Arator : being a series of agricultural essays, practical & political: in sixty-one numbers

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9

ARATOHj

BEING A SERIES OS

m

AGRICULTURAL ESSAYS,
PHMTICMSj- POLITICAL:

In Sixty-One J'^umdevs
Second Edition. ...Revised and Enlarcred.

By Col. JOHN TAYLOR,

Of Caroline CouN'Tr, Virginia.

Copy-Kight Secured.

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED

By J. M. CAKTEH.

Georgetown, Columbia.

^

ADAMS

A^^l

PREFACE

BY THE PUBIISHEB.

•

The Publisher of the following essays is the
first who has offered to the public patronage, an
experimental composition, adapted to the Soil, Cli-
mate and Agriculture of the greater portion of the
United States ; and so far as his knowledge extends,
it is the first of the kind which this great district of
country has produced. He is not qualified to judge
of its merit, and can only infer from its being the
work of a successful practical farmer, and not the
offspring of interest or theory, that every purchaser
will be reimbursed his money many fold. But how-
ever this may be, the Publisher respectfully states,
that rude inventions have terminated in great pub-
lic good ; and that the deficiency of graphical merit
in the agricultural country, for which the composi-
tion was intended, is almost as strong a recommen-
dation of this effort towards improvement, as the
hierogliphicks of antiquity, were of those made for
the discovery of letters. An encouragement of small
improvements is the parent of perfection in every
art and science, and as agriculture is the queen of
the whole circle, the Publisher has thought it his
duty to give the public an opportunity of awakening
better talents and greater exertions, for occupying
the extensive space between its present and a desi-
rable condition.

The United States have been charged with a
dearth of original compositions. Their reach of Eu-
ropean books is the reason of the fact, so far as it
extends to moral subjects ; whilst the multitude,
novelty and usefulness of their mechanical inventi-
ons, repels an insinuation, that it arises from a want
of genius or industry. The strongest ground of the
eharge is, the deficiency of native books upon agri-
culture. Whilst the country was fresh, it was natu-
ral for the inhabitants to neglect the subject in the

PREFACE.

midst of abundance ; but its evident impoverishment,
ought to have suggested to us the necessity of na-
tive remedies for local errors ; and the incongruity
of English books upon agriculture, with the climates,
soils and habits of the United States. This incon-
gruity by drawing ridicule upon imitators, too often
extinguishes a patriotic ardour, and checks instead
of advancing improvement. *

If the book now offered to the public should have
no other good effects but those of suggesting the ne-
cessity of writing for ourselves on the subject, and
introducing some taste for such discussions, the com-
pensation to the Publisher for his labour will be am-
ply repaid. To this taste, the agriculture of Europe
in general, and of Britain in particular, is indebted
for a vast improvennent within the last century, and
a similar spirit in the United States will undoubtedly
produce similar effects. Every class of men will be
benefitted by it. The Merchant will receive more
produce, and sell more goods. The demands upon
the Manufacturer will extend to more and finer
commodities. La^ijers and Physicians will have
richer clients and patients, and receive better fees.
The Politician may find more resources for defend-
ing his country, maintaining her independence and
rewarding patriotism. The Printers will sell more
books and newspapers. And the Farmer^ though
the fountain from which all these benefits must flow,
as receiving first the fruits of improvement, will
make them subservient to his own happiness, before
he diffuses them to advance the happiness of others.
A tendency to shed prosperity over all these classes,
has some claim to general encouragement, and whilst
the Publisher respectfully solicits the public patron-
age on this ground, he also confidently hopes, that
a considerable portion both of amusement and ia^
formation will be fountTin the foUowing sheets.

ABATOK.

NUMBER 1.

THE PRESENT STATE OF AGRICULTURE^

I shall coHsider in a succession of short es-
says, the present state of agriculture ih the
United States, its oppressions and defects, and
the rem^ies, political and domestic, which it
needs. It is confessed however, that the chief
knowledge of the author, as to modes of agri-
culture is confined to the states of Maryland,
Virginia and North-Carolina. And therefore,
whilst his remarks in relation to its political
state, will generally apply to the whole union,
those in relation to these modes, will particu-
iarjpr apply to all states using slaves, or to the
t^ree enumerated states.

Mr. Strickland, an Englishman, reputed
to he Sensible and honest, published at London
in the year 1801, u pamphlet upon the agricul-
ture of the United States, being the result of
his own observation, during a considerable pe-
riod spent in travelling through the countrj-,
for the special purpose of investigating it....
The judgment of this impartial stranger ap-
pears in the following quotations.— Page 26 :
^ Land in America aifords little pleasure or
profit, and appears in a progress of continually
affording less.** — P. 31 : " Virginia is in a ra-
Pd decline."— -P. 38 : " Land in New- York,
formerly producing twenty bushels to the
acre, oow produces only ten^" — P. 4I ; " Li^.

10 THE PRESENT STATE

tie profit can be found in the present mode of
agriculture of this country, and I apprehend it
to be a fact that it affords a hare subsistence."
P. 45 : " Virginia is the southern limit of my
enquiries, because agriculture had there al-
ready arrived to its lowest state of degradati^
on.'* — V.i9 : " The land owners in this state
are, with a few exceptions, in low circumstan-
ces ; the inferior rank of them wretched in the
extreme.^' — P. B% ; ^* Decline has pervaded all
the states.''

These conclusions, if true, are awfuUv
threatning to the libeity and prosperity of a
country, whose hostage for both is agriculture.
An order of men, earning a hare siibsistencef
in lotv circumstances f and xvJiose ivfeiior rank
is wretched in the extreme, cannot possibly con-
stitute a moral force, adequate to either ob-
ject. It is therefore highly important to the
agricultural class, to ascertain whether it is
true, that agriculture is in a decline. — A de-
cline terminates like every other progress, at
the end of its tendency.

Upon reading the opinion of this disinter-
ested fereigner, my impressions were, indigna-
tion, alarm, conviction ; inspired suc(vessively,v
by a love for my country, a fear for its weU
fare, and a recollection of facts.

The terrible facts, that the strongest chord
which vibrates on the heart of man, cannot tie
our people to the natal spot, that they view it
with horror, and flee from it to new climes
with joy, determine our agricultural progress,
to be a progress of emigration, and not of im-
provement^ and lead to an ultimate recoii-
from tills exhausted resource, to an exhausted
country.

or AGKICUITURK. ±1

MUMBER 2.

THE PRESENT STATE OF AGRICULTURE,
CONTINUED.

A patient must know that lie is sick, before lie
ivill take plijsic. A collection of a few facts,
to ascertain the ill health of agriculture, is ne-
cessary to invigorate our efforts towards it cure.
One, apparent to the most superficial observer,
is, that our land has diminished infertility.—
Arts improve the work of nature- — when they
injure it, they are not arts, but barbarous cus-
toms. It is the ofiice of agriculture as an art,
not to impoverish, but to fertilize the soil, and
make it more useful than in its natural state.
Such is the effect of every species of agricul-
ture, which can aspire to the character of au
art.. ..Its object being to furnish man with ar-
ticles of the first necessity, whatever defeats
that object, is a crime of the first magnitude.
Had men a power <o obscure or brighten the
light of the sun, by obscuring it, they would
imitate the morality of diminishing the ferti-
lity of the earth. Is not one as criminal as
the otiier ? Yet it is a fact, that lands in fheir
natural state, are more valuable, than tho^e
which have undergone our habit of Agricul-
ture, of which emigi'art;ions are complete
proofs.

The decay of a multitude of small towns,
so situated as to depend for suppori on unal-
terable districts, is another proof of the impo-
verishment of the soil. It is true, that a few
large towns have grownup, but this is owing>

3^ THE PRESENT STATE

not to an increased pFoduct, but to an incrca^
e^ pastui'e ; whereas, in every case, where the
pasture is limited, or isolated by local cir-
cumstances, small towns have sprung up,
whilst the lands were fresh;, and deeayed,x as
they were worn out. I have no facts to as-
certain certainly the products of Agriculture
at different periods relatively to the number
of people ; such would furnish a demonstrati-
on of its state. But I hare understood, that
isixty-thousand hogsheads of tobacco, were ex-
ported from Virginia, when it contained about
one-fourth of its present population. If so,
had the fertility of the country remained un-
diminished, Virginia ought now to export twe
Kundred and forty thousand hogsheads, or an
equivalent. In this estimate, every species of
export except tobacco, is excluded at one
epoch, and exports of every kind included at
the other : yet the latter would fall far short
of exhibiting the equivalent necessary to biing
itself on a footing, as to agriculture, with the
former. Two hundred and forty thousand
hogsheads of tobacco, which, or an equivalent,
Virginia would now export, if the state of
agriculture had been as flourishing as it was
sixty or seventy years past, at the present va-
lue, by which all our exports are rated, would
he worth above seventeen millions of dollars |
and supposing Virginia to furnish one seventh
part of the native agricultural exports of the
United States, these ought now to amount t®
one hundred and twenty millions of dollars,
had the products of agriculture kept pace with
the increase of population. If tliis sta<ement
is not exactly correct, enough of it certai«Iy is
so, to demonstrate a rapid impoverishinent of
tlie soil of the United States.

or AGBlCtJIrTUU'E. 13*

The decay of the culture of tobacco is testi-
mony to this unwelcome fact. It is desertedi
because the lands are exhausted. To conceal
from ourselves a disagreeable truth, we resort'-
to the delusion, that tobacco requires new or'
fresh land; whereas every one acquainted
Avith the plant knows that its quantity and
quality, as is the case with most or all plants,
are both greatly improved by manured land,
or land, the fertility of which has been artiii-
cially increased. Whole counties compri-
sing large districts of country, which once
grew tobacco in great quantities, are now too
sterile to grow any of moment ; and the wheat
crops substituted for tobacco, have already
sunk to an average below profit

From the mass of facts, to prove that the
fertility of our country has been long declin-
ing, and that our agriculture is in a miserable
state, I shall only select one more. The ave-
rage of our native exports, is about fiH'ty mil-
lions of dollars annually. Some portion of
this amount consists of manufactures, the ma-
terials for which are not furnished by agricul-
ture ', another, as is extensively the fact in thq
ease of flour, has passed through the haiHls ot
the manufacturer. Of the first portion he
receives the whole price, of the second a pro-
portion. And a third portion of our products
is obtained from the sea. Of the forty milli-
ons exported, agriculture therefore receives
about thirty five. The taxes of every kind,
state and federal, may be estimated at twenty
millions of dollars, of which agriculture pays
at least fifteen, leaving twenty millions of her
exports for her own use. Counting all the
slaves who ought to be counted both as. soiu**

14b TpE PRESENT STATlf

ces of product and expence in estimating the
slate of agriculture, the people of the United
States, may probably amount to about seven
millions, and it may be fairly assumed, that
the interest or occupation of six millions of
these seven, is agricultural. Of the whole
surplus product of agriculture exported, after
deducting the taxes it pays, there remains for
each individual a few cents above three dol-
lars. Out of this mass of profit, he is to pay
for tlie manufactures, luxuries and nccessa-
I'ies he consumes, not raised by himself; and
the only remaining article to be carried to the
credit of agriculture, is the small gain it de-
rives from its domestic sales, not to itself,
OP from sales by one of its members to ano-
ther, for that does not enrich it, but to other
classes, sueli as manufacturers and soldiers.
Against the former? agriculture is to be del>it-
ed with the bounties she is made by law ta
pay th*m; against the latter, she has been
already debited by deducting her taxes from
tier exports. Neither can be a source of much
wealth or prof.t to her, because in one case she
furnishes the money by taxation, and in the o-
Iher by bounties, with which her products are
put chased. It is therefore nearly true, that
the Income of agriculture is only three dollars
per poll, and that this income is her whole fund
for supplying her wants and extending her im"
provenients. This estimate is infinitely more
correct, than one drawn from individual wealth
or poverty. To infer from the first that eve-
ry body mip:ht become rich as a defence of our
agrlenitural regimen, would be a conclusion as
fallacious, as to infer from the second, that
every bodj must become poor^ as a pvoof of it*

or AGSICULTXJRE. 1^

badness. Extraordinary talents or industry
M'iii produce extraordinary effects. Instan-
ces of happiness or wealth under a despotism^
do not prove that its regimen is calculated for
general wealth or happiness. A system, com-
mercial, political or agricultural, so wretched
as not to exhibit cases of individual prosperi-
ty, has never appeared, because an universal
scourge would be universally abhorred. It is
not from partial, but general facts, that we
can draw a correct knowledge of our agricul-
ture. Even a personal view of the country,
might deceive the thoughtless, because neither
the shortness of life, nor the gradual iiiipove-
rishment of land, are calculated to establish a
visible standard of comparison. A man must
be old and possess a turn for observation from;
his youth, to be able to judge correctly from
this source. I have known many farms for
above forty years, and tliough I think that all
of them have been greatly impoverished, yet
I reJy more upon the general faets I have sta-
ted for agreeing with Strickland in opinion
" that the agriculture of the United States,
affords oiiiy a bare su!)sistence — that the fer^
tility of our lands is gradually declining — and
that the agriculture of Yirginia has arrived io^
the lowest state of degradatioa,"

1& , THE POLrnCAL STATE

NUMBER 3.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTURE,

In eolleeting the causes which have contri-
buted to the miserable agricultural state of the
couutry as it is a national calamity of the high-
est magnitude, we should be careful not to be
blinded by partiality for our customs or insti-
tutions, nor corrupted by a disposition to flat-
ter ourselves or others. I shall begin with
those of a political nature. These are a se-
condary providence, which govern unseen the
great interests of society ; and if agriculture
Is bad and langulsliing in a country and cli-
mate, where it may be good and prosperous,
no doubt remains with me, that political insti-
tutions have chieSy perpetrated the evil ; just
as they decide the fate of commerce.

The device of subjecting it to the payment
of bounties to manufacturing, is an institution
of this kind. This device is one item in every
system for rendering governments too strong
for nations. Such an object never was and ne-
ver can be eifected, except by factions legally
created at the publick expence. The wealth
transferred fromthe nation to such factions, de-
votes them to the will of the government, by
whicli it is bestowed. They must render the ser-
vice for which it was given, orit would be taken-
away. It is unexceptionably given to support a
government against a nation, or one faction,
against another. Armies, loaning, bankings
and au intricate treasury system; endo^ving a

ar AGRICULTLTIB. ^ 17

government with the absolute power of apply-
ing public money, under the cover of nominal
checks, are otlier devices of this kind. "What-
ever strength or wealth a government and its
legal factions acquire by law^ is taken from a
nation ; and whatever is taken from a natiou,
weakens and impoverishes that interest, which
composes the majority. There, political op-
pression in every form must finally fall, how-
ever it may oscillate during the period af
transit from a good to a bad government, so
as sometimes to scratch factions. Agricul-
ture being the interest covering a great majo-
rity of the people of the United States, every
device for getting money or power, hatched
by a fellow-feeling or common interest, be*
tween a government and its legal creatures,
must of course weaken and impoverish it.^ —
Desertion, for the sake of reaping wiihout la-
bor, a share in the harvest of wealth and pow-
er, bestowed by laws at its expence, thins its
ranks ; an annual tribute to these legal facti-
ons, empties its purse ; and poverty debilitates
toth its soil and understanding.

The device of protecting duties, under tli^
pretext of encouraging manufactures, operates
like its kindred, by creating a capitalist inter-
est, which instantly seizes upon the bounty taken
by law from agriculture ; and instead of doing
any good to the actual workers in wood, me-
tals, cotton or other substances, it helps to rear
up an aristoeratical order at the expence of
the workers in earth, to unite with govern*
ments in oppressing every species of useful in-
dustry.

The products of agriculture and manufac^
tuiing, unshackled by law, would geek each for

18 THE POLITICAL STATE

t!iemseltes,tlie best markets through commer*
eial channels, but these markets wouhl hardly
eTcr be the same / protecting duties- tie tra-
vellers together, whose business and interest
lie in different directions. This ligature upor^:
nature, %vill, like all unnatural ligatures, wea-
ken or kilL The best markets of our agri-
culture lie in foreign countries, whilst the best
markets of our manufactures are at home — ^
Our agriculture has to cross the ocean, and
encounter a eompetilion with foreign agri-
culture on its own groimd. Our raanufiictures
meetathome aeorftpetition with foreign manu-
factures. The disadvaiitaj^es of the ^rsf com-
petition, suffice to excite all the efforts of agri-
culture to sare her life ; the advantages of
the second suffice gradually to bestow a sound
eonstkutioTi on manufaetuFing^ But the ma-
nufaeture of an aristocratical interest, under
the pretext of encouraging work of a very dif-
ferent nature, may reduce both manufacturers
and husbandmen, as Stricjkland says is already
effected in the case of the latter, Co the lowest
state of degradation.""

This degradation could never have been seen
l)y a friend to either, who could afterward^
approve of protex'ting duties. Let us take the
article of wheat to unfold an i<1ca of the disad-
vantages which have produced it. If wheat Is
worth 16s. sterling in England the 70lb. the
farmers sell it here at about 6s. sterling.—^
American agriculture then meets English agri-
culture in a competition, compelling her to sell
at little more than one third of the price ob-
tained by her rival. But American mrinu-
factures take the field againsjt English on
Tery different terms. These competitors meet

in ilie United States. The ximeriean manu-
factures receive first, a bounty equal to the
freight, commission and English taxes, upon
their English rivals ; and secondly, a bounty
equal to our own necessary imposts. Without
protecting duties therefore the American ma-
nufacturer gets for the same article, about 25
per cent, more, and the American agricultu-
rist about 180 per cent, less, than their Eng-
lish rivals. Protecting duties added to these
inequalities, may raise up an order of masters
for actual manufacturers, to intercept advan-
tages too enormous to escape the vigilance of
capital, impoverish husbandmen, and aid in
changing a fair to a fraudulent government ;
but they will never make either of these in-
trinsically valuable classps richer^ wiser or
freen

^ THE POI.ITI€AL STATE

NUMBER 4^

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTURE,
CONTINUED.

In this number I shall consider a reason fop
protecting duties to encourage manufactures,
which if it is sounds overturns the whole argu-
ment against them. In every essay on behalf
of manufactures, we are told, that by creating
this class with bounties and privileges, we
shall both make ourselves independent of fo-
reign nations, and also provide a market for
agricultural labour, as an aristocracy in all its
forms is a market for labour. And the high
price of wheat in England, is contrasted with
its low price here, to prove the latter asserti-
on, it would be sounder reasoning to contrast
the high price of manufactures here, with the
low price there, to prove that they ought to
give bounties to agriculture to provide a mar-
ket for manufactures. Nations and individu-
als are universally promised wealth by politi-
cal swindlers. — ^The English price for wheat,
is coupled with the English political system*
Without adopting the causes of that price, the
effects springing from these causes cannot
follow. The idle classes of the nobility, cler-.

fy, army, navy, bankers and national debt
olders, with their servants and dependents,
are the items of an aristocracy, which has re-
duced the agricultural class to a poor and
powerless state, by the juggle of persuading it
^o buy high prices^ by creating and inaitt(aia«

or AGRICtJlTURE. 21

in^ these idle classes. The national debt
alone maintains more people, than there are
agriculturists in Britain. These do not
amount to a tenth part of the nation. It is to
this combination of causes, and not to manu-
factures singly, that the English agriculture
is indebted for its high prices.

These very prices are themselves proofs of
the oppression which produced them. They
are the effect of the tendency which industry
has to recover back some equivalent from
fraud, and of the necessity of the fraud to ex-
tend some encouragements to industry. But
shall we oppress our agriculture, merely to
demonstrate that abuses have a tendency to
excite countervailing efforts, and load it with
English impositions, for the sake of the inade-
quate reimbursement of English prices ?

Let him who hopes to live to see the agricul-
tural class of the United States, reduced by
English policy to a tenth part of the nation,
undertake to prove, that sucha'reduction would
be a proof of its prosperity. If he could de-
fend such a theory, he would at last be prac-
tically disappointed, unless our manufactures
should drive the English manufactures out of
the world, and occupy their place. The inge-
nious device of agriculture in England, in bes-
towing money on noble, clerical, military a^id
chartered idlers, for the sake of selling its
products to get back a part of its own, would
turn out still more miserably, except for the
vast addition to the manufacturing class, by
foreign demands for its labor. If England
only manufactured for herself,, her manufac-
turers would constitute but a wretched market
for Agriculture, One labourer feeds many

25 THE POLITICAL STATE

Hianufaeturers. One manufacturer supplies
manj labourers. Before tlie promise of Eng-
lish prices for bread and meat, tobacco and
cotton, can be realized, from driving in manu-
facturing by protecting duties, we must be able
to drive out manufactures by protecting fleets
into every quarter of the globe; and so like
some booby heirs, take up a parents follies,
at the period he is forced to lay them down.

SiilJ more hopeless is the promise of the
manufacturing mania, " that it will make us
independent of foreign nations/' when com-
bined with its other promise of providing a
market for agriculture. The promise of a
market, as we see in the experience of Eng-
land, can only be made good, by reducing the
agricultural class to a tenth part of the na-
tion, and increasing manufacturers by great
manufactural exportations. This reduction
can only be accomplished by driving or sedu-
cing above nine-tenths of the agricultural
class, into other classes, and the increase by a
brave and patriotic navy. Discontent and
misery will be the fruits of the first operation,
and these would constitute the most forlorn
hope for success in the second. By exchang-
ing hardy, honest and free husbandmen for the
©lasses necessary to reduce the number of
a.^Ticulturists, low enough to raise the prices of
their products* shall we become more inde-
pendent of foreign nations? What! Secure
our independence by bankers and capitalists ?
Secure our independcrce by impoverishing,
discouraging and anniljiluting nine-tenths of
our sound yeon;aury ? By turning them into
s\\indlers, and (lei?endents on a master capi-
talist for daily bread. "

OF AGRlCrLTUKE. 23

There are two kinds of independence, real
and imaginary. The first consists of the
right of national self-government ; the second
of individual taste or prejudice. The yeo-
manry of the forest are best calculated to pre-
serve the first and the yeomanry of the loom
are best calculated to feed the second. A sur-
render of the first to obtain the second, would
be a mode of securing our independence,
like England's converting her hardy tars into
barbers and tailors, in order to become inde-
pendent of French fashions.

The manufacturing mania accuses the agri-
cultural spirit, of avarice and want of patriot-
ism, whilst it offers to bribe it by a prospect
of better prices, whittles down independence
into cargoes of fancy goods, and proposes to
nietambrphose nine-tenths of the hardy sons
of the forest into every thing but heroes, for
the grand end of gratifying the avarice of a
capitalist, monied or paper interest.

Opinion is sometimes prejudice, sometimes
zeal, and often craft. These counterfeits of
truth have universally deluded the majoiity
of nations into the strange conclusion, that it
will flourish by paving bounties to undertakers
for national salvation, for national wealth, and
for national independence. The first impos-
ture is detected, the second begins to be strong-
ly suspected, but the third has artfully provo-
ked its trial, at a moment when it can conceal
the cheat under the passions excited by transi-
tory circumstances. Hatred of England — a
pretended zeal lor national honour ; and the
real craft of advancing the pecuniary interest
of a few capitalists ; have conspired to paint
ft protecting duty system, into so strong a re-

24 THE POLITICAIi STATE

semblance of patriotism and honesty, as to
lead agi'iciilture by a bridle made of her vir-
tue and ignorance, towards the worship of an
idol, compounded of folly and wickedness.

OF AGRICULTURE. 25

NUMBER 5.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTURE,

. CONTINUED.

English Agriculture has completely tried
the project of enriching itself, hv buying mar-
kets with bounties. It has provided more of
these markets, than the agriculture of any
other nation. Yet it is unable to feed its owa
people, many of whom are indebted to foreign
agriculture for daily bread. No profession in
England is deficient in hands, but the agricul-
tural, and none other a cypher in government.
They have Lords, Bishops, officers civil and
military, soldiers, sailors, bankers, loaners and
capitalists in abundance, and all of them have
an influence in the government. These are
the markets ia which the English agricultu-
rists have successively laid out their money,
in order to get good prices, and the more of
these markets they buy, the less liberty and
wxalth they retain.

If the agriculture of the United States
%vouId only consider how it happens, that it
can yet live upon six shillings sterling a bushel
for wheat, when the English agriculture is
perishing with sixteen, the film drawn over its
eyes by the avarice with which those charge
it, who design to cheat it, would fall off. The
solution of the apparent wonder, lies in the
delusion of buying price by bounties. The
bounties are partly, but never completely re-
imbursed by the price. Though the payer of
the bounties gets more price; he gains less

26 THE POlITICAl STATE

profit than from the lower price, when he paid
no bounties. Therefore the receivers of the
bounties become rich and idle, and the receiv-
ers of the price, poor and laborious. And this
effect is inevitable, because the bounties must
for ever outrun the prices they create, or no
body could subsist on them. If the bounty
paid was equal to one shilling a bushel on
Vheat, and should raise the price nine pence,
the receivers of the bounty would gain three
pence a bushel on all the wheat of the nation,
and agriculture would lose it, though it got a
higher price. And this obvious fraud is pre-
cisely the result of every promise in every
form made by charter and privilege to enrich
or encourage agriculture.

The agriculture of the United States found
itself in the happiest situation for prosperity
imaginable at the end of the revolutionary
war. It had not yet become such an egregi-
ous gudgeon as to believe, that by giving ten
millions of dollars every year to the tribe of
undertakers to make it rich they would return
it twenty ; and it could avail itself of all the
markets in the world, where this ridiculous
notion prevailed. These were so many mines
of wealth to the agriculture of the U. States.
The idle, clerical, military, banking, loaning
and ennobled classes, as has been stated, do
certaiiily have the eftect of raising agricultu-
ral prices very considerably ; but the agricul-
turists who pay and maintain these classes,
still lose more by them than they gain* Now
the United States, as a section of the commer-
cial world, might have shared in the enhance-
ment of agricultural price, produced by such
unproductive orders in other countries } and

OF AGRICUITURE. 27

paid none of tlie ruinous expence of wealth or
liberty, which they cost. They might have
reaped the good, and avoided the evil. And
agriculture for once in it's life, might have
done itself justice. But the wiseacre chose to
reap tlie evil, and avoid the good ; and if it's
situation has been occasionally tolerable, it
was sorely against it's will, or by accident. —
In the first eight years after the revolution,
being the first period in the latter ages of the
world, that agriculture could make laws, it
legislated sundry items of the British system
for buying markets or raising prices. In the
next twelve, it nurtured their growth, so as
to raise up some to a large, and one to a mon-
strous size ; and also most sagaciously prohi-
bited itself, first from sharing in the benefit of
the high prices produced by aristocratical in-
stitutions in France, and secondly from shar-
ing in those produced in the same way in Eng-
land. European agriculture is gulled or op-
pressed by others ; American, gulls or op-
presses itself. The first is no longer Aveak
enough to think, that its battalion of aristo-
cratical items, does it any good ; but it is now
unable to follow its judgment ; the second, tho'
able to follow its own judgment, has adopted
the exploded errors heartily repented of by
the first, and far outstrips it in the celerity of
its progress towards a state of absolute sub-
mission to other interests, by shutting out it-
self from markets enhanced at the expence of
other nations ; and at the same time fey crea-
ting the English items of capitalists, or mas-
ters for manufacturers, bankers, lenders, ar-
mies and navies. Our true interest was to pay
nothing for markets, spurious and swindling to

2S THE POLITICAL STATE

those who buy them, and yet to share in Iheii
enhaneement of prices. We have pursued a
different course, and I do not recollect a sin-
gle law, state or continental, passed in favour
of agriculture nor a single good house built by
it since the revolution ; but I know many built
before which have fallen into decay. Our
agriculture is complimented by pr^esidents, go-
vernors, legislators and individuals ; and the
Turks reverence a particular order of people
as being also favoured by heaven.

or AGRICUITIJRE, 29

NUMBER 6.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTTRE,
CONTINUED.

The arguments to prove the political errors
under which our agriculture is groaning, may
suggest a suspicion, that I am an enemy to
manufactures. The fact is otherwise. I be-
lieve that protecting duties, or whatever else
shall damp agricultural effort, and impoverisli
the lands of our country, is the only real and
fatal foe to manufactures ; and that a flourish-
ing agriculture will beget and enrich manufac-
tures, as rich pastures multiply and fatten
animals. He, v/ho killed the goose to come at
her golden eggs, was such a politician, as he
who burdens our expiring agriculture, to raise
bounties for our flourishing manufactures. —
He kills the cause of the end he looks for.

I meet such an insinuation by another argu-
ment. Protecting duties impoverisli and en-
slave manufacturers themselves, and are so far
from being intended to operate in their favor,
or in favor of a nation, that their end and effect
simply is to favor monied capital, which will
seize upon and appropriate to itself, the whole
profit of the bounty extorted from the people
by protecting duties ; and allow as scanty wa-
ges to its workmen, as it can. Monied capi-
tal drives industry without money out of the
market, and forces it into its service, in every
case where the object of contest is an enor-
mous income. The wages it allows to indus-
try are always regulated by the expence of

30 THE POLITICAL STATE

subsistence, and not by the extent of its gain.
Monied capitalists constitute an essential item
of a government modelled after the English
form. To advance this item, for the sake of
strengthening the government against the
people, and not for the sake of manufacturers,
is the object of protecting duties. True, will
saj many a reader, but that is not the design
here. Oh ! how reverential is the logician
who can prove, that an axe will cut under a
monarchy, but not under a republic.

Some king, I believe, requested the mercan-
tile class of his subjects, to ask of him a fa-
vour. The greatest, your majesty can grant
us, said they, is, to let us alone. Protecting
duties are such favours to manufacturers, as
the pretended favors of kings are to mer-
chants. They impoverish their customers,
the agriculturists, lind place over themselves
an order of masters called capitalists, which
intercepts the profit, destined, without legal
interposition, for industry. Many other argu-
ments might be urged to prove that protect-
ing duties beget the poverty of manufacturers,
but this is not my subject. To that I return.

The bitterest pill which the English go-
vernment compelled our agriculture to swal-
low before the revolution, was, the protecting
duty pill, or an equivalent drug, gilded with
the national advantage of dealing with fellow
subjects ; and, afler having gone through a
long war to get rid of this nauseous physick,
we have patiently swallowed it, gilded also by
other doctors with the national advantage of
dealing with fellow citizens : The power and
wealth of the political doctors, who have re-
commended these self same political drugs,

OF AGRICrLTTIRE. 31

depended considerably in both eases, on their
being swallowed.

I will suppose that our protecting duties do
not exceed the average amount of 25 per cen-
tum, that they had expelled every^article of fo >
reign manufacture, and bestowed on our bro-
ther citizens a complete monopoly of our ma-
nufactural wants, and an ability to supply
them. I will suppose too in favor of a pro-
ject, which must depend on concessions to
obtain the respect of examination, that the a-
gricultural interest shall be able after this
blessed desideratum of the protecting duty sys-
tem is obtained, to get at its old markets the
same price for its products, and annually bring
home the whole in gold or silver, for the use
of our own capitalists and monopolizers. This,
have said many great ministers of state, who
had no knowledge ofagricultnre, would com-
plete its prosperity.

It is the prosperity of giving one fourth a-
bove the market price for all the manufac-
tures it needs. It is the boon of returning
with empty ships from ports, at which the
same things can be bought for one fourth less.
It is the boon of a direct tax or a system of
excise, to supply the revenue, which the suc-
cess of the project would annihilate.

o2 THE POLITICAL STATE

NUMBER 7.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTURE,

CO^'TINUED.

The blessings of complete success in the plan
of expelling foreign manufactures, by raising
bounties upon Airrieulture. mav be exhibited
by figures upon data, hoNvever conjectural in
ftmount, correct in principle. Suppose agri-
culture aanuallT to brins; home forty millions
of dollars, she would be annually robbed of
ten millions, by a protecting duty of 25 per
centum, for the benefit of capitalists. Sup-
pose her share of the taxes, state and continen-
tal, to be 15 millions, and that out of the re-
maining fifteen, she has five millions to pay to
bankers ; ten will remain, leaving her an an-
nual income per poll of about, St. 50 for build-
ing houses, paying expenecs and improving
lands. But if we take into the account, that
foreignnations neither would nor could pay our
agriculturists with specie for their produce,
that they y> ould countervail upon this prepos-
terous project, and that every countervailing
act of theirs, would operate upon our agricul-
tural products, even this Si. 50 would become
the victim of retaliation, and leave the farmer
asfundless for purchasing manufactures, as
for improving his land.

This blessed scheme of shutting up its mar-
kets, for the encouragem.ent of agriculture,
has been wonderfully overlooked as a means
for encouraging manufactures. In the latter
case, markets are eagerly sought for, and bar-

tev universally allowed. Eiw^lantl takes spe-
cial care not to limit the sales of her manu-
faclures tdirectly or indirectly to retuj^-ns in
specie, knowing that the attempt would des-
troy them. She eadows them witJi the liome
moaopoly, and f i^eedom to make the best bar-
gains in all the foreign markets they «an get
to. M94iujCacturii3g is her staple : agriculture
is ours.

The United States hit exactly upon the. same
nwMle for the encouragement of our agricul-
ture after the revolution that the ling! ish did
before it, for the purpose of pillaging it, E-
.Vicry congress has adhered to their predeces-
sors in the same policy. The agriculturists t«
get rid of it fought England, and having evin-
ced their power to control a great nation, are
q^uietly submitting to this spectre of patriot-
ism.

The English before the revolution, quarter-
jed uponour agriculture, a necessity of buying
its manufactures at home, or within the em-
pire, whilst it enjoyed the equivalents of beiiig
free from their taxation, from paying any of
theint^rest of iheir paper systems from eon-
ti'jbutions for supporting their armies, navies,
bishops and pensioners, fi-om the frauds of
their treasury system, and of sharing in the
enhanced prices, produced by fraud which did
not reach the provinces. The same system
inilicted by coLgress, is attended with none of
^hese equivalents. Agriculture pays and must
ibrever pay most of wliatever is collected by
r. taxes, by charters, by protecting duties, hy pa-
per systems of every kind> for armies, for na-
vies, and though last, not the least of its los-
ses, of wbatever the nation is defrauded by a

4r.

Si THE POIITICAI STATE

treasury sysf em 'operating in darkness. If
the taxes are directly laid on property, agri-
culture pays nearly the whole of them ; if on
consumptions, an unequal share, because of
the greater nuntber of hands she employs than
any other business, and the smaller profit de-
rived from their labor. Had our policy, in-
stead of assailing agriculture, with the En-
glish system of quartering upon her a legion
of legal separate interests (to resist which she
had spent her blood and treasure in a long war
with that nation) been guided by these consi-
derations, she would not have been subjected to
the very evils, to avoid which, she had so re-
cently and gloriously persevered through that
war.

The eifcets of yolving agriculture to armies,
navies, paper frauds, treasury frauds, and pro-
tecting duty frauds since a revolution, which
it labored for, like the ox who tills the crop
to be eaten by others, are visibly an increase
of emigration, a decrease in the fertility of
land, sales of landed estates, a decay and im-
poverishment both in mind and fortune of the
landed gentry, and an exchange of that honest,
virtuous, patriotic and bold class of men, for
an order of stock-jobbers in loans, banks, ma-
nufactories, contracts, rivers, roads, houses,
ships, lotteries, and an infinite number of infe-
rior tricks to get money, calculated to instill
opposite principles.

All the varietjes of this order receive boun-
ties, and agriculture pays them. They gain
from six to twenty per centum profit on their
capitals; agriculture seldom or never gains
six. except in a few southern instances. In
fact, it vei'y rarely gains any thing, if an m-

OFAGRICtlTDRE. 35

come, derived frem an impoverishment of the
land, ill deserves the name of profit.

The injustice of superadding upon agricul-
ture these unnecessary burdens to those which
are necessary, is illustrated by supposing the
duties upou foreign manufactures to he only
^VG per centum, and nearly or quite all our
duties are above the supposition. To such
duties are still to be added the profits of the
Kuglish and American merchants, through
Avhose hands the goods pass, and the freight.
These duties, profits and freight would alone
constitute an encouragement to home manu-
factures of at least twenty per centum ; a sum
quite adequate to any encouragement which
honest policy would defend, or common jus-
tice suffer. And as all the occasional calami-
ties of commerce, are losses to agriculture,
and prizes to manufactures, her fatuity in
kneeling like the camel ta receive hurdens,
imder the notion that she is receiving boun-
ties, can have no antithesis more perfect, than
the species of dexterity whick inflict's th'-mi

36 THE POI.ITICAL STAl^B

ismiBEH S.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTI/RE,
CONTINUEEk.

^rotexjting du lie's to eiirieli manu^ieturcrsF^
tife like baulks to enrich farmers, bishops to
save sonls, or feiKlai lords to defend nations^
Englattd has demonstrated the chapacter of
each member of this kindred qaartumviratei
PriJtected by feudal lords, it was conquered'
almost by every invader : taught by bishops*.
corrUi)t:ion^ having been distilled through all
inferior iiinks, de[>osits its essence in this re-
verend order of servility and sellishness ; en-
riched by bankers, farmers flee from the culti-
vation oJ'lands, which yield the higbest nomi-
nal returns to agricultural labor of any in ihe^
world, until a siurplus' of bread is eschangecf
for a deficiency ; and led with the endless
bounties of protecting duties, one sixth of the
labouring manufacturers, constantly occupy
prisons or poor houses, whilst the rest may be
said to die daily upon their daily wages.

Monarchies and aristocracies, being found-
ed in the principle of distributinjj: wealth by
law, can only subsist l^y frauds and deceptions
to dupe ignorance into an opinion, that such dis-
tributions are intended for is benefit ; but in
genuine republics founded on the principle of
leaving wealth to be distributed by merit and
industry, these treaclicries of government aro
treasons against nations,

They substitute the principle which consti-

OF AGRICULTURE. 37

tutes an aristocracy, for the principle which
constitutes a true republic ,• strike with a fa-
tal ignorance, or a sordid malignity, at the
heart of the political system ; and effect a
fraudulent and treasonable revolution.

My fellow labourers, mechanical or agricul-
tural, let us never be deluded into an opinion,
that a distribution of wealth by the govern-
ment or by Jaw, will advance our interest.-—
We are the least successful courtiers of any
rank in society, and of course have the worst
prospect of sharing in any species of wealth,
t)estowed by governments. It is both contra-
ry to the experience of all mankind, and even
impossible. "We constitute the majority of
nations. A minority administers governments
and legislates. Compare the probability of
its taking wealth from itself to give it to the
majonty, with that of its defrauding the ma-
jority to enrich itself and its parti zans ; and
you will account for the regular current of
experience. Consider, however splendidly a
minority may live upon the labours of a ma-
jority, that a majority cannot subsist upon
those of a minority, and you will see that it is
impossible for experience in future to teach a
different lesson.

Let us not flatter ourselves, that laws can be
made to enable majorities to plunder these mi-
norities, or to plunder themselves ; or to fat-
ten a man by feeding him with slices cut from
his own body. If a scheme could be contriv-
ed in favor of agriculture, similar to the pro-
tecting duty scheme in favor of manufacturers,
it would enslave thefarmers as it does manufac-
turers. The utmost favor which it is possible
for a government to do for us farmers and me-

o.

3S THE POLITICAL STATE

clianics, is neither to help nor hurt us. The
first it cannot do, for whom can laws strip or
famish to clothe or feed the vast majority we
compose. Aware that fraud or oppression
cannot permanently subsist, except by feeding
on majorities, those who compose these majo-
rities, if they are wise, never fail to see that
their interest points to a republican form of
government, for the very purpose of prevent-
ing tlie passage of laws for quartering or pas-
turing on them minor interests. These ma-
jorities are the jjasture upon which all minor
factitious interests, however denominated, fat-
ten ; and it vf ould be as unnatural for majori-
ties to fatten upon such legal minor interests,
as for pastures to eat the herds grazing on
them.

The interest of labour covers every national
majority, and every legal bounty is paid by la-
bour. This interest cannot receive legal
bounties, because there cannot exist a treasu-
ry for their payment. The utmost boon with
which government can endow it, is the enjoy-
ment of that portion of its own earning, which
i]ie public good can spare. Whenever boun-
ties are pretended to be bestowed on labour,
by priviieges to feudal barons to defend it, to
bishops to save it, or to capitalists or bankers
to enrich it, an aristocratical order is unavoid-
ably erected to pilfer and enslave it ; because
though majorities cannot be enriched or enno-
bled by bounties or privileges, minorities can ^
and these bounties or privileges must of course
settle, not against, but conformably with the
laws of nature, both moral and physical.

The farce of legal favor or encouragement,
has been so dexterously acted in England, to
delude both the agricultural and mechanical

OF AGRICtJlTURE. 39

interest, llie interest of labour, or the majority
of the nation, as to have delivered this majo-
rilj, shackled by protecting duties, bounties
and prohibitions, into the hands of an inconsi-
derable monied aristocracy, or combination of
capitalists. Into this net, woven of intricate
frauds and ideal credit, the majority of the
nation, the interest of labour, the agricultu-
rists and mechanics have ruH, after the baits
held out by protecting duties, bounties and
prohibitions. From its dreams of wealth it is
awakened under the fetters of a monied aris-
tocracy, and unfortunate as Prometheus, it is
destined to eternal and bitter toil to feed this
|>olJtieal liarpy, and to suffer excruciating
anguish from its insatiable voraciousness. —
Sometimes this net has been baited to catch
mechanics, at others to catch agriculturists,
and perhaps it is but just, that these real bre-
thren interests should fatten the alien tribe of
stockjobbers, as a punishment for manifesting
a disposition to devour each other.

We farmers and mechanics have been poli-
tical slaves in all countries, because we are
political fools. We know how to convert a
wilderness into a paradise, and a forest into
palaces and elegant furniture ; but we have
been taught by those whose object is to mono-
polize the sweets of life, which we sweat fo'^,
that politics are without our province, and in
us a ridiculous affectation ; for the purpose of
converting our ignorance into the screen of re-
gular advances, which artificial interests or
legal factions, are forever making in straight
or zigzag lines, against the citadel of our
rights and liberties. Sometimes after one of
these marauding families have pillaged for a
thousand years, we detect the cheats rise in

40 THE POLITICAL STATE

the majesty of our strength, drive away the
thief, and sink again into a lethargy of intel-
lect so gross, as to receive him next day in a
new coat as an accomplished and patriotic
stranger, come to cover us with benefits. —
Thus we got rid of tythes, and now we clasp
banks, patronage and protecting duties, to
our bosoms. Ten per centum upon labour was
paid to a priesthood, forming a body of men
which extended knowledge, and cultivated
good morals, as some compensation for form-
ing also a legal faction, guided by the spirit of
encroachment upon the rights and property of
the majority. Forty per centum is now paid
on our labour, to a legal faction guided by the
same spirit, and pretending to no religion, to
no morality, to no patriotism, except to the re-
ligion, morality and patriotism of making it-
self daily richer, which it says will enrich the
nation, just as the self same faction has en-
riched England. This legal faction of capi-
talists, created by protecting duties, bankers
and contractors, far from being satisfied with
the tythe claimed by the old hierarchy, will,
in the case of the mechanics, soon appropriate
the whole of their labour to its use, beyond a
bare subsistence ; though in the case of far-
mers, it has yet only gotten about four times
as much of theirs, as was extorted by the odi-
ous, oppressive, and fraudulent tythe system.
"We know death very well, when killing with
one scythe, but mistake him for a deity, be?*
cause he is killing with four.

OF AGEICTJtT UREr M

NUMBER 9>

TKE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTrRK-;,
CONTINUED.

Prosperity neitlier in manufactures, nor m
paper speculalions, is ever expected without a
capital, ami yet capital is filched from agrieul-
tare, under the pretence that it will produce
her prosperity. The capital thus iilched is
made by laws to yield a better profit without
labor, than it could with it, ami becomes a
pi*emium offered hy government to those who
desert the labors of agricultui^e. Hence we
see capital flying from the iields, to the legal
monopolies^ banking and manufacturing. The
laws have established a thousand modes by
which capital will produce quicker and larger
profits, than when employed in tlie slow im-
provements of agriculture. ^Phese bribes of-
fered to its deserters have already produced
the most ruinous consequences. Avarice eve-
ry where seizes them with avidity, and rails at
agriculture, as sordid and unpatriotic, for
wishing to withhold them; as the vulture
might have railed at Prometheus, for wishing
to keep his liver. The best informed agricul-
turists are driven for self defence, or seduced
fey the temptations of the wealth, with which
they are solicited, to sell their lands, which re^
quire labor, for the purchase of a better profit
requiring none , or at least to divert to this
object, whatever capital accident or industry
»iay have throw n into their hands. And the

4^ THE POIITICAL STATU

capital thus drained froDi the uses of agricul-
ture, hy this irresistible and perpetual legal
system, has reduced it to a skeleton for want
of uourishment.

Strickland, the English farmer, who came
to this country with the intention of escaping
from the agricultural oppressions of his own,
and returned disgusted, discovered and des-
cribed this death-inflicting operation in the
52d and 53d pages of his pamphlet. ** Be-
fore the revolution, '* says he, '* the capital
" of the country was vested in the lands, and
** the landed proprietors held the first rank in
" the country for opulence and information,
*< and in general received the best education
"^^ which America, and not unfrequently, Eu-
** rope, could aiford them. '^ Now, ** the ca-
** pital, as well as the governmeat of the coun-
** try has slipt out of the hands of land ow-
*' ners ; and these new people are euiplbyed
** in very different, and, in the present state of
'Hbings, more productive speculations than
** the cultivation of lands ; in speculations
'• frequently at variance with the hest inier-
" ests of the country. In some of the states,
** the gentlemen of landed property have pa&-
** sed iato perfect oblivion; in none do they
" bear the sway, or even possess their due
*' share of iLvHueace.'^ On the eleventh day of
January, 1797, a committee was raised in
eongress for the promotion of agriculture wha
reported "That the encouragement of agricul-
** ture is an object highly worthy the public
*< attention, as it constitutes the most useful
*» employment for our citizens, is the basis of
** manufactures and commerce, and the richest
f* source of Bjitioaal wealth and prosperity-^

OFAGRICDLTlTHli. 4^3

^' and that ilie seience of agriculture was in
<* its infancy." One would have thought that
these sentiments would have suggested the
folly of starving tlds useful infant, to fatten
the pernicious legal infant called capital ; of
compressing one into a dwarf 6c stretching the
other into a giant. No such thing. It was dan-
dled a little, A toy for its am usemept called
^* the American Society of Agriculture/' was
talked of. This toy was found to he uncoa-
stilutional,hecause it would add hut little to
the power of the general government, and the
inftint was turned to graze in impoverished
fields. The constitution was construed to ex-
clude congress from the power of fostering a-
grieuUure by patents or bounties, and to give
it the power of fostering banks and manufac-
tures by patents and bounties ; and a republi-
can and agricultural people plunged into this
absurdity, to advance the project of a states-
man in favor of monarchy. A-grieulture, in
its floundering, like an ox whilst breaking,
gave the statesman a tumble, and then tame-
ly submitted to the yoke he had fashioned^a

.4i Tee POLITlCi-X STAUiB

?^UMBER 10.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTU:RE,
CONTINUED.

As agrieultural iiuprovements cannot ht
rnade without capital ; as capital will not be
employed in tlijem, if itcan find more profita-
ble employment ; as the laws Jiave created a
variety of employments for capital, attracting
it by bounties and premiums drawn from agri-
culture ; and as this subtraction from on-e and
addition to the others^ have caused capital in-
vested under such legal patronage to be more
profitable than when employed in agricultural
improvements ; it follows, that such iir.prove-
ments cannot take place, whilst a policy so
completely fitted to counteract them, remains*
Bring before your mind -some twenty or thirty
modes of employing capital, and imagine that
one of them produces the least profit and most
toil ; and farther, that this one is oppressed in
Various ways to advance the prosperity of all
tlie rest. Could one of the emblems of agri-
culture himself (mentioned in'the last number)
conceive, ihat capital would fly from all t}iO
profitable modes, to acquire comparative penu-
ry and exclusive toil in the service of the un-
profitable mode ; or be persuaded, that an ut-
ter destitution of capital can advance the pros-
perity of this one mode, whilst he is told on
all hands, that capital alone can advance that
of every other? This is not aa imaginary,
bat a real casc^

OF AGRICULTURE. 45

The project of creating a race of capitalists,
as an engine to endow the government with
more power, seems to me to be unfavorable to
all the callings and interests of society, save
to the calling of governing, and the calling of
capitalists. Whilst agriculture is more par-
ticularly impoverished by it, that impoverish-
ment contains a resulting blow for every thing
>vhich a fertile country and a flourishing agri-
^ culture nurtures ; and the bounty of protect-
%ing duties will inflict upon the manufeeturers
themselves, or real workmen, in lieu of com-
fort and competence, which a multitude of them
would gain by free industry, an impossibility
of obtaining either, with the consolatory pros-
pert of the viist weal til of tli€ir masters, the
capitalists.

Under the same system, England, the most
fertile country in the world, wants bread. Ar-
thur Young states, that a portion of that coun-
tr , , suflicing, if cultivated to make England
a great exporter of bread stuff, lies uncultiva-
ted. The average crop of wheat in England is
about 35 bushels an acre, and the average
price about 15s. a bushel sterling. Yet capi-
tal finds better employment under this system
there, than in agriculture. This exorbitant
price is therefore an insufficient equivalent
for the oppression It suffer-^ from the system.
The average crop of wheat in some states is as
low as five, in none above ten bushels to the a-
cre, and the average price about five shillings
sterling. Will one seventh or one fourth of
the crops, and one third of the price here, e-
nable agriculture to bear a system, under
v/hich, with a product and priee! ten or twen-
ty fold better, it is not enabled to supply a

M .TUE. iPOtlTICAl &Ti.TE

nation yriih bread ? An acre of wheat in En-
gland produces to the farmer 36 L bs. sterling ;
here in some states 1 1 10.9., in others dL ster-
ling. uVnd here tiie profits of money-jobbing,
or capitalists, are as great as in England.-?-
If agriculture with such products and prices,
is so bad a business there, compared with cre-
dit-jobbing, as to be unable to raise bread for
the nation, what fate do our products and pri-
ces pronounce upon it here ?

A material difference between the landed
interest of the United Slates and of England,
is the funeral dirge of the former. There it
is distinct from agricultnre, and associated
"with the aristocracy of capitalists. Here it is
united with agriculture, and fated witiiout e-
cjuiYalent to feed that aristocracy. There it
is a landlord, here it is a tenant. There its
rents supply it with capital to embark in the
legal money sponges for absorbing the earn-
ings of labor ; here it is labor itself whose
earnings these money sponges absorb. There
It is fed with the most delicious morsels of
royal patronage, afforded by a system for pil-
fering not landlords, but labor : here, but a
few of these morsels fall to its share, and these
have been previously carved frpm its own
carcase. There the interest of idleness legis-
lates, and it legislates in favor of idleness.—
Here the interest of labor legislates, and it ^I-
00 legislates in favor ^f idleness*

or iLGHICTTLTlTRE. 47

NUMBER 11,

tHE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTURE,

CONTINUJiD.

^he political evils wliieh bear upon agri-
culture, are a pi'ovidenee which will unaltera-
bly determine its fate, unless they are remov-
eiU and therefore the only remedy, which can
avert this fate is to remove them. I shall
quote Strickland but once more, because his
veracity is insufferable. I have selected hi-
therto his softest passaj^es, for he asserts, that
our soil is nearly a caput mortuum ; that oup
landed property is no longer an object of profit
or pleasure : — that few good houses are build-
ing in the country, or improvements of any
kind taking place ; and that the opulent are
quitting it for the towns. Bat when he says,
page 55, '* the mass of those we should call
** planters or farmers, are ignorant, uneduca-
ted, poor and indolent *' his veracity becomes
insolent. Has Mr. Strickland forgotten, that
we agriculturists had the sagacity to discover
that the English system of creating an order of
capitalists, was levelled directly at our prospe-
rity, and the magnanimous perseverance to
get rid of its authors ? Let him remember
this achievement, and forget what has become
of the system itself ; and then he will certain-
ly retract his severe censure upon our under-
standings and perseverance.

I would further ask Mr. Strickland, whe-
ther it is a very aocemmon thing even in ki's

4S IJHE POLITICAL STATE

enlightened England, for the people to mistake,
the shadow for the substance, or to follow
-their passions in pursuit of the oppressor, ra-
ther than their reason in pursuit of the op-
pression. In short, are not the pages of his-
tory replete with instances of destroying the
tyrant and retaining the tyranny ? And why
sliouid we agriculturists he called ignorant and
indolent, when we are only gulled, just as man-
Mnd in general, the enlightened citizens of
Europe, and his own fellow subjects are gul-
led ? Why should the good sense and constan-
cy of regarding the principle rather than the
agent, be exclusively expected of us ?

It is however certainly true, that nothing
©an flourish tinder oppression. Neither agri-
culture nor civil liberty can exist in declama-
tions, or be toasted into prosperity. Our
struggles, to resuscitate dying agriculture,
musi, like those of Sisyphus, yield to a stron-
ger depressing power. The plough can have
yery little success, until the laws are altered
which obstruct it. Societies for improving
the breed of sheep or the form of ploughs, will
he as likely to produce a good system of agri-
culture, under depressing laws^ as societies
for improving the English form of govern-
ment under their depressi^ig system of corrup-
tion. A good pen may produce a very bad
treatise.

Agricultural societies to take chance for
success, must begin with efforts to elect into
the general and state legislatures, a genuine a-
j^rieuitural interest, uneorrupted by stockjob-
bing, by a view of office, or by odious person-
al vices ; taking cai*e to combine talents with
this genuine character. Wise agricultural

0¥ AGIllCVI.T¥Ulfi. 49

elections, constitute the only chance for abro-
gating a policy, whieh is the ruin of agricultu-
ral prosperity.

The bounties, frauds and useless expences,
which strengthen the gOTernment and corrupt
the nation, and are drawing a rast annual capi-
lal from agriculture, w ould then be applied
to the invigoration of the militia. Such a
measure would return to manufactures and a-
griculture their own capital, and improve both
the nation'al soil and the national spirit. The
nation would exchange ineffectual armaments
for an irresistible ardor ; an impoverishing,
for an improving soil ; disrespect for itself and
its native haunts, for national pride and love
of country ; and a school of stock-jobbers ami
contractors for a school ol patriots. But agri-
culture and the militia receive abundance of
praise and an abundance of oppression and ne-
glect, nor can a mode of encouraging either
by law, be discovered, whilst no difficulty is
felt in rearing up mercenary armies, and
more mercenary capitalists for the same rea-
son. It is impossible by law to encourage a-
gricuUurc and the militia, and also capitalists
and standing armies.

The remedy of construing the constitution
honestly is a simple one. It cei'tainly intend-
ed to bestow as little power to tax agricui-
ture, in order to raise a bounty for manufac-
tures and credit corporations, as it^loes to tax
manufaf'tures, in order to raise a bounty for a-
griculture. Let the imposts be regaiated by
their constitutional intention, and agriculture
will cease to be oppressed b;^ bounties bestow-
ed by statesmen out of her purse to advance
their own designs. The words and sjiirit of

50 THE POriTICJtH STATE

the constitution are so entirely adverse to thff
idea of enabling congress to exercise a partia-
lity equivalent to the ruin or opulence of
states, relying distinctly upon agrimiltural or
manufactural staples of commerce, that the
iineonstitutionaliiy of the power, ought to ren-
der the policy of its exercise an unnecessary
enquiry. It is further unnecessary, because
however favorable it may be to capitalists, it
is subjugation even to manufacturers, and
must impoverish a vast majority of the people
in every state of the union to enrich a few, nei-
ther the necessity or advantage of which is
suggested by the constitution.

It is easy to withhold future charters for
establishing corporations to fleece agriculture
and manufactures ; it will be harder to repeal
those already granted. Yet there is no point
upon which the liberty of the nation more
certainly depends, than the subversion of the
doctrine of a judicial power, to turn laws inta
contracts, and render them irrepealable, un-
der a line of the constitution, which uses the
identical words ** law and contract" in differ-
ent senses. To try this doctrine, by which
charters, once the vehicles of liberty, are inge-
niously converted into vehicles of slavery, I
wish that congress would grantto a corporation
of capitalists, the exclusive privilege of furnish-
ing the country with manufactures for one
thousand years, with a stipulation for protect-
ing duties, equal to an exclusion, for the same
term. It would bring this momentous questi-
on to a fair decision whilst we have power to
consider it.

The last, though not the least political op-
pression upon agrieuUure; which I have select-

OT AGRICTTLTTTRfi? M

ed, for this short consideration of its political
state, is our treasury system, copied from the
English, and of course liable to the same a-
buses» It is so iitterJy destitute of any securi-
ty for the honest application of public money,
that no congress, committee of congress, .v
]piember of congress has ever examined the ac-
counts of a single year, or been able to form a
conjecture on the subject. The detail of checks
is a detail of dependence and subserviency,
and a tissue of ineffectual formality. The
money passes in gross sums into the hands of a
host of sub-treasurers. The system fell at
once into the grossest of those corruptions
which contaminate the British policy, that of
losing sight of money after its appropriation,
and considering it as constitutionally gone,
however small a proportion of its object was
obtained ; so that an army upon paper, costs
the same sum as an army in the field. This
subject is however too long and intricate to
follow away from that I am pursuing. This a-
huse in both countries endeavors to shrinkfrom
public view, behind screens called sinking
funds, for applying a surplus of revenue to
the payment of debt. These screens cover
pecuniary abuses against those annual critical
examinations of the items of public expendi-
ture, so wholesomely practised by state legis-
latures. Such annual examinations by con-
gress would probably leave with agriculture a
considerable amount of capital annually taken
from her, to enrich knaves ; for no other des-
cription of men can get a shilling from the o-
mission of an annual examination of the pub-
lic accounts. From the loan ofmoney inHeir

$2 T^E POLITICAL STATE

land to put the United States' Bank in mo-
tion, to this day, every minority has testified
to great pecuniary abuses ; and none when
converted into a majority, has ever provided
a remedy against them.

The only remedy in this ease, as in others.
Is to elect into congress a genuine agricultu-
ral interest, un corrupted by a mixture with
stock-jobbing, by a view of office, or by odious
personal vices, and eembined with good ta*
lepts.

O* AeRlCULTURE* $^>

KUMBER ±2.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRXCULTURS,
CONTINUED.

The political causes which oppress agricul-
ture have been considered, before the domestier
habits which vitiate it, to guard against the er-
ror of an opinion, that the latter may be re-
moved, whilst the foniier continue. So long
as the laws make it more profitable to invest
capital in speculations without labor, than ia
agriculture with labor ; and so long as the li-
berty of pursuing one's own interest exist 5
the two strongest human propensities, a love
of wealth, and a love of eas«, will render it
impossible. The reason why agricnlture 'm
better managed in Europe than in the United
States, is, the coercion of necessity upon the
laborers to improve it to the utmost. The
landed interest there and here, as was before
observed, entirely differ. The tenants or agri-^
eulturists are a species of slaves, goaded into
ingenuity, labor and economy, without pos-
sessing any political importance, or the least
share in the government. They are lashed
into a good system of agriculture in the same
way that good discipline is produced in an ar-
my ; and this good system of agriculture is
also for the beneiit of their landlords and le-
gislators, just as the good discipline of an ar-
my* is for the benefit of its generals and other
©fRcers. It is more out of the power of En-
glish tenants or agriculturist s, to beceme

S4 THE APOLITICAL STATE

landlords, capitalists or inaniifacturcrs, or tia^
©scape the coercion which forces them ttf
stretch the mind and the muscles after im-
provement, than of soldiers to desert . Howe-
rer thej maj move from place to place, like
horses transferred from owner to owner, ihey
are doomed tothesamefate. Oppression which
causes agricultural improvements in England,
will prevent it in the United States, beeatise
it cannot seize and hold fast the agricutturistr
There, he can only soften oppression by supe-
rior skill or industry. Here, he can flee from
it into a wilderness, or into a charter, and gain'-

freater proflt with les«; labor. "We copy the
Inglish frauds upon the agriculturists, forget-
ting that the English po^ver over him does
not exist here. That instead of being able to
lash him into exeelfence for the benefit of o-
thers, we can only solicit him by his own in-
tercut and happiness ; and that this solicita-
tion is au insult upon bis understanding, if it
honestly tells him, that government will esta-
blish the policy of scattering bounties at his ex-
pence, and of bestowing more profit and ease
upon paper capital or fraudulent credit, thatf
he can derive from solid land and honest labor.
Being free, if be is wise, he will prefer a share'
of profit and ease, to a share of loss and toil.
The cunning deelaimers in praise of those whtf
ehoose the yoke of evils, for the sake of getting
the yoke of blessings for themselves, only de-
ceive fools, so that wisdom as well as wealth
fs flying from the agricultural interest, and
taking up her residence with the policy of ma-
king capital employed under charters, in cre-
dit shops and in mannfaeturing, more profita-
Me than capital employee! in agrieulture.r^

0^ ASRlCUtTtRE^ 5B

This union in w isdom and wealth, Will in time
reduce agriculture to the European regimen,
and the agriculturists to the grade of tenants
to a system for fostering dealers in money and
credit, at the exp^nce of the makers of hread,
meat and cloth. This system, however slow-
ly, certainly creates a class of rich and wise,
and a class of poor and ignorant, and termi^
nates of course in some Europe^a form of go*
Ternuicnt.

I have heard it said that the weight of ta*
lents in Congress* has already appeared very
visibly against the agriculturists. J^et us not
deceive ourselves by ascribing this to popular
folly in elections. It is owing to the transit
of wealth and of course wisdom, from agricul-
ture to its natural enemies, charter and privi-
lege. This constant process diminishes daily"
the chance for elections to hit on agricultural
talents and will soon destroy the power to ob-
tain them. If the fact exists as to a deficien-
cy of these talents in Congress, it proves the
existence of a moral system which begets that
fact, and discloses the inevitable fate of the
agricultural interest.

To the force of this baleful system, as well
as to the brevity proper for an essayist, some
of the defects sprinkled throughout the view I
have taken of the political state of agricul-
ture, ought injustice to be ascribed ; and if it
fails to excite the agriculturists in and out of
Congress to look iuto their situation, it will
only prove that the system has already had its
effect on the author or his readers. Charter-
ed knowledge is kept alive by its associations,
and charlercd intf^rests advanced by frequent
aad mature coasultatioas. An imitation Df

M a?HE POLITIC Ali STATE

this example is the only mode af reviving agri-
eulturai knowledge, and of obtaining justice
for agricultural interest. And if the sugges-
tion «f establishing agricultural societies in
each Congressional district, for the purpose of
considering and explaining respectfully to
Congress, what does it good, and what does it
harm, in imitation of other interests, should
be adopted by Agriculture, it may at least
rt-quire the capacity of distinguishing between
good aiid evil. (Note A.)

OF A^RlCm/TJlS,^. ^7

NUMBER 13.

SLAVERY •

0

i^Cegro slavery is a misfortune to agriculture,
fucapable of removal, and only within the reach
of palliation. The state legislatures, hopeless
of removing all its inconveniences, have been
led by their despair to suffer all ; and among
them, one of a magnitude sufficient to affect
deeply the prosperity of agriculture, and
threaten awfully the safety of the country ; I
allude to the policy of introducing by law inta
society, a race or nation of people between the
masters and slaves, having rights extremely
different from either, called free negroes an4
mulattoes. It is not my intention to consider
the peril to which this policy exposes the safe-
ty of the country, by the excitement to insur-
rection with which it perpetually gcads the
slaves, the channels for communication it af-
fords, and the reservoir for recruits it provides v
I shall only observe, that it was tiiis very po-
licy, Avhich first doomed the whites, and then
the mulattoes themselves, to the fate suffered
by both in Saint Domingo ; and which contri^
butes greatly to an apprehension so often exhi-
bited. Being defined by experience in that
country, and by expectation in this, it is unne-
cessary for me to consider the political conse-
quences of this policy.

My present object is to notice its influence
on agriculture. I'his so entirely depends on
slaves in a great proportion of the union, that

6m

^S SXAYERY.

it mnst be deeply affected by wbatcver shall
indispose them to labor, render them intrac-
table, or entice them into a multitude of crimes
and irregularities. A free negro and mulatto
class is exactly calculated to effect all these
ends. They live upon agriculture as agents
OF brokers for disposing of stolen products, and
•diminish its capital, both to the extent of these
stolen products, and also to the amount of the
labour lost in carrying on the trade.

They wound agriculture in the two modes
of being an unproductive class living upon it,
like a stock-jobber or capitalist class, and of
diminishing the utility of the slaves. This
latter mode might be extended to a multitude
of particulars, among which, rendering the
slaves less happy, compelling masters to use
more strictness, disgusting them with agricuL
ture itself, and greatly diminishing their abi^
lity to increase the comforts, and of course the
utility of slaves, would be items deeply trench-
ing upon its prosperity It is however unne-
cessary to prove what every agriculturist iii
the slave states experimentally knows, namely
that his operations are greatly embarrassed,
and his efforts retarded, by circumstances hav-
ing the class of free negroes for their cause.

'1 he only remedy is to get rid of it. This
measure ought to be settled by considerations
of a practical moral nature, and not by a mo-
ral hypotbesis, resembling several mechani-
cal inventions incarcerated at Washington,
beautiful and ingenious, but useless. It is sub-
stantial, not baiioon morality, by which the
questions ought to be considered ; wliether a
severance of the free negro class from the
whites and slaves, w ill benefit or injure eithci'

SLAVERY. 59

of the three classes ; or whether it will henefit
or injure a majority of them as constilutiiig one
body ? The situation of the free negro class
is exactly calculated to force it into every
species of vice. Cut off from most of the
rights of citizens, and from all the allowances
of slaves, it is driven into every species of
crime for subsistence, and destined to a life
of idleness, anxiety and j>;uilt. The slaves
more widely share in its guilt, than in its frau-
dulent acquisitions. They owe to it the per-
petual pain of repining at their own conditio
on by having an object of comparison before
their eyes, magnified by its idleness and thefts
with impunity, into a temptation the most al-
luring to slaves ; and will eventually owe to
it the consequences of their insurrections.-
The whites will reap also a harvest of conse-
quences from the free negro class, and thro'-
out all their degrees of rank suffer much in
their morals from the two kinds of intercourse
maintained with it. If vice is misery, this
middle class is undoubtedly placed in a stated
of misery itself, and contribuies greatly to
that of the other two. The interest of virtue
therefore, as well as sound policy, is allied
with the interest of agriculture, in recommen-
ding the proposed severance. If it should not
benefit every individual of the three classes,
as is probable, no doubt can exist of its bene-
fitting a majority of each, and a very great
majority of the whole. No injury, but much
good 10 the whites and slaves is perceivable in
the measure. And relief from the disadvan-
tages of inferior rights, from the necessity of
living in a settled course of vice, and from the
iiangers porteiwlcd to it bv a eommstion among

60 SXAYERT.

the slaTes, promises g^reat benefits to the fl»ee
negro class itself from a severance.

It may be easily effected by purchasing of
Congress lands sufficient for their subsist, nee
in states where slavery is not allowed, and giv-
ing tliem the option of removing to those
lands, or emigrating wherever they please. —
Perhaps both the national safety and prosperi-
ty would justify a harsher measure. To ad-
Tance both by bestowing rewards, cannot be
severe, unjust or illiberal.

At least it will be admitted by those ae?-
quaicted with the subject, that the prosperity
of agriculture is considerably influenced bj
the eircumstances alluded to in this number.

SLAVERY, 61

jSUMBER li.

SLAVERY, CONTINUED.

Soejcties are instituted to control and di-
minish the imperfections of human nature,
because without them it generates ignorance,
savagencss and depravity of manners. Those
best constitutedj cannot however cure it af a
disposition to command, and to live by the la-
bor of others ; it is eternally forming sub-so-
cieties for acquiring power and wealth, and to
these perlldious, ambitious, avaricious or un-
constitutional sub-societies, the liberty and
property of the rest of the body politic has u-
iiivcrsally faUen a fvey. They are of a civil
or military complexion, or of botli, as the cir-
cumstances ort'lie case may require fraud or
ibrce. Anliently, ilm general ignorance of
mankind, caused the frauds of superstition to
suffice for working the ends of traitorous sub-
societies. As these became exploded, the
more intricate pecurilary frauds were resort-
ed to. New, on account of the increasing
knowledge and more prying temper of man-
kind, military force is united with pecuniary
frauds. And hitherto the most perfect socie-
ty for the public good, has never been able to
defend itself against sub-societies in some form
for ad^^apcing tlie wealth or power of a faction
or a particular interest. Combine with this
universal experience, that it is impossible to
conceive a form of society better calculated to
excite and foster factions or sub-societies, tbau.

o.

G'2 ^i^AYERY. '

one ecjistiluled of distinct colors, incurable
prejiidjces, and inimicable interests, and the
inferences are unaToidable. If the badges of
foolish names can drive men into phrenzy
^vitlioiit cause, will not those which powerful-
ly assail both reason and the senses, create
deadly factions.

The attempt will undoubtedly terminate ac-
coT ding to the nature of man, as it has once
already terminated ; but its catastrophe ought
rather to be courted than avoided if the author
of the Notes on Yirginia is right in the follow-
ing quotations. " The whole commerce be-
tween master and slave" says he ^^ is aperpe-
*^ tual exercise of the most boisterous passi-
^ ons, the most unremitting despotism on one
^'^part, and degrading submissions on the other.
^< The parent storms, the child looks on^
*■* catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the
^< same airs in the circle of smaller slaves,
^^ gives a loose to his v/orst of passions, and
*^ thus nursed, educated and daily exercised
^^ in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with
<■* odious peculiarities. The man must be a
** prodigy who can retain his manners and mo-
** rals undepraved by such circumstances. —
«^ The Almighty has no attribute which can
«« take side with us in such a contest." Such
^s the picture exhibited in the Notes on Yir-
ginia of "the manners" of the people, without
a single palliating circumstance ; and Winter-
botliam in his history of America has qiioted
and varnished it anew.

No man has been less accustomed than the
author of the Notes on Yirginia to paint his
opinions, for the same reason that an Indian
paints his body ; and yet from reading the

sLAVEny; $4

Wliole chapter on llie manners of <hat state, a
stranger would hardly form a more correct i-
dea of them, than a stranger to Indians would
of their color, on seeing one painted coal
black. Circumstances aftect the mind, as
weatlier does beer, and frequently produces a
sort of moral fermentation, which throws up
bubbles of prismatic splendor, whilst they are
played upon by the rays of some temporary
effervescence, but destined to burst when the
fermentation ceases. The Notes on Virginia
were written in the heat of a war for liberty f
the human mind was made still hotter by
the French revolution ; and let those who
were insensible of the mental fermentation*
and moral bubbles generated by these causes,
eensure Mr. Jefferson* I should be unjust to
do it.

If Mr. Jefferson'^s assertions are correct, it
is better to run the risque of national extinc-
tion, by liberating and fighting the blacks^
than to live abhorred of God, and consequent-
ly hated of man. If they are erroneous, they
ou.j;ht not to be admitted as arguments forilie
emancipating policy. The considerations,
which this chapter of impassioned eensure of
slave holders, inspire, are too extensive for a
liasty essay, but a few of them may be noti-
ced. I shall pass over the enlistment of ih^
Deity in the question with an humble hope^
that his justice and mercy do not require the
whites and blacks to be placed in such a rela-
tive situation, as that one color must estia-
giiish the other ; and as inclining to think the
enrolment of his name en the side of the slaves
somewhat like a charge of inattention to hl&
owa attributes; in apparently siding with ms3^

54 SjuAvuriT-

ters througlicttt all ages and among most na-
tions hitherto, the liberating St. Domingo
masters excepted; and not a little tinged with
impiety. Slavery was carried farther among
the Greeks and Romans than among ourselves,
and yet, these two nations produced more great
and good patriots and citizens, than, probably,
all the rest of the world. In the United States
it is also probable that the public and private
character of individuals is as good, as in the
countries where loco-motive liberty and slave-
ry to a faction, exist ; nor do the slave states
seemless productive of characters in whom the
Rationis willinsr to confide than the others. K-
ven the author oftlie quotation himself may be
fairly adduced as an instance which refutes e-
very syllable of his chapter on Yirginia man-
ners, unless indeed this refutation, and an a-
bundanee of others like it, can be evaded by
forming the best citizens into a class of pro-
digies or monsters, to evade the force of emi-
nent virtues towards the refutation of errone-
ous assertions.

TJiese facts are referred to the considera-
tion of the physiologist. To me it seems, that
slaves are loo far below, and too much in the
power of the master, to inspire furious passi-
(uiSj* that sucli are nearly as rare and disgrace-
ful towards slaves as towards horses ; that
slaves are more frequently the objects of be-
nevolence than of rage : that children from
their nature are inclined to soothe, and hardly
ever suffered to tA rannize over them : that
they open instead of shut the sluices of bene-
Tolence in tender minds ; and that few good
public or private characters have been raised
in countries enslaved by some faction or pa?-

SlJLVEET. 6^

ticular interest, than in tliose wliere personal
slavery existed.

I conjecture the cause of this to be, that vi-
cious and mean qualities become despicable in
the eyes of freemen, from their associatioa
with the character of slaves. Character, like
condition is contrasted, and as one contrast
causes us to love liberty better, so the other
causes u& to love virtue better. Qualities,
odious in themselves, become more con-
temptible, when united with the most de-
graded class of men, than when seen witk
our equals ; and pride steps in to aid the strug-
gles of virtue. Instead therefore of fearing
that children should imbibe the qualities of
slaves, it is probable, that the circumstance
of seeing bad qualities in slaves will contri-
bute to their virtue.

For the same reason the submisssion and
flatteryof slaves will be despised, and cause
us rather to hate servility than to imbibe a
dictatorial arrogance ; & only inspire the same
passion with the submission and flattery of a
Spaniel. It is the submission and flattery of
equals, which fills men with the impudent and
wicked wish to dictate, & an impatience of free
opinion & fair discussion. This reprehensibls
temper is a sound objection againvSt any species
of human policy, which generates it, and ap-
plies most forcibly against that conferring on
an individual a power, so to dispense money &
honors, as to procure submission and flattery
from the highest ranks and eoiidilions in soci-
ety, a thousand times more genial to pride,
than the submission and flatlery of a poop
slave ; and ten thensand tiiaei mor« ;gerai«il
oas to nalieiis.

66 si/iVEnr.

Tir(ae and vice are naturally and unavoid-
a])ly coexistent in the moral world, as beautj
and deformity are in the animal ; one is the
only mirror in which the other can be seen,
and therefore in the present state of man> one
cannot be destroyed without the other. It
may be thus that personal slavery has cott-
stantly reflected the strongest rays of civil 11-
l3erty and patriotism <* Perhaps it is suffered
by the deity to perform an ofiiee tvithout which
these rays are gradually obscured and finally
obliterated by charters and partial laws. Per-
haps the sight of slavery and its viees may in-
spire the mind with an aflection for liberty
and virtue, just as the climates and desarts of
Arabia, would liiake it think Italy a paradise.
Let it not be supposed that i approve of sla-
very because I do not aggravate its evils, or
prefer a policy which must terminate in a war
of extermination. The chapter oii the man*
ners of slave-holders before quoted^ concludes
with an intimation, that the consent of tho^
masters to a general emancipation, or their
own extirpation, were the alternatives between
which they had to choose. Such a hint from
a profound mind is awful. It admits an abi-
lity in the blacks, though shackled by slavery,
to extirpate the whites, and proposes to in-
crease this ability by knocking off their shac-
kles. Such a hint adds fwrce to the recom-
mendation in the previous essay for separating
the enslaved and free blacks, as some securily
against the prognosticated extirpation. And
after such a hint, ** with what execration
should the statesman be loaded" who thus
forewarned, should produce the destruction of
ike most civilized portie» of soeietv, and re-

SLlVERT. 67

people half tlic world with savages. If En-
gland and America would erect and foster a
settlement of free negroes in some fertile part
of Africa, it would soon subsist by its own e-
nergies. Slavery might then be gradually re-
exported, and philanthropy gratified by a slow
reanimation of the virtue, religion and liberty
of the negroes, instead of being again afflicted
with the effects of her own rash attempts sijdl-
denly to change human nature,
(>;foteB,)

NUMBER 15k

OVERSEERS.

So far from haying a system of agriculture
among us, very few have even taken the trou-
ble to discover or provide any basis for one.—
Had Arehimides proposed to move the earth
without any thing for himself or his mechan-
ism to stiind on, or an architect to erect a city
without a foundation, such projects would havQ
been equivalent to ours for erecting a system
o agriculture upon the basis of the impove-
rishment of the land. Of what avail is any
rotation of crops, the best contrived imple-
ments of husbandry, or the most perfect use
of those implements, applied to a barren soil ?
Could a physician correctly call the regular
administration of a slow poison a system of me-
dicine, because he used the best constructed
lancets, caudle cups, syringes and clyster pipes
in killiug his patient ?

It is absurd to talk of a system of agricul-
ture, without having discovered, that every
such system good for any thing, must be bot-
tomed upcn fertility. Before therefore, we
launch into any system, we must learn how to
enrich our lands. The soil of the United
States upon the Atlantic Ocean is naturally
lliin, and exceedingly impoverished. It pro-
duces however good crops, when made rich,
almost under any species of cultivation. To
make it rich therefore ought to be the first ob-
ject of our efforts; as without effecting tliis; aU

tfTERSEEHS, 69

4?tlier agvicuUural objects beneficial to our-
selves or our coimtry must fail. Instead of
this, for one acre enriched, at least twenty are
impoverished.

The disposition of our soil and climate to
reward husbandry bountifully, is disclosed in
the great returns bestowed upon bad culture,
by the very moderate degree of natural ferti-
lity, possessed by the former. The climate is
beyond our power, but the productiveness of
the soil without the help of art, is an encou-
ragement fo^ us to recollect how impiously we
have neglected the cultivation of a D^ity so
propitious. But this Deity lias a rival demoa
called ignorance, for whose worship the slave
states have erected an established church,
with a ministry, entitled overseers, fed, clotli-
ed and paid to suppress every effort for intro-
ducing the worship of its divine adversary.—
This necessary class of men are bribed by a-
^riculturists, not to improve, but to impove-
rish their land, by a share of the crop for one
year,* an ingenious contrivance for placing
the lands in these states, under an annual rack
rent, and a removing tenant. The farm, from
several gradations to an unlimited extent, is
surrendered to the transient overseer, whose
salary is increased in proportion as he can im-
poverish the land. The greatest annual crop,
and not the most judicious culture, advances
his interest, and establishes his character; and
the fees of these land doctors are much higher
for killing than for curing. It is common for
an industrious overseer, after a very few years,
to quit a farm on account of the barrenness,
occasioned by his own industry; and frequent
changes of thes.e itinerant managers of Agrl^

7. -

70 OVEE SEERS.

culture, eacli striving to extract the remnant
of fertility left by his predecessor, combines
with our agricultural ignorance, to form the
completest system of impoverishment, of which
any other country can boast.

I mean not to speak disrespectfully of over-
«eers ; they are as good as other people ; nor
is it their fault if their employers have made
their wealth and subsistence to depend on the
%iipoverisliment of half a continent. The most
which the land can yield, and seldom or never
improvement with a view to future profit, is a
point of common consent and mutual need be- '
tween the agriculturist and his overseer; and
tliey generally unite in emptying the cup of
fertility to the dregs.

It is discovered in England from experience,
that short leases were the worst enemies to A-
griculture. Those of twenty one years are
found by experience to be two short for im-
provement. IMust the practice of hiring a
man for oiie year by a share of the crop, to lay
out all his skill and industry in kiliing land,
and as little as possible in improving it, sug-
gested by tlie circumstances and necessities of
settling a wilderness among hostile savages,
be kept up to commemorate the pious leaning
of man to his primitive state of ignorance ana
barbarity ?

Unless this custom is abolished, the attempt
to fertilize our hinds, is needless. Under the
frequent emigrations of owners from State to
State, and of overseers from plantation to plan-
taiion, it cannot be accomplished. Impove-
^lishment will proceed, distress will follow, and
famine will close the scene. It is a custom
w Uich injures both employers and overseers^

OVERSEERS. 71

hy gradually diminislving the income of the one
and of course the wages of the other. "Wages
in money would on the contrary, correspond
with a system of gradual improvement, hy
which the condition of both parties would be
annually bettered, and skill in improving, not
a murderous industry in destroying land, would
soon become a recommendation to business and
a thermometer of com|_)ensatioii«,

t^ IK-CXOSIK©,

KmiBEII 16..

INCLOSING.

The Diades of fertilizing land form a srs;
teni, Avholly unfit, as we shall see upon enume-
rating a few of its constituents, to be enforced
by an itinerant order, bribed to counteract
most or all of them. The most effectual is
found, when we have found the most co-
pious fund of manure. Manures are mineral,
vegetable or atmospherical. Perhaps the two
last may be resolvable into one. Mineral ma-
nures are local and hard of access. But the
earth swims in atmosphere and inhales its re-
freshments. The vegetable world covers the
earth, and is the visible agent, to which its
surface is indebted for fertility. If the vast
ocean of atmosphere is the treasury of vege-
table food, vegetable manure is obviously inex-
haustible. The vegetable world takes its
stand upon our eaith to extract the riches of
t)iis treasury, larger than the earth itself, and
io elaborate them into a proper form forfer-
tiliziugits surface. Tlie experiment of the
willow planted a slip in a box containing 200
pounds of eartli, and at the end of a few years,
exhibiting a tree of 200 pounds weight, without
liaving diminished the earth in which itgrew^
demonstrates the power of the vegetable world
to extract and to elaborate the atmospherical
manure. This 200 pound weight of willow,
was a prodigious doiiation of manure by the
atmosphere^ to the 200 pound weight of e.€»rt;h

in which it grew. It was so much atmosphere
condensed by the vegetable process, into a
form capable of being received and held by
the earth, and of being reduced to vegetable
food, during its struggles to return to its own
principle through the passes of putridity and
evaporation. Vegetables, like animals, feed
on each other. Inclosing for the sake of rear-
ing vegetables to enrich the earth, is the mode
by which the greatest quantity of atmos-
pherical manure cau be infused into it with
the least labor. It is prepared and spread
without expence. Cross fences, those draw-
backs of man's folly from divine benevolence,
are saved by inclosing to fertilize ; and if the
laws for confining land under inclosures, for
permitting animals to prowl at large, and for
punishing landholders for the trespasses
eommitted by these marauders on their land,
were made more conformable to justice, com-
mon sense and common interest, the supplies
of manure from the vegetable world, would be-
come combined with a vast diminution of la-
bor. Th us the two pri mary objee ts of agricul-
ture, (to fertilize the land and save labor)
would be both attained to a measureless ex-
tent. Vegetables would collect from the at-
mosphere, an inexhaustible supply of manure,
and spread it on land ; fencing and timber to
great extent would be saved, and agricul-
ture would soon aspire to her most elegant
ornament and useful improvement, live fences*
But alas ! we persist in the opinion that
lands trespass on cattle, and not cattle on
land. Out of emulation I suppose of an an-
cient doctrine; which the bayoaet only could

0.

74i %^tzostJm»

confute, that it was better to fasten the plotigh
to the tail than the shoulder.

It is yet a question, whether the earth is en*
riehed by any species of manure, except the
vegetable or atmospherical, and experiments
have hitherto leaned towards the negative. —
"Without new accessions of vegetable matter,
successive heavy dressings with lime, gypsum
and even marie, have been frequently found to
terminate in impoverishment. Hence it is in-
ferred, that minerals operate as an excitement
only to the manure furnished by the atmos-
phere. From this fact results the impossibi-
lity of renovating an exhausted soil, by resort-^
ing to fossils, whieh will expel the poor rem-
nant of life, and indeed it is hardly probable
that divine wisdom has lodged in the bowels of
the earth, the manure necessary for its sur-
face.

However this question may be determined,
the impossibility of obtaining mineraS manure
in quantities sulFicient to enrich an impove-
rished country, leaves us no alternative^ whilst
the spasmodic efforts it excites in the agony of
death, are better calculated to accelerate the
€vil, and to aggravate national distress by in-
spiririg false hopes, than to remedy the impo-
verish ment of excessive culture.

If Ycgetable matter is either the only ma-
nure, or the only attainable manure, capable of
renovating cur country, let us cast our eyes upon
its surface, and discover the demand, by com-
puting the impoverishment. We want as much
as we ha^ expelled, to get back to the state
fi'om which we set out. We must retrieve,
before we can improve. The nation nevep
dies 5 it is the yoke fellow of the earth j the&e

associates mus< thrive or starve together; if the
Didion pursues a system of lessening the food
of the earth, the earth in justice or revenge
"will starve the nation. The inclosing system
provides the most food for the earth, and of
course enables the earth to supply most food to
j»aju It is time working on s|iace»

X^ tj^CJuOSlV^

NUMBER 17^

INCLOSING, CONTINUE©.

Let US boldly face the fact. Our country
is nearly ruined. We have certainly drawn
out of the earth three fourths of the vegeta-
ble matter it contained, within reach of the
plough. Vegetable matter is its only vehicle
for conveying food to us. If we suck our mo-
ther to death we must die ourselves. Though
she is reduced to a skeleton, let us not des-
pair. She is indulgent, and if we return to
the duties revealed by the consequences of
their infraction, to be prescribed by God, and
demonstrated by the same consequences to
comport with our interest, she will yet yield
us milk.

We must restore to the earth its vegetable
matter, before it can restore to us its bounti-
ful crops. In three or four years, as well as
I remember, the willow drew from the atmos-
phere, and bestowed two hundred weight of
vegetable matter, on two hundred weight of
earth, exclusive of the leaves it had shed each
year. Had it been cut up and used as a ma-
nure, how vastly would it have enriched the
two liundred weight of earth it grew on ? The
fact demonstrates that by the use of vegetables,
we may collect manure from the atmosphere,
"with a rapidity, & in an abundance, far exceed-
ing that of wliich we have robbed the earth.-—
And it is a fact of high encouragement,* for
though it would be our iuterest^ and comluciye;

to our liappiiicss, to retrace our steps, should
it even take us two hundred years to recover
the state of fertility found here by the first
emigrants fiM)m Europe ; and though religion
and patriotism both plead for it, yet there
might be found some minds weak or wicked
enough, to prefer the murder of the little life
left in our lands, to a slow process of resusci-
tation.

Forbear, oh forbear matricide, not for futu-
rity, not lor God's sake, but for your own
sake. The labour necessary to kill the rem-
nant of life in your lands, will suiSce to revive
them. Employed to kill, it produces want
and misery to yourself. Employed to revive,
it gives you plenty and happiness. It is mat-
ter of regret to be compelled to rob the liberal
Kilnd of the sublime pleasure, bestowed by a.
consciousness of having done its utmost for fu-
ture ages, by demonstrafing that the most sor-
did will do the utmost for gratifying its own
appetites, by fertilizing the earth ; that the
process is not slow, but rapid ; the returns
not distant, but near 5 and the gain not
small but great.

Inclosing is a single channel for drawing
manure from the atmosphere and bestowing it
on the earth. Though it is the great canal^
there are a multitude of feeders. These are
not lost in admiration of the most powerful
mode for fertilizing the earth, and will be sub-
sequently remembered.

At present it is necessary to consider the
best mode of practising the enclosing theory.
It is one which can only succeed in combinar
tion with a great nuxiibei; of agricultural pr^

7? INCXOSINGr

tiees, at enmity with those which at present
prevail.

It is at enmity with the practice of summer
fallowing for wheat. Being founded in the
doctrine, that vegetables extract the princi-
ples of fertility from the atmosphere, and ela-
borate them into a manure for the earth, it is
inconsistent with the doctrine that the earth
will be improved by keeping it bare. If vege-
tables do not feed upon and consume earth, but
upon the atmospherical manure, which may
have been introduced into, or is floating around
it, then a naked fallow by increasing evapora-
tion, will impoverish the earth, and waste at
each ploughing a portion cl this fleeting fer-
tility, without its being arrested by a crop.

It accords with the doctrine of turning in a
clover lay, or a bed of any other vegetable
matter, for a crop speedily sown or planted
thereon, without disturbing this new bed of ve-
getables, by which the previous stock of at-
mospherical manure in the earth is vastly in-
creased, and the least loss by evaporation sus|
tained.

It is at enmity with shallow ploughing, be-
cause it admits atmospherical manure into the
earth by water and air, to a le&s depth, and
loses it sooner by evaporation, and the more
rapid escape of water from its fluidity.

It accords with deep ploughing, because i|
enables the earth to absorb more atmospherr-
eal manure through the two great vehiele-i,
air and water ; and because it buries deeper
the manure deposited on the earth in a vegeta-
ble form ; in one case inhaling more, and in
both exhaling less.

It is at enmity w.ith the ct^tom of expasin^

r?f CLOSINGS, ' 70

a flat surface to the sun, and accords with an
opposite one ; because by the first the force of
its rays in promoting evaporation is increased
and by the second diminished. These cases
are selected to suggest to the reader, that the
theory of fertilizing the earth by atniosplieri-
cal or vegetable manure, is one, which, if cor-
rect, will reach and influence nearly the whole
circle of our agricultural modes of managing
the earth.

aa INCXOSING.

1SUNBER18.

INCLOSING, CONTINUED.

If plants feed on earth, why do they perish
by drought ? If they did not feed on atmos-
pherical manure, why do they instantly revive
from rain ? And why do we see them conside-
rably revived even without rain, when the air
becomes condensed, after having been greatly
rarified, if the food it affords them was not too
thin in one case, and more substantial in the
other ?

Drought becomes far less pernicious to
crops, in proportion to the stock of atmosphe-
rical manure with which the earth has been
stored to meet it, and the obstacles opposed to
its loss.

To avoid a frequent reference to experience
as avoucherfor the doctrines advanced in these
eesays, I shall once for all observe, that they
are always drawn from that source, except
when the contrary is expressed. But it would
be tiresome to the reader to wade through a
list of experiments made with more industry
than scientific skill, for a long course of time,
and suggested, not by a love of fame, but by
cecessiiy. Besides we must acquire princi-
ples before we descend to details.

Let us return to the ease of drought. Its
effects are greatly diminished by burying with
the plough a copious supply of vegetable mat-
ter, and by opposing an uneven surAice to eva-
poration. It is because tliis vegetable matter

IKCLOSIKe* 81

or atmospherical manure, elaborated into a so-
lid form, is the food of plants ; and this food
is retained longer by deep ploughing and an
uneven surface, than by sliallow ploughing
and a level surface. And if these latter prac-
tices are not combined with a good stock of
vegetable food, the effects of drought appear
sooner, and are more fatal.

The sudden benefit of rain to plants, demon*
«trates that it is loaded with their food ; and
its transitory effect equally demonstrates that
this food rapidly evaporates. There is no ma-
nure the effects of which are more sudden or
less permanent. As they disappear from
drought, tlie loss must be attributed to evapo-
ration. Checks upon evaporation are of courst
auxiliaries to the inelosiug system.

The shade to the earth is a cheek it natural-
ly produces, and a consequence of this check
is, that the atmospherical manure carried by
air or rain into the earih, being longer retain-
ed, is imbibed in greater quantity by the ve-
getable cover, and elaborated into a manure
more permanent, than when deposited in these
Tehieies.

Wood, and all the vegetables of softer tex-
ture, are exposed to the effects of putrefaction
and evaporation, in a degree so far below wa-
ter, that a complete dressing of atmosperical
manure, conveyed in the vegetable vehicle,
will discover its benefit for years, whilst one
conveyed in rain will disappear in a few weeks.
It follows that the nearer the vegetable vehicle
of manure from the atmosphere* approaches to
wood, the longer it will last, and that the near-
er it approaches to water, the shorter it wi5
last.

If tills pvhicjjile is sound, a point of great
importanee to t!ie inclosinj^ system is settled ;
\Yliether it is beltei'to plough in vegetables iu
a succulent cr a dry state ? Every experiment
I have ever made, decides in favor of the lat-
ter, and these decisions correspond with the
requisitions of our theory. By ploughing ia
the vegetables succulent, Me stop tlie process
for extracting, elaborating and condensing at-
mospherical manure, and chiefly bury water,
liable to the laws of evaporation, demonstrat-
ed in the casii of ran^ the richest, but t!^e
most short lived of every species of manure.
The rapidity with which the water of vegeta-
bles in a succulent state evaporates, is demon^
strated in curing grass for hay ; and the loss is
probably greater when the vegetable is never
reduced at all to a dry and hard state. On the
contrary, by suffering the vegetable to acquire
its most solid form, it will extract more ma-
nure from the atmosphere, and this manure
will be retained vastlv longer bv the earth ; so
long indeed, that a good farmer v/ill accumu-
late fresh supplies upon a remaining stock
from time to time, so as to replenish his land
at a compound ratio. And by suffering the ve-
getable cover, whatever it is, to gain its hard-
est form, it affords longer shade to the surface
of the earth, whilst it is also making daily ex-
tracls from the atmosphere, during its whole
succulent existence, to be deposited within its
bowels.

ij^CLosixe. 83

I^TTMEER 1-9.

iJTQLOStNfGl, .CONTINUED.

To draw from the atmospliere ihe greatest
quanfity of manure, to check the loss the earth
sustains from evaporation during the process
hy shade, to give the itianure the most lasting
form, and to deposit it i!i the most heneiicial
manner, are primary objects of the cuelosing
system.

The best agent known to us for effecting iha
three first, is the red clover. Its growth is
rapid,* its quantity exceeds the product of any
other grass 5 it tijro\ys up a succession of stems
in the same summer; and these stems are
more solid and lasting than those of other gras-
ses. These successive growths constitute so
Biaiiy distinct drafts from the great treasure of
atmospherical manure in one year. Whilst
these drafts are repeated, the clover is dally
securing the treasure, in a form able long to.
elude the robber evaporation, whom it also op-
poses by shade. To its extraeting from the
atmosphere the greatest quantity of manure,
and elafforating it int& a lasting form the most
suddenly of aay other veg;etal)le cover, clover
lays for wb eat are indebted for their fame. —
Their success has been attributed to the por-
tion of the vegetable in a succulent state,
wliilst it was owing to the greater portion
vyhich had arrived to maturity previous to the
fallow. To ascertain this fact, let one moiety

of a clover field be turned in as soon as its first"
orop flowers, and the other after the stem of
the last crop is hard^ and the wiiole sown on
one day in wheat.

The peculiar propensity of clover to be im-
proved by a top dressing of the g^^sum, is an-
other striking circumstance of its affinity to-
the system for fertilizing land by its own co-
ver. As its growth is suddenly and vastly in-
creased by this top dressing, it furnishes rea-
son to believe, that the effect flows from a dis-
position communicated by the gypsum to the
clover, for imbibing atmospherical food by its
external parts ; and so much as it thus gains,
affords to the earth a double benefit. One, that
this food not being extracted from the stock of
atmospherical manure, possessed by the earth,
does not impoverish it ; the other, that being
bestowed on the earth from whence it was not
taken, it adds to its fertility.

The tap root of ihe clover also advances the
intention of the inclosing system in several res-
pects. By piercing the earth to a considera-
ble depth, apertures or pores are created for
imbibing and sinking deeper a greater quanti-
ty of atmospherical manure ; so well defended
by the shade of the top ; and the friability
thus communicated to the soil, affords a most
happy facility to the plough, for turning in its
vast bed of vegetable matter.

In commemorating the value of clover as an
agent for transferring a portion of tiie inex-
haustible wealth of the atmosphere to the
earth, we must not forget that every member
of the vegetable world, contributes to the same
purpose ; and that these auxiliaries to clover
wll powerfully second its efforts, and may Ire

IXCLOSIXG. « So

,^ne<?essftilly substituted for i^ uliere cifeiim'
stances dcnv its use. In th« exhausted lands,
sand^y soil and dry climate of the eoiintrj be-
low the mountains, clover will not live. Re-
course must therefore be had to other means
of improving the land, to endow it, with a capf -
eity of resorting to its use. It is eminently en-
dowed with this capacity by a certain degreo
of fertility, and thenceforth good managcmeut
will retain and increase it.

In the mean time, the best substitute for
6lover sliOTild be soiiglit for by experience. — •
The bird foot clover, as it is called, is one of
considerable promise ; it will flourish in a san-
dy soil, is equally improved by tlie gypsum,
affords early and good shade, makes a multi-
tude of seed, and may by a small decree of
skill, be kept up wilhoiit being sown. Though
it perishes early in the summer, it yet leaves a
great cover of dry vegetable matter on iho
earlh, which defies evaporation, until thcplougli
can turn it in. And ita deatl coat is frequent-
ly pierced by other grasses, and sometimes by
luxuriant growtlis of weeds, before unkiiowii
to the soil, which seem to come forward as
witnesses to the fact of its fertilizing the land.
This gi'assisan enemy to wheat on account of
its early and rapid growth, and of course ought
only to be used to fertilize land in which
wheat ought not to be sown. And as wheat
cannot be be beneficially sown in land, unabki
to produce red clover, iho bird foot clover
seems designed to take up the care of the soil,
at the point of impoverishment where the red
lays it down. As red clover is the best associ-
ate of wheat, for the purpose of saving and im-
proving a good soil^ bird foot is the best as^o^

0.

S6 iscLesixa

ciate of Indian corn for rendering the same
services to a bad one.

Individuals of the vegetable world are quot-
ed, not to insinuate tbat their powers for the
object proposed are extremely peculiar, but
to illustrate my hypothesis. The entire vege-
table creation must contribute towards sus-
taining this hypothesis^ or it must fall. If it
is supported by this spacious foundation, there
are few systems better supported. Therefor©
nfter having deduced the benefit resulting to
land by inclosing, from the h;^ipothesis that ve-
getables draw, retain, and bestow on the earth
the atmospherical manure in great abundance^
I shall proceed to consider other modes of ma-
louring it, chieiJy founded in th^ same hypa-
thesis.

]\UMBEK20,

MANURIXG.

It is not my design to advance any thing
sii'ange or new, or to recommend expensive,
diffieiilt, or nneomnion modes of improving
land. Brilliant projects for improvement, ia
the present stale of agviculture, would belike
diamonds set in lead. My utmost design is ta
point out a few improvements v.iiieli even ig-
norance can understand, and poverty practice ^
yet such as may not be beneath the regard of
knowledge, nor the interest of wealth.

The most abundant sources for artificial ma-
nure in the most exhausted district of our coun-
try, are the ofibl of Indian corn, the straw of
small grain and the dung of animals. We find
in the two first proofs of the value of dr^^ vege-
tables as a manure. If tliese few means for
fertilizing the country, were skilfuliy used,
they would of themselves suffice to c]jangcits
state from sterility to fruitfnhiess. But they
are so egregiously neglected or mismanaged^
that we hardly reap a tythe of their value.

There is no farinacious plant which furnish-
es so rich and so plentiful a crop as the Indian
corn. It yields footl in abundance for man,
beast and land. By the litter of Indian corn,^
and of small grain, and by penning cattle, ma-
raged with only an inferior degree of skill in
union with inclosing, I uili venture to affirm^
that a farm may in ten years be made to dou-
ble its produce, and in twenty to quadruple it 5

8^ MAyrRiN«^.

the ratio of its increased value is of course still
greater.

There is no other secret in the business than
that none of these manures be wasted. The
agriculturist who expects to reap good crops
from neglecting his manures, is equally a fa-
natick, with the religionist who expects hea-
Yen from neglecting liis morals.

Details, however uRcntertaining, may not
he useless ; therefore I shall often resort to
them. The stalks of corn should constitute
the chief litter and part of the food, both of the
stable and farm pen yard, during the winter.
The sooner they are used after the corn is ga-
thered, the more saecharum remains to bestow
value on them as food, and the more manure
they >vill yield, as evaporation diuiiEiishes bo(h;
and this proceeds far more rapidJy whilst
standing single, subject to the vicissitudes of
weather, than when immersed in the steady
looisture ah d cold climate of Uie farm yard.—
As a food, they are better fr>r horses than for
cattle, because of the superior masticating
pov/er of the former; whereas cattle are able
to eat but little of the stalk itself, and chiefly
feoniine themselves to picking an inferior food
attached to it. Stalks carried morning and
evening in loads, into tlie farm pen and stable
vard, furnish both to cattle and horses much
food, but to the latter early in the winter, they
are a species of fodder the most beneficial £
have everti'ed; and besides the manure they
furnish will amply recompence the farmer, by
enabling him to spare his hay and corn blades,
to be used when the labor of his team becomes
harder. They enable him also to relieve his
land from the tax of pasturing horse S; by tha

MANUniNG# 8&

preservation of hay and blades for tlie summer's
use, and are in that Avay eminently subservient
to the inclosing system.

To tlie stalks are to be added the blades,
tops, shucks and cobs of the Indian corn, all
in some degree a food, and a plentiful litter.
The value of the cob as a food is highly spo-
ken of, but has not been ascertained by me ;
as a manure, by depositing them in deep fur-
rows two or three feet apart, barely covering
them with a plough, and bringing the land
two years afterwards into tilth, I have found
them excellent. In every view they illustrate
the vegetable power of elaborating atmosphere
inta hard and enriching substances.

The great object in making and applying
the manure arising from litter of every kind,
and the dung of animals, is to avoid the loss by
evaporation. In obedience to the old Englisli
authorities, I have in various ways compound-
ed dunghills, kept them through the summer,
and covered with earth and with bushes the
manure of the farm pen ; and the loss has been
regularly graduated by the fermentation pro-
duced, from a moiety to three fourths, being
invariably greater, the better the litter was
rotted, or the greater the degree of fermenta-
tion. As a farther experiment to ascertain
the same fact, I have several times penned the
«ame cattle on the same space for the same peri-
od, ploughing up one portion as soon as the pea
"was removed, and leaving the other unplough-
ed for eight or ten weeks. On putting both
at onetime on the same crop, the result has uni-
formly been, a vast inferiority to a line, of that^
left exposed to the effeets of evaporation.

9QC 2>1A2»\;RING*

NUMBER 21.

BIANURING, CONTINUED*

An effervescence which shalJ become so in-
tense, as to produce a \isihle evaporation or
smoke, is said to be an eileet' of ploughing in a
cover of green vegetables, and tliis elTect is
stated as an argument of fertiiiziHg conse-
q.uences to the earth* If an escaping torrent
of manure is calculated to impaj^t lasting ferti-
lity to, the earth, then tiie hypothesis which
considers evaporation as a channel for impo-
verishing, and not for fertilizing the earth, is .
an error. Then also the ancient English ha^
bit of making manure by contriving every^
means of promoting evaporation is correct,
and the modern notion that this habit wastes
manure hy restoring it to the atmosphere,, is
incorrect. The heat ofthe sun will some-
times make wet; earth smoke, but instead of
enriching, it tisereby extracts the manure coa-
iained in water. The evaporation of greea
vegetables in a perceptible soioke, must have
a similar effect. The idipathat this smoking
of the earth was a proof that we were making
a great quantity of manure of green vegetables^
may have been borrowed from iirferring the
same thing from the smoking of dunghills com-
pounded of dry; and whilst the latter opinion
is exploded by the common instances ofthe
vast loss of manure it produces in these dung-
iiiils, the former may have eontinued, though

foiiniled in tlie same prmciple, for v.a»( of fa-

?' miliar experiments to disprove it.
r The system of husbandry for fertilizing the

.earth, by increasing its friability, for the sake
of enabling it more copiously to inhale the at-
mospherical manure, has the great defect of

■ uot providing against the effects of exhalation.
Inhaled atmosphere being as rare and as light
as inhaled water, is as liable to the laws of
fivaporation, and its benefit to the land must of
course be as transient. Against this defect,
the permanency of atmospherical manure, in
the form of hardened vegetables^ so much le^s

%exposed to these laws, provides,,

To support the details of manuring it is
necessary to advert occasionally to principles.
Tull's husbandry is the remedy recommend-
ed for the erroneous opniion, that ten cultivat-
led acres will not produce the means of manu-
ring above one* This error is founded on the
inhaling, without considering the exhaling
quality of the earth 5* and to supply the wan'
of manure, we are advised to expose our landr
to evaporation in the greatest possible degree^
jby naked fallows^

On the contrary, I am convinced, that if
we will watch and arrest the thief evapora-
tion, whether stealing our means for raising
manure, or sweating the earth as a Jew sweats
gold, we shall discover modes of fertilizing
land infinitely beyond our most sanguine hopes
both by additions of manure, and obstructions
to evaporation.

Twenty ^ve years ago, I found more difiicul-
ty in manuring one acre for five laborers, in^
eluding women and boys, owing to a waste of
my means for raising manure^ and an iguo-

Minee of applying it, than I now do in manur-
ing; two acres for each. By manuring tw« i
acres for each laborer, with the three resour-
ces only common to every bread stuff farm, it
follows that we may manure about one seventh i
of the land we annually put in tilth, if, as 1 1
suppose we can seldom plough more than four-
teen acres for each laborer, including women i
and boys. This is at once attaining to the
summit of European exertion, without the aid
of lime, marie, soot, the sweepings of cities,,
and several other resources for improving
land, which contribute greatly towai-ds con-
ducting European farmers to the same stage
of improvement ; and without the vast benefit i
of inclosing. Two reasons exi.st for an event
apparently so unlikely ; the Indian corn fur-
nishes a fund of litter for raising manure, infi-.
nitely exceeding any of theirs, and their wastfti
0f mu|iure by evaporation is avoided*

MANtrBINGJ'-i S3

NUMBERS^

MANURING, CONTINUES.

This subject compels me to revert to a use
of Indian corn, before the mode of its culture
is considered. Its blade makes the finest fod-
der, and if well saved, furnishes but little lit-
ter, because it is all eaten. Being the best
hay it ought to be saved for the hottest and
most laborious season of the year, which oc-
curs immediately after the green clover fails.
The first part of the Indian corn which should
be used as food, is the stalk, because it is har-
der to keep sound through the winter, than
any other fodder, and its saccharum is conti-
nually wasting. The tops should be devoted
to covering a farm pen of rails, in the form of
three sides of a square, closed to the ground on
the outside, and open within, and to a house
for pumpkins and turnips stacked in the com-
mon form. Some loss will accrue from the
evaporation of a cover, whether composed of
straw or corn tops, and tops make infinitely
the best. And some annual cover of a winter's
farm pen for cattle, is iridispensible, as being
a vast saving upon the European custom of sta-
tionary cow houses. Arthur Young is, I think,
of opinion, tliat 1200 acres is that size for a
farm best adapted for the economy of labor.
Suppose two hundred and fifty acres of this
farm to be annually ploughed, and fifty to he
^ai®lly maaui'cd : If this manuring is com*

meneed around a station for raising maniire, ia
four years the station is isolated in the midst'
of two hundred acres of manured land, leav-
ing it about six hundred yards distant from the
nearest of the unmanured land, which dis-
tance increases, as the manuring is extended, ,
from that minimum, to its maximum, namely,,
the distance from the centre to the verge of ani
area of one thousand two hundred acres.
Hence the expence of carrying in the litter
and carrying out the manure, will presently
become so enormous, as to drive the farmer
into the ancient ruinous and abandoned custom i
of iniield and outfield, or that of highly impro-
ving a spot around his house, and highly im-
poverisliing the rest of his farm.

An ambulatory cow house is the remedy fop
this disastrous mode of management. The
sheep and cattle should be employed in manu-
ring abroad, and the horses at fioaie. The
farm pens of the farmer should be placed in the
iield for cultivation, with an eye to conveni-
ence or savingof labor, both in receiving the
stalks from the shift of the preceding year,
and also in distributing the manure in that to
be cultivated. It is far better to make a lane
of great length to conduct the cattle to water,
than to omit this management.

The greatest assiduity should be used in con-
veying the corn stalks to these farm pens, and
the stable yard as early as possible, reserving
the shucks, the straw, the tops, the blades, and
the hay for later periods ; because the injury
to the stalks standing single and exposed to the
vicissitude of weather is infinitely greater from
evaporation, than to these other articles of
food and litter. Some small quantities of straw

MANURING. 95^

and sliiicks sliould however be tised with them,
to produce compactness as a defence against
evaporation, and to treat the cattle with a va-
riety of food, so grateful to animals. The straw"
and the sliucks after the stalks are all in, will
bestow a cover on them, impenetrable to
drought, and secure against evaporation ; the
several kinds of litter are beneficially mingled,
and the tops which covered the cow house are
the last food of its inhabitants.

The ground to be manured, should be fal-
lowed in the winter, since the more friable its
state, the better it commixes with the unrot-
ted contents of the farm pens, and the better
these contents are covered with the plough. —
If this is neglected, the want of a thorough
commixture, and the exposure of manure on
the surface, both of which will happen in a de-
cree when the long litter of the farm pen is
earried on unploughed ground, generally
gansesthe loss of one half of the manure^ and
iue half of the erop.

MANUEINCf.

NUMBER 25.

MANURING, CONTINUED.

The winter's fallow to receive the spring
Bianure, is a business capable of some iniprove-
inent, and economy of labor. This fallow,
when the manure is for Indian corn, as it ought
to be where that grain is cultivated, should be
madeby three furrows, forming a ridge five feet
& an half wide. Two of these furrows are made
by a large plough, calculated to cut deep and
wide, and to turn the sod complelely over ; and
the third by a plough eafled a trowel hoe,made
one third larger than usual, with a coulter on^
the point, and a mould board on each side. K
the field has been left in such ridges at its last
cultivation, the large plough cuts a furrow on
the ridge on each side of its summit, making the
sod it turns up to meet thereon, and leaving un-
der that sod all the earth it can cover, unbroken,
these two furrows will leave the old water fur-
row between them, or an equivalent space,
which the described trowel-hce-plough, with
jts two large mould boards will break up,
throwing the sod on each side. Both thes©
ploughs should be drawn by four horses, leav-
ing the furrow made by the trowel-hoe un-
commonly deep and wide. In this state th©
ground lies through the winter. Its vegetable
•over is buried so as to escape some loss by
evaporation, the unbroken space is so mellow-
ed by the cover ef the sod^ as to becojne soft

and friable by the spring, and ibe bottom of
tbe large open furrow, commonly a dead el ay,
is invigorated by a winter's exposure to tbe at-
mospbere.

Tbe manure ougbt to be devoted to Indian
corn, because a crop of great value is thereby
gained, whilst it is going through tbe process,
supposed in England to be necessary to reduce
it to vegetable food. Complete putrefaction
is there considered as necessary, for tbis end,
"Whereas, by planting the Indian corn, as soon
as the unrotted manure of tbe farm pen is car-
ried out and plougbed in, its growth is greatly
nourished and finally perfected, by the time
tbe putrefaction is completed. It catches tbe
evaparation produced by tbe moderate fermen-
tation of the rotting vegetable matter of which
tbe manure is compounded, and exactly
that portion of manure which is lost, by tbe
custom of rotting it before it is used, becomes
the parent of a great crop. By tbe fall tbe
manure is reduced to a fit pabulum for wheat,
and even more of it is saved for this end, min-
gled in the earth, and subject to a moderate
fermentation, than if it had been retained in
hot dunghills through tbe summer, exposed to
a violent efiervescence, and then exclusively
devoted to this crop upon a naked fallow.—
The area manured would not be at most above
half the extent, and the degree of enricbment
nearly tbe same.

Indian corn thrives better with unrotted ma-
nure, than any other crop, and is precisely the
crop, and almost the solitary one, ready to as-
sociate with coarse litter, the first growing
"weather which occurs after it is applied^ Po-
tatoes and tobacco may possibly possess the

o.

same quality. The former certainly associate
well with coarse manure, but neither are ppo«
fitable as a crop ; one is not adapted to the cli-
mate favorable to Indian corn, and the other
is not admissible into any good system of agri-
eulture*

KANUSIXtf. $9

KUMBER 24.

MANURING, CONTINUED.

Manure from the litter of a farm ought i&
be chiefly made in the cool portion of the jeaF
to avoid the enormous loss produced by a com-
bination of heat, moisture and vegetable mat-
ter. If a considerable portion of this litter is
reserved for the summer's use, a considerable
loss is unavoidable. A small part of it only
jnay be kept for the stable, more for the sake
of the horses than for the object of manure.—
It is better for that object to exhaust the litter
in the winter season, than to reserve any of it
for summer, if the opinions that vegetables ex-
tract manure from the atmosphere, and that
manures are gradually evaporated back to their
origin, be true ; because litter is exposed to a
far greater loss from evaporation, by a commix-
ture with moist dung in summer, than if it
had been spread on the farm yards in winter,
& ploughed into the earth in spring, before any
considerable fermentation occurs. Hence, as
the dung of animals, constitutes but a small
portion of the manure which ought to be raised
on a well managed farm j it would be a loss to
sacrifice a considerable mass of vegetable ma-
nure, for this object of inferior value. The
American custom of penning cattle during the
night in the summer season, properly attended
to, is therefore a far more thrifty one, for the
object of manuring^ than the English custom

IQa MANURING

of mingling moist dung and vegetable litter
during that season. By ours, both these kinds
of manure escape much of the loss from evapo-
ration ; by theirs, this loss is increased as to
both by an excessive effervescence.

Yet the dung of animals during the summer
season is an item of great moment for enrich-
ing lands, if it is saved without subtracting
from the more valuable item of the winter's
farm yards. The most beneficial mode of its
application within the scope of my observation,
is penning cattle and sheep, graduating the size
of these pens by observation, until the design-
ed quantity of manure shall be deposited with-
in two weeks at most, and ploughing it in on
the day the pen is removed invariably. The
loss from evaporation is so great that a pen
ought never to remain above two weeks. I
have frequently seen cow pens continued in on©
spot, until the daily loss balanced the daily ac-
cession of manure ; and the richness of the
land with these daily accessions, ])ecame sta-
tionary. By a regular course of removing
these pens, and immediately ploughing in the
manure, the farmer will be agreeably surpris-
ed to find, that the improved area will infinite-
ly exceed his hopes ; for his ground will be e-
qually enriched by far less dung, on account of
these precautions against evaporation, and the
cattle will, of course, go over afar greater
space.

The land thus manured by the tenth of Au-
gust, may be sown in turnips, at one pint of
seed to an acre, broadcast. After that period,
the pens which had stood from fourteen down
to ten days (for the time should be diminished
as the cattle fatten) should be removed every

MANtTRlNG. 101

seven days, because no draft will be made from
the land by a turnip crop, the quantity of the
manure is increased, the evaporation is dimi-
nished by the lens^th of the nights, and the cat-
tle have improved in plight.

One hundred head of small and ordinary cat-
tle, of the ages common when raised on the
farm, and as many sheep, v/ill in this way ma-
nure eighteen acres annually, sufficiently to
produce fine crops of Indian corn and wheat,
and a good growth of red clover after them,
with the aid of gypsum ; and the clover when
preserved by the system of enclosing, will by
two years crops, left to fall on the land, restore
it to the plough, richer than the manuring
made it. About eight of these acres will also
have yielded a good crop of turnips, good op-
bad, according to the season and the soil.

But horses cannot be comprised in this mod©
of management, because of the inadequacy of
their nature to its exposure and hardships. —
"Whatever they are fed on, furnishes some lit-
ter, some must be saved to help it out, the ma?*
nure they make in the summer should be used
as late as possible in the spring, and as early
as possible in the fall, and the litter saved
should only be contemplated to last, until a new
supply from the crop of wheat can come in.— »
These precautions against evaporation, wittt
placing the summer cleanings under cover, ot
at least where it may be trodden hard, may be
resorted to without a great sacrij&ce ©f litter
«r vegetable manure.

10^ MX^VRiK^

KraiBEE 2a.

MANURING, CONTINUED.

Infinitely the most abundant source of arti-
ficial manure within the reach of a bread stuff
farmer, is that raised in farm pens during the
winter. Skill and industry in this single point
would as suddenly, but more permanently im-
prove the face of our country, as paint does
that of a wrinkled hag.

Of these pens, each with a shelter, there
should be at least five, or equivalent divisions
for cattle, beeves, sheep and calves, muttons,
and hogs. A disposition of them ought to be
made upon a calculation of economy, as to the
combined objects of collecting the litter, car-
rying out the manure and feeding the animals.
After the Indian corn crop is planted, that
portion of it excepted, for which the manure
of the farm yards is intended, these animals
should be placed on their summer's establish-
ment ; every other species of labor on the farm
should cease, until the harvest of manure is
secured, and its security against evaporation
should be an object of as much solicitude, as
the security of hay agaiiist rain. On making a
breach in the body of manure, the olfactory
nerves will advise you of the necessity of pre-
cautions against this loss. These are, to re-
move the manure in regular divisions, and not
by wounding and mangling it in different pla-
ces, create channels for the escape of ite
richest qualities. To deposit it in straight

MANURING. 103

rows and at regular distances aeross tlie whole
field to be manured, tliat the manure first
carried out, may be immediately spread and
ploughed in after one row is finished. And
to spread and plough in well each row, with-
out waiting for a succeeding one. The object
is to secure the manure against evaporatioa
as soon as possible after it is exposed to it.

My general rule is to deposit the loads, con-
sisting of as much as four common oxen can
draw, in squares at ten yards distant frora
each other, so that the extreme distance in
spreading it will be ^ye from the centre of
each heap. But this general rule admits of
important exceptions. If the land fluctuates
in fertility, the loads may be deposited at
twelve yards distance, which is a good dress-
ing ; and if it is accompanied with gypsum,
the quantity to an acre may be diminished one
fifth, in consideration of its aid.

For some years I have used gypsum with
the coarse manure of the farm yards, and I
think it the most beneficial mode of using it.
The manure carried out each day is ploughed
in. before which one bushel of gypsum to the
acre, ground fine, is sown on it, after it is
spread.

j The reader will recollect that the ground to
•be manured has been fallowed into high ridges,
j five feet and a half wide, having a deep and
j wide water furrow between each ridge. Over
this uneven surface, the coarse manure being
spread as equally as possible and sown with
gypsum, the ridge is to be reversed by the
same three furrows and the same two ploughs
with which it was formed, each drawn by four
horses. On both sides of the deep furrow,
with the mould hoavd towards it^ a deep aiid

wide furrow is to be run by a large pIough> .
cutting on its riglit side with one share, so as
to throw the earth it raises by its mould board i
into this old deep furrow, and to form precise-
ly in it, a neat ridge or list on which to plant'
tlie corn. And the large trowel-hoe-plough
with its two mould boards, splits the summit
of the fallow ridge, and throws its earth and I
manure into the two furrows made on eachi
side by the preceding plough. If these ploughs
are of the proper kindss and the operation is
well performed, the manure is secured in the
best manner against evaporation, the ground
is placed in fine tilth, and unless it is of a very
unyielding texture, shallow culture thereafter,
will secure a crop, equal to the capacity of th.e%
land.

A considerable saving of labor may be mad®
t)y a very simple instrument for raising the
manure into the carts, and scattering th^
heaps ; and by dividing and b^ilancing the la-
borers so judiciously, that loading, cartings
spreadiHg and plougliing may proceed, without
iiaving too few laborers at one work, and too'
many at another. The instrument is precise*
1y a hilling hoe, except t hat three strong square
iron prongs are substituted for ti?e blade.
These sink from the usual elevation of a handd
hoe by their own weight, into the bed of coars«
farmyard manure, easily rend from i(s edge
or i^s surface, a mass of manure equal to the
strength of the laborer, hold it well in raisings
and by a small jolt, from the helve's falling oi)
the fop of the cart, drop it therein with cer-i
tainty. In seatt^^^ring the heaps, they take up
the manure, and eold it sufficiently to aid th(
ae> 'ono' throwing it two or three yards. Ovei
«*lgeU jjus^rvuaejitg; thdn: g^dv^tages are iuMa

nite, as coarse manui^e must be cut and cliopt
to pieces with great labor, before tbes©
"will raise or scatter it ; as several strokes are
often necessary to obtain a hoe or spade full ;
and as their contents of ten fall ofTin being rais-
ed. And over the pitchfork with a horizontal
liandle, their pre-eminence is little less, as
they save the labor of stooping, and possess in
a far greater degree the powers of a lever. — .
These pronged hoes are only unfit to scrape to-
gether and raise the small quantity of fin»
manure, which falls to the bottom as the coarse
is removed. Hoes and spades collect this as
usual. Tliis very simple instrument, a three
pronged hoe, helved in the same angle as a
common hilling hoe, and having its prongs as
long as the blade of the hilling hoe, has I think,
enabled me for some years to carry out and
spread my farm yard manure in half the tim^
it had previously occupied. For many purpo-
ses it is also an excellent garden hoe.

Some time may be saved, and some skill ex-
erted, even in the simple object of laying off
die ground to receive the loads of manure— <
Being ridged, these ridges and furrows must
be the course of the rows of manure, to avoid
the inconvenience of crossing them. The per-
son dividing the ground for receiving manure
follows one, beginning five yards from the edge
of his field, if his rows are to be ten apart, and
measuring hj the step, which he must by ex-
periments have reduced to considerable accu-
racy ; he digs a hole as he proceeds at one
stroke with a hoe, at each spot on which a load
is to be deposited. At the same time he
watches the quality of the land, and lessens or
extends the distances between his holes^ ac-
cording to that criterion.

106 ^NURINtf.

NUMBER 26,

MANURING, CONTINUEBj

It is unnecessary to consider whether the^
animal and vegetable manure I have been
treating of, ought to be ranked among the
auxiliaries of the atmospherical, or the atmos-
pherical degraded into an auxiliary of theirs,
tor my part, if I was driven to the alternative
of rejecting one, 1 should not hesitate to cling
to the atmospherical, as the matrix of all ; or
rather to that portion of it within our reach,
by other channels than those of farm yards and
animals. I would even prefer a confinement
to the single mode of extracting manure from
the atmospiiere by vegetables, and applying
these vegetables to the enrichment of the earth
they grow on, by iaciosi'ag, to every other mode
of manuring land, excluding this. It works so
widely, so constantly, and at so small an ex-
pense of labour, that properly used, it ensures
an annual improvement ; and a constant pro-
gress towards fertility, however slow, must
terminate at it. Human life is said to be short,
compared with what we know and conjecture
of time. Within one fourth of one of these
short cycles, 1 have known a fourfold increase
of product from the same fields, produced
chiefly by the inclosing mode of manuring.
"Without however insisting on its title to pre-
eminence, it surely deserves to be considered
as a powerful auxiliary of the valuable modes
of mauuring land, recently trea ed of.

MANURING. lOT*

To make room for this invaluable article in
a system for improving our country, it is ne-
cessary to explode and banish a scheme of til-
lage, founded in the massacre of the earth, and
terminating in its murder. It is called the
three shift system. Its course is, Indian corn,
wheat, pasture. Under it, the great body of
the farm receives no manure, and no rest ; and
the result is, that the phrase " the land is
killed and must be turned out," has become
common over a great portion of the United
States. This system, the most execrable
"within the scope of imagination, under which,
the richest country upon earth could not live ;
being called anioiproved mode of agriculture
at its introduction, was blindly received under
that character, and our eyes cannot even be
opened by the sound of our own melancholy
confessions, " that our lands are killed." As
a system for extorting crops from the earth,
it is precisely similar to the rack for extort-
ing truth from the sufferer ; it stretches, tor-
tures, mangles, obtains but little of its object,
and' half or qui(e kills its victim.

The system of inclosing, to manure the earth
by its own coat of vegetables, is at open war
with this murdering three shift system, upon
the suppositions, that the matter of these ve-
getables being chiefly extracted from the at-
mosphere, must be some accession of fertility
to the earth, and that any such accession is
better than a perpetual exhaustion. It will
probably be conceded by every reader, that
both Indian corn and wheat are exhausting
crops ; there can of course remain no doubt,
but that this system impoverishes land two
years in three. The only question then is.

i08 MANVRri!9'e.

whether this loss will be compensated, by
grazing the field bare during the t hird year.
J'Vom whence is the recompence to come ?—
Soft from recent tillage, and unprotected by a
-strong sward, the land is exposed to all the in-
jury the hoof can inflict. Thinly sprinkled
with an insufiicient food, the restlessness of
perpetual hunger produces unabating industry
in the cattle, to tread it into a naked arena,
elosing its pores like a road against refresh-
ments from the atmosphere, and exposing its
flat and naked surface to heat, an agent of eva-
poration, able to pierce and expel from stone
itself. This three shift system has only one^
merit ; honesty. In theory it promises to kill
©ur lands ; in practice it fulfils its promise.

The inclosing system requires four shifts, to
succeed tolerably well without manure, and
extremely well with it. From a long course
©f experiments, my result is, that a three shift
system is far inferior to four shifts, without
grazing either ; and that one fourth of a farm^
properly managed in the latter way, after ha-
ving been worried by the old rotation of corn^
wheat and grazing, may in fifteen years be
made to produce more than the whole would
previously do. I have kept a farm in <hree
and in four shifts for years, and the result is
extremely in favor of the latter, though its
land was at first of inferior quality. To this
article for manuring our lands, objections are
made, among which, the want of pasturage,
and the want of space for our labor, should we
reduce the size of our fields, are the most se-
rious. Answers to these objections, will h0
more apposite in considering the subjects of
stocks, pasturage and labor, should these es-
says ever get so far, than in the mi^st of ouiic

V

present subject. That is manuring, and the
object of this paper, is to confront the inclosing
four shift system, with the grazing three shift
system, as modes of manuring or improving
land.

To illustrate the theory ^V^bat vegetables
extract iheir matter chiefly from the atmos-
phere, and are of course a powerful vehicle for
fixing and bestowing atmospherical manure oa
the earth,*' the following fact is circumstanti-
ally related, on account of its complete appli-
cation, and to expose it to investigation. Some
years ago, a locust tree at Col. Larkin Smith's
in the county of King and Queen and state of
Virginia, received an injury which made it ne-
cessary to cut away entirely the bark around
its body for eight or ten inches, so that its
bark above and below was wholly separat-
ed, without a cortical vein between. The
wound was entirely covered with a close ban-
dage of some other bark which lapped beyond
the edges of the wounded barli above and be-
low. And the tree was left to its fate. The
plaster bark never ,e;rew to the tree, but the ed-
ges of the wounded bark, gradually approach-
ed each other under its shelter, and after se-
veral years met and united. By the time the
wound was healed, the body of the tree above,
had become one third larger than its body be-
low it. And though several years have elaps-
ed, the latter has not yet been able to overtake
the former. The upper part of the tree, root-
ed in the air, vastly outgrew the under rooted
in the earth. Therefore it must have drawn
either its whole or chief sustenance from the
atmosphere. Indeed between the bark and the
wood ef most trees, and of the locust particu*^

lie MANVRMTG.

larly, we find the chief channel of their juices'" I
and the coramunieation of these juices was ut-
terly cut off, so that neither portion of the tree
could supply the other. If the part of the tree
fed from the roots, extracted from the earth
the food, which the earth had previously ex-
tracted from the atmosphere ; and if the earth
was reimbursed gradually by the atmosphere,
what it lost in feeding this part of the tree,
then even the small acquisition of the tree be-
low the interdict to communication, as well as
the great one above, is to be considered a»
wholly obtained from the atmosphere, and
might on that supposition be considered as pro-
bable evidence in favor of the theory, that ve-
getables get from the air and give to the earth.
But probable testimony is superfluous, when
the superior growth above so clearly evinces
that they do extract food from the atmosphere*
I might quote the fertile state of new un-
grazed countries ; their abatement in fe^ilility
if grazed, though uncleared ; the improvement
of worn out lands by suffering them to grow
up in trees ; their greater improvement if
these trees are cut down and suffered to rot on
the surface, as further proofs that the earth
cannot bear a constant drain of vegetable mat-
, ter, and that this matter in any form enriches
it, to evince both the ruinous effects of the
three shift system, and that inclosing is the
remedy ; but the intelligent reader will advert
to these and many other considerations, and I
only add, that the fact of the earth's surface
being the depository of its fertility, proves that
this fertility is owing to atmospherical or ve-
getable matter, and alone determines the effi-
«acy of the inclosing theory.

ItfAKITRII^O^ 111

NUMBER 3r,

MANURING, CONTINUED.

Though we have past the best, all the re?
sources within our power for manuring land,
are not exhausted. Whether gypsum is a ma-
nure, or a medium for drawing manure from
the atmosphere bj increasing the growth of
vegetables, is an unimportant enquiry. With-
in the last ten years, 1 have expended between
two and three hundred tons of it in a variety
of experiments, which have produced the con-
clusion that it increases very considerably the
product of vegetable matter in almost all forms,
^ow if most or all of the matter of vegetables^
is di'awn from the atmosphere, and if gypsum
increases these drafts, we have only to realise
this unexpected treasure, by turning it into
the earth. It increases like compound inter-
est, and in a few years, land worth only one
pound an acre, will become worth f ve. Thus
by the help of enclosing, gypsum and vegeta-
bles, we may enable ourselves to lis, survey^
divide, sell or bestow on our children, atmos-
phere to a great value. Let us therefore at
least admit it into the catalogue of manures,
when used in combination with inclosing.

It would be tedious to reeite a multitude of
experiments in the rapid excursions of an es-
sayist, through the agricultural kingdom, with
Ycry liltle regard to method 5 and therefore I
shall only trouble the public with the results
deemed most useful. Except when sown ou
clover which it benefits almost at all seasons^
I hav« found gypsum succted best when eayer-

il2 Mx^rmiKG,

cd. I would even prefer harrowing it in wit^
oats and clover, to sowing it on the surface af-
ter thej are up. The best modes of using it,
according to my experience, are sowing it on
and ploughing it in with coarse litter : sowing
it just in advance of the plough, when fallow-
ing for corn, on land well covered with vege-
table matter from having been inclosed, so as
to bury it with the litter ; this is in fact the
vsame experiment with the last, except that the
gypsum has less vegetable manure to work up-
©n in the second than in the first case 5 be-
stowing on clover annually a top dressing, giv-
ing the preference to the youngest if there
should be a deficiency of the gypsum ; and
rolling both wheat and corn with it, when
sown or planted, bushel to bushel. This has
been the settled course of a farm for three or
four years, and within no equal term has it
equally improved. The wheat crop is less be-
nefitted immediately than any other, but this
polling of the wheat facilitates the vegetatiott
©f the clover sown on its surface in the spring,
and strengthens it against summer drought,
so frequently fatal to it in coarse soils; and
by thus improving the fertility of the land,
considerably augments succeeding crops. In-
tervals of twelve yards wide, quite across large
fields, sown with unplastered wheat, whilst the
rest was plastered by mingling a bushel of one,
with a bushel of the other, exhibited to a line
•n each side by the natural growth, an inferi-
•rity of strength from the cutting of the wheat,
throughout tlie whole period of rest.

The immediate benefit of gypsum to Indiaa
corn, is vastly greater than to any other crop,,
elover excepted, whilst its benefit to the land
is equally great. Unplastered spaces left a-
©TOSS large fields of clover, have in sundry iii^

MANURING. lis

stances produced a third or a fourth only of
the adjoining plastered clover. Un plastered
spaces across large fields of com, have heen
frequently visible during the whole crop, pro-
ducing not an equal hut a considerable differ-
ence, (jypsum, clover, and inclosing, work-
ing in conjunction, have within my own know-
ledge doubled, trebled, and in a very favorable
soil quadrupled the value of land, in the space
of twelve or fifteen years; whilst the land regu-
larly produced two exhausting crops, those of
corn and wheat in every four years of the period
and these crops were continually increasing.

Of lime and marie we have an abundance,
but experience does not entitle me to say any
thing of either. About a family, a variety of
manures may be thrown together, and form a
small store for gardens and lots. Among these
ashes deserve particular attention. Like other
manures they suiFer by exposure and evapora-
tion, but less, because water is a menstruum
which will convey much of their salts into the
earth, if they are spread ; the same menstru-
um conveys most of these salts out of the ashes,
if they are opposed to it before they are appli-
ed as a manure. Hence when ashes have not
been reduced by water in richness, they are t©
be used as a manure more sparingly, and when
they have, more copiously. In their unreduc-
ed state, just from the chimney, when sprin-
kled an inch thick on the long litter and dung
from a recently cleansed stable, they consti-
tute the best manure I have ever tried for as-
paragus. The beds are well forked up in the
fall, covered two or three inches deep with th©
tinrotted stable manure, on which the fresU
ashes are placed, and so remain until they s^e
tliif owa into proper order in the spring.
[Note C,.]

il4 XABOFK,

NUMBER 2i.

LABOUR.

Perhfips this subject ought to hare preceded
that of manuring, as it is idle even to think of
m good sjstera of agriculture in any point of
view, if the labor on ^vhieh it depends is eon-
Tulsed by infusions the most inimical to its uti-
lity ; and if those who direct it, are to live in a
constant dread of its loss, and a doubt of their
own safety- Su^h a state of uncertainty is
painful to the parties, unfriendly to improve-
ment, and productive of extravagance and idle-
ness in all their varieties. Yet those who keep
it alive, persuade themselves that they are
complying with the principles of religion, pa-
triotism and morality. Into such fatal errors
is human nature liable to fall, by its deliriums
for acquiring unattainable perfection.

One would think that the circles of ethicks
and logick cauld not furnish less doubtful ques-
tions than these. Were the whites of St. .Do-
mingo morally bound to bring on themselves
the massacre produced by the liberation of
their slaves ? Is such a sacrifice of freemen
to make freemen of slaves, virtuous or wicked ?
Will it advance vr destroy the principles of
morality, religion and civil liberty ? Is it wis«
or foolish ?

The history of parties in its utmost malig-
jnity is but a feint mirror for reflecting the
consequences of a white and a black party. If
badjges and names have been able to madden

men in all ages, up to robbery and murder in
tlieir most atrocious forms, no doubt can exist
of the consequences of placing two nations of
distinct colours and features on the same thea-
tre, to (iQnieml, not about sounds and signs, but
for wealth and power.

And ^ et an amiable and peaceable religious
sect, have been long laboring with some suc-
cess? to plunge three fourths of the union, into
a civil war of a complexion so inveterate, as to
admit of no issue, but the extermination of one
entire party. Suppose the extermination shall
fall on the bljicks, the ferocity acquired by
the whites during the contest, and the destruc-
tion of the labour in three fourthsof the union^
will not endow the remaining fourth with
wealth or happiness. If the ^vhites should be
the victims of this enthusiastic philanthropy,
and our northern brethren should succeed ia
overwhelming the southern states with the
negro patriotism and civilization, what will
4hey have done for the benefit of the liberty,
virtue or happiness of mankind 1 The French
revolution bottomed upon as correct abstract
principles and sounder practical hopes, tunn-
ed out to be a foolish and mischievous specu-
lation i what then can be expected from ma-
king republicans of negro slaves, and conquer-
ors of ignorant infuriated barbarians ? What
can those who are doing the greatest mis-
cliiefs from the best motives, to their fellow-
citizens, to themselves and to their country,
expect from such preachers of the gospel,
such champions of liberty, and such neigh-
bouring possessors of a territory larger thaa
I their own.

But what will uot enthusiasm attempt ? It
attempted to make freemen of the people of

116 «CABOr&

JPranee 5 the experiment pronounced that they
were incapable of liberty. It attempted to
compound a free nation of black and white
j)eople in St. Domingo. The experiment pro-
nounced that one color must perish. And now
rendered blinder by experience, it proposes to
renew the last experiment, though it impress-
ed truth by sanctions of inconceivable horror ;
and again to create a body politick, as mon-
strous and unnatural as a mongrel half white
man and half negro^

Do these hasty, or in the language of exact
truth, fanatic philosophers, patriots or ehisti-
ans, suppose that the negroes could be made
free, and yet kept from property and equal ci-
vil rights; or that both or either of these ave-
nues to power could be opened to them, and yet
that some precept or incantation could prevent"
their entrance 2 As rivals for rule with the
whites, the collision would be immediate, and
the catastrophe speedy. Divested of equal ci-
vil rights and wealth to prevent this rivalship,
but endowed with personal liberty, they would
constitute the most complete instrument for
invasion or ambition, hitherto forged through-
out the entire circle of human folly.

For what virtuous purpose are the southerit
runaway negroes countenanced in the Nor-
thern States ? Do these states wish the Sou-
thern to try the St. Domingo experiment ? If
not, why do they keep alive the St. Domingo
spirit ? War is the match which will in the
course of time be put to such a spirit, and aa
explosion might follow, which would shake ^
our nation from the centre to its extremities, j
Is it humanity, wisdom or religion, or some
adversary of all three, which prepares the
slock of combustibles for this explosion ?

Suppose France was about to invade th«
United States, and should ask Congress previ-
ously to admit a million of her most desperate
people into the Southern states, ready to join
and aid her armies ; eould the northern mem*
hers of the union find any motive drawn from po-
licy, religion, morality or self interest, for a-*
freeing to the proposal ? And yet in case of such
an invasion, a million of negroes, either slaves^
but artificially filled with a violent impatience
of their condition, and deadly hatred of their
masters ; or free-men, but excluded from
wealth and power, would hardly be less fero-
cious, merciless or dangerous, than a million of
idesperate French people.

A policy which weakens or renders incapa-
ble of self-defence at least three-fourths of the
union, must also be excessively injurious to the
remaining fourth, whose wealth and security
must increase or diminish by increasing or di-
minishing the wealth and security of the lar-
ger portion. Nor does the least present gain^
aflbrd to the northern states a temptation fof*
incurring so dreadful an evil. Their manners
will neither be improved, nor their happiness
advanced,by sprinkling their cities with a year-
ly emigration of thieves, murderers and vil-
lains of every degree, though recommended by
the training of slavery, a black skin, a woolly
body, and an African contour.

And yet even th^ Northern newspapers are
continually dealing out fraternity to this race,
and to this moral character, and opprobrium to
their white masters, with as little justice in
the last case, as taste in the first. What had
the present generation to do with the dilemma
in which it is involved ? How few even of its
aacestors were concei'ned in stealing and trans.*

11*

lis »J.ABOtK.

porting negroes from Africa ? If some rem*
mints of such monsters exist, they are not to
be found in the Southern quarters of the uni-
on. And if self preservation shall force the
slave holders into stricter measures of precau-
tion than they have hitherto adopted, those
who shall have driven them, into these mea-
sures, by continually exciting their negroes tQ
cut their throats, will accuse them of tyranny
with as little reason, as the prosecutors of the
slave trade accuse thenfi of negro stealing.

The fact is, that negro slavery is an evil
which the United States must look in the face.
To wliine over it, is cowardly ; to aggravate
it, criminal ; and to forbear to alleviate it^.
because it cannot be whollv cured, foolish. —
Revvards and punishments the sanctions of the
best government, and the origin of love and
fear, are rendered useless by the ideas excited
in the French revolution ; i)y the example of
St. Doijiingo ; by the lure of free negroes min-
gled with slaves ; and by the reproaches to
masters aud sympathies for slaves, breathed
I'orth from the Northern states. Sympathies,
such as if the negroes should transfer their af-
fections from their own species to the bal)oons.
Under impressions derived from such sources,
the justest punishment will be felt as the inflic-
tion of tyranny, and the most liberal rewards,
as a niggardly portion of greater riglits. For
where will the rights of bhick sansculottes stop?

Such a state of things is the most unfavorable
imaginable to the happiness of both master and
slave. It tends to diminish the humanity of
one class, and increase the malignity of the
othi'r, and in contemplating its utter destituti-
on of good, our admiration is equally excited,
by ijie error of those who produoc, and the
felly of those who suffer it.

XABOUB' 119

NUMBER 2^.

LABOUR, CONTlNUErir

Slaves are docile, useful and happ;^', if they
are well managed ; and if tlieir docility, utility
and happiness are not obstructed by the eir-
cumstances adverted to in tlie last number. — .
Knowledge manages ignorance with great ease,
"whenever ignorance is not used as an instru-
ment by knowledge against itself. But out*
religious and philosophical quixottes have un-
dertaken to make ignorance independent of
knowledge. They propose to bestow a capaci-
tv for libertT and rule on an extreme decree of
ignorai^ec, when the whole history of mankind
announces, that faP less degrees possess ne
such capacity. One would suspect, except for
the integrity of these divines and philosophers^
that they were impostors disguised in the gaib
of religion and philosophy, striving to disen-
gage a mass of ignorance from those who now
direct it, for the purpose of appropriating it to
themselves. Free it cannot be. It must be-
come the slave c^f superstition, cunning or am-
bition, in some form. And what is still worse,
when thrown upon the great national theatre
to be scrambled for, that interest which shall
gain the prize, will use it to oppress other
branches of knowledge. In its hands thQ
blacks will be more enslaved than they are at
present ; and the whites, in pursuit of an ideal
freedom for them, will create some vortex for
ingulphing the remnant of liberty left in the
world, and obtain real slavery for theRj.selves.

Under their present masters the negroes
M ould enjoy more happiness, and even more li-
berty, than under a conqueror or a hierarchy.
Slavery to an individual is preferable to slave-
ry to an interest or faction. The individual is
restrained by his property in the slave, and
susceptible of humanity. An interest or fac-
tion is incapable of both. Did a hierarchy or
a paper system ever shed tears over its oppres-
sions, or feel compunction for its exactions ?
On the contrary, joy swells with the fruit of
guilt ; and the very conscience, which abhors
the secret guillotine, used to cut out a neigh-
bour's purse, &: to transfer it to its own pocket,
without difficulty retains the contents. Thus
men imagine that tliey have discovered a way
to elude the justice of God, whose denunciati-
ons have overlooked chartered corporations,
and are only levelled against individuals^-^
The crime, they suppose, is committed by a
lw)dy politick, and scripture having exhibited
110 instance of one of these artificial bodies be-
ing consigned to the region of punishment, their
©oppressions, however atrocious, are considered
as a casus omissuSf and as affording a mode for
fattening the body with crimes and fraud^
without hurting the souU

It is otherwise with the personal owner of
slaves. Religion assails him both with her
blandishments and terrors. It indissolubly
binds his, and his slave's happiness or misei'y
together. These as«^ociates he cannot disse-
"ver ; he chooses the alternative indeed for both^
but he must choose the same.

If an interest or a combination of men is the
"worst species of master, and if this black mass
of ignorance, tui'ned at large and defined by tlie.
Iflainest jaarks^ must naturally fall nn(}er the

domiQion of some interest or combmatibn, the
miseries inflicted both on their owners and
themselves, by the perpetual excitements to
insurrection, and those to be expected from the
experiment whenever it is made, are attended
with no compensating counterpoise whatsoever
to either of the parties, even in hope. Should
these fruitless attempts be forborne, and should
the slave states take measures for abolishing
these excitements to general disquietude and
calamity, some system for the management of
slaves beneficial to themselves and their own-'
ers, is so closely connected with agriculture,
that the next number will be devoted t© that

^

i.2% JJiBOWSi.

LABaUR^ CONT^KUED.

Animal fabar is brought to its utmost value#..
?jy being completely supplied >vilh tbe neces-
saries and comforts required by its nature. —
These comforts have more force to attach the^
reasonable than the brute creation to a place,
and yet the attachments of the latter from this
eause, are often strong. The addition of com-
fort to mere necessaries, is a price paid by th^
master, for the advantages he will derive from
binding his slave to his service, by a ligament
stronger than chains, far beneath their value
In a pecuniary point of view ; and he will
moreover gain a stream of agreeable reflecti-
ons throughout life, which will cost him no-
thing.

A project towards an object so desirable,
may possibly contain a hint which some one
w ill improve. Let the houses of the slaves be
©f brick walls, able to withstand hard usage
and remain tight, built in one connected line,
witli partitions,, making each a room sixteen
or eighteen feet square ; let there be a brick
chirniiey in the centre between each two rooms
affordi^^g a fire place to each, and two warm
vhasiiis, one on each side of the iire place for
beds. A square window with a wooden shut-
ter to be opposite the door of each room, and
three panes of glass above eacli door. No
joists or loft, but to be lathed on the rafters
i\w\ their couplings, nearly to the top of the
i'oof, and the whole inside to be plastered.-^

Hience^ tljotigli the house should be low, the
pitch of the rooms wiil be higli ; and salubrity
will be consulted with a precaution against
fire, amounting to a certainty within the house,
as there will be no inside fuel, the floor being
of earth. The roof will be a mere shell plas-
tered within, and if the chimnies are suffici-
ently high, the absence of interior combusti-
bles, combined with the lowness of the house,
will form a great security against fire, so fre-
quently fatal to the houses of slaves, and some-»
times to the inhabitants.

A regular supply of a winter*^s coa-t, jacket
and breeches, with the latter and the sleeves
©f the former lined, two oznaburg shirts,^ a
good hat and blanket eyerj other year, tw^
pair of stockings annually, a pair of shoes, a
pair of summer overalls, and a great coat eve-
ry third year, will constitute a warm clothings
for careful slaves, and the acquisitions they
make from their usual permissions, will sup»
ply them with finery.

The best source for securing theirhappines^
their honesty and their usefulness, is their
food ; & yet it is seldom considered as a means
for advancing either. If the happiness of an
idle epicure is deeply affected by food, what
must be its influence upon labor and hunger ?
In the article of food, the force of rewards and
punishments may be happily combined to unitQ^
the whole body of slaves into conservators, in*
Stead of being pilferers of the moveables on a^
farm. It may be made both a ligament to tie
the slave to its service, and enable him to per-
form that service better. A scheme for pro-

^ ducing these ends has been found so successful
in practice, and coincides so intirely with the

• jsuUject of agriculture by slaves, that it isteho^

^ti to temiinate this subject Bread alon^
ought never to be considered as a sufficient
diet for slaves^ except as a punishment; and
at one meal each day they should have salt
meat, boiled into a soup with peas, beans, po-
tatoes, turnips, cabbages, cimblins or pump-
kins. At other meals salt fish, milk or butter
milk. Vegetables are raised in great abua^
dance at little expence^ and at all seasons a
supply of some species should be allowed t*
the slaves without stint. We shall be asto-
nished upon trial to discover that this great
•omfort to themj is a profit to the master, in
its single efiect of contributing to their health,
without estimating the benefits arising from'
a cheerful acquiesence in their condition. One
great value of establishing a comfortable diet
for slaves, is its conveniency as an instrument
®f reward and punishment, so powerful as al*
most to abolish the thefts, which often diminish
considerably the owner's ability to provide for
them. These can seldom or never be commit*
ted without being known to the other slaves^
but they are under no interest to restrain
them. It is the interest of all to steal by
which they occasionally get some addition to
bread, if this addition cannot be procured by
honesty. But if thefts are punished by pla-t
dng the whole on that diet, all will have an in-
terest to prevent and forbear theft, provided a
diet much more comfortable is thereby secur-
ed. Nor is involving all in the punishment a
hardship, because all share in the benefit^
which nothing but this system for preventing
the waste of theft can produce ; and because a
knowledge of the criminal is usually general.
It is this unavoidable knowledge, which makes^
the inaoeeut comrades, who will not surreiide.r

their own daily comforts, tbaf anotlier may
occasionally steal luxuries, a solid check upon
theft. The better the diet of negroes, the
more effectual ^yill such a system become. —
It should be executed rigidly, so as to produce
a loss of food additional to bread, of double va-
lue to the thing stolen, except the guilty person.
is detected, who ought in that case to sustaia
the whole punishment, which must either be
r-orporal, or a sale to some distant place. The.
latter, combined with the enjoyments provided^
for slaves by this system, will soon become au
object of terror ; and as many buyers eare lit-,
tie for moral character, it is unexceptionable,
provided the seller states it fairly and records
it in the bill of sale, as he ought to do, for hi&
own honor and security.

A daily aHowance of cyder will extend the
success of this system for the management of
slaves, and particularly its effect of diminish-
ing corporal punishments. But the reader is
warned, that a stern authority, strict disci-
pline and complete subordiaation, must be
combined with it, to gain any success at all^
and that so long as white soldiers cannot be
kept in order, or rendered useful, without all
three, he is not to expect that black slaves caa
without either ; nor that those can be govern-
ed by the finest threads of the humsm keart^
wko possess only th« •ftarsest.

i2t XABOUE.

KU1MBER31.

LABOUR, CONTINUES.

Those iied by habit to the cotation^of com,
Tvheat and pasture, or the three shift system,
object W the enclosing and four shift system,
^ that having labour adequate to the tilling on©
third of their arable land, a portion of it would
be unemployed, by restricting this labour to the
cultivation of a fourth only.'* The rotation
«f corn, wheat and clover for two years, with-
©ut being cut or grazed, need only be confront-
ed with its rival course, to satisfy the reader,
that under the latte* system, the fourth will
soon overtake the third in prodnet, and at
length infinitely exceed it. The profit of ma-
king greater crops from less land is vi&ible at
once. The same crop from a fourth may pro-
duce profit, and yet a loss from a third. If
120 acres of poor land produce 120 ban ela of
€orn, and the expences of eultivation amount
to a barrel an acre, there is no profit ; but if
SO acres of the same land are improved by in-
closing, so as to produce 120 barrels, there will
be a profit of 30 barrels. This principle
equally applies to every case of an existing
profit under the three shift system, because
whatever it may be, it is greatly increased by
obtaining an equal cropby cultivating less lancl.

The error of making the mode of cultivation
subservient to fluctuating labour, instead of a-
dapting the labour to permanent land, however
egregious, cannot properly be termed vul-
gar, Ueeause %i is e^mmoii to IB^eB of ihG hest^

I

SIS well as if tliose of the meatiest uTiderstand-
ings. However glaring* il is, it really eonsti-
tut s the most stubborn argument in favor of
using labour to kill rather»than to improve land;
and though some readers may think it idle to
controvert a mistake, apparently not withiu
the scope of human weakness to commit, the
greater number, will I fear, consider the ap-
plication of labor to the improvement, rather
than to the impoverishment of laud, as fai>
more ridiculous. "T-'he collision between. thes©_
opinions, will excuse the matter of this num«
ber, though it may seem trite to some and vi-
sionary to others.

An application of labour to land, wliicU daily
diminishes the fertility of the land, considered
in a national light, is obviously a national evil ;
and a habit from which such boundless or
wide ruin and depopulation must ensue, sup-
posing it to be general, seems incapable of de-
serving the approbation of virtue, or the con-
currence of selfishness. If the employment of
labour in the course of corn, wheat and pas-
ture, produces a regular impoverishment of
the soil, the practice talis within the scope of
this observation.

It is equally at enmity with the purest de-.
votion of seJf-lnterest, which ever chilled the
liuaian heart. This devotion pants for com-
poun d or increasing not for decreasing interest ;-
and beholds with horror a diminution of princi»
pal. Our three shift system gradually de-
stroys the principal, land, and gradually dimi^
mshes the interest crop, if the labour iaerea-
ses as in the case of slaves, the effect is not t«
eonch, but to impoverish the owner.

Flight is his resource against the poverty he
dierive^ from the inereasc of his slaves* 11

ihe application of labour to the iinpoverisE*
jnent of land, was universal, an emigration t»
another world, would be the only remedy ; if
national, it must amouiit to an abjuration of
our country and form of government ; if state*
to a banishment from our native soil and rela-
tions. But this miserable remedy itself will
ere long be exhausted, and after an intemai
struggle for the best birth in a bed of thorns,
the discovery will be made, that an endeavor im
each to feather his own nest, is the only way
to procure comfort for all ; and that the pros-
perity of the nation and the happiness of indi-
'viduals, depend on the improvenient of land hyj
a proper application of labour.

But what shall we do with our surplus labour
IS repeated, if we cease to employ it in killing,
land ? One would think that this doubt could
never be entertained, except by a fatalist, who
believed that such was the end for which labour
was created. The effects of labour are the
same in agriculture as in architecture ; fax
more is necessary to build than to destroy j
shall we thence also infer, that labor is destin-i
ed to destroy houses ? Where is the difference
between destroying houses and destroying the
means by which houses are rendered comfort
able ? The early Kentucky settlers contended,
that unless the sugar makers killed the suga*
trees, it threw a portion of their labour out oi
employment, and therefore infer red, that it wa«
one of nature's wise laws, that labour should
kill the sources of sugar. Did they borrow
this opinion from our querist, who thinks it
wise and natural to employ it in killing the
source of bread ? If an abundance of laboui
caused a land killing agricultural system, and
its scarcity the reverse, Flanders should be a

wilderness and Virginia a garden. A great
recommendation of the inclosing and four shift
system, is the saving of labour it creates in
fencing, and in renouncing the culture of ex-
hausted lauds, to be applied to improvement.
When we come to consider a project for the
management of a bread stuif farm, we sliall
discover full employment for this surplus la-
bour, which the three shift system fears would
be idle, if not employed as a land executioner.
The raising of manure, covering with clever
every spot of land which will bear it, and con-
verting all moist land into meadow, would
alone be spoi^ors for the futility of the appre-
hension. And yet many other objects of labour
must be combined with the four shift and in-
closing system? to accelerate and augment the
rewards it will bestow. Hay in abundance
must be made, crops will be augmented, modes
of tillage must be improved, transportation
will increase with litter, manure and crops,
-and gypsum if resorted to, is by no means nig-
gardly in providing employment for labour.—-
3ff these observations have not removed the ap-
prehension of ruin, seriously and generally en-
tertained by the disciples of the corn, wheat
and pasture rotation, should they change the
application of their labour from impoverishing
to improving their land, it will still be remov-
ed by their own superior reflections, if they will
be pleased to reflect. They will certainly disco-
ver that the danger of wanting employment for
their labour, lurks, not in improving but in
impoverishing their lands, and that whilst they
shudder at an apparition, they are esibracing
ai^ assassin.

12.

NUIVIBER S2.

INDIAN CORN.

It was very improbable that one who ha«
often joined in the execration of Indian corn,
should have been destined to write its eulogy.
Had we designed to transfer from ourselves t<>
an innocent plant the heavy charge of murder-
ing our land, its acquittal before a jury whose
4>wn condemnation would be the eonsequenccn
could not be expected ; but as nothii|g is more
certain than that the exalamations against
corn and tobacco (and for the last thirty years
wheat ought to have been placed at the head
of the triumvirate) for killing our lands, have
proceeded from conviction, without a suspicion
-^ that we ourselves were the perpetrators of the
act; I shall venture to bring Indian com to
trial before the real criminals, and its mista-
ken accusers.

Arthur Young,in hisTravels through France
and Spain, observes, that the regions of maiz«
exhibited plenty and affluence, compared with
those where other crops were cultivated. As
a faithful agricultural annalist, he records the
fact; being but little acquainted with the
plant, he could not Batisfactorily account for iU
Even a nation which has lived with it, and al-
most upon it for two hundred years, so far
from correctly estimating its value, have only
learnt to eat it, but not to avail themselves of
half its properties. Those for killing land,
they have turned to the utmost account ; those
for improving it, they have wholly neglected.

I5DIAK COB&. IH

The first capacity is common to all crops ; the
last is possessed hy few. Indian corn produ-
ces more food for man^ beast and the earth,
than any other farinaceous plant. If the food
it produces for the two first was wasted, and
men and beasts should thence become poor
and perish, ought their poverty or death to be
ascribed to the plant which produced the food-,
or to those who wasted it ? Is Indian corn
justly chargeable with the impoverishment of
the earth, if the food it provides for that is not
applied ?

If the theory which supposes that plants »jc-
tract most or all of their matter from the at-
mosphere, and that the whole of this matter is
manure, be true, then that plant which produ-
ces most vegetable offal must be the most im-
proving crop, and it will hardly be denied that
Indian corn is entitled to this pre-eminence.

Let us compare it with wheat. Suppose
that the same land will produce as much grain
of the one as of the other, which in its use will
make equal returns to the earth. Here th«
equality ends, if indeed it exists even in this
point. The corn stalks infinitely exceed the
wheat straw in bulk, weight, and a capacity
for making fdod for the earth. If any at-
tentive man who eonvcrts both his stalk& and
straw into manure, will compare tht^ii' pred'if^t
in April, when he may distinguish one from
the other, he will find of the former a vast su-
periority in quantity. The English farmers
consider wheat straw as their most abundant
resource for manure, and corn stalks are far
more abundant ; corn therefore is a less im-
poverishing, because a more compensating
crop to the earth, credited only for its stalks,
tkan any in England. In eompariof erops^ ta

16.2 INDIAN CORN.

ascertain their relative product, and operation
on the earth, we must contrast farinaceous
erops with each other ; and consider the littei?
or oftal they produce, not as wasted, hut as ju-
diciously applied to the compensation ofthe^
land. At the threshold of the comparison,
eorn exhibits a return from the same land of
more offal or litter in its stalks alone, than^
wheat does altogether. But to the stalks of
corn, its blades, tops, shucks and cobs remain
To be added, each of which will nearly balance
^he litter bestowed on the land by wheat. Not
©nly the quantity of the vegetable matter pro-
duced by corn, is far greater than the quantity^;
produced by wheat, but the quality is better*
and the risque of loss from evaporation less.—
The straw of wheat after it is ripening or ripe#
standing or lying out on the ground, is vastly
diminished in weiglit by moisture, and injured
after it is cut, even by dews, I think I have
known it thus lose two thirds of its weight*
Among the several kinds of litter furnished bj
corn, the shucks and cobs los^ nothing of their
talue by evaporation ; the rind of the stalks
sfeems intended by nature to resist it, that the
ilVi'mer may have time to save them both as food
and litter ; from the same rind the top derives
some security, and the foilcl-^r is'only exposed to
Itasgrassis in being made into hay. But the
quality of every part of the corn offal is better
as manure than the wlieat offal. The cob is
*'uid to be a valuable food, reduced to meal ;
iVso it probably contains an oil. The stalk
abounds in salts far beyond wheat straw. The
Tops and blades cured green, save from evapo-
ration salts lost by straw. And even shueksj
being more niitricious as food, must be allow-
ed some degree of richness beyond the straw*

-The wbole of the corn offal is better food than
wheat straw, but its blades and tops are so
greatly superior, that cattle prefer them to
hay, and will fatten on them as well. The
corn offal can therefore maintain a fat herd,
furnishing abundantly that which forms a com-
pound with vegetable matter, of the richest
consistence. To this object the straw is in-
competent.

Let us now compare corn & wheat as farinace-
ous food only. Corn in a proper climate for it,
t produces more farinaceous matter than wheat
to the acre, from the richest down to the poor-
est soil ; and hence also results a greater
return to the earth. The highest product of
corn I have heard of in the United States is
125 bushels to the acre, of wheat 60, a differ-
ence somewhat diminished by the difference of
weight. Fifty bushels of corn to the acre,
are almost invariably produced by land well
manured and Avell cultivated, whereas even
half that crop of wheat is extremely rare. —
And in districts where the average crop of
wheat is five, that of corn is usually about fif-
teen bushels an acre. Besides^ corn both
growing and gathered, is less liable to misfor-
tunes than wheat.

Indian corn may be correctly called meal,
meadow and manure. To its right to the first
title, almost every tongue in the largest por-
tion of the United States can testify ; to the
second, an exclusive reliance on it for fodder
or hay, in a great district of country during
two centuries, gives conclusive evidence ; but
the rueful countenance of this same districts
either disproves its claim to the third, or dis-
allows any pretension of the inhabitants to in-
dustry or agricultural knowledge*

iB4? IKDXAN COEN.

In Europe no husbandmaa expetts a telem-
b)e crop of any kind, except the land has been
"Well maoared within seven years at mostf
here we have obtained for two centuries from"
Indian corn, bread, meat, and fodder, without
giving it, generally speaking, a dust of ma-
nure, or allowing any rest to the land whicli
produces it. Is tbere any country in Europe^
able to bear this draft for such a period, with-
out exhibiting the cadaverous aspect of the
corn district of the Tjnited States?

But not content with bestowing on other
crops, the meagre modiaum of manure, which
happened to lie unavoidably in the way of ig-
norance, whilst the maintenance of every thing
was required af corn, without allowing it any,
we have suffered the manure provided by corn
itself to waste and perish : and having both
withheld from it foreign aias, and transferred
to other plants the small portion of its own r^
sources for manure, which accident may have
saved, and permitted the residue to be lost, we
©barge it with being an exhausting and killing
«rop»

Such is the experimental process hitherto
pursued, but it must be reversed, before the
question can be tolerably understood or fairly
iletermined. It will be reversed by convert*-
ing every dust of its offal into manure, and
manuring highly for corn. With good culti-
vation an acre of well manured land, seldom
produces less than fifty bushels. This crop
furnishes also other food equivalent to a tole-
rable crop of hay, and such an abundance of
means for raising manure, that I have no doubt
if properly applied, it would be a resource fop
^nr even sljortening the English manuring ro»
tation, ^hich embraces the whole farm eve-

INDIAN CORN. 1S$

rf sev<Gn years at most. Heoee I conolude
that corn, besides beiiig^ the Kiost productive
of any farinaceous erop, is also the least im-
poverishijsg, and even an improving crop aided
by inclosii^g.

The brevity I have prescribed to myself, in-
duces me to pass over several inferior superi-
orities of Indian corn, and to conclude its en-
eomium with one of peculiar value. As a fal-
low crop, it is unrivalled, if as fallow crops
ought constantly to do, it receives the manure.
Arthur Young proves the vast superiority of a
fallow crop over a naked fallow in England,
where a crop greatly inferior to corn in value,
3s necessarily used. This is usually peas or
beans. It is less productive, less valuable as
hread stuff, less frx)ught with foddcpy almost
wholly destitute of litter for raising manure,
more precarious, more liable to disaster after
it is gathered, more chargeable in point of
seed, and requires moi*e skill, trouble and ex-
pence in its cultivation. Under all these dis?
advantages, a fallow cr&p in England is pre-
ferable to a naked fallow. Under all the ad-
vantages of using corn as such, if becomes a
brilliant object in America, if attended with a
complete manuring, as fallow crops in Eng^
land invariably are. In that ease fifty bushels-
of corn and thirty of wheat may be expected
from good culture. No value is produced in
England by the fallow crop and the following
wheat, equal to eighty bushels of bread grain.
But credit to corn the savings and additional
produce arising from the above enuniei'ated
.considerations, and it certainly promises to the
American farmer, far gi^ater benefits from a
good system of husbandry, than any crop with*-
JUi the reaeh of an English farmer.

NUMBER SB.

INDIAN CORN, CONTINUEB.

The plant which contributes in the greatest
degree to national subsistence, best deserves
the patronage of skill and industry ; and yet
the cultivation of maize remains as it was bor-
^towed from the aboriginal farmers of Ameri-
ca, except, thatif product is the test of science,
they must be allowed to have been more accom-
plished husbandmen than their imitators. Asi
the Indians certainly made better crops to the?
acre, and preserved the earth in better heart,
than we do, we may at least hope to aecomplishi
a degree of perfection, which from their suc-
cess we know to be attainable, however deter-
ring may be the prospect of our ability to im-
prove upon it. If indeed we could be persua-
ded to relinquish what we have retained of this
indigenous system, and to draw o^e from sci-
entific principles and European experience,)
perhaps we might recover the palm in the cul-
tivation of maize, from those to whom we have
ourselves assigned it by a special cogoomina**
tion.

Neither in theory or practice, in Europe on
elsewhere, did we ever hear of condemning:
land perpetually to severe crops, two years out
of three, without aiding it by any species of
manure. But if we add to this system Ihei
two items with which it is usually attended,,
one, close grazing the year of rest as it is call-
ed (a rest like that enjoyed by a man first
stunned with blows and then trampled to death)
the other, frequent ploughing* of two or three

INDIAN eoBN; 137

inches deep to let in snn and keep out atmos-
phere as much as possible, it would be viewed
as the most complete agricultural caricature
hitherto sketched by the finest fancy for the
ridiculous.

In England, a thorough manuring, univer-
sally attends a fallow crop, the effect of which
is a medium product of wheat, of about thirty
bushels to the acre. Let manuring attend
maize as a fallow crop, and we follow this ex-
ample. To come up to it however, we must
get our land into equal heart with theirs, when
it receives this manuring ; and then we should
be able fairly to estimate the value of Indian
corn. In its cultivation, the first improvement
required, is therefore to manure it at the usual
rate of other fallow crops.

The second is to plough vastly deeper thaa
We plough at present. In our dry and hot
elimate, the preservation ©f the moisture and
the inhalation of the atmosphere, are suf-
ficient reasons for this. To these are to be
added, the deepening of the soil, and an ia-
ftrease of pasture for the plant. The maize is
alittletr«e,and possessing roots correspondent
to its size,these roots will of course strike deep-
er, both to procure nourishment, and to streng-
then this small tree against severe winds.—
It follows with a great degree of probability,
that this large plant requires deeper ploughing
than a smaller one. Yet we plough shallower
in its cultivation than the people of Europe dd
in cultivating wheat.

I shall here endeavor to prove the truth of a
pair of paradoxes. One, that shallow plough-
ing increases, the other, that deep ploughing
diminishes labour. A single observation almost
sm&oes to susta,i» both. By shallow ploughing.

13d tumiJLJS coRir.

the seeds of grass and weeds, arc kept near th«
surface throughout the year, locked up hy
frost, drought or immersion, ready to sprout
upon the occurrence of every genial season,
when they appear in millions, and instantly re-
quire the plough, however recently used ; by
deep, if skilfully done, these seeds, which a-
bound most near the surface, are deposited
helow a depth of earth, which they pe-
netrate slowly and in small numbers, so that
the repetition of ploughing is far less necessa*
ry.

One or two deep ploughings, according to^
the nature of the soil, will, with the subsequent
use of the skimmer or the harrow, serve to
make the crop of corn ; in place of which at
least four or five shallow ploughings, with the
same aid, will often destroy it.

To demonstrate the diiferenee in point of la-
bour, I will describe the tillage of corn as I
practice it to some extent, and leave the reader
to make the comparison in his own mind with
the usual mode of cultivation.

The rows are never ploughed but in one di-
rection, cross ploughing being wholly abandon^
ed. Their width is five and a half feet. The
field being once thrown into the position off
ridges and furrows, never requires to be laid
off again. The furrow is left as deep as pos-
sible, and when the field comes again into til-
lage, the list or ridge is made upon this furrow,
so that there is a regular alternity betweeiii
ridges and furrows. If the soil is of a friable
nature, a large plough draWn by four horses,
and cutting a sod about twelve inches wide and
eight deep, is run on each side of this old fur-
row, and raises a ridge in its centre, on which
to plant the eorn. The old ridge is split by ti

INBIAK CORN. 139

Targe trowel -hoe-plough, having a coulter on
the point, two mould-boards, drawn by four
horses, and cutting ten inches deep. If the
soil is stiff or tough with turf, tlie first plough
with four horses, ridges or lists on the old wa-
ter .furrow, with four furrows of the same
depth and width. On the summit of this ridge
or list, a deep and wide furrow is run with a
trowel-hoe plough and two mould-boards,
in which the corn is planted and covered be-
tween two and three inches deep with the foot.
The planting is guided by a string carried
across the ridges, with coloured marks at the
distance apart intended for the corn. This
furrow is a complete weeding of the ridge pre-
vious to planting, which it should barely pre-
cede. The corn receives no more ploughing,
until it is thinned and hand-hoed along the
rows, about two feet wide. After this a deep
furrow is run on each side of it by a large
plough, drawn by two horses, with a mould-
board, causing the earth thrown out of it to
meet at the corn, though the furrow is a foot
from it. Thenceforth the tillage consists of a
streak or furrow of a mere weeding plough
called a skimmer, cutting with two wings
twenty-four inches — drawn by one horse ; and
of a central, deep and wide furrow, made with
a trowel-hoe and two mould-hoards, drawn by
two horses, to be repeated when necessary. —
The whole to be concluded with a narrow
iveeding or hand-hoeing along the slip in the
direction of the row^ not kept completely elean
•by the skimiaera

NUMBER S*.

INDIAN CORN, CONTINUED.

The judieious reader will discern, that the
effects of high ridges and deep furrows^in cul-
tivating corn are numerous. The qjovq is,
planted immediately over the furrow of the
preceding crop, and by completing the rever-
sal of the ridge early in its culture, it grows
upon a depth of tilth three or four times ex-
ceeding what is attained by planting and cross
ploughing in the usual mode. Its roots are
never cut in one direction, and tliis great depth
of tilth thus early obtained, by superseding!
the occasion for deep ploughing in the latter
period of its growth, saves them in the other.
The preservation of the roots, and their deeper
pasture, enables the corn much longer to re-
sist drought. The litter of inclosed grounds^
thrown into the deep furrow upon which thc«
oorn list is made, is a reservoir of manure, fan
removed from evaporation; within reach ofl
the roots, which will follow it along the fur-
row ; and calculated for feeding the plant in
droughts. The dead earth brought up by the*
plough from the deep furrow is deposited om
each side of it, without hurting the crop on the
ridge, and with the bottom of the furrow re-
tnains four years to be fructified by Uie atmos-
phere, 60 as to escape the present loss somer
times accruing from mingling too much dead
earth with the soil by deep flat ploughing, andi
yet to mellow and deepen it more rapidly.
And mueh labour is saved in planting the oofDi

INDIAN CORN, 141

Whether the hoe is used af^er a string, or the
string is carried across furrows previously
made on the ridge.

In all lands unable to produce forty bushels
«f corn to the acre, the cousiderations of prO'
duce and saving labour united, have deter*
mined the proper distance to be five and an
half feet square, with two or three stalks at
-each station, except in poor spots where one
will suffice. If it can produce that crop or
more, I have planted it at th« distance of five
feet six inches, by two feet nine, leaving two
stalks in sandy, and three in stiff lands. Deep
ploughing in one direction, by shielding the
corn against drought, and saving its roots, al-
lows it to be planted thicker than usual.

Young's experiments have ascertained that
fallow crops are mere profitable than naked
^fallows. Several superiorities of Indian com
over the fallow crops used in England, have
been noticed. The following are, I believe,
omitted. The high ridges produced by tho
mode of cultivation I have adopted, double
the surface exposed to the atmosphere, and
lessen by one half that exposed to the sun, s©
as to increase inhalation and diminish exhala-
tion very considerably. 'No other fallow crop
will enable us to obtain thc^e benefits by the
:agency of the plough, because none of them
will admit of being drilled sufHeiently ^vide
apart, nor admit of an equal use of the
plough. *

Corn is a fallow crop, peculiarly adapted to
co-operate with the system of inclosing ;
whereas a fallow for wheat, by which an un-
grazed lay of grass* weeds, or even of red elo-^
ver is turned uudcr^ frequently defeats the
liopes of the farmer. Hence he is seduced in*

IS.

1^2 INDIAN COE39.

to the ruinous practice of feeding off his clo-
ver before he commences his fallow ; a prac-
tice under which very rich land only will im-
prove, whereas the heaviest cover, turned un-
der by a large plough and four horses, is a
pledge for good crops both of corn and wheat,
owing to the quality of the former of thriving
upon the food yielded by coarse litter, and the
time gained during its growth, for reducing
this litter to proper food for the laUer.

The winter's manure, like this litter is also
Bsade mote extensively beneficial to a crop of
w heat, than if it had been exposed to putrefac-
tion throughout the summer, because whate-
ver escapes into the atmosphere, duiing a vi-
olent summer's iermentation, is lost both to
the earth and to the crop of wheat ; whereas
the fermentation is less violent, when this lit-
ter is mingled with the earth, which catches a
portion of its fertilizing qualities as the slow
putrefaction proceeds, and less of the manure
is lost when the wheat is sown, than if rotted
in a body, whereby much of it is dissipated in
the atmosphere ; a dissipation which cora
partly prevents, and partly saves.

Uhe manure made on the winter's farm pen,
remains wetpcold, and unrotted until the month
of April, and when co'jsposed of corn stalks is
of a rough and hard nature. Yet land cover-
ed with fifty loads and sown wilh one bushel
of gypsum to an acre, will produce threefold i
iiicre corn than in its UHlural states and this
crop is made in live months; a spuce just suf-
ficient to reduce tlie coarse litter to a pabu-
lum [jroper for wheat. The better this coarse
litter and tbc eartl. are divided and mingled,
the less will be the fei nientation, and the
greater the crop. Ihe sudtlen growth of the

INDIAN CORN'. 14^

corn, demonstrates the vast benefit to be de-
rived from litter as coarse and hard as corn
stalks, whilst the degree of their putrefaction
is inconsiderable, and consequently the vast
loss sustained by completing this putrefaction,
without gaining a valuable crop from its pro»
cess. After the process of fermentation and
putrefaction is finished in the earth, the resi-
duum is the same, as if it had been finished out
of the earth ; besides this residuum, supposed
by the old theory of compounding, stirring and
rotting dunghills, to contain all the fertilizing
qualities of vegetable matter, Indian corn en*
ables us to reap a rich harvest of bread stuft'
from the process towards it.

TliC %?.7C^Q^ prcperty of Indian corn presents
lis also with a vast addition to our vegetable
matter for manure. The crop of ofi*al as well
as that of food, is augmented three fold by^
the matter separated from coarse litter in re-
ducing it to manure proper for wheat. This
of itself exhibits the vast preference of corn as
a fallow crop, to the application of ratted ma-
nure to a naked fallow for wlieat. Ko two
crops can be so exactly fitted for advancing a
good system of agriculture. The coarse or-
gans of the one, relishes the food rejected by
the delicate organs of the other, and by the
economy of saving what would otherwise be
lost, not only enable us to obtain an additional
crop, but hy cncreasing our means for raising
manure in a three fold ratio, must have the ef-
feet of increasing the crops of wheat them-
selves, far beyond the confines to which th^y
are limited by naked fallows.

NUMBER 35.

INDIABT CORN, CONTINUED.

Tbe reader will remember, that Indian cora
is to be phmted on a high ridge, and that cros&
ploughing is excluded. These ridges should
run North and South, to equalize both the ber
iieflts and injuries derived from the sun. The
Injury suffered by a fiat surface from its ex-
^aaaive heat, woukl be rather increased than
dimiriisiied, by exposing one face of the ridge
to the South, whilst the Northern aspect would
lose the benefit of its genial Ayarnitli. Tiies©-
liigh ridges have another important effect. —
However steep the declivity, we never see the
roots of Irees, shrubs or grasses, penetrating
through the ground into the atmosphere. It
is of course evident that they recoil from one
«lemenf, and bend tovvards their food in th«
other, wherever it is to be found. By the po-
sition of the corn on high ridges from its in-
fancy, the roots on approaching the declivity
on each side, are trained to run lengthways
of the ridge, and thus escape the injury they
would otherwise sustain by getting into the
range of the deep middle furrow.

As it would be unreasonable to expect the
reader to recollect observations made in con-
sidering the subject of manuring, I shall re-
mind him, that the ground intended to be ma-
nured for Indian corn is fallowed in the win-
ter; that before or after the rest of the crop
is planted, this manure is canied out, plough-
ed in, and the corn to be benelitted by it, plan-
ied 5 and that befere it receives any plou^l^-*

INDIAN COBI?. 14f j

ing, the corn is to be thinned and wed or hand
hoed. This process will bring us into June,
and allow an interval for recruiting the teams,
when clover is in its best state for that end. By
this time the corn is from eight to tvventj-four
inches high. At this juncture the deep fur-
i'ow before mentioned on each side of it being
run, narrows the ridge for about eight days>
until it is again widened by the middle furrow i
and that space will sutSce to give to the corn
roots, the longitudinal direction which shields
them against all injury ; this furrow being the
only deep one received by the corn after it is
planted, (the water furrow excepted out of the
way of which the roots are thus trained) being
bestowed on it v/hilst it is young and its roots
short, and being run near a foot from it, the
roots of the corn, by this mode of culture,
wholly escape injury, and the eifects of drought
on the plant being thus diminished, its pro^
duct is increased.

The first ploughing which is to answer the
end both of a fallow, and a list or ridge on
which to plant the corn, is by far the most ma-
terial part of the system, and indeed the only
good security for its success. The furrow
must be deep and wide, so as to overturn into
the old water furrow, a considerable mass of
the litter produced by inclosing, whether weeds
or cloveri- This mass, in addition to its being
a reservoir of food, gradually supplying the
corn during the summer as it putrifies, ope-
rates powerfully in preserving the friability
and mellowness of the earth, by the passage
of the air perpetually escaping from it, through
its tegument, into its congenial element. B?
this process, the propensity of hard and cold
soils to run and bake, is removed or diniinisb-

145 INDIAN GOIIN*

ed ; a propensity which is encouraged in the
highest degree hy shallow ploughing on naked
or grazed fields. And bj the same process,
the inconveniences of a mass of dry litter, on
enclosed fields, combined with shallow plough-
ing are also avoided ; because it is so well bu-
ried, that the corn is planted above it, and
sprouts in a bed of clean earth.

The accidents to which Indian corn is liable,
are far inferior to those of any other farinaceous
plant, and less remediless. It comes up bet-
ter ; it may be re-planted, and at last it may
be transplanted. This last precaution for in-
suring a crop, is executed with little labour
by planting a portion of it very early, in the
quarter of the field Avhere it will vegetate and
grow quickest, somewhat thicker, to furnish
plants ; and by transplanting those drawn out
iii thinning in moist weather, or after a season,
us the tobacco-makers say. The corn plants
will live better than those of tobacco or any
Gtiier herb I ever tried, and may be transplant-
ed until they arc eighteen inches high. The
large plants will be equal to the smaller and
later planted corn. Indeed I often fill up va-
iianeies by setting the plants of the same field i
as it is thinned, and always thin as I set to (
livoid a double perambulation. A pointed I
slick both aids in thinning and in setting the
*orn, which is done nearly as rapidly as tobac**
eo is planted.

1 repeat a fact which most people know, to^
remove an objection against the very deep
ploughing recommended as the basis of the
corn crop, arising from an erroneous opinion^
in a fcv,, that the roots of corn and most other
herbaceous plants, seek their food only near
the surface 5 whereas the roots of wheat wiB

HiTDIAN CORN. 14/

penetrate four feet of tilth, and those of corn
will strike still deeper. An objection that the
roots of the latter ^vill not reach the reservoir
of food provided for them in the deep covered
litter of an inclosed field, would therefore be
erroneous.

No grain exhibits so many varieties, or is so
liable to change as the maize ; the preferred
species can only be preserved or improved by
selecting the seed at the time of shucking |
this will also prevent its exposure to a sweaty
and produce its better vegetation ; and it in^
ereases the crop, which is deeply influenced hj
the length of the grain.

[Note B.]

10$ KEOrGHlN©o^

SLUMBER a6.

FrLOUuHING.

This subject bas beett unavoidably anticipa-
ted by its connection with others, but yet it is
aot wholly exhausted,

I utterly deny the truth of the theory which
asserts that ploughing is a substitute for ma-
nure ; for though I admit, that the atmosphere
Is the matrix of manures in all forms, and that
deep ploughing will cause the earth to inhale
and retain atmospherical manure better than
sliallow, yet atmosphere being more subtle
than water, must be more fleeting ; and its
properties must of course be elaborated into
more permanency than when merely caught
by the earth's power of absorption, to perfect
their efficacy. Even rain, though richer and
grosser, is quickly wasted by evaporation ;
and atmosphere, a diet too thin for the exclu-
sive sustenance of plants, as is seen in droughts
and on all poor soils, cannot be fixed hy plough-
ing, because earth has not the power like ve-
getables of elaborating it into a lasting form.
Plants speedily die in atmosphere and liva
long in rain or w^ater.

SVe must avoid the plausible error, that if
the atmosphere is the matrix of manure, its
inhalation may permanently enrich the earth,
and supercede the slov/ process necessary for
its elaboration into the vegetable form for that
end. We know that marie possesses the pro-
perty of permanently enriching itself by fix-
ing the atmospherical fertilizing qualities 5 *
but we know also; that such is not the nature

BLOUGHIN Gr 14C^

of other earths. This natural difference is
the reason prescribing different modes for fer-
tilizing marie and such earths, and exploding
TulPs exclusive reliance upon the mode hy
which marie is enriclied, for enriching earths
of different properties. But yet deep plough-
ing ought not to be rejected, because although
it does not enable earths generally to extract
from the atmosphere, a sufficiency of its
fertilizing qualities to make them rich ; yet
the portion they do extract, if even a& transi-
tory as rain, may still retain a high value a-
moiig the several agents, necessary for produ-
cing the most perfect effects of good husband-
ry.

LiQie and gypsum repeatedly applied to
land kept in constant culture, without the in-
tervention of vegetable matter, will finally
render it barren ^ but if ploughing was a suffi-
cient substitute for manuring, by absorbing
and fixing atmosphere, it would have provided
a sufficient quantity of pabulum for these ex-
citers to exercise their power upon, and effec-
tually have prevented the imbecility arising
from reiterated exertions, by reiterated sup-
pFes.

Plants perish by an overdose of dung or rain,
but not by one of atmosphere, because it is
sparsely sprinkled with their food, and this
food must be collected, condensed and render-
ed operative, by some process more effectual
than the inhalation of atmosphere by the
earth ; which, alone, will hardly produce
more sensible effects than its inhalation by a
man as a substitute for a dose of nitre.

The degrees of value in manure, probably
rise with its permanency, and maybe marked,
simple atmosphere 1. Kain 2. Green h@r^ %

150 3PI.0UGHINS.

Bung 4. Dry herbs 5. Wood 6. If the
reader should place a large decaying trunk of
a tree mostly under ground, and manure a spot
of earth with a different substance of equal
weight, he would discover which would long-
est preserve the land in heart.

TuJPs theory, '^^culture without manure**
lias hitherto been the practice of the Southern
states, with this difference, that he ploughed
deep, they shallow ; but yet the complete de-
struction of a soil originally good, which it has
effected^ ciight after t" o hundred years expe-
rience, to explode so much of it, as exctudes
the necessity of manure. The same shallow
plC'Jghine which produced good crops, whilst
the land was naturally rich, would produce good
•rops if it was made artiiieially rich. The good
•rops obtained by bad cultuj^e from rich land^
demonstrates that fertility Is the first object
to be effected. But whilst this is admitted,
the effects of uniting fine tillage with a fertile
soil, ought not to be forgotten, by any wlid
possess a taste for excellence or for wealth.

Hence deep ploughing has been often recom-
Blended in these essays, and to these recom-
mendations are added the following remarks.

Deep ploughing upon a naked and poor soil,
by which a caput mortuum is brought to the
surface, has frequently proved pernicious. —
This has been owing to a variety of causes,
but among them, the preservation of a fiat
surface, though least suspected, has probably
been the most operative. The simple process
of burying under a sterile tegument, the little
strength of the land, neither promises nor per-
forms much ; but the disappointment of hopes
really forlorn, frequently causes ns to abandiSii
s^ovty and embraee despair.

PLoreHiN«. 151

By the system of these essays, inclosing,
manuring, and high narrow ridges, are com-
bined with deep ploughing. The two first re-
plenish the earth with a large stock of vegeta-
ble matter, and the last has the effect of col*
lecting the existing soil in the centre of the
ridge, and depositing the sterile on its two
sides, there to remain for above three years,
exposed to the action of the atmosphere.—
Thus all the bad effects of deep ploughing ar®
avoided. Instead of a naked surface, it is ap-
plied to one largely replenished with vegeta-
ble matter. Instead of forcing the soil and
substratrum into a topsey-turvey position, it
collects and doubles the first for a present crop,
-and provides for the amelioration of the other,
for a future one* It deepens and fructifies
the soil, whilst it makes the best provision for
present profit. For the reader is to observe
that I am speaking of poor lands, whose soils
require doubling for present subsistence, and
improving for future comfort ; and not of
those whose soils cannot be pierced by the
plough*

Deep ploughing (by which I always meaa
the best to be performed by four good horses
in a plough) combined with inclosing, by turn-
ing under a good coat of dry vegetable mat-
ter, creates a cx)vered drain, aiid thus vastly
obstructs the formation of gullies in hilly
lands, even if fallowed with a level surface.
But such lands will admit of narrow ridges as
well as level, by a degree of skill and attention
so easily attainable that I observe it to have
existed in Scotland above a century past, under
a state of agriculture otherwise execrable, and
among the ignorant highlanders. .It is effect-
ed by carrying the ridges hodgoatally ia suek

1S2 ^PLOUGHINfiU

inflections as the hilljness of the ground may
require, curved or zig-zag, preserving their,
breadth. Tiie preservation of the soil is hard-
ly more valuable than that of the rain water
in the successive reservoirs thus produced to
refresh the thirsty hill sides, instead of its
rushing to and poisoning the vallies. This
islassic system of agriculture has been intro-
duced into Virginia by a gentlenran of Albe-
marle, in a style completely adapted to the na-
ture of the country, & which wiilbe copied by
those who shall not be discouraged by its per-
fection. His ridges however are wide, where-
as in the maize country, they ought not to ex-
ceed five or six feet.

If inclosing, manuring, deep and horizon-
tal ploughing were unattended by any other
advantages, that of preventing the land from
washing away would in many views be a suf-
ficient recommendation of such a system. —
The disaster is not terminated by the destruc-
tion of the soil, the impoverishment of indivi-
duals, and transmission of a curse to futurity.
— Navigati^on itself is becoming its victim, and
in many parts of the United States, our Agri-
culture has arrived to the insurpassable state:
of imperfection, of applying its best soil to the
removal of the worst farther from market.

The alternation once every four years be--
tween deep furrows and high ridges, accor-
ding to the recommended mode of cultivating;
eorn, and the deep ploughing, by burying one'
portion of the garlick very deep, and exposing,
another to frost, will probably destroy it ; a i
eonjeeture founded upon its considerable di-
imliiution in grounds thus treated*

CrLMIFBROtrS CRors. Ir53

NU3IBER S7.

CULMIFEROUS CROPS.

Among these wheat is the most valuable,
and is exposed to most calamities. These ca-
lamities are sometimes tiie effect of climate,
at others of bad tillage, and gradually dimi-
nish, as the climate becomes less favourable
for Indian corn ; for which inconvenience, the
additional compensation according to the
same thermometer is bestowed, of a greater
suitableness for rye, oats and barley. In the
climate and soil proper for maize (I speak ge-
nerally without regard to exception) rye and
barley seldom succeed, oats are light and pre-
carious, and wheat is preferable, both on the
score of value and risque, to either. There
are two calamities only common to wheat,
which may not be avoided with certainty;
those of the Hessian fly and rust. As to the
weavil they are certainly avoided by getting
it out early; a habit which will prevail, so
soon as it is discovered, that wheat may be
severed from the straw by treading or a ma-
chine, with the labour necessary to secure it
in stacks or barns. The facility with which
the grain then comes out, has enabled me in a
dry l\arvest, to tread an entire considerable
crop, almost by the time the harvest ended ;
and I generally pursue the practice as far as
the weather will permit, so as to leave a rem-
nant only in stocks capable of being gotten out
so soon after harvest as to avoid this calami-
ty.— ^The best bread and seed wheat, is inva-

±B4b CULMIFEROUS CROPS.

riably that gotten out and cleaned within a
day or two after it is cut, and deposited dry,
in a dry place, in barrels, hogsheads, or chests
opened or closed.

The Hessian fly is so little understood, as to
have become an excuse for the loss of crops
proceeding from bad rill age.. Lands are tired
by shallow and incessant culture, or by being
prevented from invigorating themselves with
vegetable substances. Kven the richest bot-
tom lands are subject to weariness, and some-
times are said to have grown lousy, so tbat
they will cease at length to yield good corn ;
and the crop has the appearance of being in-
fested by insects. To such causes are owing
1 think, most of the charges brought against
the Hessian fly. They would be removed by
manuring, covering the land with good clover
lays, and by deep ploughing, in the cultivati-
on of the maize fallow crop or of any other,
according to the foregoing system ; or by ma-
naging naked fallows in the same way.
And moreover , a probability exists that the
two deep ploughings one in the winter and the
other early in June, recommended by the
same system, might destroy the fly itself ia
8ome form, and other insects, to great extent*
At least my experience has never furnished
me with a single instance, in which a crop Iiai
Isuffered by any insect, wljen the land was in
heivt and Avell covered with dry vegetable
matter, when that matter was turned under
as deep as four horses in a plough could do it,
vhen the land had received a second good
ploughing by two horses in a plougb, and
vl en the wheat was seeded on high and nar*
row ridges, with a clean furrow.

Uhe rust as it is called may be better u»-

C^LMIFEKOUS CROPS. 155

derstood, because it may be certainly produc-
ed, by a due combination ot* heat, moisture,
shallow ploughing and a flat surface. By this
process we siiali never fail of obtaining it on
a stiff soil, from which the rain water caunot
escape, jufct as by dosing a man witli arsenick,
we are sure of poisoning him at last. Of
course we should no more prescribe this sys-
tem of agriculture to the Avheat, than arsenick
to the man, if we do not wish to poison it, al-
though its diet like that of a man may disagree
with it occasionally in spite of art and caution.
Deep \doughing, high ridging, and deep wide
water furrows, constitute a mode of culture
the reverse of that which inevitably afflicts
wheat with the calamity called the rust, and
hence may sometimes prevent, and generally
diminish it. The draining of the ridges and
the flues, for the transmission of air through
the wheat, created by the deep wide furrows,
will diminish the heat and moisture, which
appear to be the chief causes of the disease ;
and vigorous roots in a deep tilth, may add to
the capacity of the plant to resist the malady.
Plastering, by an equal measure of gypsum
mixed with it, and moistened, has beneiitted
wheat in sundry experiments to the conjectur-
ed extent often per centum, when it has been
free froui what is called the bird foot clover ;
and injured it thrice as much, when infested
with tliut grass, owing to the effect of gypsuui
on its growth, which is such, that this species
of clover among tiie plastered wheat will be
three or four fold more luxuriant, than among
the adjoining unplastered. But the land is
so considerably benefitted by this plastering
of wlicat, that in several instances, I have seen
intervals of ten yards wide across large fields.

156 €^t7I.Mir£R0tTS CROPS.

where it was omitted fop experiments, exlii-
biting for several years afterwards a decided
inferiority of soil. Besides it produces the
highly valuable effects of causing the clover
seed sown on the surface of the wheat to sprout,
grow and stand drought better, and of doub-
ling or trebling its crop the year succeeding
the wheat, either for cutting, or for the more
beneficial purpose of falling on the land.

To preserve or improve any species of
wheat, a selection by hand must be annually
made, with which ta commence a new stock of
seed.

SUCClfXENT CROfS. 157

NUMBER 38.

SUCCULENT CR©PS.

The trials I have made of this family^ have
resulted in the rejection of the whole, an in*
dividual excepted, as possessing but little ya-
lue except for culinary purposes ; and the re°
marks I may make^ denying them to be ob-
jects otherwise valuable, are to be understood,
as admitting their high usefulness as food for
man, in respect to his camfort, to his healtl^
and to economy. But, pumpkins except-
ed, none of them have in my experience pro-
duced profit, used in any other mode. I have
long and patiently persevered in trials of the
turnip and potatoe, according to every mode
1 could collect from European books. The
former are extremely precarious, sown broad-
cast, and extremely troublesome, drilled, thin^
ned, ploughed and twice hand hoed ; a pro-
cess necessary to obtain a tolerable chance for
a great crop. They are a food so little nutri-
tious, that some animals die confined to them,
none fatten without an additional food, and
all eat an enormous quantity, so a& seriously
to enhance the labour of feeding. They are
great exhausters of land, perhaps the greatest
and so far have I failed in preventing this ef-
fect, by taking up the turnips in the fall, that
it was quite visibfe in lands similarly manur-
ed adjoining the turnips, both in straight and
crooked lines. Nor have I discovered the
great benefit said to be experienced in Europe
©f feeding the turnips on the ground by sheef

158 SUCCUtENT CROPS*

in folds removable every twenty-four or forty-
eight hours.

The potatoe is by no means so precarious
nor exhausting a crop as the turnip, although
it participates in no very small degree of both
qualities. The objections to it are the great
quantity of seed to an acre necessary to be
preserved through the winter, and used in the
spring ; the tediousness of planting and ga-
thering ; and the poorness of the food. Be-
fore I had seen Young's experiments, I had
found that hogs would die on them, raw or
boiled, and ascribed it to the inability of the
climate to bring tnem to perfection ; but he
proves the fact in England to be the same.
It is true that horned cattle will thrive well on
a liberal allowance of potatoes, attended plen-
tifully with good hay ; but they would thrive
on the hay alone, nor do my experiments
prove that the potatoe is the cheapest additi°
onal food.

The pumpkin on the contrary in several res-
pects seems to me to be preferable to it. — The
expences of seed, of planting and of ga-
thering, are very wide apart. The labour of
cultivation is nearly the same. The pumpkin
crop is less uncertain, and far heavier to an
acre. Probably a pound of pumpkin may af-
ford less nutriment than so much potatoe, but
it is invariably healthier, and seldom fails in
oorabination with Indian corn, to dispose all
animals to fatten kindly, and to aid in advan-
cing this end, so as greatly to diminish the ex-
pence. It entirely answers the end of fodder
or hay in the fall season, in fattening* cattle
and sheep, and enables the farmer to spare
liis stock of both ; a circumstance highly be-
neficial to one^ who does not abound in tho&e

ftUCCUlEK^T CHOPS. 159

articles, by enabling bim to feed bis teams
better, and to save a sufficiency to allow them
enougb,tv*onithe failure of the clover, until the
new crop of hay or Ibdder comes in. Per-
haps no circumstance has contributed more
to the impoverishment of several of the Uni-
ted Slates, than the negligence to provide dry
forage for summer, producing the evils of a
loss of labour, of weakening the teams, and
of ruinous grazing. The pumpkin with the
daily addition of a few corn stalks thrown in-
to the pens, is preferable to the best hay or
fodder I ever tried ; and it appears to me to
be much less of an impoverisher than the po-
tatoe ; arising, I suppose, from its entirely
covering the ground about the last of June, if
properly cultivated.

My mode of cultivating it is this. I select
the intended nu mixer of acres in the proposed
corn field of the ensuing year, where the land
is infested with some plant, proposed to be
destroyed by culture for two successive years,
and by the impenetrable shade of the pump-
kin vine during the first. In the winter the
ridges are cleaned by four furrows run as
deep as four horses can manage a large
plough, throwing the moiety of each into the
old water furrow ; and I make a new water
furrow wide and dt*ep where the centre of the
ridge lay. — In the latter end of March, as
much manure as will make the land rich is
spread on, and the ridges are restored by simi-
lar fonr furrows to their first position, agree-
ing with that of those for the ensuing year's
corn field. If the land is stiff, a second
ploughing with a small plough may be neces-
sary to pulverize it. The pumpkins are plan-
ted in the mode of planting corn, at five feet

±6^ sixcuxxNT eitops^

and a half distance in fhe direction of the rid*
ges, and two feet nine inches across them*
They receive one deep ploughing, the ridges
are raised liigh and the water furrows made
deep and wide ; the plants whilst tender are
defended against a small bug ; and the ground
is kept clean until the vines begin to over-
spread it. One plant only is left in a place.

The custom of sprinkling pumpkins over
corn fields, scatters the crop so, that the la-
bour of its collection exceeds its value. By
giving them more room, the fruit will be lar-
ger, but the product less. As soon as they
begin to ripen, their use should commence near
their residence, to save the labour of a distant
removal. In this use they may be made con-
siderably subservient to manuring, by penning
the animals fed on them. The remnant must
be gathered before frost, and deposited about
three feet high in a stack made of corn tops
in the common form, convenient to the pump-
kins, open at both ends, asd their use rapidly
continued to avoid risque.

Indian corn dry or boiled alternately, is the
best food to be united with the pumpkins which
I have tried. The pumpkins are fed raw,
chopped by broad hatchets in troughs, and ea-
ten ravenously. They produce a great saving
of grain, and an entire saving of dry forage, a
considerable addition to the meat, milk, and
butter, and some increase of manure*

lEeuMiwoirs crops* 1^1

NUMBER 39.

LEGUMINOUS CROPS.

Indian corn must be recognised as the
prince of this family, if it belongs to it. Ne
individual of the whole tribe can compare with
it for meal, malt, fodder, and litter. In Eng-
land, where sundry of its cognominal relatives
are highly celebrated as fallow crops, their
chief merit consists in preparing the ground
for w heat, or for some other culniiferous crop.
It was never imagined, that the least competi-
tion as to value existed between the fallow
crop and its successor ; and the great doubt
has been, whether a naked fallow or a fallovr
crop ought to be preferred. Young derides
for the latter, on account of the profit result-
ing from the succulents or legunies used as
fallow crops there ; and his arguments are
tripled in weight, by the triple value of Indian
corn used as a fallow crop here.

It results that I reject the succulents and
legumes resorted to in England as fallow
crops, and prefer the maize for that purpose ;
wherefore in the previous chapter, the first
have not been considered in that character,
nor will the latter be so in this.

But I shall advert to legumes as a valuable
food for man, not suificiently attended to,
whilst I admit that in every other view, inclu-
ding the danger of destruction from accident,
they are inferior to maize ; and that even in
this, they are rather to be considered as its
coadjutor than rival.

Among them, the pea is selected as coveiv

^62 iBGrMiNous CROPS.

ing most inc^ividnals, and most fitted to oiip
elimate. Four gallons of dry peas annually,
•will add inconeeivablj to the health, strength
and comfort of a laborer, if prepared by good
boiling with salt meat of any kind. The ru-
inous state of our country affords but too much
space to raise peas without much expence of!
skill or labour. In the shifts of most of our
farms there is no scarcity of poor land. Such
ought never to be sown with wheat or any other
•ulmiferous grain, because they will produce
no profit, and because severe exhausters as<
they are, must be excluded from land already '
exhausted, under any system of agriculture
which medidates its improvement. A portion
of such land may be selected, sufficient to pro-
duce four gallons of dry peas for each resident
©n the farm of all ages, exclusive of what they
may gather and use at their w ill in a green i
state, to be planted among corn at the distance
of five feet and a half square, the distance also
of the corn. Of this, one stalk only is left iu
each hill. The ground is ridged, ploughed
but one way, and both crops are planted in the 5
direction of the ridges. It reniains without f
producing any other crop (these two excepted
growing together) inclosed, ungrazed, in deep
furrows and high ridges running North and
South, until the revolution of the course of
culture, which consists of four years is com-
pleted ; and is yery much improved. It is
more so if aided by a bushel of gypsum to the
acre. This poor land thus treated, is render-
ed more productive than as usually managed,
and the object of its improvement is accelera-
ted by such a culnire beyond what would be
obtained by a state of perfect idleness.

If circumstances prevent this course, the

LEGUMINOUS CROPS, 16S

peas areraise«l iathe Sim? uiode with pump*
kins oil a portioa of t!u^ iiu^ade.l coi*a iield of
the fallowin {; year,\vlit^re i ixious pUiats are to
be eradicateJ, equally eari.^aed, anl siiuilarly
cuitieated ; except that the la )o ir is vepy
mueh lessr^aed by the use of a woedi t^ plou^^h
called a skijnmer. They are drilled by the
hand as thiek as the e«mi uon .garden pea. in a
shallow furrow oa the sumaiit of the rid^^es,
and covered with the hand hoe. If the land is
rich, they will cover the whole ,y;pound» so
that little is lost by the distance, required ia
reference to the suseeeding corn cro^j ; and a
small spot of land will produce the necessarj
quantity.

The best kind of pea for the end in view,
(which is extremely important to a well ma-
naged farm) known to me, is white with black
eyes. Bat as there are many peas which an-
swer this description, besides agreat number
ftf others, the reader must be referred to hig
own experience or enquiries for th@ accessary
seleotioa.

i6lf ftlTE STOCK.

NUMBER 40.

LIVE STOCK.

Among the queries proposed by the Rich-
mond Society to awaken the dormant science
of agriculture, the eighth is so propounded as
to admit that which I deny, <* that keeping a
large stock and inclosing to improve land by
excluding stock, are rival and incompatible
systems." I shall therefore consider this ad-
mission as a prevalent opinion, which power-
fully combats, and extensively retards a sys-
tem upon which the regeneration of our iandi
possibly depends.

" It must be admitted that keeping a stock,
equal at least to the whole grass, produced
both by the arable and meadow grounds of the
farm, and not the inclosing system, has gene-
rally prevailed ; and therefore as such a stock
is not only a large one, but the largest capable
of being kept, it follows, that one of the expe-
riments of the proposed comparison, has beett i
completely tried in Virginia,^

And what is the result ? It is found by com
puting the consequences reaped by Virginiaf ,
from her system of keeping these enormous
stocks ; enormous in proportion to their food.
She exports neither meat, butter nor cheese.
She is unable to raise as much of either as she
consumes. She cannot breed a sufficiency of
draft animals, for her own use. And after
having ruined her lands by grazing, so far
from deriving a profit from it, she is obliged
to deduct annually a considerable sum from
the profits of her agriculture^ wretched as it i

liirB STOCK. 165

IS, to supply the deficiencies of her more
wretched system of grazing. If it is a fact,
that lands will sink under a system of oppres-
sive taxation by crops, is it not conceivable
that they will also sink under excessive gra-
zing ? And if by cropping them less, more
bread can be raised, may it not follow^ that
more meat may also be raised by grazing them
less ? Fertility is as necessary a requisite for
raising stocks as for raising bread, and whatt
ever will produce it, is a harbinger of both ; a
system of grazing therefore, which impoTe-
rishes a country, is as likely to terminate in
large stocks, as a system of culture having
the same effect, in large crops.

The opinion ^* that by calling in the aid of
inclosing to recover the lost fertility of the
country, we must sacrifice our stocks,'' defeats
its own object ; stocks depend as intimately
upon this recovery, as bread stuff; and are in
fact unattainable without it, except by a vast
depopulation of the country, to make up the
loss of food for stocks, occasioned by the im-
poverishment of the land, by extending the
space of their range. _^

It was hardly to be expected, that a good
system of grazing would have been found in
union with an execrable system of agriculture,
and therefore, instead of enquiring whether
ve ought to sacrifice our mode of tillage to
raising stock, or our mode of raising stock to
our mode of tillage, the true question proba-
bly is, whether we ought not to abandon bothi,
because both modes obviously impoverish
our lands, and gradually diminish both crops
and stocks.

In Britain, generally, arable lands are not
grazed^ though grazing is pursued probably to

1#.

166 LIVE STOCK*

an injurious excess. There, meadows, nata*
I'al or artificial, and well turfed standing pas-
tures, are prepared and used for grazing ; and
if these precautions are useful to a moist cli-
mate and a rich soil, they cannot be dispensed
with by a dry climate and a poor soil.

To raise large stocks, we must first raise
large meadows and rich pastures, defended by
a sod both sufficient to withstand the hoof and
the tooth, and capable of becoming richer un-
der their attacks. If any local diifieulties in
.eiTecting this are discerned, they point directly
to another view of the subject. Supposing
that raising large stocks and inclosing arable
lands against grazing, were really incompati-
ble objects, our attention is of course turned
towards our climate and soil, for the purpose
of making the election ; and it is very obvious
that a warm dry climate and a sandy soil, ought
not to make the same choice, with a climate
cool and moist, and a clay soil.

Still those who have to struggle with nalu-
ral disadvantages in raising stocks, will not
find thein insurmountable, so far as it is their
interest to surmount them, if they will resort
to the very system for fertilizing their lands,
supposed to obstruct the object. This system
itself requires strong teams, meat for labour-
ers, and stock sufficient to consume the offal
of all the eropa. Inclosing is only a coadjutor
to manuring, and had it excluded the means
for the latter, it would have excluded a more
valuable objeet than itself. So far from it#
that it vastly advances those means, by a re-
gular, and ultimately a great increase of crops,
and consequently of litter, offal, and stocks.

Suppose a farm under the system recom-
jiiended in these essays, to have trebled its

Live stock. l67

crops on the same fields in twelve years — iP
tlie whole additional crop thus gained was de-
voted to stocks, is it not certain that it would
support far greater, than the same farm could
do in its grazed state ? Is it not also obvious,
that the offal of this treble crop, will support
a stock three times as large through tlie win-
ter, as the offal of one third of it ; and that the
three fold crop of grain, will admit of large
drafts for the still farther increase of stocks,
whilst one third of such a crop, might admit
of no such contribution ? The supposition is a
fact. It may be farther discerned, that as the
€rops by the acre increase, the space cultiva-
ted may be gradually diminished, so as to re-
lease a portion of the labour for the purposes
of draining, manuring, and raising artificial
grasses ; and in that view constituting a dif-
ferent mode af providin-g for stocks, from that
of grazing exhausted arable lands. A glanc^
of intellect decides between the two modfsf

46* .XIYB STOCS*

NUMBER 41i

LIVE STOCK, CONTINURD.

The grazier and the ploiigbman areeliarac-
ters so different, and their occupations are so
distinct, that had these essays related to a sys-
tem of grazing^ ^« Pecuariiis" ought to have
foeen tl?eir signature. What stronger proof
«an exist of our agricultural ignorance, than
a notion of succeedingin both lines at the same
timcj hj respectively violating the first prin-
4?iples of both. To succeed in grazing, it is
necessary to cover the land with a strong and
rich turf 5 to succeed in agriculture, this turf
must be destroyed. Having destroyed the
turf by the plough, we endeavour to prevent

^o reisovation by assailing it with the toofli
arid iliQ hoof, the instant it germinates ; and
l^ropose to raise large stocks without grass,
and large crops on land too poor to produce it*
In Kngland, the ideas of promoting crops by
treading and grazing, and grazing by plough-
ing up pastures and meadows, would excite
great admiration ; and the general prohibitioit
in leases against the latter, discloses the dis-
approbation of the system of reaping corn and
•locks annually fiom the same land. Tliie
question, whether the business of grazing or
of tillage, is the most profitable, frequently
occurs ; but whether the same land ought or
ought not to be exposed both to tillage and
grazing, is one never made by good husband-
men. In many parts of the United States, the
disiinction between tillage and grazing is well
understood, and their separation beneficially

IIYE STOCK* .169

practised ; but in most, sundry circumstances
not necessary to be adduced, have united these
occupations; a union indispensably necessary
to a certain extent for tillage, and incapable
of being dispensed with. It is therefore ne-
cessary for me to prove, that the system of
enclosing arable lands, for the purpose of ex-
cluding grazing, is not inconsistent with the
stocks necessary for meat, labour and manure,
beyond which, the occupation of tillage forbids
their extension.

If meadows and well turfed pastures, are
best for grazing, and if by excluding grazing
from arable land, its product is vastly increas-
ed, it follows, that we can effect this union
not only without injury to either of the objects,
but so as to advance the interest of both, by
allotting proper portions of the farm to each,
and managing such portions according to the
principles indispensably dictated by the ends
intended to be produced. Whereas, the prin-
ciples necessary to produce stocks or grain, be-
ing not only different, but exactly opposed^
since we must produce grass for one end, and
destroy it for the other, by applying both for
the same land, a warfare ensues which crip-
ples, and finally kills both the combatants.

By thus appropriating particular portions
of a farm, we may manage each portion ac-
cording to the principles necessary to make it
more productive ; and the productiveness of
each, will advance that ol the other. The
better crops of grain we raisC;, the more offal
is produced, and this offal, by furnishing litter
and food for stocks, raises stocks sufficient to
reduce it to manure ; the chief means for im-
proving our pasture, meadow and arable land.
.An increase of stocks must follow an increase

0.

17© ^tVE S^OCK.

of manure, 1)ecause it begets an increase ©f
their food and litter, just as their decrease is
an inevitable consequence of the diminution of
manure.

We see that some of the states, Virginia
for instance, can no longer raise meat, cheese
or teams sufficient for home consumption, and
the cause of this phenomenon will illustrate
my reasoning. No state, and probably no
agricultural country, ever went more tho-
roughly into the plan of grazing arable land*
of neglecting meadows and permanent pas-
tures, and of endowing their stocks with the
privilege of unlimited grazing ; and the end is
ruin to the stocks themselves, as a consolation
for ruin to the lands. The indiscriminate gra-
zing is the very cause, which is impoverishing
both the husbandman and grazier, and the
greedy project of succeeding in both charac-
ters, by extorting from the earth a double con»
tribution, has defeated our success in either.

Such a project is as fatal to a country,
"whose climate and soil are not naturally adap-
ted to the production of grass, as an obstinate
culture of rice and cotton, would be to the
state of Massachusetts. If therefore we are
to be brought to the proposed compntation,the
election between tillage and stocks is settled
by the consideration of soil and climate, as
they may be favorable to grass, breadstuff or
other products, because, however we may
sometimes be able to force nature, her sponta-
neous efforts on our side are the best sureties
for success.

Let any gentleman for instance of the bread
stuff country of the United States, compare
the profit he would derive from doubling his
erop» of grain, \yiik that he gains by keep-

iltB SVOCJi. in

ing" the largest stocks within his power. He
will discern, that such an accession of annual
income, will generally even exceed the whole
value of his stocks, instead of their profit ; and
if the enclosing system, aided hy the means
heretofore explained, will rapidly double his
crops of grain, the preference between that
and its rival is determined ; and the eb^ct of
grazing at the expence of tillage in an imp*^
Tcrished country, ought to be abandoned.

'17^ MVB STOCBfei

NUMBER 4^

LIVE STOCK, C0NTINUE5E?

If we impoverish oup land by grazing or till '.
lage, both stocks and crops, whatever they^
be, will gradually diminish ; gradually be-,
come less profitable^ and finally, insufficient t
to afford a maintenance. It is true that somee
bottom lands exist, so rich, as to bear, and
even improve under tillage and grazing, if
red clover is the grass used, and if it is suffer-
ed to get well in flower before the stocks are
turned on it. But this is owing to the extreme
fatness of the soil, its ability to cover itseli
with a luxurient eoat of clover, the accession
of vegetable matter by a great portion being
trodden on and rejected by the cattle, and the
entire acquisition^f its tap root, containing
from the size it acquires in such land, no in-
considerable quantity of the same matter.—^
Besides, land of this quality is so rare, as to
constitute an anomaly entirely foreign to any
system of agriculture proper for the United
States, Very few of us have ever seen it, and
still fewer would profit from any system built
upon its qualities. Nay it is a kind of land
which hardly requires a system, and would be
as prosperous under a bad one, as the general
agricultural state of the country would be un-
der the best. It is necessary however to sug-
gest this anomalous case^ lest we should he
led to reason from it, for the purpose of de-
ciding a different case. The most zealous a-
mor patriae will confess that the United State*
have infinitely less need for a system to iwt

XITB STOCK. i70

prove rich, than for one to improve poor land ;
and instead of being blinded b;y its wishes,
should be enlightened by truth, as the only
mode of gratifying one of the most amiable of
human passions.

The expanse of our territory, generally, is
now in a state so far from being able to im-
prove under the double taxation of tillage and
grazing, as to require a revolution of our ha-
I>i(s to improve under either ^ and the time ha*
come, when it is equally necessary to discover
some mode of raising meat as well as breads
without impoverishing our lands.

It is easy by a good system so w onderfully to
alter the case, as to make stocks profitable
simply from their manure, eselusive of tfie
labour, meat, tallow, leather, milk and butter,
they yield ,• and to draw from them not only
the en*'-- ^^^^i • ^ . i.„+ «

surplus for enriching the soil. The mode of
doing this has been heretofore explained, but
in order to combine with it the subject now
under consideration, with more perspicuity, I
will take up and consider separately, the mode
of managing each species of our domestiea-.
nimals, usually comprised by the term " stock,'*
upon a tillage farm which requires the nur^
ture of inclosing.

The working animals constitute a species of
stock comprising horses, mules and oxen. —
The two former ought to inhabit a lot having
a stable and stream, and to be excluded whol-
ly from grazing. For two months of the year^
clover cut daily, and exposed to six hours sun,
to preventthe animal from being hoven, should
be their hay. It will add to their health at
the season it comes in. After it fails, the best
fodder or hay, preserved for the hottest season^

47^ IIVB STOCI&

succeeds it. Corn stalks serve tliem from the
first of November, whilst they last, and are
succeeded by the inferior tops, blades orhay*
By littering the stables and yards well in win-
ter, they will make manure sufficing to enrich
more land than will produce their corn ; as
ibis enrichment is not exhausted hy one eropy
and as clover, proper cultivation^ and inclosing
will preserve, and farther improve the land/
the working stock exclusive of its labour, sub-
scribes largely to the renovation of the soil
instead of its impoverishment by pasturing.
The considerations of saving the labour of col-
lecting the working animals from pastures,
and avoiding the loss of the morning, so ma-
terial in a warm climate, are inferior, but ad-
ditional recommendations of the same system.
The oxeu in summer should be penned and
ftd separately from the other cattle, and ia
■winter the same separation should take place, i
"with a more comfortable cover. They will
furnish the same supply of manure as the hor-
ses and mules in winter, and more in summcF
from the removal of their pen, calculated to
stand not beyond ten days. "Whilst not at
work, they may he pastured with the otj^i?
6attle»

IVUMBER 43.

LIVE STOCK, CONTINUES,

The horned cattle are happily able to co-
counter the haixlships infiicted on them by the
iinpoverlshiiient of our country These will
be gradually decreased by enriching it. Their
food fjr half the year consists of the cotvrse
©tFiI of bread grain in much of the greater
portion of the United States, and a system
which will increase such crops, will iiicrease
their food during that season of the year,
when they suffer most, and perish in great
numbers, besides affording them a chance
from its greater plenty, of participating more
copiously of the grain itself. Such an increase
of staple crops, begets capital and releases la-
bour,fordrainiiig improvements ; aid speedily
points at swamps and marshes of a soil, capa-
ble in genei*al of being made one hundred &ld
BQore productive in grass, than our exhausted
tlelds. Meadows thus grow out of the encl3s-_
lag system, if that system inereases the staple
crops, and are a retribution with aceumulat-
ing interest to the stock, for the loss of naked
fields. This retri])utiea extends to both fall
and winter. Meadows should be cut for hav-
and grazed with horned cattle, after the se-
«cond crop has arrived to its most luxurient
state. So far from being deteriorated by it#
they are improved, produce cleaner and lar-
ger crops of hay, are longer defended against
the intrusion of weeds, bushes and coarse
grasses , and llnally, when tillage becomes ne-
<5essary for clean«jig theaic their state for re^

176 XIVB STOCK.

ceiving it will be better, and the crop eohana*'
ed.

By the increased oifal of increased crops,
Und by the hay of these meadows, stocks will
be better provided for during the winter, than
under the unlimited grazing system ; to which
add the grazing of the after math of the mea-
dows, and this superior provision is extended
to about eight months of the year. Between
three and four months of spring and summer,
pasturage only remains to be supplied. An
abundant resource for this is one effect of un»
limited grazing, and our greatest agrarian ca-
lamity. Vast tracts of exhausted country are
every where turned out, or left uninclosed, to
recover what heart they can in their own way;
and their progress in that effort is accelerated
hy enclosing them as pasturage for cattle a-
lone, or at least excluding hogs. Such fields
presently produce shrubs and coarse grass,?",
and lands never cleared, may be inclosed with
them, as auxiliaries. Together, they will
constitute a pasture for cattle, far better in the
spring and summer, than that generally af-
forded by arable lands, which in the maize ?
country of the United States, are particularly
scanty of grass until towards the fall, and then
the superior resource of the meadow grazing is
provided by the system of enclosing.

It would be too alarming, to subjoin to thesf
reasonings (and probably by its strangeness
might destroy them all) the idea of manur-
ing a spacious highland meadow, as a farther
auxiliary to the inclosing system ; and there-
fore it will be deferred until crops are trebled
by it. But it is indispensabiy necessary to
point out in what way this system is prepar*>
ed, to satisfy those cravings which eannot be
deferred.

1,1 VE STOCK. i:?J

As crops increase in a warm am! poor couh-
Uy, n(^deparlment >vill more suddenlj expe-
rience an improvement than that of the table.
As to beef, it is received from the after math
of the meadow, by the pumpkin, and Indian
.Horn, the corn stalks succeed the pumpkins^
ind it is finished in March on corn and hay.
In the interim the knife is at work and the
manure is accumulating. During the mode-
rate weather after leaving the meadow for
the pumpkins, the beeves are penned on suc-
cessive spots and not littered, the plough suc-
ceeding the removal of the pen. When the
stalks come in they are placed in their stati-
onary winter's habitation, and copiously lit-
tered. And with proper management, the
manure thus raised, overpays tlie expence of
fattening them. The additional advantage of
milk and butter is derived from fattening for
beef the old cows yielding milk, through the
winter. ThcY may be often made fine meat,
and will at least be a valuable acquisition to
the stock of salt provisions for the labourers,
instead of being devoted to their common fate
in a premature age, by want of food.

The best and cheapest mode of raising
calves, and of fattening lambs, i have ever
tried, is also suggested by the inclosing sys-
tem. It is that of folding them on red clover
from about the twentieth of xlpril, or from the
clover's becoming three or four incites Irigh ;
the calves until frost. Small common fence
rails, and the common crooked fences, make
folds with less labour and stand better than
any I liave tried. This pen ought never to
stand longer than three days, in which time it
ought to be grazed clean. If it stands longer,
the gi^ss is injured by treading. WhcB it is

10.

178 XIVE STOCK.

to t)e removed, the calves and sheep are coa-
iined in a corner next to the new pen, by using
some of the top rails. An acre of line clover,
unless it is disabled by drought, will graze ten
calves, ten ewes and ten lambs, through the
grtiss season, allo\\ing for the gradual remo-
val of th^ sheep, all of which ought to be kill-
ed. To make them good meat, they must be
allowed other food. Wash of corn meal, or
well boiled corn itself, is the best and cheapest
I have tried. The acre will be frequently fed
over without destroying the clover, and the
land will be improved. Calves will make a
reimbursement with a profit for this mode of
raising them, by their superior value be-
yond those raised in the common way, and
by surrendering at an early age their mo-
ther's milk. And its economy is increased
by selecting annually the old ewes and their
lambs for fattening, comprising so many, as
that a portion of the latter and all the former
may be bestowed on the slaves. By harvest,
lambs have grown too large and coarse for the
table, and the ewes have become good mutton.
The mother should die within three days of'
the lamb, or she falls off. Both furnish a i
supply of excellent food at that laborious sea-
son ; and as to have good lambs we must make
their mothers fat, the luxury of the master be-
stows a luxury on the slaves, without an ad-
ditional expenee, and undoubtedly with more
economy, than to devote such sheep to their
usual destiny. These old ewes thus managed, ,
yield fine lambs, much wool, good mutton, and '
liidf s able to bear tanning for the purpose of'
making pads for the hack bands of the plough
liorscti to pass through.

NUMBEfl 4^..

SHEEPJ

It is with reluctance that I am about to ex-
press ffiy opinions as to this stock, lest they
may discredit those upon subjects concern-
ing \\hich I have had niore experience. For
sixteen years 1 have laboured to estimate tlieir
value aiid character, upon a small scale, hav-
ing a flock only of from one to four hundred,
daily attended by a shepherd ; and my conclu-
sions are, that they require and consume far
more food, in proportion to their size, than
any other s(ock, that they are more liable to
disease and death, and that they cannot be
made a profitable object, throughout the whole
extent of the warm dry climate, and sandy
soil of the United States, but by banishing til-
lage from vast tracts of country. These opi-
nions are by no means intended however to
exclude them as a luxury for the table, capa-
ble of being made to repay a considerable por*
tion of the expence it causes.

It is probable that the hot constitution of
sheep, produces a rapid digestion, and that in-
satiable appetite, by which the fact is account-
ed for, of their flourishing only to any extent
in fine meadows or extensive wildernesses. If
this Yoratiousness is not gratified, the animal
perishes or dwindles ; if it is, he depopulates
the country he inliabits. The sheep of Spain
have probably kept cut of existence, or sent
out of it, mare people thao the wild beasts of
the earth have destroyed from the creation^;
a»d those of England may have caused a gveaC^

18d SilEE?.

er depopulation, than all her extravagant
wars. It may be o^ing to this animal that
the Jmlependence of one counlrj is almost
overthrown, and of the other tottering. In
both conniries the sufficiency of bread for
sheep, may have produced this insufficiency of
bread for man, and prejudice may have nur-
tured errors, of which our folly may relieve
them, just as superstition has been known to
seize or steal an idol, wliicli had long been a
eurse to tlie place of its invention. It is ad-
mitted that the wool of sheep is to a certain
extent a necessary, and often a luxury ; but
if I fancied a pearl, why should I dive for it
myself, when those who loTe the employment,
wish to supply me ; or why should a nation de-
populate itself to gain them, if it can become
strong and populous without pearls ? The
earth's capacity to produoe food and materials
for clothes is limited, and by endowing the
brute creation with so much of the former, as
to produce a deiicit for man's use, in order to
obtain a surplus of the latter for exportation,
the sheep policy is said to be perfected. It is
probable that an acre of the proper soil in the
proper climate, is capableof raising ten times
as much cotton wool, as sheep's, and if we
shall only glance at the vast quantity of the
former material for clothing, exported from a
small district of country, thinly peopled, we
shall at once see the capacity of the earth to
produce it to any needful extent, without pay-
ing depopulation for raiment. Altho' sheep's
wool was the best resource for a state of ig-
norance, it is superceded to a great extent by
a state of cotton manufacturing skill; and
whilst theEnglish nation have proved the high
value of our cotton, and onened an incxxhausti-

SHEEP. 181

ble demand for tlie abundance we can spare, it
is certainly a responsible hostage for the small
portion of her woollens we may want ; and an
exchange is probably better than turning our
corn fields into sheep pastures. It is exactly
the case in which commerce renders a mutual
benefit, as we under our warm and dry climate,
and in our sandy soil, can raise cotton cheaper
than England ; and she by the Kelp of her
moisture and verdure, can raise wool cheapei*
than the United States. It is curious that
wool should be supplanting cotton here, wliilst
coiton is supplanting wool in Europe; but as
fashions wear out in one country they flee to
another.

Their manure is the chief reeompence for
the expence of sheep, and worth more than
their wool if they are regularly penned. It is
iviic, that this will insamedegree injure them,
but it is indispensable, unless by surrendernig to
them a power of grazing at will, the calami-
tous alternative of speedily reducing the farm
to a barren is resorted to.

Moveable pens as in the case of cattle, are
best in the warm seasons orf the year ; in the
cold, a farm pen shelter also, open to the south*
^m\ closed to the ground towards the other
Miree cardinal points, will suiBec tathe 39tli
degree of Nortli latitude. This pen should
be regularly littered with stallis, straw or lit-
ter of any kind.

Under the system of enclosing, the sheep
may be managed like horned cattle, except
that they must be better fed. For this par-
pose they ought to be attended by a shepherd,
that besides the grazing allowed to the cat-
tle, they may be treated with such parts of
the enclosed erea, as they may benefit or not

o»

18^ SQEEF.

injure. Of the first description, are grounds
infested with the garlick, over which the sheep
should he rapidly carried after it has headed,
to cat its seed ; of the second, the hanks of
rivers, rivulets or woodland. In winter, the
sheep will eat every thing, and the better the
food the more they will thrive. A great
quantity of corn, caught soft by frost, most of
which became quite black, and all of it such,
as to be refused by hogs, was greedily eaten
by sheep ; and the supply being copious, made
the best flock I ever saw. In winter, their
farm pen is made in the field to be cultivated
in corn the following summer, in which field
the sheep are then allowed daily to feed imder
the superintendance of the shepherd. Being
covered with the dry litter of elover, the little
grass they get under it is of some service to
them, and the litter itself is more conveniently
disposed for the plough by being trodden
down.

H06S> iS^

NUMBER 45.

nooB.

Few animals do us more real miscliief, and
suffer more unmerited reproach than these. —
They are the cause of dead wood fences, which
render more lahour unproductive, than any
item of the long agricultural catalogue of
practices, portrayed in the miserable counte-
nance of our country. A consumption of la-
bour in making ephemeral fences, which might
be employed in making food, clothing or last-
ing improvements, is a check upon population
even greater than the English and Spanish
sheep system ; but if we add to it, the impo-
Tcrishment of land, and waste of herbage, by
the eradicating licence legally conferred on
hogs, it will require but a small portion of
prophetic skill to anticipate the impeachment
of our agricultural system, to be gradually
pronounced by the census. We shall however
long struggle against the admonitions of this
unerring logician, by assigning to the allui'e-
ments of a wilderness, emigrations resulting
from a policy and a system, incapable of with-
standing these allurements, compared with all
the benefits of our cultivation. Our system
of agriculture is felt as a greater evil than no
system. A country wanting people with ac-
tual tillage on its side, is robbed of a great
portion of the few it has, by one exposed to
every evil except our agricultural system. —
But we ascribe the expulsions caused by its
*, impoverishment to the attractions of putrefy-
ing forests, of an exposure to all weather, of

±S^ ^ HOGST

innumerable hardships and of Indian scalping
kfiives, and lose the faculty of seeing their
cause where we tread, by ascribing^ it to ima-
ginary notions.

The destruction of wood and timber, pro-
duced by the mode of raising hogs according"
to law, exclusive of the depopulation it advan-
ces, is itself a calamity grievous in all quarters
but ruinous to those unpossessed of coal f jp
fuel and stone for fencing. This destruction
encreases in a ratio correspondent to the di-
minution of our means to bear it ; because the
young wood and timber used for fences, fuel
and building, is more subject to decay than
the old ; and a perseverance in prejudice can*
not be more amply displayed, than by an ex-
pectation of resisting with tender saplings, a
practice which has demolished the tough fo-
rests of oak.

All the calamities arising from fences of
dead wood, are ascribed to these ill-fated ani-
mals, as if they had themselves forced upon ;
us the system which has produced these cala-
Biities I just as the impoverishment of our
lands is ascribed to Indian Corn, as if that had i
dictated the system of agriculture by which it i
is eifected. But it is neither new, nor unna-
tural, to mistake our best benefactors for our
worsrt enemies.

Yet a single question refutes the calumny..
Did the hogs enact the laws, by which they
are turned loose, without rings in the nose, oj'
yokes on the neck to root out the herbage, and
assail the inclosures ? Had they been legisla-
tors, self interest (allowing them wisdom)
^vould have suggested to them a mode of com-
ing at subsistence, infinitely better than one»
by which they are exposed to disasters, huBr
ger> poverty and assassinatipa.

Excluding from flup argument all themis-
cliiefs flowing from the sjstem of raising hogs
introduced by law, and confining the question
simply to the mutual interest of the hog and
his owner in the points of comfort, profit and
plenty, we gain conviction of its imperfection^
t)y placing it on its strongest ground.

!^Ieat is the end in view. No animal fur-^
nishes better than the hog. If there is any
other which will furnish more at less expence,
in a dry country, or which possesses more con-
gruity with Indian Corn, where that is the
chief fund for subsistence, it ought to be pre-
fered ; if not, the hog deserves more attention
than he has hitherto i*eceived. In the maize
country, the existence of no such animal is
admitted, by the general recourse to the hog
as the chief resource for meat ; and theffirst
question is, whether he is made to answer the
purpose for which he has been thus selected.

The fact is too notorious to require proof.
The maize Atlantic districts raise, an insuffi-
ciency of meat for their own consumption, by
means of an animal selected on account of his
peculiar fitness for the object. A failure in
the object with the best means of attaining it,
is the strongest evidence of the misapplication
of those means.

Though this supply of meat from hogs is
insufficient, it is yet considerable, and far ex-
ceeding the quantity furnished by all other
animals. But it is still considered by a pe-
cuniary computation as an unprofitable busi-
ness to raise them. If there is any foundati-
on for this opinion, drawn from a computation
whieli excludes all the mischiefs arising from
dead fences, it determines the mode of raising
them to be excessively erroneous*

This pecuniary loss must arise from the
fnode of raising them, in those districts where
hogs are the best resource for meat, unless we
suppose that nature has treated these districts
with such severity, as to provide no animal to
supply a motlerate comfort, except at an ex-
pence which must exclude a great number of-
people from its use. And as this supposition
cannot be admitted, the evil can only be sought
for in this mode, where it will be found in tJie
disasters of the hogs, the inattention of their
owners, the badness and insuiliciency of their^
food, and the mean quality of their meat. 1
shall therefore attempt in the next number, to
point out a different one, moce profitable t^
the owner, more comfortable to the animalv
,and entirely exempt from the ruinous vice of
operating as an exclusion of live fences^

NUMBER 4©,

No iloraestic animal multiplies equally*
grows as rappidlj, is as thrifty, makes as good
salt meat, Is as hardy, as healthy, as docile, or
eats as little in proportion to size as the hog.
A mode of raising him which takes advantage
oi* all these qualities, designating him as the
best resource for meat, is a subject worthy of
particular attention, and would be a gi'eat im-
provement. My experience is iheonsiderablei^
and my knowledge limited in relation to it.
But I thail give the result of the former, with-
out deviating into conjecture, or recurring to
books. Indeed, as neither distilleries nor dai-
ries, constitute any resource for the country
within my view, little aid could be extuected
from the latter.

Indian e^m, clover and pumpkins, are my
only resources for raising hogs. They are
raised within the enclosure of a farm kaving
no cross fences, regularly confined in a pen of
nights, and sulferexl to run at largo in the dayr
in that portion of the farm, designed for In-
dian corn the succeeding year. The farm is
divided into four shifts, the greater part of
^ach being left in red clover after wheat, so
that a shift during the last year of its rest, is
well covered. The injury to clover by hogs
from grazing, is iofi!iite^,y less than that from
any other animal. No number necessary for
domestic consumption will materially affect
the field exposed to in this mode. Twenty
she<^ would injujre it more than an hundred

iS$ HOGS.

hogs. And to prevent rooting, iron rings of
the size and shape of a large one for the fin-
ger, are constantly kept in the cartilege of the
nose.

Until the pumpkins come in, the jjogs suh-
sist hy grazing, with an allowance of shatter-
ed Indian corn, sufficing to keep the sows ha-
ving pigs, in tolerahle heart ; other hogs will
become very fat upon the same allowance.
As soon as the pumpkins are ripe the whole
family are confined to the pen, and fed with as
many as they will eat, cut up in troughs, lie-
sides a full meal of sound corn daily, raw or
boiled as their appetite iiuctuates. And those
for slaughter are IVd with corn about ten
days after the pwrn] kins are expended, to har-
den and flavour the meat.

By removing the pen w ith regularity, an^
ploughing it up, as in the case of cattle, hogs
will in my judgment manure land to the value
of the whole expence of raising them; and
instead of contributing to the ruin of the coun-
try by eradicating herbage, and compelling
farmers to reject live fences ; contribute to
its renovation by their manure.

The Avhole stock exceeding nine months old,
except a male and two or three females, is .
killed annually. If a species is selected which
breeds young, and gains its growth qjiifkly,
the litters between the first of June and the
first of March, will furnish an abundance of
progeny for the second killing time. Tlieir
mothers will make fat and small»and the males
fat and large meat for the first. These pigs
arc accelerated in growth, by being suffered to
share in a 1 the luxuries of the large hogs, un-
less it may happen to be necessary to wean a
litter occasionally, to gain time for recover-

HOGS. 189

ingthe flesh of its mother. And the annual
clearance of nearly all tlie old hogs, is a mat-
ter of considerable economy, because the ex-
pence is thereby diminished to a great extent,
for above half the year, by having young ones
onlv to sustain.

The mischiefs from hogs allowed such li-
cence, is the chief objection lo be expected
to this mode of raising them. I know not of
any agricultural, mechanical or scientifioal
object of much value, attainable without effort
or skill. Some degree of both, and but a
small one, is necessary to avoid this objection.
The hogs ought whilst young, to be made
quite gentle. Pigs are as docile as puppies.
They will not be inclined to wander far from
their feeding pen in a field of red clover, if
care is taken to secure for them an access to
water ; ^nd a small boy with a whip will find
it an easy task to discipline them out of any
such inclination. No temptation solicits theta
at most seasons of the year, and should they
occasionally light upon one so irresistible as
to render them troublesome, they must be con-
fiiied in their pen, until it is past, or they are
weaned from it.

Hogs are sufficiently hardy to bear the wea-
ther, without injury for eight months of the,
year ; a warm cover is necessary for them
during the other four. This is easily made
and removed by four forks let two feet into
the earth, the two h\ front eight feet, and the
two in rear two feet ahove it, having a secure
roof of stalks and straw laid on poles, and the
rear and two sides made perfectly close by two
courses of rails, one pressing (i^^ainst the forks,
and the other against stakes two feet from,
them all around;, with the interval filled tight

17.

190 moQ9t

with straw. The front is open to the South,
aind a diameter of ten feet each way, will form
a comfortable cover for a large stock of hogs.
Small warm huts of a similar construction
for the separate use of each sow about to pig
in cold weather, is a precaution most useful,
and much neglected. Without it, the greater
part of the litters will be lost. And such
losses diminish considerably the profit arising
from a system, an article of which is to com-
pensate by number, for the size of hogs brought
old to the knife.

HOGS. 191

NIHMBER 4^.

HOGS, CONTINUED.

The reader will discern, that I consider a-
griculture as a felo de se. As leading herself
to the altar, and inflicting her own death, not
with the dispatch dictated by humanity even
in killing a hog, but by repeated strokes upon
every part of her body. By laws of her own
making, she has quartered upon herself tribes
of factitious capitalists. By laws of her owrf
making, she has adopted the police of ming
ling free blacks and slaves, mutually excitin ;
each other to rebellion, teaching one class tl 3
trade of living upon herself by theft withc'it
labour, and instilling into the othera hatred*.?
her duties. She spontaneously hires overseers
not to improve, but to exhaust her land, with
tlie wisdom of a saint who should expect to
advance true religion, by hiring a priesthood
to preach and practice idolatry. And she cle
ses her system by a mode of raising hog^
vhich burdens her defective labour with ths
incumbrance of dead and decaying fences ^
which aids the overseers in substituting a
wrong for a right culture ,* and which has al-
ready caused a deficiency of meat, requiring
supplies from the western country; supplies
destined to fail by an imitation of the system
©f agriculture, which rendered them necessa-
ry.

As these evils united, are obviously killing
or,? lands, any one will cripple them, and
therefore a successful effort to remove any
oncj is not unimportant. If legislatures should

193 HOGd.

persevere in wounding agriculture by endow-
ing hogs with a right of unlimited emigration,
to and fro, and exposing them to the usual con-
sequences of licentiousness, namely, poverty,
disease and death ; yet affiicullurc niav be so
far favored, as to procure some small allevia-
tion of tlie pains and penalties thus inflicted on
lier. If hogs were prohibited from going at
large, except with a ring in tlie cartilegc of
the nose, and a yoke with three projecting
wings of six inches long, one at top and one at
eacii side, thest; pains and penalties would be
vastly diminished. The ping, besides putting
an end to the eradication of herbage, would
counteract the use of the nose as a wedge able
to pierce the best live fences, and the wings
would powerfully contribute to the same end.

But tiiis remedy would reach a portion only
of the evil we are considering, and will leave
in full operation the present expensive and in-
sufficient mode of raising meat, By prohibit-
ing hogs from running at large, we sliould be
compelled to recur to a new mode, which might
possiWy be more adequate to our wants. T»
form acorrect opinion, it behoves us to reflecfc
upon the present mode of raising hogs, and to
^>ntrast it with that proposed, or with more
promising suggestions. Our subject is closed
with a specimen of this mode cf reasoning.

By the present mode of raising hogs, vast
quantities of wood and timber are annually de-
stroyed ; by the proposed, none will be de-
trtroyed.

By the present mode, much labour is lost m
making mouldering fences ; by the proposed,
the inhibition on live fences being removed,
ipuch will be saved.

By the present mode, one half of the pigs

uoos.

1^5

and hogs perish, and a considerahle poiiion of
the residue are stolen ; so that less than half
come to the knife ,• hy the proposed, few will
perish, fewer will he stolen, and a double sup-
ply of meat may be expected.

By the present mode a great proportion of
the meat is lean and dry ; by the proposed,
most of it will be fat and juicy.

By the present mode, corn, generally hard,
being chiefly relied on to raise and fatten
hogs, much is used and much is wasted ; hy
the proposed, the nse of the pumpkins and clo«
ver, vastly lessens the use of corn, and dimin-
ishes the expence, whilst it encreases the meat.

By the present mode, no returH for the food
is made by the hog, but that of his carcase ;
by the proposed, he will pay for it, and in my
opinion, more than pay for it, by his manure.
If this is wholly true, his meat paid for by the
present mode at a price so exorbitant, as to in-
duce some farmers to buy, rather than to raise
it, will be gotten for nothing ; it partially,
this single consideration may at least reduce
the cost, far below the usual price.

The value of the clover to hogs is demon*
strated by the fact, that (sows giving suck ex-
cepted) they will thrive and grow on it aloae,
if allowed to run at large ; and yet make but a
small impression on the crop. The addition
of corn recommended, is necessary for these
sows, and highly improves the other hogs. It
is indispensable to gentle and lure all to the
pen at night* Clover cut and given green ta
hogs in a pen, will be eaten greedily, and yet
the hogs will fall off, and would I think finally
perish ; nor is it by any means so efficacious,
united with other food, as if gathered Jm the
animal himself — [Note. E.j .

o.

1^* ^tJCCESSlON ©I- CROB#^*

KUMBER m

SrcCESSIOI^ OF CROPS..

This idea, according to the theory of ma*
nures advanced in several fornier numbers of'
these essays, must contain much error, and ail
its ti'uth must be limited to the simple facts,
that the cultivation of one crop ^vill clean and •
pulverize the ground for the reception of an-
other, and that some crops vill pioduce these
effects better than others, either as requiriug
more cultivation, like tobacco ; as hilling grass
and weeds by shade, like the pea and pumpkin;
or as rendering the earth more friable, like
ihepotatoe. But an opinion that the earth can
be enriched by an annual succession of crops,
will blast every hope of its improvement, if
this can only be effected by manure ; because
all will prefer the ease and profit of annual til-
lage, as a mode of fertilizing the earth, to tihe
labour and delay of resting land, reducing;
tough swards, and raising and applying ma-
nure.

In England, a thorough manuring of ground
already rich, ever^^ five or six years, is allow-
ed by all authors to Ibe indispensably necessa-
ry to fulfil the promises of a succession of
crops ; what then hare we to hope from a suc-
cession of crops applied to ground already poor
without this sex-ennial manuring I In our
gardens a succession of crops is seldom consi-
dered as a necessary aid to annual manuring.
Draw from the earth as you will it never fails,
if replenished annually with atmospherical
matter -5 let your rotation of crops be what it

"Will, it never lasts, if iiils replenishment is
withheld. Industrious effort, and not lazy the-*
cry, can only save our ruining country.

Trust not to the delusive promises of a rota^
tion of crops for restoring our soil. It will
aggravate the evil it pretends to remove. It
Is a remedy which will be greedily seized upoa
by the annual prim« ministers of a Southern
farm, whose tenure is precarious, and whose
object is sudden income j and they Avill with
joy abandon the labour of manuring and im-
proving for prospective, to gain the bribe of
immediate profit.

This disposition is so ruinous already, that
I have known an owner with very imperfect
management, to manure annually ten time*
more with equal means at the place of his re-
sidence, than on a farm some miles distant en-
trusted to an overseer. Money wages is one
mode of curing an evil sufficient without a»
ally to ruin our country. But to give this re^ "
medy effect the apocryphal opinion of reco-
vering our lands by a succession of crops,
ought to be driven out by the more solid reli-
ance upon manuring and enclosing.

Our funds for manuring are sufficient to em-
ploy all our energies, and if our energies were
employed sufficiently to exclude all worn out
land for cultivation, and to produce the sex-
ennial supply of manure, without which a ro-
tation of crops will be delusive, and pernicious
effects would follow as far surpassing in use^
fulness those of mere rotation theory, as the
Atlantic ocean surpasses in extent the lake of
Geneva. Many of these funds of manure^ rea-
dy to pay the drafts of industry, have bee^
heretofore noticed ; more perhaps are over-
looked* They are scattered every where

±96 strccEssroN of CROP&i

around us ; and Providence has blest our shal-
low soil with a capacity of suddenly throwing
up thickets, constituting a bountiful provision
for manuring and curing galls and gullies, I
have tided this vegetable manure by strewing
the whole surface, by packing it green in large
furrows and covering it with the plough, by
packing it in such furrows in the same state,
and leaving it to be covered with the plough
three years afterwards, and by covering it as
soon as the leaves were perfectly dry, sowing
it previously with plaster. Each experiment
of which the result is determined, is highly
gratifying. The last on nearly a caput mor-
tuumof a galled and gravelly hill side, exhi-
bits good corn planted over the bushes, as soon
as they were covered. It is in vain to begin
at the wrong end to improve our system of ^
Agriculture. Fertility of soil alone can give
success to ingenious theories. These applied
to barrenness at best resemble only the beau-
tiful calculations of a speculator, who demon-
strates a mode of making fifty thousand dol-
lars from a capital of an hundred thousand, to
aman worth only an hundred cents. The ca-
pital must precede the profit. J

Manuring only can recover this capital, so
much of which is already wasted by bad hus-
bandry. It is the great object to be impress-
ed, and all its modes should be tried. When
that has provided a fund for experiment, and
an excitement to ingenuity, by presenting to'
industry and genius a fertile area, the time
will have arrived for exploring the more re-
condite principles of Agricultnre, and descend-
ing to the diminutives of improvement.

The effect of manuring and enclosing unit-
ed iu stopping gullies and curing galls, is air

strecEssioN OP CRopy. ±9Y

hundred fold greater, than the most iingMiious
mechanical contrivance. Land filled with
roots, covered with litter, aided hy buried bu-
shes forming covered drains, protected against
the wounds of swine and hoofs, and replenish-
ed sex-ennially with the coarse manure of the
farm and stable yards, will not wash. — Under
such management, the bottoms of the gullies
will throw u^ a growth capable of arresting*-
whatever matters the waters shall convey
from the higher lands, soon become the rich-
est parts of the field, and thenceforth gradu-
ally fill up. I have long cultivated considera*
ble gullies created by the three shift, grazing
and unmanuring system, and cured in this
mode, which produce the best crops, are se«-
eured against w ashing by their great fertility,
and are gradually disappearing by deepening
their soil.

A succession of crops is utterly incomp^
tent to the ends so necessary to our lands, as
it will not produce their roneyation ; and the
portion of truth the theory possesses, if it has
any, is so inconsiderable, that it will produce
the most ruinous errors, if it leads us to ba^
lieve, that our efforts to manure them may be
safely diminished or superseded, hy any rota»
^on of crops, however skilf uj>

10$ XITE FE!7CE«»

NUMBER 49*

LIVE FENCES.

i

This subject, so extremely material to a
country requiring to be raised from the dead^
by a vast and repeated doses of the only ge-
nuine terrene elixir, testifies In every quarter
of the U. States, to the scantiness of our A«
gri cultural knowledge ; and is one of the pre-
sages that it is doomed to live and die an in-
fant. If it is an idiot, its case is hopeless ;
but if it is only a dunce, it must in time dis-
cern the vast saving of labour to be applied
to draining and manuring, the vast saving of
wood and timber for fuel and building, and
the vast accession to arable, by rendering less
"woodland necessary, as acquisitions arising
from live fences.

In the " Memoirs of the Agricultural So-
ciety of Philadelphia," several modes of rai»-
sing live hedges, suitable for different soils
and climates, are stated and explained. Two
volumes of these memoirs have been publish*
ed, containing more valuable information up-
on the subject of agriculture, than any native
book I have seen ; and if we have no relish
for the wit, learning and experience, with
which they abound, but little good can be ex-
pected from these ephemeral essays. To say
much upon a subject, copiously handled in a
book wliich every farmer ought to have, would
insinuate the existence of a general apathy
towards the eminent talents which have pre-
sided over and greatly contributed to its coiii-
posit'on ; to say nothingi would be a neglect
«f a subject of the utmost importance*

XIVB FENCES. iff

Several plants are mentioned in these me-
moirs as proper for making live fences, but I
shall confine my observations to one, because
nay knowledge experimentally, does not ex-
tend to the others. The cedar is peculiarly
fitted for the purpose, throughout a great dis«
trict of the United States. It throws out
bbws near the ground, pliant and capable of
being easily woven into any form. They gra-
dually however become stiff. Clipping will
make cedar hedges extremely thick. No ani-
mal will injure them by browsing. Manured
smd cultivated, they come rapidly to perfecti-
on. The plants are frequently to be found in
great abundance without the trouble of raising
them. As an ever-green they are preferable
to deciduous plants ; and they live better than
any young trees I have ever tried, planted as
follows :

From December to the middle of March »
the smallest plants are to be taken up in a
sod of a square eonformable to the size of the
spade used, as deep as possible, which sod is
to be deposited unbroken in a hole as deep
made by a similar spade ; the earth coming
out of it being used to fill up the crevices be-
tween the sod and the hole for its reception.
I plant these cedars on the out and inside of
a straight fence, on the ridge of a ditch, th©
plants in each row being two feet apart both
in the direction of and across this ridge ; but
fio that the plants on one side of the fence will
be opposite to the centre of the vacancies be-
tween those on the other. Each row will b©
one foot from the fence, so that the top of the
ridge will be about eight inches higher than
the position of the plants. They should be
toptatafoot hi^ and not suffered to gala

fOO IIVE tENCESv

above three or four inches yearly m height,
such boughs excepted as can be worked into
the fence at the ground. Of these great use
may be made towards thickening the hedge,
by bending them to the ground, and covering
them well with earth in the middle, leaving
them growing to the stem, and their extremi-
ties exposed. Thus they invariabiy take root'
and fill up gaps. If the»e hedges are cultiva-
ted properly, and the land is strong, they will
form an elegant live ever-green fence, in a
shorter time, than is necessary to raise a
thorn fence in England, according to the
books*

But will they keep ott hogs ? I am told by
travellers that few or none of the hedges ia
England will do so. Yet hedges are both the
ehief Agricultural ornament, and most valua-
ble impi-ovement of that well cultivated coun-
try. But hogs are not there turned loose by
law to assail them. I do however think that
a cedar hedge is far more capable of forming
a fence against hogs thai the thorn, because
one, as a tree, will acquire more strength or
stubbornness than the other, a shrub, can ever
reach ; and because the cedar is capable of
being worked into a closer texture thau the
thorn.

Yet the wedge like sneut of the bog, the
hardiness of his nature, and the toughness of
his hide, eertainly exhibit IJm as a dangerous
foe to live fences ; and the resources of ring-
ing and yoking to eontroul his powers and hi»
disposition, ought to be adverted to for the
sake of an improvement so Dioraentoui.— •
These will not shock our prejudices nor \io.
late our habits, and are supported by a consi-
deration of weight, far inf^ior to the iuipi)rt-

UrB FENCES. 201

ance of hedging ; and yet light as it is, of
weight sufficient to justify the recommendati-
on. If hedges are not protected against hogs,
at least four rows of plants, and a double
width of ridge or bank will be necessary ;
there must be a double sized ditch to furnish
this earth : a double portion of land will be
occupied by the hedge and ditch ; and mor«
than double labour, owing to the inconveni-
ence arising from great breadth, will be al-
ways required to keep the hedge in order.
Something less than moieties in all these ca-
ses will suffice for hedges capable^of fencing
out every other animal, if the legal rights of
hogs are only modified, and besides the nar«»
row hedges will be far more beautifiiL
[NoteF.]

18.

203 OaCHAl^BS.

NUMBER 50.

ORCHARDS,

Incur warm and dry climate, I consider
live fences as the matrix for apple orchards.
These are the only species of orchards at a
distance from cities, capable of producing suf-
ficient profit and comfort, to become a consi-
derable object to a farmer. Distilling from
fruit is precarious, troublesome, trifling and
t)ut of his province. But the apple will fur-
liish some food for his hogs, a luxury for his
family in winter, and a healthy liquor for him-
self and his labourers all the year. Indepen-
dent of any surplus of cyder he may spare, it
is an object of solid profit, and easy acquisiti-
on. In the Southern states, the premature
decay and death of apple trees, is the chief
obstacle to its attainment. And this my ex-
perience tells me is generally occasioned by a
stroke of the sun on the body of the tree.— ^
Hedges in a great variety of positions will af*
ford shelter to trees against this stroke.

This conclusion has been drawn from many
facts, but a single case only shall be stated.—
Some years past the following experiment was
tried. An area of above an acre was inclosed
by a ceder hedge, in the form of a square,
with each side presented to a cardinal point of
the compass. Soon after, a young apple or-
chard was planted on the outside around the
hedge three feet from it, and at twenty feet
distance between the trees. The hedge shad-
ed the bodies of the trees when it could do so^
and has been for some years thick and high.
Not a single tree has decayed or died on tJlft

OKCHAEDS. 203

North 01* East side of it, many have on the
West and several on the South ; and the gene-
jpal thriftinessof the trees on the North & East
aspects, greatly exceeds that on the two others.

If the result of this experiment can be de-
pended on, for uniting live fences and orchards,
the same culture will answer for both, and a
vast saving of land, a great saving of trees,
a great accession of comforts and profit, and
a useful and ornamental border of roads will
ensue. The same experiment tends to recom-
mend low or short bodies^ as some preserva-
tive for fruit trees against strokes of the sun.

Next to this cause of the death of apple
trees, the residence under and subsistence up-
on the bark of the bodies and roots below the
surface of the ground, during winter, of the
field rat, has been the most common. The re-
medy against this animal, perhaps the mole
also, and probably against the whole family of
insects, is to dig away so much of the earth
from the roots near the body, to remain open
during the winter, as will make the place too
uncomfortable a residence for them, during
that season, in which they are most apt to feed
on the bark.

A saving of much time and trouble, and an
acquisition of sounder trees would result from
an easy practice, to which I have of late years
conformed. By earthing up the young grafts
gradually as they grow, to about six inches
above the junction of the slip and the stalk,
roots will invariably shoot out above Ibis junc-
tion, and by cutting oft'the stalk just above it,
when the young tree is transplanted, you ^et
rid of the defect in its constitution, sometimes
occasioned by the operation of engrafting, and
ivhat is infinitely more important, all the sci-
ons sprouting up from its rpots^ during the

5I4» 9110 HARDS.

whole life of the tree, will be of the true fruit,
and furnisli spontaneously and permanently
healthier orchards, than can he obtained by
the labour and art of engraf(ing.

Good cyder would be a national saving of
wealth, by expelling foreign liquors ; and of
life, by expelling the use of ardent spirits.- —
The cyder counties of England are said to ex-
hibit the healthiest population of the king-
dom. Even hard cyder would be a useful be-
verage to our slaves. Reduced to vinegar it
is considered as a luxury, and allowed to be
wholesome. But the extreme ignorance of
mankind in making cyder is demonstrated, by
an uncertainly whether the manufacture shall
turn out to be sweet, hard or sour. It often
happens that things of most value are not per-
fected, because perfection is easily attainable.^^
A thousand times more ingenuity has been ex-
pended on steam engines, than would have suf-
ficed for discovering the best modes of Agri-
fiultiire ; and the art of making eyder is in its
infancy, whilst that of making wine has been
brought to maturity. Yet the former liquor
would furnish infinitely more comfort at in-
finitely less expence to mankind, than the lat-
ter, if the art of making it had been equally
]>erfected.

It is probable that a similarity exists in the
best process for making both liquors, and that
useful hints may be collected from the details
as to wine, towards forming a process for ma-
king eyder. From this source 1 have extract-
ed a practice, though undoubtedly imperfect,
yet tolerably sufficing for family purposes. It
is this :

"When the fermentation of the must is half
•ver, so that it is considerably sweeter than it
ought to remain, it is drawn off (throwing

iiway ihe sediment at the bottom of the cask)
and boiled moderately about one hour in a cop-
per, during which the impurities rising to the
top are taken off by a skimmer vvith holes in
it, to let the eyder through. Twelve eggs for
each thirty three gallons, yolks and whites,
are beat up. pouring gently to them some of
the boiling cyder, until the mixture amounts
to about a gallon. This mixture is gradually
poured into the boiling eyder and well mixed
with it by stirring. It then boils gently iive
minutes longer, when it is returned hot into
the cask. In eight or ten days it is drawn off,
leaving the sediment to be thrown away, and
put into a clean cask, with six quarts of rum
or brandy to thirty-three gallons. The cask is
made completely full and stopt close. For this
purpose a sufficient provision of cyder must b©
jpaade. The cyder is bottled in the spring.

The chief object in making cyder, must be
the management of the fermentation, so as to
avail ourselves of the spirituous and avoid th©
acetous. In the fall it is accomplished by the
above process. But cyder is subject to a se-
cond fermentation in the spring like winej,
which often demolishes bottles or ends in aci-
dity. To manage this so as to make it keep
good in casks, is an ©bjeet highly desirable,
but which I have not attempted to accomplish.
Perhaps it is attainable by racking it off in the
spring and making a stscond addition of spirit.
The simple process above stated, wi^l carry it
well through the winter, and furnish good bot-
tled cyder ; but it promises nothing more. —
By cutting oflTthe corks even with the bottle,
and dipping its mouth in boiling pitch, it is
as completely closed, as the best waxed bottled
elavetor burgundy.

o.

386 DRAiwmo.

NUMBER 5U

DRAINING.

Prejudices have assailed, and will continue
to assail, every species of improvement, and
theory instead of experience will often sow
©pinion. It is frequently believed, that drain-
ing, clearing and reducing to cultivation mar-
shes, bogs and swamps, will add to the insa-
lubrity of the air, because vegetables feed up-
on certain qualities of it, unfit for animal res-
piration ; and thus render it purer for that
purpose. But why should we load the atmos^
plicre with poison, because vegetables will
absorb a portion of it ? Countries kept damp
by endless forests, though abounding in the
utmost degree with these absorbents of atmos-
pherical miasma, are peculiarly unwholesome;
and first settlers unexceptionably become vic-
tims to the fact. It proves that the air may
be contaminated beyond the purifying power
of an entire vegetable wilderness, and that a
reliance for its salubrity upon the eaters of
poison, would be equivalent to a reliance upon
the eaters of carrion for its purification, if
shambles were as extensive as bogs. After
having made the air as pure as possible by
every means in our power, the vegetable chy-
mistry by absorption, is a means provided by
providence, for its last filter ; but to infer from
this natural operation, that our efibrts to ren-
der it purer by draining are pernicious, would
he an equivalent inference to the idea, that
the cidiivation of the earth is pernicious be-
cause it is capable of spontaneous productions*

DRAITflNG. 2^7

Campatiia ami some other flat and marshy
districts of Italj, are recorded in history as
havin,^ been made so healthy and delightful in
the flourishing period of the Roman Empire
by drainhi.^, as to have been selected by the^
opulent for country retirement, and splendid
palaces. The drains neglected by the barba-
rous conquerors of Italy, have never been re-
established by its modern inhabitants ; and the
swamps and marshes have restored to these
districts an uninhabitable atmosphere, by ha-
ving their waters, their trees, and their ver-
dure restored to them.

As new countries are cleared and ploughed,
they become more healthy. The draining ef-
fects of these two operations exceed those of
any other, and by drying the earth very ex-
tensively, furnish the strongest evidence for
ascertaining the effects of draining wetter
lands. If the healthiness of a country is in-
creased by these modes of draining, it will
not be diminished by auxiliary modes.

The connection between draining or drying
the earth, and human subsistence, furnishes a
kind of argument, neither logical nor demon-
strative, and yet of conclusive force to my
mind. Can it be believed that the author of
creation, has committed the egregious blun-
der, of exposing man to the alternative of eat-
ing bad food, or of breathing bad air ? If not,
draining whether by the sun, the plough or
the spade, being indispensille to avoid the
first, cannot wreck him on the second evil.

From the great improvement made in the
health of the Eastern parts of the Union, if
Vfe may trust in recent history, by opening
the lands to the sun, and with the plough, 1
long since conckided, that this improvemtaat

398 a^IJAINIKC^*

would be vastly extended b j resorting to cTery
other species of draining. And having remo-
ved some years past to a farm, reported to be
extremely liable to bilious fevers, I threw se-
veral small streams into deep ditches, dried a
wet road leading to the house, by open or co-
vered drains, and cleared and drained some
acres of springy swamp, closely covered with
swamp wood, lying four or five hundred yards
south of the house. The multitude of springs
in this swamp, made deep, central, and double
lateral ditches, entering into it every six yards
necessary throughout the ground. The la-
bour was great, but the wet thicket is now a
clean dry meadow. Perhaps an attachment
to a theory may have caused me to imagine,
that the improvement in the healthiness of my
family and the draining improvements, hav«
kept pace with each other ; but I am under no
delusion in asserting, that the healthiness of
no part of the world, according to the tables
of mortality which I have seen, has equal-
l&i\ it.

A very large proportion of the country on
the Eastern waters consists of level land,
swamps, bogs and marshes. The first is
ehiefly cleared and exhausted ; the two last
are chiefly in a natural state ; and all generate^
poison for want of proper draining by the
plough, by ditches, and by dams, instead of
producing the richest crops of evei^ kind for
xnan and beast, of any other part of the coun-
try, without infecting the air.

The swamps, bogs and marshes, constitute
one of our best resources for recovering the
exhausted high lands, as furnishing employ-
ment for labour, and funds for manure ; to the
farmer they offer a certainty of profit, in ex-

cliange for the frequency of loss ; and to the
worn out J and, an intermission of its tortures,
and a cure for its wounds.

If the bounties of draining include an im*
provement in salubrity, in subsistence, in pro-
tit, and of exhausted lands, they ought to ex-
cite an ardour which will presently leave be-
hind the few and plain remarks which I shall
make upon the subject j or at least to awaken
great districts of country to the facts, that
their best lands, those capable of yielding
tJie most profit, if not those, only capable, of
yielding any or much profit ; lands able to sup-
port more people than those at present under
cultui'c, lie wholly useless ; except it may be
useful to kill people who are employed in kil-
ling land, and thus shelter the survivors in
some measure against the evils of peaurjr.

3iO DRAINING,.

NUMBER 52.

BRAINIKG, CONTINUED.

The simplest mode of draining is Ly the
plough, and yet even this is rare. Considera-
ble districts of flat, stiff and close land, are
soured by stagnant water and baked by the
sun, for want of this plain operation ; so as to
increase labour, diminish crops and taint the
air. Sometimes this rigid land, though in-
tended for Indian corn, is left unbroken thro*
the winter, and retains its excessive moisture,
for want of a declivity to discharge it; at
qthers, being fallowed level, the water be-
eomes a menstruum for malting down the soil
into a brick like cover, which is generally ren-
dered excessively hard by the sun, before the
water is evaporated sufficiently to admit the
plough. If the glutinous quality of water
had not been demonstrated in the familiar
operation of brick making, it ought to have
been instantly perceived in the case under con-
sideration. This soil holds it upon the sur-
face with such surprising retentiveness, as of-
ten to shew it in a rut or some other small
aperture, at a time when the crop is suffering
by drought. Being naturally adapted to ex-
tract and retain the gluten in water, a surface
is formed which obstructs absorption, and
suspends the water excessively exposed to
evaporation ; so that the crops suffer more
than those of any other kinds of land, both
from its excess and deficiency, under the flat
culture habit.

F,or bo ih these misfortunes, draining is th^

JDRAINIf^e. 211

only remedy, and in most cases it can be ef-
fected by the plough. This wilJ make ridges
and furrows, differing in their level in propor-
tion to the breadth of the former. The wider
the ridge, the deeperthe furrow maybe made;
and in ridges calculated for Indian corn, of
iive feet and an half wide, the bottom of the
furrow may easily be made fifteen inches low-
er than the top of the ridge. Land of the na-
ture described, from the worst, is capable by
skilful plough-drainings, ci being converted
into the best of our soils. If a habit had ex-
isted of draining wet meadow lands^ first by
cutting lines of ditches from North to South
over the whole surface of the meadow, and
then by filling them all up, in cuttinpj the same
number from East to West, and so cutting
and filling ditches alternately ; all the ar-
guments in favour of this mode of draining
meadows, would apply against the only prac-
ticable mode of draining cornfields by the
plough 5 for the latter object can only be ef-
fected by abolishing the habit of cross plough-
ing.

The difference of the level between the ridge
"and the furrow, in almost every case, enables
us to seize upon some descent in the field (as
the smallest will sufiice) by which to dispose
of the superfluous moisture. However dis-
tant, a descent comes at last, and adjoining
land holders would find a mutual benefit by
uniting in the operation, because stagnant wa-
ter on the higher field, does an injury to the
lower, only capable of being removed by al-
lowing it a passage.

Supposing however the unusual case of a
perfect level, essential benefit will yet accrue
from the proposed mode of draiuing by the

2i2 SSAlNIKCi>

plougli. The climate of the country under
consideration is by no means a wet one, and
therefore, even in this case an insunce would
rarely happen of a fall of rain so excessive, as
to drench the earth, till the proposed furrows,
and overflow the ridges ; because the earth of
these ridges having been retrieved from a sa*
turity cf moisture, keeping it in winter con-
stantly unsusceptible of an addition, and bar-
ing been rendered friable by lying in ridges
exposed to frost, will absorb infinitely more
than the same earth in its flat compact state ;
because the deep furrows having passed below
the crust caused by the union between thcL
earth of the surface, and the glueiness of the
water, will thereby have opened new channels
for absorption ; and because the capacity of
the furrows if properly constructed, will ge-
nerally or invariably be adequate to the quan-
tity of superfluous water.

An infallible n:ode however of perfecting
the operation cf draining by the plough, exists
in subjoining to it a dry ditch, which in no case
need be above eighteen inches deep, and twen-
ty-four wide, to be placed on the side of the
field most proper for conveying off the water.
If there is any descent, this ditch must run at
its foot ; if none, it must receive the water
nearest to some descent, to which the ditch
must be continued. In both cases every fur-
row of the field must deliver its water into the
ditch.

Those readers who have seen large flats of
close, wet land on the Eastern water courses,
employed in killing teams, poisoning the air,
and disappointing the hopes of the husband-
man, will not consider the suggestions of this
number; as isseiess. Our agriculture is Mrd-

DRAINING, ^13

ly prepared for tlie plainest improvemetits, and
an attempt to introduce those of a complicated
nature, would of course be unsuccessful. The
double paradox however contended for, having
been the result of experience, may safely be
referred to the same tribunal, with a w ord or
two to solicit a fair trial. It is asserted that
the flat surface in the kind of soil I have been
speaking of, will prod i5ce the evils, both of too
much and too little moisture ; and that the
high ridges and deep furrows earnestly recom-
mended, will prevent both. In addition to the
previous observations in this nuraber, apply-
ing to the reconciliation of these apparent con-
tradictions, the reader will be pleased to re-
collect those in a former one, designed to prove
that evaporation will be greater from a flat
than frohi a ridged surface, and therefore in
winter when it is too slow, the furrows mav
carry off the superfluous water, and in summer
when it is too rapid, the ridges may obstruct it.
If twenty inches of rain falls in the year,
which would retain moisture in droughts long-
est ; a level iron paii of an Imndred acres area*
or an hundred acres of earth of a soil absorb-
ing all that fell ? The soil 1 have been speak-
ing of, flat and undrainedj is somewhat of the
nature of the pan ; drained by ridges and deep
furrows, it is converted ialg one more absor-
bent.

19.

2} 4* I)KAIN11!?G.

NUMBER 53.

DRAINING, CONTINUED.

The next species of draining to be consider-
ed is nearly as simple* as useful, and as much
iieglectedj as that we have just past, — A great
part of the country below the mountains is of
a sandy soil, and abounds with a multitude of
creeks, bogs and rivulets, generally furnish-
ing line land up to their very springs, if they
^ve^e drained. But instead of doing this, the
labour of the country has been applied with
great perseverance and success, to draining the
hills of their barren sands, for the purpose of
pouring them upon these rich vallies. To ar-
rest and repair so ruinous an evil, would be
the Tueans of bringing under culture an im-
mense body of land, infinitely more fertile
than that in cultivation ; and if health and
plenty are bad motives for the undertaking,
this fertility ought to suggest the folly of ne-
glecting the smallest slipe of these wet lands,
from pecuniary considerations only.

If however the wonderful manner in which
the Eastern States are watered, is adverted to,
the very great quantity of these wet lands
will strike the mind, and disclose to it at once
a capacity as great for causing unhealthiness,
as for producing profit ; and as in reaping the
good we remove the evil* an admiration of hu-
man nature is awakened, when we see it brave
the worst climates, and court death abroad for
the sake of wealth, rather than acquire it at
home by highly improving a tolerable one,
and courting long life.

»K VISING. 215

There is haiilly a habitation in most of the
Eastern States, however distant from the lar-
ger rivers, Avithoiil the atmospherical influence
of tliis vast mass of creeks, hogs and rivulets ;
and accordingly their effect is almost every
Avhere in some degree, experienced. Few of
their channels retain any appearance of their
natural state, being evktry where obstructed
by sands, bogs, buslies and rubbish, so as to
form innumerable putrid puddles, pools and
bogs, upon the occurrence of every drought ;
to several of which, all our summers and au-
tumns are liable. By stopping and spreading
the waters of our creeks and rivulets, they
soon cease to flow in droughts, and the water
which might be carried off in a healthy cur-
rent at all times, in wet seasons, poisons the
earth, and in dry, t!ie air, because then evapo-
ration becomes its only channel.

Every rational being will ackiiowledge, tbat
nothing can be more ridiculous than to kill
ourselves for the sake of remaining poor, and
nothing wiser than to lengthen our lives for
the sake of becoming daily more comfortable.
The latter objects will both be certainly bc-
compiished by draining our creeks, rivulets
and bogs, so as to bestow on them unobstruc-
ted currents, and to cultivate their borders. —
In sandy countries, where they are most ex-
tensive, valuable and pernicious, their last
quality is most easily removed, as I shall en-
deavour to shew.

Side and straight ditches, where ditching is
necessary ought generally to be abandoned,
and the stream trained nearly to its natural
course, avoiding acute angles, and aiming at
gentle sinuosities. The loose texture of a san-
dy &oiI suggests these preeautions. In coase-

^i6 SuAlMITfG.

qiieiice of it, side ditclies are speedily filled
up. Straight ditches e;i\e aa impetus to the
ciirrent, exposing a crumbling soil to a con-
stant abrasion, and devoting the point cpon '
which it expends its greatest fury, to great in-
jury. Acute angles create strong currents
and are unable to withstand weak ones. The^
lov/est ground is naturally the best for drains.
And gentle bends check the iojpetuosity of
currents. Fi^om adhering to the lowest
ground or uatural course of the stream, we
may avail ourselves to great extent of the
stream itself towards perfecting the drain, by
periodically removing such obstructions as it
js unable to remove, or discloses in cutting a
ditch for itself. These in the saD^ly countries,
<i032sist generally of old wood, occasionally of
veins of some more rigid species of earth ; the
first to be removed, the latter to be cut thro%
In cutting ditches, widening channels, pairing
off points, cleaning and deepening drains o£
asiy kind, one of the most obvious, and most
esfmmon errors, is to leave the earth on their
borders, so as to dam out a considerable por-
tion of (he water the drain was intended to re-
t'cive, and to destroy all the crop within its
iiiiluence. This earth ought unexceptionably
to be employed in curing hollows, leaving the
edges of the drain every v/here lower than the
adjacent ground. By tiiis means Hoods will
seldomer oceiir, and more rapidly return to
tije channel ; because as the water is every
where trickling into the drain as the rain falls,
it has more time to dispose of it, and for Uie
game reason, an excess^ will sooner be reduc-
ed. Both the rapid ami complete reduction of
-floods is of great importance to crops, few of
which will sustain much injury from a very

short immersion. They are ruined for want
of a remedy against stagnant water. Drains
in the lowest ground, with edges lower than
the ground designed to he dried, aided by rid-
ges and furrows, emptying into the drains,
will afford this remedy, in the most perfe^et
jnanner.

#^

^1^ BRAINIKe*

NUJtIBEE 54.

DRAINING, CONTINUED.

As all our streams liaye others falling into
111 em, arsd are attended with a multitude of
springs breaking out at the termination of the
high land, some substitute for the side ditches
so unsuccessfully tried for the purpose of in-
tercepting these rilis and springs, is indispen-
sable. 1 have tried three ^vith entire success,
at an expence of labour, injinitely less than
that so frequently lost by adhering to side
ditches, in such cases as we are considering.
If the tributary stream rises beyond the
ground we are draining, it is managed hj the
same principles as the chief stream, so far up-
wards, as is necessary. If it rises in a bold
spring at the junction of the hills with the
3at we are reclaiming, a channel is made for
it in the lowest ground, and by the shortest
distance, to the central drain, as narrow as the
spade will allow, never more than eighteen in-
ches deep, with perpendicular sides, which in
these narrow cuts last much longer than
slopes, because they are not equally exposed
to frosts. If springs ooze in a continued line
at the 1 unction of the hill and flat? a side &nt
as narrow as possible and deep enough to in-
tersect them all, with a direct cut as above to
<he main dfain, is one remedy. The labour
of these cuts is trifling. The last however,
like all ditches above the lowest ground in san-
dy soils, is liable to be filled up. To obviate
tliis inconvcMionce (which in these small cuts
is not very great) I have frequently tried co-
vered drains, constructed as follows, with in-
variable success.

DRAINING. ^±9

A ditch at least four feet deep is cut so as
completely to intersect the whole line of these
oozing springs, to the depth of about three
feet, and it is continued to the open drain in-
to which it must discharge its water, by the
rout affording tlie most convenient fall for that
purpose. The ditch is cut gradually narrow-
er from the top to the bottom, where it is not
above eight inches wide. A row of poles of
such a size as nearly but not entirely to touchy
is laid on each sido of the ditch at bottom.—
Green or seasoned brush, without leaves,
trimmed to lie olose,is then packed into the
ditch, with the small ends downwards, and
touching the poles, beginning at the upper end
of the ditch. The inclination of the brush
must he up sti^am, at an angle of about forty-
five degrees with the bottom of the ditch ,* it
must be packed as close with the hand as pos-
sible, and cut into lengths proper for the end
of filling the ditch within ten inches of the
top.— I'he brush is then to be covered with
four inches of dry sound leaves of any kindj,
and the whole of the earth to be returned up-
on the ditch and well rammed. It will press
down the brush and leaves low enough to ad^
mit of any species of culture without distur-
bing them. The oozing water will be receiv-
ed by the former, and must trickle through
the apertures caused by having its small ends
at bottom, and by the poles^ down to the open
drain, and the soured ground will lose every
boggy appearance.

This mode of draining seems in description
to be more troublesome, than I have found it
to be in practice. Unless its duration could
be ascertained, we cannot certainly pronounce
as to its cheapness. The oldest I have had an

^20 DRAINING.

opportunity of attending^ to, was cotistrueted
about ten years past. Its objects were to ren-
der a road dry, and about two acres of soured
barren land better, by sinking a line of oozing
springs lying collaterally with the road, which
made it a quagmire in wet weather, and ren-
dered the two acres barren. — The road has
been ever since dry and iirm, and the land^
of the best in the fieldi I cannot help think-
ing that a well constructed drain of this kind,
will last a century. Where stones can be had,
they may be made to last forever, but I doubt
whether brick work would be equal to the brush.

But this is like shooting speculation a cen-
tury beyond hope. It is superfluous to invent
modes of preserving spots, whilst we are de-
stroying districts. I will therefore return to
the subject, as it relates to draining the vast
body of land lying on creeks and small rivers.
There is no species of draining so cheap or
beneficial, as where there is water sufficient to
perform a chief part of the work. Most
streams can perform some of it. In either
case, the removal of obstructions of wood or
loose stone, requires infinitely less labour,
than to dig an equivalent canal ; and the wa-
ter thus aided, will continue to deepen its
channel, until its efforts are controlled by with-
holding the assistance. The earth it scoops
out of the channel, becomes an alluvion for
curing an abundance of chasms and inequali-
ties, the fruit of torrents and obstructions.—.
And by correcting some angles, and deepen-
ing the channels of the creeks and small ri^
vers, a very large quantity of the best land,
now yielding foul air, may be brought at a tri-
lling expence to yield fine crops.

For the introduction of this mode of drain-
ing, the cheapest, the most practicable, and

BRAINING. 221

the most profitable, a law is necessary. I. do
not know that Coke's siimma ratio provides
for the ease, and the absurdities to be found in
the code, upon which this exalted eneomiura
is pronon.riCed, are r:^€ords cf human folly suf-
tt'iznt to shake a confiderr- e in the g-ood sens©
and justice of an entire natioil, h«^Yever plain
the case may be. A proprietor below may
perhaps be found, blind to the ctear moral ob-
ligations which require him to remove the ob-
structions against the draining of a proprietor
above ; whilst one above may be so Lynx-eyed,
as to see injuries to himself from draining land
below. And yet the prosperity and the health
of the whole nation is at least as deeply af-
fected by the object, as by the establishjnent
of roads; nor would a lower county which
should stop all the roads leading from above,
act as unjustly or absurdly, as those who stop
the drains from above. It would not injure
the climate, and by arresting commodities, it
would establish some monopoly beneficial to
itself; but the obstructor of draining gains
no exclusive advaritage, and shares in the ge-
neral calamity of a bad climate. ^V- _
Such laws are not novel. Pennsylvania is
indebted to them for some of her finest farms.
Iuiu(d* question whether the state le,dsiatures
have a power to pass any laws, equally bene-
iieial. They might try the esperiroeut, short
of that requiring social embankments, by only
imposing the simple and easy obligation of
keeping up a social current, sufficient to drain
all hinds above, in every stream lying above
tide water. Such laws might at first be limi-
ted to the removal of obstructions of wood or
earth, until experience should decide, whether
they miglit not be benelicially extended even
to obstructions of stone.

22^ ^ DRAINING.

NUMBER ra.

DRAINING, CONTINUED.

The residue of this subject contains in eve-
ry yiew its most important division, and unfor-
tunately meets with less capacity to do it jus-
tice. The benefits arising from draining the
kind of ground we have passed over, though
great in themselves, are inconsiderable, com-
pared with those which would result from
draining the marshes and sunken grounds up-
on tide water. A new country and climate
would be gained by it. "VVe know that the
Dutch in both hemispheres, have reclaimed
rich countries from the ocean, whilst we aban-
don them to tlie rivers ; but I do not recollect
to have heard of a book upon draining and
banking. My whole experience is confined to
a single experiment, yet unfinished, the oc-
currences of which I shall relate, so far as
they may be useful. It is made on ground si-
milar to the body of marsh and wet land, a-
bounding on the tide rivers and creeks of the
Eastern States, to an extent, sufficient if re-
claimed, to dispense wealth and comfort, and
unreclaimed, unwholesoiiieness and death.

About two hiindred acres of such land, tliree
fourths of wliich were subject to the tides,^
Avhich fluctuate to the extent of about three
feet, and within half a nule of a large river, is
the sulyeet of the experiment. The remain-
ing fourth, though a few inches above tide
water, was sunken land, covered with the usual
growth of such ground. A large portion was.
soft marsh, subject to common tides, and neaV*

DRAINING. 223

ly as mucli a sheet of water, shallow at low
tides. On one side of this area, has heen con-
structed a canal about eighteen feet wide, to
conduct a creek sufficiently large for two mills
above ; aud on the other, one half as wide, to
receive and convey several small streams, and
a great number of springs. At the termina-
tion of the work, these canals are connected by
a dam nearly two hundred yards long, one half
crossing the soft marsh, and the other the
space constituting the former bed of the creek.
These canals are betVT een four and five miles
long, and have been constructed cautiously and
leisurely, to diminish the loss of the adven-
ture, should it prove unsuccessful.

The experiment was commenced by cutting
a ditch on the left side for the small canal, a-
bout four feet wide, and two deep, near the dry
land, but wholly in the soil of the wet. — It was
found to yield too little earth to make a bank
high and strong enougli to resist either inun-
dations or high tides ; that the earth became
so porous, on drying, as to produce leaks and
breaches ; and that it was yet so adhesive as
to admit of the burrowing of musk rats, with
which the place abounded. Thus the first at-
tempt failed^ and a considerable ditch became
wholly useless.

As this spongy and fibrous soil extended to
the base of the hills on both sides, the next
attempt was made by driving a double row of
stakes and puncheons round and split, being
six feet long, two feet into the wet ground,
about eighteen from the dry, fitted together as
close as possible, and covering them with the
same kind of soil, dug out of the canal for
eonducting the creek, which afforded earth
wken eut ^bout one foot deep, to cover iiiQ

£24? DRAINING*

stakes. The result was, that the wooden wall
under this spongy and ilhious earth, was no
security agahi St the musk rats, and that the
bank was pierced hy them at pleasure. The.
labour in wood was therefore iosti but not the
insufficient channel nor the bank.

The channel being about twelve inclies
deeper than the adjacent sunken ground, would
contain and conduct the creek except in inun-
dations, and as the bank hitherto described,
was in every view insufficient, chasms of fif-
teen or twenty feet wide were made in it at
about three hundred yards apart, to let the
water pass out when high. The creek was
turned into this canal, witli a view of floating
the sand from above, and deipsiting it along
the bottom, conveniently for removal to the
bank in order to oppose its fi-iabie nature to
the architectural skill of the muskrats.

At some convenient season once a year (for
the experiuient proceeded for years) the wa-
ter of the creek being turned successively
through these chasms above, left its bottom
below of firm sand, which was very easily
raised upon the bank. By the pressure of
this annual alluvion of sand, upon the spongy
soil, the ehanndofthe creek became deeper,
and the alluvion was increased, so that finally
the first embankment, being greatly raised
and completely covered with the sand filtered
by the water into a state for the object, be-
came a fortification proof against the skill of
these troublesome animals.

The chasms left for inundations being of
the kind ui s<!il described, were not liable to
be cut by the water into new channels, and
their edges or banks, being higher than the
bottom of the creek, very little sand eould es-
cape through them.

As the body of water on the le^t side, wa^
too inconsiderable for the alluvion process, it
became necessary to abandon the old ditch,
and to commence a new one, so far touching
upon the base of the rising dry land, as to se-
cure a sufficiency of sand for the bank, and
yet to be able to penetrate to the springs,
which created a perpetual pond and bog in a
portion of the area to be drained. It is now
cut throughout its whole course of about thre©
Diiies, so deep as to have reached many of the
springs, with a bank able to command inun-
dations and tides. The bank w as composed
of sand only, (ihe wooden staecade having
turned out to be useless) and being of consi-
derable size, proved a complete barrier against
the muskrats, in the following cases excepted.
In three several places the bog or marsh, pro-
truded into the drv land at right angles witk
the course of the ditch, in narrow necks not
worth the expence of including. Two of these
were about thirty yards wide, and the third
near ten. All were crossed, and to save the
trouble of getting sand for the bank, a more
careful trial was made of the staecade and
spongy soil. They proved in all three places
insufficient to confine the water, or resist tlie
muskrats. A sandy soil lay on both sides of
these guts, but still it would be considerable
labour to remove a quantity of it sufficient for
the whole bank ; to save this labour, a ditch
i was cut on the inner or lower side of the bank
i close to its base, three feet wide, and as many
deep, quite across the mouths of the two lar-
gest guls, and tilled with the adjacent sandy
i\ soil ; and this thread of sand was continued
ion the back of the spongy part of the bank
1^ above high w^^ter mark in the caiiaL At th«

20,

2^ DRAINING.

Darrow gut the bank was well coated above
ground with sand. At all three, success was
complete.

Before the inefficacy of the staccade was
discovered, it was resorted to in making the
dam across the creek and marsh. Stakes and
puncheons of about nine feet long, were driven
about three into the earth across both, in the
center of the intended dam, and in a triple
row. Nine feet from this staccade on each
side, a close and strong wattled fence of greeu
cedar was made, for the purpose of holding
the moist soil of the marsh, so far as the dam
was to be compounded of it, and of arresting
the sand, where it was to be made hy an alluvion.
By laying plank for the labourers on each side
at fifteen feet distance from these wattlings, and
working backwards towards them, cutting out
the earth as deeply as the labourers could
reach, marsh earth was easily obtained at low
tides to raise the dam to a sufficient height, so
far as the marsh extended 5 but though it was
eighteen feet wide, it proved unable to resist
either the water or the muskrats. It therefore
became necessary to cut a diteh along the
whole length of this moiety of the dam, bind-
ing on the center or staccade, four feet wide,
and two feet deeper than the summit of the
marsh, and to fill it with a thread of well fil-
tered alluvion sand. This remedy has hither-
to been suflicient, but nine months only having
•lapsed, since it was tried, it is not entirely
coidkled in.

DRAINING. %%1

NUMBER h^.

DRAINING, CONTINUES.

The remaining moiety of the dam was en-
tirely composed of alluvion sand. For this
object, the canal for the creek was made to
terminate at a steep sandy hill, being cut close
to its base. Cave was taken to keep the bot-
tom of the creek two feet above low water
mark, for the sake of a current, which being
directed into the two nine feet lanes, made by
the staccade and the wattlings, gradually con-
veyed the sand into them, and forced the creek
to retire into a narrow channel. To accele*
rate the operation, the sand of the hill was
occasionally thrown into the creek, and to les-
sen the labour of doing it, the channel, as the
canal widened by drafts of sand from the hill,
was kept near its base. This was done by oc-
casionally removing the stones and pebbles,
generally found in sandy soils, and left behind
by the filtration, to the base of the bank, where
they produced the indispensable end of pre-
venting the attrition of the current.

As much sund being thus conveyed and de*
posited as the descent would allow, two close
parallel green cedar wattlings were made
eighteen feet below the lowest hitherto men-
tioned, from the highland to the marsh ; the
cut throngli the marsh on the lower side, made
Sn raising that part of the dam, was converted
into a channel for the creek to the opposite
high land, and a short canal was cut through
a neck of marsh, to conduct it from thence to
pi^ water belew, Afld thenceferth Ae sand

228 iDHAINIXe.

was deposited by t»:e current along the whole-
extent of the dam, from whence it was occasi-
onallj with great ease removed upon it, hy
taking off* the creek in low tides and dry sea-
sons, in which there is no difficulty.

In carrying the staccade across the creeks
great care was tftken to make its top one foot
higher than the highest tides, and on covering
it with the sand, the aperture left for the tides
was closed. The dam was however twice bro-
ken by high tides, before it was conjectured,
ill at the sand by its Aveight, had compressed
the porous marsh soil of which the bottom of
the creek was composed, and lowered the whole
staccade with it. Upon a strict attention to
thh idea, however, it was concluded, that such
a comprcssure, in proportion to weight and
w)rnpressibility took place throughout the dam
and banks ; and that though it required occa-
sional additions to both, to preserve their level
at least two feet above the highest tides and
Inundations, its efFect of obstructing the per-
</olation of the surrounding water into the
space to be drained, admitted by tiie nature of
the soil to a great extent, was a full retribu-
tion for the labour thus expendedc

The dam and banks being closed quite a-
round, to ^ei rid of the internal water, con-
stituted the remaining difficulty. It was ne-
cessary to construct a gate to discharge it at
low tides. A tide gate in the center of th«
dam was unsuccessfully tried. And finally a
frunk made of tw^o incli oak plank, sixteen feet
Jong, with a cavity three feet wide and one
4Seep, answei'ed the end much better than any
other experiment. The water on the inside
passes along the dam, parallel to the water on
the mitf In the channel cut fgr raising the danfr

DRAININfi. U>W

across the marsh, to the small canal near the
junction of its bank with the dam. At this spot
thefoundationisan unctuous fullers earth. The
place being made by bay-dams, was dug out to
the precise level of low water, and the trunk
accurately laid down upon it. Plank one foot
wide was sunk quite around it edgeways, so
as to lap two inches on the bottom of the
trunk, and the whole was covered with earth,
and well rammed to within two feet of the
ends, so as to discharge the water into the
small canal. At each aperture of the trunk,
is a door made of a single plank, fitted to the
outside, having four folds of coarse woollen
cloth, dipped in hot tar, nailed on so as to fit
the mouths of the box, fixed by strong hinges
made for the purpose, and latched under water
by the help of a long handle attached to the
latch. The defect hitherto discovered, is, that
the trunk is not long enough by about six feet.

This species of trunk was first tried to save
the water of a smaU branch for grinding gyp-
sum, in a simple tub mill, built for that pur-
pose. Only one door, and no latch was ne-
cessary. The pressure of the water in the
pond was such, that when high, a strong chain
attached well to the door, worked witli a small
lever, was necessary to open it. A hole of
two inches diameter, kept closed with a large
peg, to be pulled out by a pole fastened to it,
was resorted to for diminishing the resistance
of the water, and caused the door to open more
easily. And the end of saving the water ws^s
very well eifected.

It was discovered that the interval water to
be voided by the trunk, was vastly increased
by springs passing under the canals, for whi^h
tikere was jjp remedy but to deepen them.^i-

S>30 BRAIKiNG.

TIlis rf medy was applied to the SBifkll one wit^
siscli efiVcljtbat its coDtinuance, until the bot-
tom ill its whole course shall be brought to a
level with the water at low tide, is confidently
considered as a certain cure for the evil. The
Tiuniber and size of the springs discovered,
were beyond expectation, and the interception
of the residue is considered as certain. The
large canal could not be deepened hitherto,
hecause it has not quite finished the work of
alluvion. But there will be no difliculty in
cutting off the springs beneatli it, by a nari'ow
diteh in the center. For when this work is
done, the obstructions to prevent the creek
from deepening itself, will be removed, and
that operation will both lessen the work of
]^enetrat!ng to the springs, and also bestow
upon the bank a more perfect degree of
strength.

The efforts used to prevent the abrasion of
ihe water ip acute angles, eddies or strong
currents, consisted of single or double wat-
tles of green cedar, in proper declivities to re-
gist water, and to retain earth ; aud of throw-
ing all stones and gravel washed from the base
of the bills cut by the canal, to the base of the
bank. The bank also, generally, had covered
itself before its apertures, for allowing a pas-
sage to inundations, were closed, with a strong
tegument of shrubs, weeds or grass ; and these
several remedies against the attrition of th«
current have hitherto been effectual. A poe-
t-ion of the land heretofore flooded by commoii
tides, is quite dry, and will be this year culti-
vated. After widening the dam by alluvion^
to about thirty fi*et, the creek will no longer
be kept parallel with it, but will be sent straight
on from the right bank. And the bank is d«*-
ti^ed to the use of apple iveds.

The sandy soil approximadng upon most op
all of the marshes and sunken grounds of the
Eastern States, seems to he tlie providential
provision of the means for reelaiming them ^
and the multitnde of currents passing through
this soil, are like vehicles for conveying these
means to the necessary positions. TJiey are
vehicles v/hich disregard distance, travel con-
stantly and never decay. They will calk the
most porous soil, overwhelm the strongest Tir-
min, and follow the slightest direction. Their
efforts may be aided by the plough, hy remov-
ing obstructions, and by tumbling into them
sandy declivities with little labour, near to
\^hich they should be guided for that purpose.

NUMBER 57*

TOBACCO.

The extent of country yet devoted to the
cultivation of this plants entitles it to a place
in an agricultural ephemeris, the ohject of
which, is to kill bad habits^ and to be killed
itself by a complete system. The preserva-
bleness of tobacco, endows it with the rare
capacity of waiting for a market, and consti-
tuted a recommendation which induced me to
cultivate it attentively during two years.—-
Both crops succeeded beyond the medium cal-
eulation, and the experiments still exhibited
results conclusively proving the propriety of
its abandonment. These results were all with
case reduced to figures. It was easy to ^x
the value of labour bestowed on an acre of to-
bacco, and on its crop after severance ; and
on an acre of corn or wheat, with the prepa-
ration of its crop also for market. It was as
easy to ascertain the produce of equal soils,
and prices were settled by sales. Such esti-
mates demonstrated the loss of growing to-
bacco, merely on the score of annual profit,
without taking into the account, the formida-
ble obstacle it constitutes to the improvement
of land.

This objection is not founded upon the er-
roneous opinion, that it is peculiarly animpo-
verisher. On the contrary, my impressioa
was, that it was less so, than any other crop I
knew of, except cotton and the sweet potatoe.
But upon its enormous consumption of labour,
a^fd its dlmiuMtive returns of manure. It

TOBACCO. 253

would startle even an old planter, to see aa
exact account of the lal)our devoured by an
acre of tobaceo, and the preparation of the
crop for markets Even supposing' that crop
to amount to the extraordinary quantity of one
thousand pounds, he would find it seldom, if
ever, producing a profit upon a fair calculati-
on. He would be astonished to discover how
often he had passed over the land« and the to-
bacco through his hands, in fallowing, hilling',
cutting off hills, planting,replantings, toppings,
suckerings, weedings, cuttings, picking up,
removing out of the ground by hand, hanging,
striking, stripping, stemming, and prizing,
and that the same labour, devoted to almost
ally other emyloyment, would have produced a
better return by ordinary success, than tobac-
co does by the extravagant crop I have sup-
posed.

Though its profit is small op nothing, its
quality of starving every thing exceeds that of
every other crop. It starves the earth by pro^
ducing but little litter, and it starves its cul-
tivators, by producing nothing to cat. What-
ever plenty or splendour it may bestow oa its
ewner, the soil it feeds on must necessarily
become cad^jverous, and its cultivators squa^
lid. 'Nor can it possibly diffuse over the face
of the earthj or the ftices of its inhabitants^
the exuberance which fiows f«'om fertilisation,
nor the happinesB ^^hieh fiows from plenty.

A substitiile is iKe object of enquiry, aftee
we are ecnvineed of the detrimental nature of
any crop. When iloiir sells for as much as
tobacco, by the ponnds wheat would be a eon^-
plete one, at any distance from water eafTi"
age ; but as tlmi is seldom the case, others
inuBt he sougUt afu5i?« The extent aed poj^-

^34 TQBAee*.

lation of tlie country, within reach of natiga*
ble water, opens to the tobacco districts a wid«
market, for the disposal of many better sub-
Mitutions. Horses, mules, beef and pork,
would more than suffice to replace all the ad-
vantages lost by relinquishing the culture of
tobacco ; and materials for manufacturing,
with manufacturing itself, would amply pro-
vide for any possible deficiency. Themarketfor
live stock and meat, is so great and valuable
in the bread stuff districts of the Eastern wa-
ters, as to attract supplies from quarters far
beyond the narrow tobacco belt, with which
they are immediately surrounded ; and if it is
a question in the best cultivated countries,
whether grazing and breeding*^ live stock,
even upon the margin of navigation, is not the
most profitable agricultural employment ; eve-
ry douht vanishes in comparing it with the
culture of tobacco, in situations where the
capacity of walking to market, will create a
considerable item of that comparison.

The system of agriculture, for a bread stuff
farm, according to the experience I have had,
requires live stock sufficient to consume and
reduce to manure, every species of provender
and litter ; in effecting which, a sufficiency of
meat may be provided for the labourers, either
without expence, or even producing a profit.
But if I am right in concluding, that the live
stock of such a farm ought to stop at that point,
whenever its situation renders the expence of
transporting its grain to market trivial, it fol-
lows, that a vast market would remain for the
meat and live stock of the tobacco district,
consisting of towns, artizans, all who live by
professions and the interest of money ; and of
the bread stuff ferBiers thems^hes; as to h^c-

i

TOBACCO, 23^

seg «fciid mules, the breeding of which is exclu-
ded by this system ; and as to pork also,
wherever a better mode of raising it than the
present, shall not be adopted.

Having had no experience of a farm devoted
to raising live stock, my observations are con-
jectural. It seems to me that manuring might
be carried much farther, where the whole
produce was consumed on the land, than when
a part of it was exported ; that the product
might be therefore more rapidly increased,
and the space cultivated, diminished ; and
that the herbaceous and succulent crops would
so far banish the use of those more exhaust-
ing, as greatly to accelerate the improvement
of the exhausted tobacco district, and to in-
sure an immediate or very near return of pro-
fit, exclusively of a return of comfort, far ex**
eeedin^ that to which it has been aceui^tomed.

^B QTUE EC02J0MY

NUMBER 58.

THE ECONOMY OF AGRICULTURE:.

There is no subject less understood, nor
more generally mistajUen than this ; nor any
more essential to the pro!*perity of agricul-
ture. Sufficient to afford matter for an entire
treatise, it cannot be embraced by a short
chapter. But a short chapter may put minds
upon the tract, able to imfold its involutions
with every branch of agriculture, and more
specially to disclose its value.

Diminutions of comlbrts, necessaries and
expence, are too often mistaken for the means
of producing the ends they obstruct ; and the
rapacity >vhich starves, frequently receives
the just retribution of a disappointment, be-
gttten by a vicious mode of avoiding it.— •
From the master down to the meanest utensil,
the best capacity for fulfilling the contemplat-
ed ends, is invariably the best economy ; and
th© same reasoning which demonstrates tlie
bad economy of a shattered loom, will demon-
strate th^ bad economy of a shattered consti-
tution, or an imperfect state of body. The
cottagers who inflict upon themselves and their
families the discomforts of cold houses, bad
bedding and insufficient clothing, to acquire
wealth, destroy the vigour both of the mind
and body, necessary for obtaining the contem-
plated end, at which of course, they can ne-
ver arrive. The farmer who starves his
slaves, is a still greater sufferer. He loses
the profits produced by health, strength and
ahicrity : ami suffers the losses eau&ed by dis-

OF AGRICULTrRE, SJo7

ease, short life, weakness and dg'eetion. A
portion or the whole of the profit^ arising from
their increase is also lost. Moreover, he is
exposed to various injuries from the vices in-
spired by severe privations, and rejects the
best sponsor for his happiness, as well as pros-
perity, by banishing the solace of labour. In
like manner, the more perfect, the more pro-
fitable are working animals and implements,
and every saving by which the capacity of ei-
ther to fulfil their destiny in the best manner
is diminished, terminates with certainty in
some portion of loss, and not unfrequently ia
extravagant wjiste. Even the object of ma-
nuring is vastly affected by the plight of those
animals by which it is aided.

A pinching miserly system of agriculture,
may indeed keep a farmer out x)f a prison, but
it will never lodge him in a palace. Great
profit depends on great improvements of the
soil, and great improvements can never be
made by penurious efforts. The discrimina-
tion between useful and productive, and useless
and barren expences, contains the agricultural
^ecrel, for acquiring happiness and wealth. A
good farmer will sow the first with an open
hand, and eradicate every seed of the other.

Liberality constitutes the economy of agri-
culture, and perhaps it is the solitary human
occupation, to which the adage, *« the more we
give, the more we shall receive," can be justly
iipplied. Liberality to the earth in manuring
and culture, is the fountain of its bounty to us.
Liberality to slaves and working animals, is
the fountain of their pro^t. Liberality to do-
mestic brutes, is the fountain of manure. My
raisiog'in proper modes a suificieney of meat
for our labourers, we bestov/ a strength upon

S^ THE ECONOMY ^

tlieir bodies, and a fertility upon the ground^
either of which will recompcnce us for the ex-
pence of the meat, and the other will be a pro-
iit. The good work of a strong teauij causes
a profit beyond the bad work of a weak one,
iifter deducting the additional expcnce of feed-
ing it ; and it saves moreover half the labour
of a driver, sunk in following a bad one. Li-
berality in warm houses prcduecs health,
strength, and comfort; preserves the lives of
a multitude of domestic animals ; causes all
animals to thrive on less food ; and secures
from damage all kinds of crops. And libera-
lity in th« utensils of husbandry, saves labour
to a vast extent, by providing the proper tools
for doing the work both well and expeditiously.

Foresight is another item in the economy of
agriculture. It consists in preparing work
for all weather, and doing all work in proper
weather, and at proper times. The climate of
the United States makes the first easy, and the
second less difficult than in most countries.—
Buinous violations of this important rule are
yet frequent from temper and impatience. —
JS'othing is more common than a persistance
in ploughing, making hay, cutting wheat, and
other works, when a small delay might have
escaped a great loss ; and the labour employed
to destroy, would have been employed to save.
Crops of all kinds are often planted or sow n at
improper periods or unseasonably, in relation
to tlie sate of the weather, to their detriment
or dcstruclion, from the want of an arrange-
xnentoftlie work on a farm, calculated for
diiing every species of it precisely at the peri-
ods, and in the seasons, most likely to enhance
its profit.

A third item in the economy of agriculture

OP AGRICULTURE. 239

is not to killtinieby doing tlie same thing twice
over. However laboriously at work, we are do-
ing nothingduring one of (beoperations, & fre-
quently worse than nothing, on account of the
double detriment of tools, teams and elothing.
The losses to farmers occasioned by this error,
are prodigious under every defective system of
agriculture, and under ours are enormously
enhanced by the habit of slsaring in the crop
Mith an annual overseer. Sliifts and contri-
vances innumerable are resorted to, for saving
present time, by bad and perishable work, at
an enormous loss of future time, until at length
the several fragments of time thus destroyed,
visibly appear spread over a farm, in the form
of ruined houses, fences, orchards and soil ;
demonstrating that every advantage of sueli
shifts is the parent of many disadvantages, and
that a habit of finishing every species of work
in the best mode, is the best economy.

The high importance of this article of agri-
cultural economy, demands an illustration.—-
Let us suppose that dead wood fencing will
consume ten per centum of a farmer's time,
%hic!i supposition devotes about thirty-six days
in the year to that object. It would cost him
ilve whole years in fifty. If his farm afforded
stone, and his force could in one whole year
make his inclosures of that lasting material,
he would save four whole years by this more
perfect operation ; exclusive of the benefits
gained by a longer life, or transmitted to his
posterity. If his farm did not furnish stone*
as live fences can be made with infinitely less
labour than stone, his saving of tioie would be
greater by raising them, but the donation to
posterity less, from their more perishable na-
ture, it seems to jne that the time necessary

^*0' THE EGONOMY

fo rear and repair live fences, is less tlian one
tenth of that consumed hy those of dead wood.
By doing this article of work in a mode thus
surpassing the present miserable fencing shifts,
m use, our farmers would gain the enormous
profit of four years and an half in fifty, and an
entire country that of nine years in each hun-
dred. Time constitutes profit or loss in agri-
culture, and many other employments. Such
an enormous loss is itself sufficient to bank-
rupt the soil of a fine country. Transformed
into an equivalent gain, the difference of eigh-
teen per centum to the same country might re-
trieve it. The case simply consists of the dif-
ference between paying and receiving enor-
mous usury, for the sake of growing rich.

I have selected a few items merely to attract
the reader* s attention to the economy of agri-
culture, that his own sagacity may pursue the
.subject beyond the limits assigned to these es-
says. It is one highly necessary to all practi-
cal men, and worthy of the minute considera-
tion of the most profound mind; nor do I know
one exhibiting to experience and talents a
stronger invitation to make themselves usefuL

OF AGRICULTlTRli. ^|)i

NUMBER 59.

THE PLEASURES OF AGRICULTURE.

In free countries are more, and in ensIaveJi,
fewer, than the pleasures of most other em*-
ployments* The reason of it is, that agricul-
ture both fram its nature, and also as being ge-
nerally the employment of a great portion of
a nation, cannot be united with power consi-
dered as an exclusive interest. It must of
course be enslaved, wherever despotism exists,
and its masters will enjoy more pleasures in
that case, than it can ever reach. On the
contrary, where power is not an exclusive, but
a general interest, agriculture can employ its
own energies for the attainment of its own
happiness.

Under a free government it has before it,
the inexhauslible sources of human pleasure,
of fitting ideas to substances, and substances
to ideas y and of a constant rotation of hope
and fruition.

The novelty, frequeii?y and exactness of ac-
commodations between our ideas and operati-
ons, c©ns(itutes the most exquisite source of
mental pleasure. Agriculture feeds it Tvlth
endless supplies in the natures of soils, plants,
climates, manures, instruments of culture ami
domestic animals. Their combinations are
inexliaustible, the novelty of results is endless
discrimination and adaption are never idle,
and an unsatiated interest receives gratificati-
ons in quick succession. ,

Benevolence is so closely associated with
this interest, that its exertion in numberless

o»-

^^ THE PLEASURES

instanees, is necessary to foster it. Liberality
in supplying its labourers with the comforts
of life, is the best sponsor for the prosperity of
agricuiture, and the practice of alnjost every
moral virtue is amply remunerated in this
world, whilst it is also the best surety for at-
taining the blessings of the next. Poetry in
ai]o>Ying more virtue to agriculture, than to
any other profession, has abandoned her privi-
lege of fiction, and yielded to the natural mo-
ral effect of the absence of temptation. The
same fact is commemorated by religion, upon
an occasion the most solemn, within the scope
of the human imagination. At the awful day
of judgment, the discrimination of the good
from the wicked, is not made by the criterion
of sects or of dogmas, but by one which con-
stitutes the daily employm^ent and the great
end of agriculture. The judge upon this oc-
casion has by anticipation pronounced, that to
feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and give
drink to the thirsty, are the passports to fu-
ture happiness ; and the divine intelligence
which selected an agricultural state as a para-
dise for its first favorites, has here again pre-
scribed the agricultural virtues as the means
for the admission of their posterity into hea-
ven.

With the pleasures of religion, agriculture
unites those of patriotism, and among the wor-
iliy comjjctitors for pre-eminence in the prac-
tice of this cardinal virtue, a profound author
assigns a high station to him who has made two
blades ofgrassgrow instead of one ; an idea ca-
pable of a signal amplification, by a comparison
between a system of agriculture which doubles
<he fertility of a country, and a successful war
which doubles its territory. By the first the

OF AGRICULTURE. ^4.3

territory itself is also substantially doubled,
A^itbout vvasiirjg (be lives, tbe wealtb, or the
liberiy of the nation wbieli has tbus subdued
Sterility, and drawn prosperity from a willing;
source. By the second, tbe blood pretended
to be enriehed, is spilt ; ihe wealth pretended
to be increased, is wasted ; the liberty said to
be secured, is immolated to the patriotism of
a victorious army ; and desolation in every
form is made to stalk in the .^'littering garb of
false glory, throughout some neighboring
country. Moral law decides the preference
with undeviating consistency, in assigning to
the nation, which elects true patriotism, the
recompence of truth, and to the electors of the
false, the expiation of error. To the respec-
tive agents the same law assigns the remor-
ses of a conqueror, and the quiet conscience of
the agriculturist.

The capacity of agriculture for affording
luxuries to the body, is not less conspicuous
than its capacity for affording luxuries to the
mind ; it being a science singularly possessing
the double qualities of feeding with unbound-
ed liberality, both the moral appetites of the
one, and the physical w ants of the otlter. It
can even feed a morbid love of money, whilst
it is habituating us to the practice of virtue ;
and whilst it provides for the wants of the phi-
losopher, it affords him ample room for the
most curious and yet useful researches. In
short, by the exercise it gives both to the body
and to the mind, it secures health and vigor
to both ; and by combining a thorough know-
ledge of the real affairs of life, with a neces-
sity for investigating the arcana of nature, and
the strongest invitations to the practice of mo-
rality, it becomes the best architect of a com-
plete man.

Si^? XHE PIEASURfiS

If this eulogy sliould succeed in awakening
the attention of men of scieHce to a skiJfuI
practice of agriculture, they will become mo-
dels for individuals, and guardians for national
happiness. The discoveries of the learned
will be practiced by the ignoi'ant ; and a sys-
tem which sheds happiness, plenty and virtue
ail around, will be gradually substituted for
one, which fosters vice, breeds want and be-
gets misery.

Politicians (who ought to know the most,
and generally know the least, of a science in
which the United States are more deeply in-
terested than in any other) will appear, of
more practical knowledge, or at least of bet-
ter theoretical instruction ; and the hopeless
habit of confiding our greatest interest to peo-
ple most ignorant of it, will be abandoned.

The errors of politicians ignorant of agri-
culture, or their projects designed to oppress
it, can only rob it of its pleasures, and consign
it to contempt and misery. This revolution
of its natural state, is invariably aifected by
war, armies, heavy taxes or exclusive privi-
leges. In two cases alone, have nations ever
gained any thing by war. Those of repelling
invasion, and emigrating into a more fruitful
territory. In every othc¥ case, the industri-
ons of all professions suffer by war, the effects
of which in its modern form, are precisely the
same to the victorious and the vanquished na-
tion. The least evil to be apprehended
f r m victorious armies^ is a permanent sys-
tem of heavy taxation, than which, nothing
can more vitally wound or kill the pleasures of
agriculture. Of the sanje stamp are exclusive
privileges in every lorni ; and to pillage or
steal under the sanction of the statute book^

OF AGRieULTlOlE. 24S

IS no less fatal to the happiness of agriculture?
than the hierapchical tyranny over the soul,
under the pretended sanction of God, or the
feudal tyranny over the body, under the equal-
ly fraudulent pretence of defending the nation.
In a climate and soil, where good culture ne-
ver fails to beget plenty, where bad cannot pro-
duce famine, begirt by nature against the
risque of invasion, and favored by accident
with the power of self government, agricul-
ture can only lose its happiness by the folly or
fraud of statesmieo; or by its own ignaraace^

2i6. THE EIGHTS

NUMBER 69.

THE RIGHTS OF AGRICULTURE.

It is lamentable to confess, that this, to be
a true, must be almost a negative number. —
This most useful and virtuous interest, enjoys
no rights, except in the, United States; and
there it enjoys no exclusive rights, whilst the
few in which it shares are daily contracted by
the various arts of ambition and avarice. E-
very where else, agriculture is a slave ; here
she is only a dupe. Abroad she is condemned
by avowed force to feed voluptuousness, ava-
rice and ambition j here, she is deluded by
flattery and craft, during fits of joy or of fury,
to squander her property, to mortgage her la-
bourers, and to shackle her freedom. Abroad,
she suffers contempt, and is sensible of her
degradation ; here, she is a blind Quixote,
mounted on a wooden horse, and persuaded by
the acclamations of her foes, that she is soar-
ing to the stars, whilst she is ready to tumble
into the dust.

Privileges are rearing by laws all around at
her expence, and whilst she is taught to be-
lieve that they will only take from her a few
inconsiderable slipes, they will at length draW
a spacious circumvallation. within which will
gradually grow up a power, beyond her con-
trol. Tricks, as well as inventions, are daily
fortified with legal bulwarks, called charters,
to transfer her wealth, and to secure frauds
against her efforts. Capital in every form,
save that of agriculture, is fed by taxes and by
bounties, which she must pay , whilst not a

OF AGRICIJlTURlEr. 247

!*iugle bounty is paid to her by capital in any
form ; and instead of being favored with some
prizes in the lottery of society, she pays most,
and is rewarded herself by the blanks of un-
derwriting the projects of statesmen, and bear-
ing the burthens of government.

The use of society, is to secure the fruits of
his own industry and talents to each associator*
Its abuse consists in artifice or force, for trans-
ferring those fruits from some partners to O'
thers. Of this abuse, that interest covering
the majority of partners is the victim. And
the diiliculty of discriminating laws, transfer-
ring such fruits for the benefit of society, from
those having in view the gratification of ava-
rice and ambition, produces a sympathy and
combination between these distinct kinds of
law. As the members of the government,
and the members of legal frauds, both extract
power and income fron^ the majority, they are
apt to coalesce ; and each party to favor the
designs of its ally, in their operations upon the
common enemy. Hence governments love to
create exchisive rights, and exclusive rights
cling to governments. The ligament of pa-
rent and child, binds them together, and the
power creating these abuses, must make them
props for its support, or instruments for its
subversion. Its election between these alter-
natives is certain, and society is thus unavoid-
ably thrown into two divisions. One contain-
ing all those who pay, & the other those who re-
ceive contributions, required either for public
use, or to foster private avarice or ajiibition.
Good government is graduated by this latter
kind of contribution thus imfortunately allied
to the former. The highest amount consti-
tHtes the worsts and the lowest, the best possi^

^iJ

THE KK^XS

ble species of government. But as both are
drawn from the majority of every society,
whenever the agricultural interest covers that
majority, this interest is the victim of the co-
alition ; and as it almost universally does co-
ver this majority, the agricultural interest is
almost universally its slave.

The consequences to agriculture will he de-
monstrated by converting this coalition be-
tween government and its creatures, or of all
who receive tolls given by law, into a political
pope, and placing in his mouth an address to
agriculture, in a parody of Ernulphus's form
of excommunication.

"Mayyau be taxed in your lands, your slaves,
your houses,your carriages, your horses, your
clothing, your liquors, your coffee, your tea, &
your salt. May you be taxed by banks, by pro-
tecting duties, by embargoes, and by charters
of a thousand different forms. May the exemp-
tion of your exports from taxation be removed,
and may you then he taxed through your
Avheat, your corn, your tobacco, your cotton,
your rice, your indigo, your sugar, your hemp,
your live stock, your beef, your pork, your tar,
pitch and turpentine, your onions, your cheese,
and your potatoes. May you be taxed for the
support of government, or to enrich exclusive
or chartered interests, through every article
you import, and through every article you ex-
port, by duties called protecting, but intended
to take away your constitutional protection
against taxation for the benefit of capitalists.
May you be taxed through every article pro-
duced by your labour or necessary to your
subsistence, comfort and pleasure, by excises.
And whilst every species of your products, and
<>f your consumptions are thus laxed^ may your

OF AGRICBXTURE, 249

capital, being visible, be moreover taxed im
various modes. May all these taxes whether
plain" or intricate, (after deducting the small
suDi necessary to produce the genuine end of
society) be employed in enriching capitalists,
and buying soldiers, placemen and contractors,
to make you submissive to usurpations, and
as quiet under your burthens, as a martyr tied
to the stake, under the flames. After you
have been taxed as far as you can pay, may
you by the bounty of God Almighty be moreo-
ver mortgaged up to your value or credit, for
the benefit of the said coalition of capitalists.
And finally, may none of this good and useful
coalition, to whom is given the wealth of this
world, as the kingdom of heaven is to the pop©
and his clergy, be taxed in their stock or prin-
cipal held under any law or charter whatsoe-
ver^ nor in their capital employed in any manu-
facture or speculation, nor in any profit drawn
from such principal stock or capital; nor thro*
any of their sinecures, salaries, contracts or
incomes ; but on the contrary, may such stock,
principal, capital, profits, salaries, contracts,
and sinecuresjbe constantly fostered by bounties
in various injurious forms, to bepaid by you, you
damned dirty working, productive bitch, agri-
culture.'' Throughout the world, agriculture,
like one of Ernulphus's contrite excommuni-
eants, responds, amen, to this pious invocation.
Throughout the world, agriculture has en-
Joyed, and in England, continues to enjoy, one
of the rights in which she has a share in the
United States | that of a voice in eieetions.— .
And throughout the \*^crld, this right has been
unable to shield her against an anathema,.
which prescribes for her as perfect a hell, as
the formula of Ernulphus prescribes for his
heretiek. Let the agricultural interest of tiae

$J5a THE RIGHTS

United States, pause here and look around.
Is a blind confidence in a right so universally
ineflectual^ a sufficient safeguard for its free*
dom and happiness ? To me it seems, that an
interest can never be long free, which blindly
confides in a coalition, whose object it is to draw
from that interest, power and wealth. That
the major interest must be as cumiing, as wise
and as watchful, as the minor, or that the minor
interest will enslave it. And that agriculture
Biust as attentivelj keep her eyes upon the co-
alition, to avoid its operations upon her, as the
coalition does uponagricultuFe^foFthe purpose
of transfering to its members portions of her
power and wealth, whenever she slumbers.

Hence have arisen the political suggestions
to be found in these essays, I cannot discera
much good in an improvement of agriculture,
to get luxury, voluptuousness and tyranny for,
a few, and wretchedness for a multitude. —
The best cultivated country in the world, a°
bounds most in paupers and thieves. Agri-
culture must be a politician to avoid this fate |
and those who ridicule her pretensions to
knowledge in this scicHce, intend by persuade
ing her to repose in a blind confidence, built
upon the frail right of election^ to expose hep
to it. How can she even judiciously elect, if
she cannot or will not judge of public measures,
\}j the light of her own interest I

The utoral consequence of this supineness op
ignorance, isjthat social happiness gradually bC'^
comes the dependant of a nvinority, & of course
it is provided for, by continually subtracting
from the happiness ofa majority. The visible im-
morality of this, demon: trates the virtue, as well
as wisdom of suggestions designed to obstructit.

The remaining right in which agriculture
participates^ in common with all other inter*

OP AGBICUITURE. 251

ests, having any thing to export, is hestowed hv
the constitutional prohibition of duties upon ex-
ports. This right originated in state jealousies,
^ not from a disposition to favour agriculture ;
but yet it is her best security, for the preserva-
tion of that portion of our government, which
willlongest he sensible of her elective influence;
&itsreiinquisliment\vii! betheraostfatal wound
which can be inilicted on her. The coalition I
have described will try every art in her most un-
guarded moments, to snatch it from her, and it
will be the last relinquishment it will need. To
determine whether her elective influence, can
bear further wounds, let agriculture re-survey
the 1 egisl ation of our whole term of independence
and compare the catalogues she may select, of
law s for creating or fosf ering privileges and ex-
clusive interests, with those for fostering her-
self; and let this comparison form the criteriou
for ascertaining lier legislative influence. Thus
only can she judiciously increase this iniluence,
if it has settled too lowj or diminish it, if it has
raised too high. There is no fair mode of
judging, except by these legislative acts. To
infer, that llie agricultural interest iniluences
legislatures, because it chiefly elects them,
would be like iofering, that the French nati-
on iniluences the tribunate, because they whol-
ly elect it. Let agriculture therefore hold
fast the solitary security she enjoys in common
with her industrious associates, against thei
ambition of usurpers, and the avarice of capi-
talists, nor be deluded into the absurd notion,
that it is wise to relinquish the onlypeculium
of industry, for the sake of some temporary
operation upon foreign nations, inevitably re*
suiting upon herself in the form of retaliation,
whilst the protection of exports against ta^s'^V
tion, will be gone forever.

^B2 A«11ICUI.T0RE

NUMBER 61.

AGRICULTURE AND THE MILITIA —

The rocks ef our salvation ; as they are
called by legislatures, presidents, governors,
and toast-makers, throughout the United
States ; and hard rocks indeed they need be,
to withstand the saws, wedges, and chisels,
made by law, to cut, split and chip them to
pieces. It is probable that more talents were
wasted upon the bank of the United States,
at each of its epochs, than have been expend-
«d for the improvement of these national for-
tresses? for securing wealth and independence,
since toe revolution. Edifice, after edifice,
has been raised upon their ruins ; but the new
structures resemble the venerable fabricks
from whence they are torn, as the modern huts
raised of its ruins resemble the ancient city of
Palmyra.

A pernicioHs little army, (pernicious as con-
stituting a reason for neglecting the militia) a
species of marine preparation, whose most
striking features are decay, imbecility an4
expence ; and an awful unconstitutional pre-
eedent, for resorting to a volunteer militia,
officered by the President itistead of the States,
have dismantled one fortress, and all the arts
to enrich capital and speculation legerdemain,
by paper, at the expence of property and in-
dustry, as practiced in England, are playing
upon the otlier.

When the future historian of our republic,

.shall search for acts of patriotism, and matter.

iFbr biography, the contrast between th« heroes

AND THE MILTTIA, 253

wlio have created, and the politicians wlio
have ruined a nation, will afford him ample
room for exhausting the strongest phrases of
eulogy and censure. The first was not effect-
ed hy enfeebling the heart, nor will the second
be avoided by impoverishing the soil and its
cultivators ; by beguiling the militia of its
power and importance, with substitutions
founded in the pretext of diminishing its duty,
but preparing the means of usurpation for
some ambitious president ; and by taxing agri-
eulture in various crafty modes, under pre-
tence of enriching it, but in fact to enrich ca-
pitalists at its expence.

The patriots of the revolution have chiefly re-
tired to the enjoyment of a treasure, deposited
beyond the schemes of craft, leaving to their
successors two spacious fields as productive of
glory, as the field of war was to them. Far
from exhausting the resources for gaining the
transporting consciousness of having benefit-
ted our country, they left for thsse successors
the creation of a proud militia and a fertile
country, as equally meriting national admira-
tion and gratitude, with the feats which se-
cured our independence, and placed prosperity
within our reach. But of what avail is it, that
one set of patriots should have cut away the
causes which enfeebled our militia, and im-
poverished our agriculture, if another does nofe
enable us to reap from their valour the rewards
which excited it ? After wading through the
ealamitiesof war nearto these rewards, to reject
them,mie by n&gleet, and the other by the pre-
ference of a harpy wliieh ahvays eats and never
fe-^ds. seems only consistent vvith the policy of
the British parliament, which excited the re*,
sistayice of the revohitionary heroes. Ha^

^54» AGRICULTURE

they been told that they were fighting fo de-
stroy the militia, and to make agriculture food
for charter and paper capital, they would hav©
discerned no reason for making themselves
food for powder.

It would be easy to shew that agriculture
never can experience fair treatment without a
sound militia, but it is a subject too extensive
and important to be considered in this light
way, and therefore they are only exhibited
in union, in the concluding essay, to remind
the reader, that they are political twins, one
of whom never lives long free, after the other
dies.

Executive, legislative and festive encomi-
ums of these twins, which ought to be called
** Liberty and prosperity," though the unhap-
py delusions of fervour, produce the knavish
effects of flattery ; they prevent us from ac-
quiring a militia and an agriculture, which
deserve praise, (false praise always excludes
real merit) and keep us without laws for rais-
ing either to mediocrity, much less to perfec-
tion. I do not believe that these encomiums
are generally the artifices of deliberate vice
and secret purpose, to impose upon the enthu-
siastic and unwary, in pursuance of the pre-
cedents so often exhibited by rapacious priests
clothed in the garb of sanctity ; but yet rapa-
<^ity may sometimes assume the language of
patriotism, to keep the people blind to the
dangers which threaten, and to the measures
Tvhich can save them.

The good humour of the festive board will
bear illustrations of these assertions, with
less discomfort than cold design, or deluded
negligence ; and therefore however inconsis-
tent it may be with the gravity and importance^

AND THE MIIITIA. 25B

of oiip subject, an aversion for giving pain to
any one, induces me to supply it with the foK
lowing toasts.

THE MILITM...,Tlie Eock of our Liberty^

Unarmed, undiseiph'ned, and without uni-
formity, substituted by an ineffectual na-
vy, an ineffectual army, and paper volun-
teers, officered by the president.

Unpatronized even at the expenee of a gun
boat.

Flattered and despised.

Taught self contempt, instead of a proud
and erect spirit. — •JSTine cheers,

^GUICULT JJUE,.,.Tlie fountain of our
wealth,

A land killer.

A payer of bounties and receiver of none.

A beautifier of towns and a sacrificer of the
country.

A cultivator for stock, without stock for cul«.
tivation.

Giving its money to those who will give it
flattery.

A weight in the legislative scales of the U-
nited States, as much heavier than a fea-
ther, as a feather is heavier than nothing*

Its labour steeped in an infusion of thievery,
dissatisfaction and sedition, by a mixture
of bond and free negroes.

Producing 4^0,000,000 dollars annually fop
exportation, bearing most taxes for pub-
lic benefit, and taxed in various modes
for the private benefit of 300,000,000 dol-
lars worth of capitalists who pay no taxes.

Out of a remnant of the ^0,000^000 dollars

356 AGKICULTTJRE AND THE MILITIA.

exported, compelled by protecting duties
to pay heavy bounties for the encourage-
ment of manufactures, already amount-
ing to above 150,000,000 dollars annual-
ly.-— JV*mc cheers more,
A few words, at parting, to the reader, will
close these essays. If he is of the courteous
nature which loves to give and to receive flat-
tery; or if his interest tugs him violently
against them, he may disbelieve the plainest
truths they contain, or at least reject them as
being told in too blunt a style. If he is igno-
rant of agriculture or a devotee of a party op ^
«n idol, he will rather presume, that our agri- |i
culture is perfect and undefrauded, than take
the trouble of enabling himself to judge ; or
silently swallow the grossest prrors, than give
rp his superstition. These papers never con-
templated the desperate hope of obtaining the^
attention of any one of these characters.— »
Half the profit of agriculture, must undoubt-
edly convince the several tribes of capitalists,
that it flourishes exceedingly. The idolator
will rather embrace the stake than truth, and
the agriculturist who prefers ignorance to
knowledge, though these hasty essays consti-
tuted a complete system of husbandry, would
be as little benefitted by them, as a lawyer or
a physician who practised by deputy, would be
by the reports of Coke, or the dispensatory of
CuUen. Yet to those who would think and en-
quire, opinions slowly and cautiously admit-
ted, upon various views of national interest,
without a motive likely to mislead or deceive,
might affVu'd suggestions capable of becoming
subservient to better talents, awakened to the
discussijn of subjects somonsentousto natiofial
happiness. To awaken such, was the summit
of tiie author's design. [Note G.J

NOTES* 25r

• KOTES*

[Note A.— Page BG.J

Upon a review of the faregoing essays, originally
offered to the public in a newspaper, without fore-
seeing that they would appear in a book, a few eX'
pressions have been expunged, lest their political doc^
trines should be ascribed to party motives, — These
proceeded from an opinion,that the inculcation of sound
jpolitical principles, was the only mode of avoiding the
evils incident to a blind zeal in favour of the projects
of any set of men exercising power ; or of preserving
a consistency between professions and actions. Tx>
an union between public interest and public know-
ledge, the world is indebted for the beaefit it has de-
rived from the Grecian and Roman republics, and
to the want of such an union, the regions which once
sustained them, for their present state of slavery.—
No association to infiict or to avoid oppression, can
succeed, if it is ignorant of the means for procuring
success in both objects. Political knowledge is as
necessary to the people for one end, as to princes,
orders, factions, and usurpers for the other. With-
out it, the lords of the soil in the United States, must
gradually become the slaves of some legal aristocra-
cy ; and, exposed by political ignorance to the rapine
of an endless catalogue of exclusive factitiousinterests,
would soon resemble monkeys sLript by the superior
intelligence of man, of diamonds they had dug out of
the earth. As agri::ulture with its dependen<:ies,
almost covers the whole public interest of the U.States,
so degrading a consequence of its political ignorance,
demonstrates how intimrtte its c niiexion ought to be
with politics. The first produces; the latter secures.
Exclusive political knowledge, crt ates exclusive le-
gal interests. A complete agricultural treatise,
would comprise the scundcht agricultural principles^
chymical, experimental and political; and tht inu-
tility of the two first items might be more plausibly

^5S STATES,

asserted, because they only teach men how to labout^
than that of the last, which teaches them how to live
happily.

Funding, legal enrichment of all kinds, and the
perpetual effort of those who exercise power to in-
crease it, may here, as every where else, en-
slave the majority and the public interest. By fund-
ing only, agriculture may be soon made tributary to
the dealers in credit, chiefly located by the nature
of their employment in a few large cities. The dis-
persed situation of the agricultural and of every ge-
neral interest, renders its share of the vast acquisi-
tions to be made by the credit trade, trifling ; and
the circumstance of its constituting the chief item of
the general interest, renders its share of the contri-
butions to support it, enormous. It is a trade for
getting premiums and interest without money, upon
the credit of those who pay both ; and for inflicting
an annual tribute on those v>dio have the credit, until
they prove its goodness by paying coin for paper. If
agriculture or the public interest borrows ten milli-
ons in paper notes, furnished by the partnership be-
tween banking and funding, at a premium often per
centum and an annual interest of six, in fifteen years
it pays a sum in specie, equal to the debt, but both
the debt and annual tribute still remain. The pub-
lic interest cannot transform itself into an exclusive
interest for carrying on this credit trade, because it
must be the payer not the receiver ; nor can it have
any thing of consequence to lend, because the pro-
jects requiring loans, incapacitate it for a lender,
especially so far as it is agricultural. A liability to
pay, and an inability to lend, generate exactly the
same relative situation, between these two interests,
•which subsists between two nations, when one istri«
hutary to the other. Upon the credit of this liabili-
ty, that of the paper loaned to governments, depends.
The government in fact gives the public credit to
associations for vending paper stock, which these
associations sell back to the government for a good
premium and a perpetual interest, for which premi-
um and interest the only consideration they pay, is an
adherence to the will of the donor, against the will
of the public intf rest, by which the donation is paid.
The impoverishment produced by this species of tri-
bute, is demonstrated by the difference in the price
CI products in the paying* and receiving districts, by

UOTES. ' 253

toir different agricultural appearances, and by emi-
grations. The effects of a tribute, collected in dis-
tant provinces and expended at particular places,
are uniformly the same, inflicted either by a tyrant
or a patriot. Ought not agriculture to understand
this political machine ?

An amendment of the constitution for empower-
ing the general government to tax exports and ta
make local regulations, v^ould comprise a boundless
power of sacrificing agricultural and exporting dis-
tricts to the interest of credit dealers, to transitory
political projects of men in power, and to the passions
of non-exporting districts : and although the appa=
rent favours to the latter would be delusive and en-
trapping, they v/ouM suffice to divide agriculture it-
self, into two parties neutralizing each other's de--
fensive ability, and to subject both like all large inert
bodies, to less povvrerful, but more intelligent and ac-
tive exclusive Interests. Ought it not to understand.
political principles to meet occurrences of this kind?
■ As no interest covering the majority of a nation caa
avoid oppressioii except under a free form of govern-
ment, because the end of every other form is lo foster
partial interests, shoakl not agriculture be able to se©
the importance of maintainingthe division of power be-
tween the general and state governments? The lat-
ter are her intimate associates and allies. The ge-
neral government is already in a far greater degree,,
the associate i^d ally of patronage, funding, armies,
and of manft other interests subsisting upon her. If
it should by new powers be enabled to enlist stili
snore of such dangerous auxiliaries, or to break over
the boundary between general and local concerns, m
a single place, the breach will produce consequences
similar to those produced by that of the Tartars ia,
the great wall of the Chinese.

A fanatical love or hatred of individuals or pat-
ties, is equally inconsistent with a free form of go-
vernment. Political enthusiasm enslaves parties to
leaders, as religious, enslaves sectaries to priests.-—
Politicians never love or hate from passion. All their
enmities and connexions fiow from interest, accor-
ding to which they reconcile or break them, without
any of those sensibilities excited in ignorance by its
ov?n imaginary idols. As this idolatry is an universal
. cause of oppression, should the trvith be concealed
from agriculture, tUa^ sUexnay become the vic^iax ol

2&0 KeTBs.

that enthusiastic confidence, whidi falsehood an^d
mystery only are able to inspire ? A political bigot
is as certainly the slave of some party leader, as a
religious bigot is of some priest.

These few eases are cited to shew, that agricul-
ture without political knowledge, cannot expect jus-
tice or retain liberty. The correctness of the politi-
cal opinions expressed m these essays is another quei-
tion. The author has suggested such as his mind
suggested to him, to awaken agriculture to the im-
portance of this species of knowledge to its prosperity
and happiness, that it may by its own understanding
detect his errors or its apathy.

[Note B.— Page 67.]

The slave-holding states have been deterred from
making agricultural improvements, and establishing
any tolerable system of police for the management
©f slaves, by the lazy and hopeless conclusion, that
the destruction of their lands, and. the irregularities
of their negroes, were incurable consequences of sla-
\rery. A refutation of these errors must precede the
possibility of any considerable agricultural improve-
ment. The first is occasionally detected by the rare
efforts of individuals^ But these can never make a
wide and lasting impression, whilst they are defeat-
'ed by the second. This obstacle can only be remov-
ed by legislative power. Until a better police for
the regulation of slaves is invented, than has hither-
to existed, no considerable improvement can possi-
bly take place in a syelem of agriculture to be execu*
ted by them, A bad police will forever draw back
agriculture with more force, than individual exerti-
ons ca-n drive it forward ; nor can the most violent
•efforts over- rule its baleful influence, any more than
-the destruction of a tyrant can over-rule bad princi-
ples of government, and extract liberty from the
causes of oppression. The creation of a free negro
class has been noticed as a great defect in this police^
but its defectiveness in relation to the slaves them-
selves, was overlooked. Nothing effectual has been
done b}'- law, for controling the irregularities of the
ylaves or the errors of their owners, by which a mul-
iitude of mischiefs to themselves and others are pr^^.

NOTES. HGi

duced, together with the ruinous national misfortunes
of an irapoveriishlni^ and depopulating system of
agriculture. As the remedy for these evils lies on-
ly within the i*each of law, it is trie duty of the go-
vernment to find it. Should it require a farther limi-
tation of the prerogatives of ownership, publick and
private good will unite in their recommendation of
such a measure. As the laws now stand, an owner,
by withholding from his slave even a necessary sul3-
sistence, may compel him to steal it from others, and
thereby increase the profit of his labour ; or he
might driv^e him into the resource of absconding, and
prowling like a wolf for food. Ought the prerogatives
of ownership to inflict such unjust calamities upon a ^
free people ? Are they not infinitely more grievous
than the ancient royal prerogative of purveyance ?
One grievance robbed openly, the other robs secret-
ly ; one was subject to bome legal regulation, the o-
ther is subject to nose ; one paid something, the
other pays nothing. Ca.n agriculture or industry
flourish here under the burden, of having an infinite
number of roguish and runaway slaves living at free
quarter upon them, when they could not in England
bear the purveyance of a single king ? The sla\'e
himself may have insbibed from a vicious dispositicn,
a habit of indiscriminate theft, so ruinous and dis-
heartening to industry ; nor can any excuse justify
his robberies from the iimocent. The insufficiency
of the laws to correct these evils, will be discerned
by comparing the number of such robberies, v;ith the
instances of their receiving any species of yjunish-
ment. The object of puiashnunt is to deter by ex-
ample, and not to gratify the passion of revenge. —
But this trivial risque amounis almost to the encou-
ragement of impunity ; and leaves only to the public
that security against the thefts of slaves, arising from
their love of moral rectitude, without any apprehen-
sion of punishment. Agricukure in the slave .states,
is every where languishing under this mortifvijig and
consuming malady. She possesses no moveable which
she can call her own. Bleeding continually under
these numberless scarifications, legislatui'es continue
to act towards her, like surgeons who should desert
a patient covered vrlth wounds, because he was not
quite dead. It would be better to cure her by pro..
tecting her property. A law, compelling the sale of
.ev.ery slave who should run away or be convicted of

33.

^^2 NOTES.

theft, out of the state, or at a considerable distance
from his place of residence, would operate consider-
abiy towards correcting these great evils. If itsex-
ecutioti was ensured, as inieht easily be effected, it
v/ouid strongly iiifluence both the master and the
slave; it would only retrench in a very small degree
the prerogatives of ou-nership, for their comnrson good,
and it would render the remaining m-issof those pre-
rogatives iuiiuiceiy less detrimentai to national pros-
perit)-.

[Xote C Page 113.]

The foregoing essays having been written several
years past, subsequent ex{^:-erience has made some
rh'Uige in a few ot the author's opinions. Those in
relation to the essential article of nianuring are sta-
ted in this note.

The extent of surface now manured upon the same
farm, by a n^ore careful en'iployment of the same re-
sources, has so far exceeded his expectations, as to
have transfered his prefeience as means ci in^prov-
ing the soil from inclosing to manuring, without bo%v-
evt r lessening the value cf the former in his opiinon.
A field of two hundred acres aided by both, produced
last year a crop of Indian corn averaging fifty bushels
an acre, and another of eighty, aided only by inch-s-
ing and gypsum, a ci-np of twenty-five. The first
being nearly double, and the second one third beyond
their respective prodncts when last in culture. Un-
der a diminution of the stocks quoted, the surface
nnmured last year exceeded an hundred acres, and
will this extend to one hundred and thirty. It is
contemplated to extend it, uiUil it reaches annnally
a space sufficient for the whole Indian corn ci op of
the farm. The regular increase of crops furnishes
additional vegetable matter; the chief basis of this
rapid im])rovement. Tail's position *' that ten cul-
tivaied ;'cres, will not produce the means of manur-
i'^g one" is qiiite erroneous. Four acres already pro-
dt;ce ciVal capable of manuring one, from the cf»rn
and wheat crops, exclusive of the bread stuff they
produce for sale. Bv removing the cattle and sheep
eari) ia Liic spiing from the farm pens, and forbear-

m^ to return them thither until late in the faU, the
space manured by peni.-ing is greatly exlevided, and
the manure raised in the farm pens bul little din i-
nisiied, because its quantity is regulated by litter. —
This is in a small degree diminished by extending the
period of penning, and as both catile and sheep vviil
require some food, early in the spring arid late in fiia
fall in these pens, the litter arising from that food
will enable tlie farmer more frequent^}' to remove the
pens at these seasons, whilst a mixture of various
manures causes a greater t)enefit to the soil. Thefce
pens on removal are faUowtd in high ridges five arid
an half feet wide, and tiiose thus treated before the
middle ofAugust,ift!ie land is strnr-g, cover themseivcs
with a heavy coat of grass, farnisbinga fine pabulum
for a bushel of gypsum to the acre, tu be sown theie-
on. This cover, i>y reversing the ridges, is com-
pletely buried, and bestows on the grourid a secoivd
valuable manuring. The hog pe.is ai'e mannged isi
the same way, excluding the litter, not because ir
would be useless, but because it is used otherwise. —
For these, stiff cold soils are selected, 'i hus the
same stocks have beeo brought to maijure by pen-
ning, nearly double tiie surfuce quotea. In the witi-
ter, all the farm pens are littered daily and copiously
with corn stalks. Each ten ordinary sheep will by
this means, exclusive of the summer's penning, raise
manure sufficient for one acre ; and that raised in.
the stable and its yard, and in the farm pens of the
cattle, calves and fattlings-, has sufficed to produce
the result stated in this note. Instead of appiyiTig
the corn cobs in the former mode, they' are v.'t-ekly
scattered in the pens or stable yard to preserve them
from the fire, where they absorb a rich moisture to
be bestowed upon the earth as they gradually dtcay ;
thus constituting a valuable addition to the manuie,
and saving the iabowr of their separate removal, and
more tedious application in the former mode. The
augmentation of manure thus produced, requires a
commencement of its removal early in March, and
by appropriating a small porti m of the labour of the
f;irn\ to this object for one month before the com-
mencement of corn planting, that left to be subse-
quently curried out will be finished in good time.

The holes for depositing the manure, are more judi-
ciously arranged under the directi-.-.n of a person on
itorseback, (whose elevation and sole attention to that

.^64j kotes,

object, will enable him 'accurately^ to distinguish the
variations in the quality of the land, and to bestow
the manure aceorciingly) than by the labourer who
v,^alks, measures, and digs. By equalizing the fertic
Jity of a field, the crops are increased, because it be-
stows on the whole surface a capacity to sustain the
same quantity of seed, and renders unnecessary a
multitude of discrimitiations too intricate to be cor-
vectly made. The rider pronounces aloud the num-
ber at which the Nvalker is to make each hole, ex-
tending or contractiiig the distance according to the
variations of the snjl ; and the walker counts aloud
liis own steps to this number, at which he digs a hole
as a mark for depositing each load of manure. To
a farmer, this occupaiion furnishes an agreeable
ineiital amusement.

7'wo great errors in relation to the use of com
Stalks as manure, are prevalent. One, that they
ought to be trodden to pieces ; the other, that when
it is too late to effect this, it is good management ta
gatiier and lay them in the furrows, to remain unco-
vered for a year or two. When tlie stalk is satura-
ted with the moisture of the farm pen, it has acquir-
ed all the fertilizing principles it can hold, in that
state. It acquires none from being tn^dden. Its po-
rous texture enables it speedily to absorb what it
fian contain. After this is effected, it is only necessa-
ry to bring it into a putrescent state. When the
stalks are all in, this is soon done, by covering them
%Tith strawj chatF or tops. It will not require above
ten days in the common March weather, after a rain.
Thus they will be made sufficiently soft and brittle
to raise, spread and plough well in. Their richness
as a manure will be discerned by their capacity t9
extract salts from the atmosphere whilst moist, after
they are raised, in a quantity sufficient suddenly to
change their colour. The excessive waste or loss
they sustain, left in furrows on the surface, arises
from the same quality by which the rich moisture
of the farm pen throughout the winter, is absorbed
and saved ; liamely, their extreme porousness.—
Tlieir svirface is drv', nolliing evaporates, and nothing
runs from them, if tiie depth of litter is as consider-
able ns I make it. As absorbents, no litter equals
Ihem, but exposed on the surface, they suffer mere
thriu anv other from evaporation.

A common question discloses another general errop

notes; i265-

in relation to manuring. When the 55ui^ace manur-
ed is stated, an enquiry after the number of stocks
follows. We shall never succeed to a great extent,
if w*- consider animal manure in any otlier light, than
- > a kind of sugar to sweeten the copious repasts of
vegetable, with which we ought to feed the earth. —
It may also, mingled with vegetable matter, dispose
the mass at particular periods of its jjutrcscency, to
extract salts from the atmosphere. Bat however
useful it maybe, the epithet " animal" is only to bf
admitted connected with a recollection of its origin.
This is vegetable matter, of which animal manur*
is. only a remnant, having undergone one or two se
cretions, and the diminution arising from animal per
spiration. Vegetable matter therefore is the visiaie
origin of manure. If atmosphere is its source, that
can only be reduced to a visible substance by vegeta-
ble instrumentality. Manuring must consequently
be regulated, not by the luimber of stocks, but by skill
and industry in raising and applying vec;etablt; mat-
ter. Let us then banish from the agricurtural dialect
this misleading question ; which biin;ls us by insinua-
ting a falsehood ; and substitute for it one, whicii tlis*
eloses a truth, the thorough belief of which must
precede agricultural im prove iinent. The correct
c}uestir)nis *' how many acres do you manure tor each
labourer employed on the farm ?" it took me more
years to reach one, than to exceed four, and mv
stocks were rather diminished, as the space manur-
ed increased. During the first period, the djelusijan
of the first question misguided my eiT^ris ; during
the second, they were directed to the raising, i^resev-
ving and applying vegetable matter in the most be-
neficial mode 1 could. Haw far ni;niurrng may be
earrierl, is not to be foreseen, but I tb.nk I can dis-
cern throtigh the remnant of the mist which long hid
from me the idea of its being pushed to four acre;
for er'.ch lobnurer, a possibiliiy of its being exte ided
to dou!)le th it quantity.

In this calculation I exclude gypsum, lime, marie
and inclosing. The more valuable auxiliaries they
may be to our vegetable resources, the more oursuc-
G-ess will be arrelerated. Vegetable matter onlv,
can bestov/ on gypsum a boundless fertil zing power,
and perhaps it may be also a necessary associate if
linie and marie, with neither of which I have been
:*h{G to make any satisfactory experiments; ai least.

^6 irOTES.

the universal capacity of creating it every where In
greac quantities, estJsblishes its vast superiority over
every other species of manure; and designates it as the
basis of agriculture. Applied in green bushes it is
iTiuch more beneficial in curing galled declivities,
than animal manure. I use it wiih great advantage
for that purpose, and also for manuring level land in
the following mode. The brush is laid in furrows,
made in cnltivating corn, as deep and wide as ex-
plained in these essays, moderately thick and then
cut to make it lie close, that it may not be removed
by the winds. There it remains uncovered for three
years. By applyingthe brush the winter succeedingthe
culture of the lard in corn, in a course of four shifts, it
is ready for the plough at the proper time. Kven the
ridges, as well as the furrows, will be highly improv-
ed by the brush, from the scattering power of air and
rnoisture. These ridges on the fourth year, are re-
.versed to cover the brush by this time in a putres"
cent state, and thus prepared to rot under grcund.—
The (objections to the other modes of using brush
wood, which I have tried are these. Spread over
the whole surft.ce it does not rot sufficiently in three
years to admit of being ploughed in, without greatly
encumbering the plough. Left sufficiently long to
avoid this inconvenience, much time is lost without
nny retribution ; and much of the manure during the
latter period of its decay, by evaporation. Drilled
green and speedily covered with earth, the wood will
not rot under ground so as not to incom.mcde the
ph)ugh when the r!dy;es are reversed in the fourth
year afterwards. This preservation of the wood, di-
minishes or delays its efficacy as a mai.ure. Drilled
green, lying uncoverad three years, then covered by
the plough v/ithcnt disturbing it, and h'ing four years ^
more until the ridges come in course to be reversed,
the wood is n;adc useful as a manure, without pro-
ducing these inconveniences. I have used all kinds
©f brush wood, but chiefly pine and cedar. '1 he lat-
ter are preferable in a small degree to other green
wood, when both are applied in the winter, because
cf their leaves. A confidence in the benefit of this
inode of manuring, has induced me this year to cut
down a thicket on the broken ground of a creek a-
voun;"! a level field, and to aj.^oly the brush to the fur-
rf)ws of the weiikest parts. All wovil cf above two
inches dianitter, was used as fuel. The residue l?e-

KOTESb ft^

stowed a handsome dressing on double the surfsce it
grew on. The land it came from was not capable of
cultivation, and the growth was lean. Being inclos-
ed, it will rapidly grow up thicker, and afford peri-
odical cuttings for the same purposes. The wood
pays for the labour, and the manure necessarily dis-
engaged from the fuel wood, is an additional donation
from such lands, (in which we unfortunately abound)
capable of extending our means for manuring very
considerably, and of conveniently improving field^
inconveniently situated for folding or farm pens.

[Note D ^Page 147.]

Instead of laying the plough aside, until the first
hand-hoeing of Indian corn takes place, it is proba-
bly better to run a deep furrow with a large plough
drawn by two horses, and having a long mould board>
on each side of the corn, immediately preceding this
hand-hoeing. As the corn is very low, this furrow
must be run so far from it, that the earth raised by
the mould board will not quite reach it, but be left
on each side, so as to form a narrow trough on the
ridge in which the corn stands, to be filled up by the
.hand-hoeing immediately following this furrow. The
hoe will have little else to do, and two thirds of th6
labour usually attending this operation, will be sav-
ed. It is better performed. I'he deep furrow de-
stroys all the grass in its range. In rows five and au
half feet wide, the earth moved by the helve on the
left of the share, meets and covers the grass in the
water furrows between the ridges. And the earth
thrown up by the share and the mould board towards
the corn, is used to stifle the grass in the trough on
the top of the ridge and about the young corn. A
hand-hoeing in the usual way, is infinitely more la-
borious, and in humid seasons, from its shallowness
infinitely less effectual in destroying the grass, whence
it is often enabled suddenly to take root and to grow
with renovated vigour ; somewhat similar to the ef-
fect of scarifications applied to green swards even of
wheat. The deep ploughing of this suggestion, its
acceleration of the first hand-hoeing, and its sup-
pression of the grass whilst it is young and weak by

26S KOTES.

a cover of earth, will both obstruct this misfortune,
and enable the com to reap great benefit from the
genial weather which occurs in the early part of the,
summer, instead of being often destroyed by it.

If Indian corn is a crop of such value, as it is sup-
posed to be in these essays, the selection of the best
species is an object of importance. The little
said of this, arose from the necessity of the different
climates of the United States for different kinds. —
But the vast number of varieties abounding in the
same latitudes, disclose a want of spirit for fixing so
important a preference as that of the best over the
whole rabble, by careful experiments. Those which
I have made have inculcated the opinii^, that the
species which combines the three circumstances of
producing the most stalk, the largest col), and the
longest grain, is the best for the latitude of 38 degrees
north. The small flinty forward kind, producing
from two to six ears on a stalk, inspired the most
hope and produced the most disappointment of any
I have tried. Its superiority of weight was counier-v
balanced by many disadvantages. Early kinds are
unexceptionably dwarfish, anri the latest I havepro-
eured has the largest stalk. The length of the grain,
supposing the cob to be equally long and large, deci-
sively settles the superiority of farinaceous pri)duct.
The longest and the thickest cob, if the length of the
grain is equal, produces the most corn. The size of
the stalk is important, if vegetable matter possesses,
tiie high value contended for in these e^.says, and if
it is chiefly extracted from the atmosphere. The
size of the plant produces some economy of labour,
besides augmenting our drafts from the fertilizing-
atmospherical treasury, because we can gather far
more grain, stalk, blade, top, shuck, and cob in the
same time, when the plant is large, than when it is'
small. I have discovered no good reason for a recent
preference of yellow to white corn, except that a fo-
reign fashion causes the former at this juncture to
sell best, nor any benefit from several trials of plant-
ing seed savfd from twin ears. In the btfore men-
tioiied latitude, corn consVantl. pushts out barren
shoots, or more than it can fiil with grain, which pro-
bably serve to impoverish such as succeed. If so,
thee would be no advantage gained, could we in-
crease their number by planting from twins.

JrotEs. ^69

[Note E.— -Page 193.]

The mode of raising hogs has continued to attract
my attention, on account of the vast importance it
derives from its connexion with live fences. If it
can supply us with meat, without obstructing an im-
provement, by which the agricultural state of the
Union would be more benefitted than by any other,
its usefulness would be great ; but if it will also sup-
ply us with more meat than the present mode, no
legislature will much longer suffer a state to languish
under the evil of dead fencing, for the sake of dimi-
nishing both meat and bread. Sensible of the en-
thusiasm with which human nature embraces ail
opinions it ardentlv wishes to realize, I have endea-
voured in these essays to confine myself to the deci-
sions of experience, and to avoid the delusions of
hope. My experience of the recommended mode of
raising hogs, has for several years resulted in a fal^
more plentiful supply of pork without purchasings
than I could previously afford to obtain by purcha-
sing. It has also as strongly convinced me, as I can
be convinced without an exact experiment, that the
e^pences of raising it is reimbursed or nearly so by
the manure of the hogs ; and that the alternative
for public preference, really lies between an expen-
sive and insufficient supply of pork, accompanied
Vith dead fences ; and an expenseless and sufficient
Supply of the same article, accompanied with live.
The recommended mode of raising hogs is improved,
by reserving a sufficient number of breeding sows to
insure the dependence upon those under one year
old for keeping up the stock ; by separating the large
and small hogs in cold weather, to prevent the latter
from being smothered ; by increasing the size of a*
pen for one hundred of different ages, to an acre ; fay
removing it once a fortnight, when the hogs are con-
stantly confined, or every four weeks, when penned
of nights only, and instantly ploughing up the ground
in high five feet and an half ridges, to be reversed
when cultivated ; by soaking corn until it »s sour, in
a number of barrels sufficient to provide in success!*
on, according to the warmth of the season, theiii
o^iief food in this state ; by givujgthem the sour wa-
ter to drink as each barrel is emptied ; by a smalt,
allowance cf any vegetable food after the pumpkins
^Ye escgend^d ; (they will eat cornstalks i» the ©arlv

^79 NOTES.

part of the winter) by penning them without rings if
such food is scarce, on ground well covered with
any kind of grass, the roots of which will contribute
to their health, whilst they prepare the land tor the
plough ; and by using them in the same way to era-
dicate the gariick, than which no food is healthier.

[Note F Page 201.] .■

Since these essays were written, my experiment*^
in cedar hedging have become two or three years
older, and have remov^ed every doubt of its cheap-
ness; practicability and importance. They were
commenced by planting a single row of cedars on the
inside of a fence, two feet apart, about eight inches
below the summit of the bank of a ditch. The er-
rors of neglecting to cultivate the young plants, to
crop or to manure them, and to plant a second row-
on the outside of the fence, were for several years
committed. Struggling with hungry rivals for a
scanty food they grew slowly, were meager and
spindling. The lower branches began to perish trom
omitting to check the perpendicular grow th by crop-
ping, and the hope of training the cedar into a hedge
seemed almost desperate. Though the land is gene-
rally poor, manuring (a small dressing with bushes
excepted) has hitherto been neglected. But toppir.g,
clipping the lateral branches, culture, and fiUiiig
gaps by bending into them and covering boughs to
take root, leaving out their ends have been imper-
fectly practised for two years. Another row of ce-
dars has also been planted on the outside of the fence.-
The old hedge has been so highly improved by these
inconsiderable aids, as to have assumed a handsome
appearance, ar,d to promise a speedy exhibition of a
large farm inclosed by a live fence.

The cedar planted in a good soil,, well manured
and propei'ly cultivated, cropped at one year*5 old
and annually, so that it rist-s only as it spreads ; and
oli]>ped at the ends of its branches, those exceptedj
buried about th: ir middle to fill gaps ; will thicken
oe'ir to the ground like box ; and after it is brought
to the intended height, by raising the b.ink of the
ditch^ wiU be in close cwitaet with it. My cxpei*^

NOTES. 271

rnent has been more imperfectly made from the cir-
cumstance of its embracing at once a large farm ;,
made upon a smaller scale and more skilfully, an
example would speedily appear, which would be ar-
dently copied. '
. Green pine or cedar brush has been used as a dres-
sing to the hedge as follows. The earth is shaved
downwards on each face of the bank of the ditch, so
as just to take off the grass and not to injure the rodts
of the young hedge, and left in a ridge. The brush
is laid in a line with the hedge eighteen inches wide,,
so as to cover the ground. After it is in danger of be^
ing perforated by weeds or grass, the ridge of earth
shaved down is thrown upon it. To the other bene-
fits of this process, that of protecting the young cedars
against the sun, wliich strikes tlie face of banks with
great force, is to be added. In some situations this
protection is indispensable. By drawing down and
returning this mixture of earth and brush alternate-
ly, as the hedge requires weeding, it receives both
manure and cultivation, at a very trivial expence of
labour.

No doubt can exist, that the thin population of a
great portion of the United States, proceeds from the
poverty of the soil, whether it be natural or artificial.
In the latter case, patriotism ought to sicken with
the anticipation of the censure which posterity will
see written in the face of the country. These words
will be engraved on it. " Your ancestors, like Indi-
*ans, proved^ their regard for the children by scalp-
ing the mother." In the former, is it wise, patnotic
or pious, to neglect the means for its improvement i*
Live fences attended v/ith nipple tree* would, I have no
doubt more than double the population of the eastern
sandy portions of the United States. Let the reader
compute before he decides upon this opinion, and test
it by figures. The savings of wood, of labour, and of
the expence in foreign liquors, are items going to an
increase of population, because these savings must be
carried to some productive obj ct for its sustenance.
The conversion of the brushwor>d now lost in maki'.g
dead fences, into manure, is a smaller item of the
same nature. But the single advantage of securing
to agriculture the benefit of malcing a permanent and
constant use of atmrspherical manure, arising, from
the security of live inc!nsu'<^s, alone -^uffices tc- sus-
tahi the opinion. By gradually snreading fertility

272 SO^ES.

over barrenness, inclosing will increase population to
an extent commensurate with its own progress. For
a system of closing the pores of the earth against the
inhalation of those qualities of the atmosphere, by
which its surface is fertilized, it will enable us to
open them. Wealth instead of poverty ; national
strength instead of weakness ; and perhaps liberty
instead of slavery, march in the train of permanent
inclosures. But we are blinded against computati-
ons founded in figures, by comparisons arising from
superficial prejudices. JBeggary admires the luxury
of competence, and mediocrity chuckles over her
wealth, when she beholds poverty. So we draw opi-
nions concerning the fertility and improvement of a
whole country, from comparisons made among our-
selves, always shedding darkness upon truth, because
always influenced by several of the worst or weakest
pitssions of human nature. To provide prosperity
for nations by the cool calculations of reason, and
not to devote posterity to wretchedness from the odi-
ous prejudices implanted by such shallow compari-
sons constitutes the duty of legislatures, and the real
virtue of patriots. The appalling difference betv/een*
the average product of wheat in this country and in
England, ought to dissipate our delusion as to the
present quality of our soil, to awaken our enquiries
after the causes of an inferiority so deplorable, and
tp rouse all our capacities in search of a remedy.
Our wretched, expensive and ineffectual mode of
inclosing, is in my vi.ew the chief of those causes. No
history has preserved, and no country exhibits, a
good system of agriculture in union with dead wood
fences. Homer, in his description of a Phceatian gar-
den, informs us, that green fences were understood
and used in his time.

"Four acres was the allotted space of ground,
*' Fenced with a green inclosure all around."

He mentions stone and thorn irxlosures, selects the
green to adorn his most splendid horticultural scene,
and is utterly silent as to dead wood fences. Were
they exploded above three thousand years ago, to
be now revived as an evidence of man's rotary dis-
position? But we need not dive into antiquity, nor
travel over the globe to settle the question. At
home we see the waste of soil graduated from north
to south, by some inexplicable circumstance, dii>ui\ct

K0TE8. 27S

from ori^^inal fertility. The different modes of fenc-
ing is probably that circumstance. In Connecticut,
J have seen many fields apparently so naturally poor
and stoney, that I could never account for their ferti-
lity, until 1, discovered the advantages of permanent
inclosures, and recollected that they v^'ere surround-
ed by stone fences. Prejudice, sustained by consci-
ence, is too strong to be subdued by reason, and too
res])ectable on account of its honesty, to deserve con-
temp^t. Yet it ought tn be persviaded by its senses,
-and to be induced to follow its own interest by the
plainest evidence. Though at length convinctd thro*
its eyes, of the benefits arisii g from inclosing*, it will
not be convinced through its m^uth, that the old mode
of raising meat by ranges (as they are called) is in-
sufficient for the supply of a thin population, and that
the effect of its conviction of one err- r is defeated, by
its persistence in another. Dead wcioden fences are
too transitory, too subject to imperfections arisii?g
from idleness or accident, and too easily impaired by
thoughtless or malicious trespassers, to guarantee t«
a nation the benefits of an inclosing system. They
are here to-day and gone to-inorrow. Live, possess
the rights and the respect of a freehold. Attached
to tlie soil, they soon efface the unjust and ruinous
prejudice, nurtured by their evanescent rival ** that
arable lands, when out of actual culture, f ught to be
turned into a common.** This opinion, (suggested by
& national wish to obtain good and sufficient supplies
of grass, and gratified throughout a great portion of
the union, as a wish for such supplies of horses, would
be gratified, by throwing open every stable to all who
wanted them) is undoubtedly entitled to denunciation
as a prejudice, if prejudice exists among mankind.

My wish for a better understanding was never
stronger than in considering this subject, from a con-
viction that its gratification could never have been
more useful to the publick. Throughout the world,
countries inclosed by stone or live fences, and those
inclosed by dead wood, exhibit the contrast between
cadaverous decripitude an blooming youth. The
richest c unty cf Virginia bekw the mountains, pain-
ted on the same canvass, would be a foil to the poor-
est of Connecticut. The incapacity of the first, for
rendering inclosing subservient to the improvement
of land, by excluding ruinous or injudicious grazing ;
and the capacity of the latter to avail itself of this

24.

■^7^ NOTES.

flgricultural pan?iCea, is a chief cause of the contrast.
In Britain, live fences are substituted for stone,
^vhere the latter is not to be had, and often prefer-
red to it ; and are by wide experience demonstrated
to be a sound sponsor for an excellent state of agri-
culture ; here, the demonstration that dead wooden
fences ensures a bad state of agriculture is as wide.
Does truth require more than two demunstratioiis ?
If permanent fences ai e indispensable for »he pur-
pose of chaUj^ing the state of our agriculture from
bad to good, they are also necessary for thi- preser-
vatioaof our happiness. The portion of iil)erty and
happiness enjoyed under the expensive system of go-
vernment existing in Britain, is owing to the produc-
tiveness of lab< ur; and not to the operatioi'.s of the
paper, patronage, party and official conspiracy for
pilfering that labour as the ingenious conspirators
pretend. Though her average product of wheat is
thirty-five bushels, worth at least one hundred and
five dollars, she finds it better to convert su much of
her laiKl and labour to the still more profitable ob-
jects of raising wool, cheese, meat, with ..ther agri-
cultural products, and to manufacturing, as to have
occasion fv»r the importation f bread- stuff. To this
great productiveness of labour it is owii^g, that she lS
the happiest and freest country of Ku»ope, under the
greatest load of pecuniary expenditure. In the U-
nited States, agriculture must for ages graduate the
productiveness of labour, in spite of the projects oj
st'.tiesmen, and the faMacy of stockj hbing. If v.e
rush into English extravagance without gaivihig the
productiveness in that occupation which must feed
it, the majority of the people must be speedily ground
down to a degree of poverty, b low an ability to pre-
serve a free government, or to acquire personal hap- d
piness. Let us therefore provid" the foundati n, be- J
fore we rear this splendid supeistructure, by . bolihh-
ing a mode of inclosing lands vhich produces nothing,
consumes a great portir>n of <air labour, and by im-
poverishing the soil, daily diminishes the productive-
ness of the residue.

KOTEiJ. 373'

[Note G:--Page 257.]

A date being necessary for estimating the npiniona
contained in the foregoing essays, the reader is in-
formed, that they appeared in the ephemeral co-.
lumns of a newspaper, before the year 1810, and
that tlie notes were written in the beginning of the
year 1814. Tliough the last number was better cal-
cuhited for the place of its original appearance, (as
vveil as some other parts of tlu- work) than for that
it now unexpectedly occupies, it is suft'ered to remain,
be(^use however light, it is true ; but lest its tone
may infect its matter, it seems proper to advert to the
same subject more seriously.

Society is unav(.idab!y made up of two interests
only, in one of which all special and particular modi-
fications of interest ai'e i;:claded; namely, one sub-
sistiiig by industry ; the otliei , by law. Government
is instituted for the happiness of the first interest, but
belonging itse.H to the second, it is perpetually drawn
towards that by the strongest cords. Therefore, unless
the first is able very accurately to distinguish betv;eeii
laws calculated to do it abenefi.t or an injury, it inust
be gradually sacrificed to the appetiti s of the second,
because governmerit, a member of the second, legis~
lates. All men enj ying honour, power or wealth by
law, or striving to acquire either through that chan-
nel, are like coin struck with the same dies. The
engravers, avarice and ambition, constantly mark
the same etching, and the aqua forlis, self-interest,
indelibly imprinis it on the human mind. From this
fact, the preference of a republican go\-ernment is
deduced, as being calculated for checkitig the natu-
ral disposition of legislatures or the government, to
favour the minor class, composed of legal or factitious
interests, at the expence of the major class, comr.os-
ed of natural intei'ests ; irxludiivg all who subsist, not
by iPieaiis of legal donations, but by useful talents in
every form, such as those employed in agriculture,
manufacturing, tuition, physick, and al! trades ai>d
scientific professions. The propensity of l;^w to sa-
criiice the great or natural interest of nations, to tlie
class of little or factitious interests, arises from two
causes; one, the government being the matrix ('fthe
latter, views her progeny v.'ith the eyes of an owl, and
considers them as beautiful ; the other, that although
Taw can enable the small class to live on the great on^.

$T6 JfOTES.

It cannot enable the great class to live upon the small
one ; uniting to produce this propensity in a deirree so
violent, that mankind have pronounced it irresistible,
except by a countervailing union between strong
republic ui fetters upon government, and a degree
of political knowledge in the major class, sufficient
to prevent these fetters from being broken by laws.
The remedy is so rare, that many honest men dowbt
of its existence ; and have concluded in despair, that
the major class or general interest of a nation, jnust
inevitably become the slave of the minor or factitious
interest in some mode. Others believe, that by ex-
citing the general interest to watch, to think, and to
judge for itself, its intellect will be brightened, ^nd
its rights preserved. But all agree, that neither any
Individual nor any interest dictated to by another,
can prosper; and that political ignorance universally
implies polit'cal slavery. Election has no power be-
yond a cliartcr or a commission, to prevent the elec-
ted from being transferred by his election from the
great class of the general intei-est, to the little class
ef factitious or legal interest ; on the contrary, the
structure of repubjican government is raised upon
the principle, that it necessarily transfers him from
one to the other, at least in most instances. This'
is unanimously admitted by the electee^ themselves.
They separate into two parties, called inns and outs.
The inns say that the outs are influenced by a de-
sire to get in, and the outs, that the inns are influenc-
ed by a desire to keep in. Agreeing that both be-
long to the minor c'ass, and neither to the major class^
-^vhich can neither get in nor keep in ; these two
members of the minor class vote in constant oppositi-
«n, because they stand in each other*s way, which
could not possibly happen if they were genuine mem-
bers of the general interest cl iss. How then cati the
major class expect happiness from this species of
political gambling for a rich stake which it pays, '.uid
the g^i.mblers aitci nately v.in, if it has no skill in the
gafnei^

Agriculture is the most powerful member of the
elass constituting the general interest, but if her sons
are too ignorant to use this power with discretion,
(like a body of elephants throv;n into confusion in a
battle) they rush in every direction trampling down
friends and foes for a short time, and inevitably be-
come an easy prey to their enemies. As the most

K0TE9V 277

powerful individnal constituting the major class of
genernl interest, the political ignorance of agricul-
♦ture, would of course destroy the rights of the whole
class. If she divides herself between any of the
members of the inferior class, e^ich of her moieties
enlist under an aristocraiical or monarchical power ;
whetlicr it be called executive, legislative, credit of
charter, and the member obtaining the victory by her
aid, becomes her master. Just as in a division of her
forces between a king and a nobility, the king or
the nobility and not agriculture gains a victory, both
over her, and over all her weaker associates in the
class of the general interest.

As there Jire two classes of interest only in society,
there are also only two political codes, eacu appro-
priated by nature to one class. The code of the mi-
nor class isconstitnied of intrigues and stratagems to
beguile the major class, and to advance, the separate
interests of the indiviciunis, ])artics and legal combi-
nations, of wliich the minor class is compounded.—
The code of the major class consists of good moral
principles, by which the national rights and happiness
can only be preserved. The guik of offensive war,
and the virtue of defensive, are the essential qualities
of the respective codes. One is compounded of the
best, and thje other of the worst qualities of human
nature; and the members of the general or natural
interest of society, can never avoid oppression nor
sustain a just and free government, unless tliey are
skilled in both.

, As the extension of comfort and happiness is the only
good motive for writing an agricultural book, what-
ever would defeat the end belongs to the subject ;
and as a legal profusion in overstocking a nation with
members of the minor class, is the solitary process
for enslaving it, unless the major C' ass understands
the sublime branch of ethicks, namely political mo-
rality, it cannot counteract this process. Thus only
can it distinguish between laws and projects calcula-
ted for benefitting or injuring the nation. This science
only can prevent the liberty, the virtue, the happi-
ness, the bravery and the talents of the nation from
being extinguished. The treasury of the United
States has been cited as a proper subject for its ap-
plication. If the agricultural and other members of
the major class should discern that the president had
become a king of the treasury, surrounded with no*-

^8 S-OTES.

iTiinal checks and balances appointed by himself; if
they should discern that the representatives of the
people were convinced of a great waste of publick
money, and yet ignorant of the modes by Avhich it
v/as effected; if they should recollect the consequen-
ces of such an error in the English form of govern-
ment ; and if they knew that nations were enslaved
by a corruptiiig application of their owmi treasure.»
■would not the cor;ectionof the evil be founded in
genuine political morality, and be p'.ainly adverse to
the erroneous and flagitious political cede of the mi-
nor class.

The intimate connexion between agriculture and
the militia, arises fr'm their beini^- both interests be-
longing to tile major m general class of national in-
tertst, of such magnitude, tiiat they must live or pe-
rish, politically, together ; and the rights of the whole
class will be lost by the subjection of either. By
transfering the power of the purse from agricuHuvc
to the stockjobbers, or the powei- of the swore' from
the militia to a m.ercenary army, the destruction of
a free form of government naturally ensues. Tliis
single consequence suifices to refute two hundred
thousand artihces eternally practised by the sundry
mem.bers of the minor class to discredit the militia.
They might be refuted b\ an hundred thousand facts.
The most em.inent periods of Greece and Rome,
were inspired by an union between a militia and a
considerable degree of political knowledge in the ma-
jor class. Thermopoie was defended, and Xerxes
defeated by militia The Roman empire was creat.
ed and destroyed by militia. England and the Indi-
ans have often felt the militia of the United States.
Europe was repulsed by the militia of France, and
the career of France arrested by the militia of Spain.
The pride, the habits and the interest of mercenary
armies is however its liistoriographer, and the hatred
of governme})t and parties, its patron. These con-
vert its eulogy into a crime. *'it is unfit" say they,
*• for the execution f f the projects ci statesmen, and
hence diminishes the energy of government." But
it is the best security against foieign conquest, and
the only security against domestic oppression from
a combination among the members of the minor in-
terest; nor will any project plainly calculated to ad-
<vance the hapynncss or secure the liberty of the ge-
neral interest ever fail of nndmg a complete- security

KOTES. 379

ifi the -power of a railitia, orgamzed to sustain and
not to betray that interest. Row often has the zeal,
virtue and courage of a militia, burst through the
artifices or neglect of the nnnor interest for suppress-
ing ail three, and demonstrated its natural alliance
with political morality and national liberty.

EB^ATA.

The reader will correct the following er-
rata with his pen.

Page 21, line 12, for '* of the fraud" read of fraud*

32, 1, for**' blessings" read, blessing.

36, 24, for " is" read, its..

48, 31, after '*take" read, a.

55, 1, -for "union in" read, union of.

5C\ 10 for " require" read, acquire.

64, 35, for " few" read, fewer.

65, ' 12, for '' with" read, in.

68, 4, for " Archimides" read,Archimedes-

70, • 20, for '* two" read, too,.

89, . 34, for '* on" read, in.

JOI, 17, for '*a good crop" read, a crop,

104, ' 36,'for " cold" re d, hold.

113, ' 25, for '* opp(>Ged" read, exposed.

116, -13, for" chistians," read. Christians.

I5i, 11, f'M'" exception" read, exception§i

169, 25, for » both for" read, both to.

195, 29, for " for" read, from.

19S, 5^ for " a vast" read, vast.

INDEX.

The Present State of Agrieulture 9

The Political State of Agnciilture 61

Slavery .•«...••.. hi

Overseers ..••.. ^ • • 68

Inclosing •••...••• 72

Manuring •..••.••« 87

Labour 11^

Indian Corn .,.•♦.•. 130

Ploughing , 14S

Culmiferous Crops • • • • • 153

Succulent Crops ....•♦ 157

Leguminous Crops 161

Live Stock . • 164,

Sheep ...» 179

Hogs ... * • 182

Succession of Crops • . • • . 19i

Live Fences J 98

Orchards 202

Draining ••...•••. 206

Tobacco 232

The Economy of Agriculture • • 236

The Pleasures of Agriculture • • 241

The Rights of Agricuhure . . . 2*6

Agrieuituie aad the IVliiitia . . k 2^2

'^'