 
perity and greatness to a state. It is the general diffusion, among 
a whole people, among the rank and file of society, of property and 
knowledge, and the industry, enterprise and independence which 
they beget, that renders a state truly respectable and great. If 
this convention, therefore, can do aught to render labor more pro¬ 
fitable and more honorable, and our lands more productive, it will 
effect a substantial good to society. 
1 venture to lay down this broad proposition, that the produc¬ 
tions of our agricultural labor may be doubled in ten years, and 
trebled in twenty. In proof of this, I appeal, in the first instance, 
to facts which have fallen under the observation of all: to the con¬ 
trast, in products and profits, which are seen to exist, between dis¬ 
tricts and farms, of equal natural fertility, and often contiguous to 
each other, which are under good and bad management, aad the 
constantly increasing profits of husbandry, where the spirit of im¬ 
provement has been fully awakened. We find many individuals 
who pay from seventy to one hundred dollars an acre for farm*, 
getting not only the interest of their purchase money, but realizing 
laro-e profit*, from their agricultural labors; while we see others, 
equally well circumstanced, hardly getting enough to meet the 
contingent expenses of their families. Within the last thirty years, 
in many districts, particularly in Orange, Dutchess, Columbia, &tc.. 
where the natural fertility of the soil had been exhausted by the 
old system of depletion, and where improvment gained an early 
footing, the price of lands has increased three and four fold, and 
the products of agricultural industry in a proportionate ratio.— 
There are other districts again, that have remained stationary in 
th :ir practice, while the soil has been constantly deteriorating, 
because this pract ce has been primitive, calculated to exhaust, but 
not to restore fertility. The measu e has been constantly sent for 
meal, without the meal-chest having been replenished. This has 
most happened where nature had been most bountiful in imparting 
natural fertility: man being in a measure compelled to exert his 
physical and mental energies most upon a poor soil. The benefits 
to the productive districts and farms, have been brought about by a 
more extended knowledge, in the cultivator, of the principles upon 
which good husbandry is based, by the force of competition, and 
examples of individual excellence. The bad husbandry has dimi¬ 
nished in products and profits, from the want of this knowledge, 
from the force of prejudice, the want of a spirit of competition, the 
want of system, and from culpable indolence, the natural result of 
the other causes. In what manufacturing or mechanic art, do we 
see the master prosper, who adheres to the modes and practices of 
his grand-father ? The labor of fabrication has been abridged of 
one half of its toil in these, by the discoveries of science and the 
inventions of genius. Nor is much less the case in agriculture, 
where science and skill have beed pressed into its service. “Why,” 
says a late writer, “ this becomes another world to the man who 
opens his eyes. Science breathes life and light into it; it kindles 
with glory, happiness and praise; there is no one who cannot feel 
its inspirations if he will.” 
But even in our best cultivated districts, and on our best cultivat¬ 
ed farms, the capacities of the soil to reward labor, are yet but par¬ 
tially developed. Art has not yet exhausted its energies upon 
them, and science, with gigantic strength, is coming to its aid.— 
The value of manures, the pabulum of vegetable life, and the 
source of vegetable growth and excellence, will be better appreci¬ 
ated, their quantity doubled, and their application directed with bet¬ 
ter economy. The importance of alternating crops, on all lands 
susceptible of this mode of culture, which makes the gram, grass 
and root crops mutually subservient to the wants of each other, 
will be better developed in principle, and better carried out in prac¬ 
tice. The culture of roots, which pulverize and ameliorate the 
soil, fatten the farm-stock and fill the dung-yard—which has been 
the basis of improved hushandry in Britain, and promises the best 
results in this state, wherever it has gained a fair footing, will be 
greatly and profitably extended. The properties of lime, marl and 
gypsum will be better understood, and these mineral substances 
will be made to contribute more largely to the productiveness of 
the soil. Labor-saving implements will be multiplied, and our farm 
stock will be improved in quality, and increased in numbers. Whit¬ 
ney's Cotton Gin doubled the value of the cotton lands of the south, 
and its benefits have been estimated over one hundred millions of 
dollars; and I state with confidence, that a single implement, 
Green’s Straw Cutter, is calculated to save half a ton of hay in the 
winter keep of a horse, ox or cow, fed upon hay. Estimating the 
number of horses and neat cattle at half our population, which is 
certainly within bounds, the saving in this machine, over that of 
feeding in the old slovenly way, would be at least 500,000 tons of 
hay in a year, which at the moderate estimate of $7 per ton, would 
amount to an annual saving of three millions and a half of dollars. 
If we estimate the labor to be saved by the general introduction of 
improved ploughs, harrows, cultivators, drill-barrows, horse-rakes, 
mowing machines, thrashing machines, &tc., which not one farmer 
in twenty has yet availed himself of, and consider the benefits of 
the countless new inventions which the genius and enterprise of 
our countrymen are likely to produce, I cannot be mistaken in as¬ 
suming, under a view of all these considerations, that every tole¬ 
rable acre of land, near the borders of the Hudson, may be made 
to produce to the cultivator, the clear interest of two hundred dol¬ 
lars per annum. There are thousands of acres wh’ch already pro¬ 
duce double this income. 
To strengthen the force of this conclusion, I beg leave to call 
your attention ts the agricultural products of other countries. 
Professor Low, one of the latest and best authorities for Scotch 
husbandry, bases his e-timate of farm profits upon an annual rent 
to the landlord—(far Scotch, as well as English farmers, are almost 
invariably tenants to the nobil ty and gentry)—I say he bases his 
estimate of Ihe former's profits upon an annual rent of £2, or about 
nine dollars per ocre. He puts down the other burthens, as win¬ 
dow and saddle horse duty, statute or highway labor, poor rates 
and insurance, it $141.87, for a farm of five hundred acres. Thus 
the Scotch farmer, upon his 500 acre farm, pays annually in rent 
and burthens $4,641. After deducting this amount from the products 
of the farm, is well as the expense of family, stock, implements, 
manure, labor, k-c. the professor gives to the farmer, a nett income, 
from the products of his labor, of £399, 6s. 2d. ($1,785,) amount¬ 
ing to 16s. ($3.80) per acre. If we throw out of the account the 
burthens and rent, which are mere nominal with us, the nett income 
of the Scotch farmer, clear of every expense, would average seven 
dollars and seventy-five cents per acre, or upon his 500 acre farm, 
would amount to $3,875, instead of $1,785. 
The cultivated lands of England and Wales are computed at 
91,000,000 of acres, and the annual product of these lands is esti¬ 
mated by Arthur Young, at one hundred and forty-five millions of 
pounds sterling, equal to six hundred and forty millions of dollars. 
More recent estimates put the agricultural products of Great Bri¬ 
tain, including Scotland, at two hundred and sixty millions of 
pounds. Upon the first estimate we have, as the average product 
per acre, about $19-36. To show the burthens of the British far- 
