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ADDRESS

TO THE

BRHODEISLAND SOCIETY
FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF

Dowmestick Envustry, —

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DELIVERED AT PAWTUXET, OCTOBER 17, 1821. ‘

BY THE HON. TRISTAM BURGES.

PROVIDENCE :
MILLER AND HUTCHENS) PRINTERS.

August....1822.

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ProvipeNnce, October 22, 1821.

Sir—In obedience to a vote of the Standing Committee of the Rhode-
Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestick Industry, a copy
of which is annexed, we have the honour of expressing, on their behalf,
as well as on that of the Society at large, our thanks for the excellent
Address by you pronounced before the Society on the 17th instant, and
of requesting a copy thereof, for the press.

And are, with sentiments of the
highest respect, your
friends and fellow citizens,
_ WILLIAM WILKINSON,
JOHN BROWN FRANCIS, Committee.
WILLIAM E. RICHMOND,
Hon. Tristam Burges.

“ At a Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Rhode-Island So-
ciety, holden at Mr. Aborn’s Hotel, in Pawtuxet, on the 18th of Octo-
ber, 1821—

Voted, That Messrs. Wilkinson, Francis and the Secretary, be a Com-
mittee, to wait on the Honourable Tristam Burges, to express to him
the thanks of the Committee for the highly appropriate and excellent
Address, by him pronounced yesterday, before the Society ; and request
of him a copy thereof for the Press.” A true copy from the records.

WM. E. RICHMOND, See’ry.

ProvipENcE, June 27, 1822.
Gentlemen,

If, in your opinion, the following address will, in any way, be beneficial
to the industry of our community, I am willing to submit it to your dis-
posal, I should sooner have done this, but when I had the honour of re-
ceiving your letter of the 22d of October last, I had determined to write
more at large on the subject of agriculture, embracing many facts which
it has been in my way to collect on that subject, and comprehending a
considerable system of manuring. Other avocations have compelled me
to postpone those projects for the present. Should any thing in this ad-
dress seem unfriendly to agricultural men, I beg them to believe that it
was not so intended. It was written by one born to the heritage of the
plough, whose brightest days have been spent in studying the science
and attempting to practice the art of agriculture. ing

I am, gentlemen, very respectfully,
TRISTAM BURGES.
Messrs. Wilkinson, Francis and Richmond.

ADDRESS,

Tue subjects of domestick industry are the arts
of usefulness, The productions of these are, all
things needful, in food, raiment, habitation, or equi-
page. Whatever stimulates domestick industry
augments the quantity of the necessaries, conven-
iences and ornaments of life. Your Society has for
its object the encouragement of all these great and
important arts. Ofsome of these, you cannot ex-
pect from me, on the present occasion, a descrip-
‘tion; or a history of them; nor a dissertation con-
cerning their principles or their utility. Those,
who consume their productions, know their useful-
ness ; those, who practice them, are masters of their
trades; and those, who employ their capital in
them, know, better than I do, what is the process,
and what is the result, of such employment. Of
these arts, men seem to have been convinced, that
it is necessary to have some knowledge, before
they enter upon the practice of them; and they
have, accordingly, in all countries, devoted a num-
ber of years to apprenticeships in them; and have
received regular instruction, with as much formal-
ity, as young gentlemen are taught the great mys-
teries of theology, law, or medicine.

There is one art, of which men, either think
themselves born masters, or that they can acquire
a knowledge of it, without instruction. They seem
to rely on taking it the natural way; as the devout
Mahomedans do a certain disease; and regard the
tedious process of innoculation, both as useless, and

4

sinful. This is no new thing. It existed in the
days of Columella that great Roman scholar and
agriculturalist. In his incomparable book on hus-
bandry he thus complains of it—*I cannot enough
wonder why they who desire to learn eloquence are
so nice in the choice of an orator whose eloquence
they may imitate; and they who search after the
knowledge of surveying or mensuration and of num-
bers, look out for a master of the art they delight
in; and they who are desirous of some skill in dan-
cing, and musick, are exceeding scrupulous in their
choice of one to modulate their voice and teach
them to sing agreeably; and no less of a dancing
master to regulate the gestures and motions of their
body ; also they who have a mind to build send for
architects, masons and carpenters; and they who
resolve to send ships to sea send for skilful pilots;
they who make preparations for war call for men
who understand the art of war and are acquainted
with military affairs ; and not to mention every par-
ticular, in that study which every one resolves to
prosecute, he makes use of the wisest and ablest
director he can find; finally every one sends fora
person from the society and assembly of the wise to
form his mind and instruct him in the precept of
virtue; but husbandry alone, which without all
doubt, is next to, and as it were near akin, to wis-
dom, is in want of both masters and scholars. For
hitherto I have not only heard that there are, but I
myself have seen schools of professors of rhetorick,
and as I have already said of geometry and ofmusick
or which is more to be wondered at, academies for
the most contemptible vices, for delicately dress-
ing and seasoning victuals, for contriving and mak-
ing up dainty and costly dishes, for promoting glut-
tony and luxury; and I have also seen head dres-
sers and hair trimmers; but of agriculture I have
never known any that professed themselves either
teachers or scholars.”

Sy)

-Rhode-Island is favourably situated for agricul-
ture. Its lands are various, and, most of them, fer-
tile. Clays, sands, :loams, hills, vallies and plains,
marshes, waters and woods, are sufficiently abun-
dant. It is washed by the sea, indented with bays
and interlaced by: rivers producing exhaustless
quantities of fertilizing materials. ‘The population
of this State are industrious, intelligent, brave and
independent. When they show themselves to their
sister States, as they really are, they do not fail of
ready admittance to the very first rank of respect-
ability. Your merchants are enterprising ; and
deeply read in all the great mysteries of commerce.
Your manufacturers, persevering and highly skil-
ful in the application of capital, and the production
offabricks. Your mechanicks, masters of the the-
ory and practice of their trades. Your profession-
al men respectable for talents, learning and char-
acter. Your farmers, the independent proprietors
of the lands they cultivate, able to command capi-
tal sufficient for the management of them, and en-
dowed with all that skill in the great trade of agri-
culture, which they have hitherto thought proper
to acquire or putin practice. Here too, is such an
union of all honest men, for the protection of life,
liberty, and property, that, notwithstanding they
are thought by some people in other States to be
insecure in this, yet I dare affirm that there is no
spot of earth in all the wide regions of the world,
where these great rights are more freely, fully and
securely enjoyed than they are in the State of
Rhode-Island, by each and every person. With aH
these advantages, agriculture seems to have made
but little progress for many years in this State.
Our merchants have rendered it the fifth commer-
eial State in the Union, and our manufacturers
placed it among the first; although our scanty ter-
ritory would hardly make a county in some of the
larger States. What have our agricultural men

6

done? Alas! they, with their surplus capital, have
built retail shops, or set up banks, or bought spin-
dles; so that they might teach their sons to be
traders, or money brokers, or weavers. Rhode-
Island was once famed for some agricultural pro-
ductions. _ Narraganset horses were, next to Ara-
bian, perhaps, the first in the world; but the race
is extinct. The same country was celebrated for
cheese; but the secret of making it is lost, or has
been stolen by those, who, in place of it, now make
not the very best butter. Bristol is famed for the
production of onions; and the island of Rhode-Isl-
and, for that of barley; and both deservedly so;
but they both owe all their suceess to the marine
manure, by the ever labouring ocean, thrown upon
their shores; and these farmers could no more
succeed in raising these crops, m Smithfield, ‘or
Cumberland, than a porpus could live and fatten
on Nutaconkanut Hail.

But Rhode-Island farmers are not, in this re-
spect, sinners above all the Americans. The-peo-
ple of this country seem to have thought thatfarm-
ing consisted, in clearing the land of ‘trees and
bushes, and then driving it with crops of grain, un-
til it was dead. ‘They have treated the earth like
a step dame; and not like a mother whose uberious
bosom feeds and fosters her millions of children.
It is true a spirit of improvement seems for the last
twenty years to have gone abroad in our country.
Some fine agricultural productions are brought for-
ward and exhibited to the publick. So far it is
well. I rejoice at it. But it cannot be forgotten
that this is holy-day husbandry. Look minutely
through the country, if you would know the state
of agriculture. Travel like Arthur Young—see the
farm yards and fields—observe the instruments of
tillage, the course of crops, the system of manuring.
I fear we shall find, we are, taken in a mass, about
such farmers, as our forefathers were, when they

7

migrated to this country. They, we know, were
such farmers, as their fathers were when they left
England. But all the capital improvements, in ag-
riculture, have been made, in that country, since
the settlement of this.

If it were in the course of nature for the venera-
ble pilgrims of Plymouth again to land on the
shores of that island, they would not know the
fields of their native country. Not many years
before they migrated the London market was sup-
plied with vegetables from Flanders, and the Eng-
lish climate and soil were deemed incapable of
producing them. At this time 14,000 acres are ap-
propriated to gardening in the immediate neigh-
bourhood of that metropolis, and the vegetables
and fruit raised on those lands, are sold in that city
for a sum little short of four millions of dollars per
annum. ‘The rent ofland inthe county of Norfolk,
the least fertile, but the best farmed district of Eng-
land, has increased within the memory of man,
eight fold. The rent roll of Mr. Coke, the great
Norfolk farmer, has, in that time, risen from five to
40,000]. per annum. This has been done, not by
grinding his tenants, but by enriching them; by
granting them leases of his lands for twenty years ;
and by giving them, in his own farming, a great ex-
ample of the immense agricultural improvements
which may be made, even in the sands of Norfolk,
by industry, skill and capital.

Scotch farming has come into existence long
since Roger Williams paddled his canoe round Fox
Point. In those days the Thistle was the national
emblem of Scotland. ‘They fought under it in war,
and foraged upon it in peace. But the unpoetical
farmers of Caledonia have lost all delight in pursu-
ing the thistle’s beard, with the heroes of Ossian ;
or sleeping on the blooming hether with the buca-
niers of Roderick Dhu. They have ploughed down
all those things, which look so pretty, and smell so

6

sweet in song; and given up those haunts of the
muses, to plain English barley and wheat ;—Dutch
and Swedish turnips; the clover of Flanders, and
the Shamrock of Ireland. In the progress of these
improvements, these men have done, what Scotch-
men think an essential service to that country ;
but what American farmers, would think a curse to
this—they have, by increasing a demand for la-
bour, nearly doubled the price of it; but these in-
dustrious, intelligent Scotchmen, with their national
prudence, have contrived not only to pay this aug-
mented price of labour, but to replace all their cap-
ital; and add to it, at least fourteen per cent. per
annum. A farmer in the Lothains of Scotland,
who cultivates 700 acres of land at a rent of 1/. 10s.
sterling per acre, will, at the end of the year, have
in his pocket, clear of all expenses, more than
$3500. He has so much to add to his capital, and
to enable him to extend his cultivation.

By such means the agricultural capital of that
country has, from year to year, and from genera-
tion to generation, been augmenting. What it is
now exactly, I am not prepared to state; but, twen-
ty-five years ago, it was, by men best acquainted
with it, calculated at 450 millions of pounds sterling
in the whole united kingdoms. This comprehends
as well the circulating capital of yearly husbandry
as that which is invested in permanent agricultural
improvements. While English farmers have been
raising and working this capital, we have not been
very solicitous to copy their example. The great
plenty of lands has induced us rather to reclaim
new fields than to fertilize old ones. Our worn
out fields, like our worn out horses, have been
thrown out to die in the commons. Had we been
as provident, as our merchants and mechanicks, we
should have imported from England, every agricul-
tural improvement, as they have every commercial
and manufacturing one.

9

Perhaps, in no nation of the world, has commerce
been advanced with such rapidity, as in our own
country, since the revolution. When the first In-
dia ship sailed from Providence the sight was
thronged with as much concourse and_ viewed
with as much anxious admiration, as followed the
fleet of Columbus unmooring from the shores of
Spain. Now such things are a matter of daily oc-
currence; and no more is thought of sailing to
Canton by the Pacifick than used to be said of sail-
ing round Cape Cod. ‘Then peril and success
were a matter of conjecture. Now enterprise, ex-
perience and science have reduced them to fair
and probable counting-house calculation. Our
merchants will tell you the productions, and the
exchangeable value of them, in every country and
island washed by the waves of the ocean. Nay
they will give you the price current of every event,
which may jeopardize property, wherever a sail
may be spread, or an oar sweep the water.

They have called the aid of the most powerful
agents of nature to overcome the opposition of
winds and currents. It is within the memory of
all of us, how much the western States suffered to
transport their produce by water to a market.
They might sail with ease, and velocity down the
broad Mississippi. It was the voyage of Avernus,
“smooth the descent and easy is the way.” But
Orleans was literally the “bourne from which no
ocean-traveller returned.” Now, the application
of steam to navigation, seems to have put the wa-
ters of those mighty rivers into the control of the
merchants of the west; and they roll their current
back to theirsources, freighted with the productions
of the world, with as much ease as a boy could tip
a reed in his hand so as to pour the water out at
one end or the other, at pleasure. There is no-
thing like this in any other part of the earth. It is
an era in the commerce and mechanism of the
world, the age of the American Fulton.

»)

en

10

Mechanicks and manufactures have in their
“progress far out-stript commerce. Forty years ago
there was not a spindle, worked by water, on this
side the Atlantick. Since then how immense the
capital by which spinning and weaving machinery
are moved !—How many—how great—how various
the improvements. The cotton is taken from the
fields, thrown into these engines of industry, and
received back again a fabrick fit for consumption.
As you travel along the banks of our streams, the
morning sound of our waterfalls is mingled with the
merry notes of the bell, calling, not the lazy, loung-
ing monastick to yawn over his matins, but the vi-
gorous, active manufacturer, to the conduct of the
spindle and the loom.

The farmers of Flanders erected a statue in
honour of him who introduced into their country
the culture of potatoes. What shall the people of
Rhode-Island do for him who first brought us the
knowledge of manufacturing cloth by machinery
moved by water? In England, he would, in life,
be ornamented by a peerage ;—in death, lamented
by a monument in Westminster Abbey. Let not
the rich, in his adopted country, envy the products
of his labours, and his talents :—his extensive opu-
lence ;—his fair and elevated character. Let the
poor rise up, and call him blessed ; for he has in-
troduced a species of industry into our country,
which furnishes them with labour, food, clothing
and habitation ; and that too, when the long and
hungry winters of our climate lock up all other
employment from them.

it may be said, I think, without any fair imputa-
tion of national vanity, that the United States, and
ihe State of Rhode-Island in particular, has, during
the last forty years, made a more respectable pro-
gress in commerce, mechanicks and manufactures,
than any other nation or people.

11

I would to God we could say the same thing of
agriculture. Our merchants carry the goods of all
nations, who will admit them to their trade; our
manufacturers export their finished work to the
amount of millions. What do our farmers export ?
Alas ! we do not raise enough for home consump-
tion. The bread we shall this day eat was grown,
perhaps, in Virginia. A very great part of the sup-
ply of our meat, bread, butter, and cheese market,
is derived from our neighbours. Many tons of ves-
sels, and much capital, are employed in the impor-
tation corn and flour trade for home consumption ;
and many gentlemen have made handsome estates
im this business. Might not all this have been
realized by agricultural men, if they would but
raise these articles on their own lands? Do not say
corn and flour cannot be grown in our State, to
any considerable extent.. Our State is peculiarly
fitted for the growth of Indian-corn, “ that prince
of crops,” as it is denominated, by Col. John Tay-
lor, of Caroline county. Any field which will pro-
duce fifty bushels of corn, might also produce thir-
ty bushels of wheat. Wheat grows luxuriantly in
Maine, Vermont, Canada, Nova-Scotia and Scot-
land. Can our climate be too far to the north then ?
It cannot be too southern neither, for, if you run
down the latitude to the equator, you will find it in
every parallel, flourishing and abundant, in pro-
portion to the fertility of the soil.

As I said before, no country is better circum-
stanced for agriculture than Rhode-Island. The
government is perfectly free ; and it is in the hands
of the great body of the freeholders of lands in the
State. It isa government of agricultural men, both
in this State, and in all the other States, and in the
United States. Whatever benefit agriculture can
derive from law, may in this State be realized.
Frederick the Great of Prussia used, annually, to
expend 300,000/. in the encouragement of agricul-

12.

ture. He was wont to say to his parsimonious
courtiers, who might think this liberality better be-
stowed on them, that he was but spreading his
manure for a next year’s harvest ; and he did in-
deed reap it. For, without oppressing his peo-
ple, and after sustaining numerous, heavy, and
sometimes, very disastrous wars, he left to his
successour a treasure of 53,280,000 dollars. If it
‘may be questioned, whether government should
encourage one kind of industry more than another,
yet it cannot be doubted, that a wise government,
should encourage all. Arts of utility should grow
up together ; and so they do, when unaided. But
then it is with frequent obstruction, and sometimes,
some of them, are nearly extirpated, by adverse
events. But let them be nurtured by the fostering
hand of government, and they flourish indeed ;
and soon become the strength, the defence, and the
ornament of the State.

On this subject of encouraging agriculture by go-
vernment I cannot do better than speak the words
of the celebrated Watson, bishop of Landaff: he
says, “the agricultural improvements, which have
hitherto taken place (in England) amongst us,
have been by the expenditure of private wealth;
but the country cannot be brought to that per-
fection of cultivation of which it is capable, unless
individual efforts are aided and accellerated by

ublick wisdom and munificence. I boast (says
he} not of any particular patriotism, but 1 would
willingly pay my share of 20 or 30 millions of
pounds sterling of publick money to be appropri-
ated by the legislature to the agricultural im-
provement of Great-Britain and Ireland. This —
appears to me an object of far nearer concern to
our independence as a nation, than any exten-
sion of commerce or an acquisition of distant ter-
ritory ever can be. If the time had fully come
when an unproductive acre of land could not be
found in either of these our fortunate islands we

13

should then have food within ourselves for the
annual sustenance of at least thirty millions of
people; and with a population of thirty millions,
what power in Europe or what combination of
powers will dare attempt our subjugation.” —

It is not for me to suggest, in what way the legis-
lature of our State should encourage Agriculture ;
but I would observe that, in many other States, so-
cieties for the encouragement of domestick indus-
try are under the immediate patronage. of the go-
vernment; and funds are appropriated to their be-
nefit in every county, so soon as they by their own
means shall raise a fund of a certain amount.

What are most wanted in our country are agri-
cultural books—improved instruments of husband-
ry—a general emulation to acquire knowledge of
the best modes of farming—and a greater, a much
greater, appropriation of capital to the business.
Do not suffer your prejudices to be awakened
when I mention books. Every other art and sci-
ence is now to be found in the books, which have
been written by the great masters of those arts and
sciences. If you wish to acquire knowledge in
merchandise, mechanicks, manufactures, law, me-
dicine, theology, mathematicks, geography, or any
other of the great sciences of utility or ornament,
you get books. Why should agricultural men dis-
dain to be taught by the wisdom of the sages and
practitioners of the art, who have lived before
them? Their knowledge has been committed to
books; and these may, as easily be obtained in
other countries, as we can here obtain the New-
York primer, or Mr. Aldens’ Columbian exercises.
I agree they are scarce here and that is the great
cause why we are so little acquainted with the agri-
culture of other countries or with the principles
of the art in our own.—When I have inquired for
agricultural books, I have been told that there
was no call for them and that therefore booksellers
did not put them on their shelves.

14

More, and different, and better agricultural instru-
ments are much needed. Our ploughs are far from
the best; our harrows quite indifferent; rollers,
cleaning rakes, scarifiers, drills and thrashing
machines are, I believe, not used at all in the State.
Let me tell you, that I know the ploughs in use
among us, are not so good in any one point of view
as Wood’s New-York cast-iron plough. This
plough may be moved with a power, one quarter
less, and will then de one quarter more work, than
any other plough in use in the State—I know of
four of these ploughs, which have ploughed at
least 120 acres this season; and the whole. ex-
pense of keeping them sharp and fit for use has
not exceeded 56 cents each. The blacksmith’s
bill for ordinary wooden and wrought-iron ploughs,
for the same work, would have been at least $5
more for each plough. It will be found that not
less than 4s. per acre will be saved by the use of
these ploughs; and the work done in every res-
pect better, than it is done by any other. In the
State are somewhat more than 85,000 acres of
land exclusive of the waters. We may reckon
72,000, as the number of acres contained in the
farms of the State ; and 1-6th part of this, or 12,000
as under the plough; so that to save 4s. per acre,
on this, will save $8000 to the farms of the State.
Do not say that these ploughs will break easy.
I knew one of them last year to break a piece of
tough sword land of ten acres, well packed with

aving-stones through its whole texture and which
had probably not been ploughed for 30 years. It
was drawn by six oxen and did, the work well.
The same plough and team broke a piece of new
ground thick with green white-oak stumps. It
stood both of these severe operations. Another of
these ploughs I have seenrepeatedly bring toa dead
stand against a rock, a pair of strong horses moy-
ing ata quick step and ploughing a clover lea in
the dryest time of last year’s summer.

—

15

Scarifiers are instruments calculated to do the
work of a plough anda harrow. They are in com-
mon use in England. I know of but one in this
part of the country. In Scotland they make them
entirely of cast-iron. In all lands free of stone or
where the stones are loose and not too'large to pass
between the shares and teeth and on which a crop
has been raised, a man and a pair of horses or a
pair of such oxen as work the Smithfield lime
wagons, will prepare the ground and get in the
grain on 30 acres ina week. In England a man
with 4 horses and the broad scarifier has been
known to do 60 acres of wheat in a week.

In the common method of doing this work two.
men or one man and a boy, witha pair of oxen and”
a horse areemployed and they hardly finish an acre
perday. It is then to be harrowed or bushed or
both. What will it all amount to? I have known
this year 15s. given for getting in oats on Indian
hills. Perhaps it was rather too high. If done
with the scarifier it will not cost 2s. per acre.
The use of the scarifier would save to the agri-
culturalists of the State $10,000 per annum.

The heavy roller is an instrument of great utili-
ty. It reduces clods—pulverizes the top of the
ground—levels and smooths incomparably better
than any other instrument. When a field is clear-
ed of the larger stones and mellowed sufficiently
deep for a crop of grain, this instrument sinks eve-
ry other stone below the course of the scythe, and
saves the expensive task of gathering them from
the grass which every farming man who has been a
boy may know, is so toilsome and tedious.

Could I persuade the farmers of this State to in-
troduce the culture of root crops for feeding stock.
I should recommend to them the use of the drill.
It will perform the labour of ten men.

_ Thrashing mills are very common among En-
glish and Scotch farmers, and are far more ex-

16

peditious than the flail or even that filthy prae-
tice of treading out grain with cattle. A four
horse mill will thrash and clean 600 bushels in
ten hours. It is a fact known to farmers who
use this machine that 1-20th more grain is obtain-
ed from the same quantity of straw by it, than
by any other method of thrashing.

Mr. Brown of Markle, in his treatise on rural
affairs, presents the following estimate of profit
which might be derived to the English publick by
the universal adoption of thrashing-muls : he ealeu-
lates,

1. The No. acres producing grain in Great-Britain, 8,000,000
2. Average production in qu. at 3qrs. peracre, 24,000,000
3. The increased quantity of grain 1-20, 1,200,000
4. The value of that increased quan. at 40s. per qu. 2,400,000
5. Saving in expenses of labour at Is. per qu. 1,200,000
6. Total profit per annum, 3,600,000

It is not wonderful then, says Sir John Sinclair,
that he should pronounce the thrashing-mill the
most important machine in the farmer’s possession
and the greatest improvement that has been intro-
duced into Great-Britain during the present age.

The introduction of all these implements into
the farming of this State would save the agricultu-
ral interests not less than $50,000 annually. This
would add considerably to the capital already ap-
propriated to that department of industry.

On the subject of agricultural capital I fear the
most of our farmers will not willingly agree with the
experience of the best farmers in this and other
countries. [ need not tell such men as I am ad-
dressing, that every branch of industry will flourish
in proportion as it shall be well or ill supported by
capital. If factories and ships cannot be moved
without this great impetus, neither can the plough
be put in motion without it. It is the great vital
principle giving life and motion to human labour
and accelerating and multiplying all its various
productions.

17

Some travellers who have passed through the
finest districts of France are charmed with its ag-
riculture ; but those who have inspected the whole
kingdom, know its immense inferiority to England.
France is a land of vineyards and olives; England
of wool, wheat and beef. But nothing, it is be-
lieved, will so strongly illustrate the difference in
the agriculture of the two kingdoms, as the differ-
ence in the capital employed in each. Inthe Uni-
ted Kingdom of Great-Britain are 98,000,000 of
acres, 15,000,000 of people, and 275,000,000 of
pound sterling employed in farming capital. In
France are 130,000,000 of acres, 26,000,000 of peo-
ple, and 262,000,000 of pounds sterling in agricul-
tural capital. With nearly a third less land and
but little more than half the population, England
has 13,000,000 of pounds sterling the superiority
in capital. This has reference to the circulating
capital of yearly husbandry. In permanent im-
provements belonging to tenants and not to land-
holders, England has almost as many millions more,
and France almost nothing. These calculations
have reference to the year 1798.

Since that period the improvement in English
agriculture has nearly doubled the capital of that
kingdom, and nearly a double amount of capital is
necessary to cultivate an English farm now, to that
which was used in 1798. from the writings of Sir
John Sinclair published in 1817, it appears that to
cultivate a farm of 700 acres in grass and grain,
according to the improved system of English agri-
culture, will require a capital of at least $25,000.
With this capital on an improved farm, at a lease
of 20 years, a skilful, enterprising, industrious man
oe 14 per cent. per annum on the whole amount
of it.

To cultivate the state of Rhode-Island in such a
manner would require nearly three millions of dol-
lars in farming capital, exclusive of the value of the

18

lands. I fear the sum employed in that branch of
domestick industry at this time, in the State, is con-
siderably short of that amount. But suffer me to
say, that until agriculture is encouraged by a great-
er appropriation of capital, it cannot reasonably be
expected to grow and flourish among us.

You will forgive me, gentlemen, when I say, that
I fear our system of agriculture is far from being the
best now in practice among farmers of science and
skill. It surely does not become me to tell my
farming fellow-citizens that they are ignorant of
their trade. But if an English or Scotch farmer
should remove into this State, with a capital of
$60,000, intending with 30 of it to purchase a
farm, and with the other 30 to cultivate that farm,
do you believe he would manage his farm as we
do ours? If so, he might loan or set up a money
shop with 29000 ofit, and still have enough for com-
mon New-England farming. Yes, such a capital
would (so he would be told by many sharp men)
make two good substantial banks, if he would only
let them call in about fifty of their clever uncles,
cousins, brothers, fathers and sons to be directors,
presidents, cashiers, clerks, runners, setters and
brokers, all of whom they would assure him wished
to join in banking, because every one of them were
now much in the way of doing business at banks.
I think the Scotch or English farmer would say to
them, that he did not understand banking so well
as they seemed to understand it, but he had some
knowledge of farming, and besides he wanted all
his capital, and wished to hire a few thousand dol-
lars more to complete the stocking and improve-
ment of his farm. In managing of it, | think he
would particularly attend to enclosing, clearing,
and draining, a course of crops, and a system of
ananuring.

The enclosing his farm would be governed by
the materials on the land, the nature of the soil,

19

and the course of crops to be pursued. I will not
believe such a man would buy a farm without be-
ing satisfied that he could render every acre of it
practicable to the plough. If his lands abounded
in stone, his fences would be made of that material ;
if not, be assured that ditches, and thorn hedges
would form the outlines of all his fields. This kind
of fence is less expensive than posts and rails, and
as durable as trees continually growing can render
it. The beauty, strength and efficiency of these
fences cannot be exceeded. ‘The finest walls will
sometimes be leaped by sheep or cattle, but these
hedges are impassable by any animal unaided by
wings.

In dividing a farm into separate enclosures the
clays should be separated from the sands, for these
require different crops and different treatment.
Some tracts of land are most productive in perpet-
ual meadow, and some in the convertible course of
tillage, and perhaps all light lands, unless where
consolidating manures may be easily obtained,
- should be pastured one or more years in the course
of every rotation. Although large farms should have
large fields, yet small ones need not have propor-
tionally small fields, for the same field may be ap-
propriated to different crops in the course, and
the expense of division fences saved.

Clearing is ths next subject of attention after en-
closing, and where the land abounds in stone, it is
performed at the same time; for by clearing, an
English farmer means not only extirpating trees and
bushes, but also removing rocks and stones, or
whatever will obstruct the course of the plough.
This at first view seems like a labour of Hercules,
and hardly practicable in some places. But when
land is covered with a forest of 100 cords of wood
to an acre, is it not an immense labour to reduce.it
to cultivation? This, however, is readily done,
because it is impossible to crop the land without

20

doing it. Let us but believe that we cannot cul-
tivate our fields until we clear them of all fast
stones, and all those too large to pass freely be-
tween the teeth of a horse harrow, and we shall
set ourselves about removing these obstructions
with the same unconquerable perseveratice with
which a New-England man first lays his axe to the
root of the oak in the forest of Ohio. If the ex-
pense of removing rocks and stones should be $50
per acre, these obstructions, when removed, are
worth the money for erecting fence, and the whole
cost will be saved in the course of the first seven
years’ rotation of crops.

Draining is a subject of great importance to the
Rhode-Island farmer, for in our burning climate
those are the best lands which are reclaimed from
the water. Moist clays, bogs and morasses, are bet-
ter for the plough than for timber; but these
must first be drained. Draining must be conduct-
ed on geological principles, or the labour is lost.
The common method is to run a ditch through the
lowest part of the land intended to be drained, and
because this is never found effectual, it is conclud-
ed that the land cannot be laid dry by ditching.

Men of science will assure you, both on princi-
ple and from practice, that in all places where
there is a sufficient fall, any piece of land may be
as effectually drained as a pond may be. Such
men tell us, and experience tells us the same, that
the earth is disposed in layers or strata. It may
be of loam, of clay, of sand, of gravel, coal, slate,
oar. These strata spread themselves over the
level parts of the earth, and up acclivities with
much uniformity. But as you approach the tops
of hills and mountains, the upper strata and espe-
cially the very upper, are broken and separated ;
and upon opening the earth will be found to stand
somewhat on edge, or at an angle, more or Jess in-
ching to the zenith as the hill is more or less ele-
vated. Thus if you take a two feet globe, and cut

21

a piece of morocco leather just large enough to
cap it from the pole to the equator, and having
tacked this piece upon the globe, cut five other
pieces of exactly the same size, you will find the
two or three last pieces will not reach down to the
equator; but draw your knife across them two or
three different ways, so as to cut them through at
the pole, and you may tack them down at the
equator, in a line with the first piece ; then turn-
ing the globe so that the pole will be exactly on the
top, pour water upon it and you will find it passing
into the cuts made with your knife, and running
out between the different layers of leather at the
equator.

This, perhaps, is a pretty correct representation
of high and low land as it respects water falling
from the atmosphere. The water ascending in va-
pour, is condensed about the cold region of hill
and mountain tops; and falling upon them, passes
through the broken strata of their tops, and run-
ning down between the different layers, sometimes
breaks out upon the mountain or hill’s side, in
springs, but most commonly, issuing from their
bases, forms rills, brooks and rivers, or meeting with
some obstructions, spreads itself out into ponds or
lakes. These in the progress of years by the wash
of the mountains, the falling of leaves, plants and
trees, into them are filled,and the decomposing pow-
ers of the waters, changes all these alluvial materi-
als into mosses, bogs and morasses. If you would
drain these, you must remove the cause which has
supplied this quantity of water. In the experiment
just now mentioned of the globe, half covered with
layers of leather, when you have set it up before
you and have poured the water upon it at the pole
you will see it gushing out at the equator in a num-
ber of places. How will you prevent the falling of
this water upon your table ? Take one more strip of °
your morocco leather, perhaps half an inch wide,
fold it together edgewise, like the old fashioned

22

rand of a shoe, tack the inner edge of it exactly to
the edge of your first and innermost layer of leath-
er on your globe; and forming a conductor, it will
catch every drop of water which you may pour on
to your globe. Make a notch with your knife on
the outer edge of this conductor, and you may run
all the water into your glass again.

Do not call this trifling—it illustrates the whole
great system of draining—a system which if thor-
oughly understood, and universally practised would
add one third to the fee simple value of the lands
in the State. Ifyou draw a ditch round the bot-
tom of a hill or just where the upland and swamp
blend themselves, insuch a manner as to surround
the whole marsh and settle it to a sufficient depth,
you will cut off every water course which has form-
ed the morass. Let this ditch be conducted to the
lowest point of the ground, and if there be fall
enough, the whole body, surrounded by the ditch,
will be left in a condition to become, and to con-
tinue dry enough for the plough. Throw a row of
round stones on one side of the bottom of the ditch,
and a row of flat ones on the other, so as to reach
and rest upon these—throw in small stone and raise
them to a small distance below the deepest course
of the plough—spread the whole with a slight cov-
ering of straw, and return the earth into the ditch
again—you will then have a subterraneous water
course, permanent as your fields, and never to be
interrupted butby the percussions of such an earth-
quake as shall not only “topple down towers and
temples,” but shake the very rocks from the bosom
of the earth.

The Scotch or English farmer after he had en-
closed, cleared and drained his farm, would con-
sider the climate, soil and market, and then deter-
mine his several crops and their various rotations.
His broken lands would be appropriated to pas-
ture. His marshes to perpetual meadows, clays

23

and heavy loams to oats, potatoes, wheat and all
the various grasses for four years—three to be
mown and one pastured. The light loams,and sandy
lands would, I think, be appropriated to a seven
years’ rotation. The first two years would be giv-
en to clover. Immediately after the second year’s
mowing, early in July, the clover lay should be ma-
nured, neatly ploughed and planted with seven
thousand plants of green savoy cabbage per acre
—the rows 4 feet distant—the plants one and an
half feet. By repeated ploughings and harrow-
ings, and one hoeing, the crop will be abundant
and afford a most excellent forage for sheep, cat-
tle or swine, till the month of February. Wheat
should be sown and harrowed in about the middle
of September. Do not think a Scotchman would
be disheartened by the labour of raising cabbage.
He would know that a boy 15 years old would
plant an acre in a day, and that the whole expense
after the ground is prepared, would not exceed $ 5
per acre. The crop will vary from 10 to 30 tons
per acre according to the soil and season. The
wheat will be harvested by the tenth of July of the
next year. The ground immediately scarified—
raked with the rake attached to this instrument—
and the stubble burned on the land, or carted to
the barn-yard for litter. Furrow the ground 4 feet
apart, with a double furrow, drop 30 loads of
manure per acre in these furrows—spread it
even from end to end of them—turn the earth
back upon the manure and roll the ridges. On
these ridges if not after July 15th, drill in ruta
baga; if much later, set out plants. One or two
ploughings and harrowings, and one hoeing, will
be the whole culture. This crop must be drawn
from the fields in our climate, and cellared or bu-
ried in the ground. It is a feed for any kind of
stock equal to carrots or potatoes, and will keep
sound till the next July.

24

The next year the field is manured and appro-
priated to Indian corn and potatoes. The corn is
planted north and south in rows six feet apart and
in hills two feet from each other. The rows of
potatoes are planted between the rows of corn and
at exactly the same distance every way. Ploughs
and harrows may move freely both ways among the
crops, and one, or at the most, two hoeings will be
sufficient.

I am satisfied this is by far the best method of
cultivating corn and potatoes. Their different
heights give them enough of sunshine and their
abundant branches secure to the earth a sufficiency
of shade; and I have sometimes thought that a well
prepared field will produce two entire crops quite
as abundant as either crop would have been if it
had occupied the ground alone. The potatoes
may be harvested in September, and the ground
between the rows of corn harrowed in to rye.

When this crop is cradled from the ground the
next year, let it be furrowed three feet apart—ma-
nured in the furrows with 20 loads of compost
per acre, the earth turned back upon it, the midges
rolled, and two rows of turnips drilled upon each
ridge. These turnips should be thinned to 10
inches apart in the rows, but neither be ploughed
or hoed.

The next year this field should be manured with
25 loads per acre of compost—the ground well
ploughed to the depth of 10 inches, and scarified
until perfectly mellow, rolled and made smooth,
and then driiled with carrot seed, at two feet dis-
tant, row from row and the work finished by the
first week in June. This crop should be repeat-
edly ploughed and harrowed, hand-hoed_ twice
and thinned to three inches, plant from plant—
The expense after the ground is prepared, will not
exceed § 7 per acre, and the crop, if well conduct-
ed, exceed 500 bushels. [ have seen 600 on three

25

fourths of an acre, and [ do not doubt that this year
{ have seen two acres out of six which will produce
fifteen hundred bushels. No crop better than this
rewards the labour of the husbandman. It is in
all respects superiour to potatoes, which have long
been considered the principal root-crop of New-
England. It is more abundant in product, requires
less labour, is more easily preserved, for consider-
able frosts do not injure it, and it affords, in its na-
tural state, amore abundant and better nutriment
for all domestick animals.

The next year the ground must be given to clo-
ver seed, with oats or barley, sown in the spring,
or, after either of these crops have been taken
from the land in mid July, plough in the stubble,
sow your clover seed and oats with it, to be mown
in October for forage. Either of these methods
will do; butif the land be rich, as it must be in this
rotation, the last is much the most profitable ; and
the young clover is much less liable to be ruined
by the frost of winter, than by the burning suns of
summer.

This rotation! think a Scotch or English farmer
would follow, so soon as he should understand our
soil and climate. It is nearly one hundred per
cent. superiour to any thing which is or can be
done in England or Scotland. It will give thirteen
crops in seven years.

This system too embraces the great principle
of all rotations, “never let two white crops suc-
ceed each other on the same land.” But it can-
not be conducted without a large quantity of ma-
nure.

To this great object the farmers whom I have
been mentioning would give a most devout atten-
tion. On this part of the subject, it is possible the
nasal criticism of fastidiousness may be offended.
But if delicacy shudder at the name of manure, let
her learn, that the very gales of Arabia, which “ far

4

26

off make old ocean smile,” would become arid and
scentless as the simoon, were it not for this all in-
vigorating principle. All matter is probably uni-
form in its original state, and the most fascinating
and most loathsome masses of it, when reduced to
their primitive condition, exhibit the same ele-
ments. ‘The diamond blazing on the diadem of
royalty, may have ripened into brilliancy from the
cindered and charred earcasses of trees and ani-
mals; and the rose blushing on the bosom of beau-
ty, has doubtless stolen its fragrance from the elab-
orated effluvia of reeking offal. Do not let us mor-
tals, inch high only as we are, and sprung from the
dust but yesterday, greatly marvel at the quality of
food which our parent earth is hourly swallowing.
She does indeed like a fond mother feed and nour-.
ish all her children, im all their various families of
plants, trees and animals, and then like a cruel can-
nibal she feeds and fattens upon them. Not only
the humble flower and the lofty oak, but the eye
that sparkles. and the cheek that blooms, may go
the course through which Hamlet traces his king,
and
‘‘ Great Alexander dead and turned to clay,.
‘** May stop a hole to keep the wind away.”

All organized, material substances must submit
{o the great law of perpetual mutation,

“ Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne,”
“ They rise, they break, and to the sea return.”

The fop and the dandy may start and put his
handkerchief to his prominent feature, when
masses of the fertilizing principle pass “ between
the wind and his nobility,” but the philosophick
agriculturalist will look on them as the great col-
lections of rich ore, to be elaborated by the earth
into abundant harvests of golden grain.

On this part of the subject, I had intended to
detail whatever reading, instruction or experience

27

have thrown m my way, concerning the great prin-
ciple of fertilization, the various sources from which
it may be derived, and the application of it to dif-
ferent soils and productions. It may not now for
want of time be done ; but I cannot in justice pass
it, without some general observations.

By the principles of nature all things capable of
dissolution are reduced to it, by air, heat and moist-
ure exciting a fermentation in them. Whatsoever
is perishable on the whole face of the earth, is, by
certain chemical qualities in the soil, transmuted
into the means of producing food for plants. Things
most loathsome to the senses pass through this
great laboratory, into all that regales and delights
them. An universal principle of dissolution and
animation pervades the world, and nothing that
perishes can be finally lost from the great mass of
material nature. Whatever of animal or vegetable
substance may be thrown on the streams of rivers,
or immersed in the, main ocean, is, after being
washed into other forms, deposited on their banks
or shores, or aiding the growth of marine vegeta-
bles, is by the waves driven to land, and may be
carried up again to renovate the soil. Every veg-
etable and every animal perspires many times its
weight, in the course of its existence. Around all
material substances in a state of dissolution, there
isa thick atmosphere of the most volatile particles
of them. These are all carried off in the air, and
mingling with the moist part of it, alight in dews or
descend in showers, to enrich the earth. The air,
the earth and water thus unite in one continued ef-
fort to give verdure, and bloom, and fertility, and
if possible, perpetual youth to the world. Were it
not for the success of this effort, the goodly crea-
tion had long ago become a “ sterile promontory.”
Take most of the habitable parts of it, and many of
them have for thousands of years been scourged
with a most exhausting succession of crops; yet not-

28

withstanding all this, and all the negligence of their
cultivators in collecting manure to fertilize them,
they still continue to reward the husbandman with
arich harvest. Sicily was the granary of Rome,
then more populous than Paris now, and at a time
too when that island had more inhabitants, in all
probability, than are now contained in New-Eng-
land. It has been ever since, and is at this day,
quite as productive as formerly. The quantity of
wheat produced on a single acre of this island,
since its first cultivation, must be almost incalcu-
lable. What could have supplied this immense
quantity of vegetable food? Surely not the ma-
nures spread on the ground by the labourers ; nor
are the Sicilians more skilful husbandmen than
can be found in other nations. No soil can of it-
self be perpetually fertile. Whence then this con-
tinued productiyeness ? Nature is constantly mak-
ing an effort to overcome the ravages of man, and
to restore herself to her original condition. In
some places it is more, in some less, vigorous.—
Parts of the earth are found where it can give per-
petual fertility; in other regions several years are
required to restore exhausted lands, and all that
ever were fertile would, if left to themselves, in
time become so again, by the aid of these mighty
agents of nature.

The earth was once a garden; not a dead un-
varied level like the shores of the Nile. Lybia had
then its wastes of sand. Europe was covered with
green fields, American mountains heaved their
snowy heads to the clouds. The brown regions
of Asia were spread out into immeasurable plains ;
rivers then as now swept along in silent streams,
or thundered down in cataracts, and ocean rolled
his mighty confluence of waters, and with his bil-
lows laved all the shores of the globe. This was
indeed a garden, rich in all the varieties which
could be spread upon it by that hand which gar-

29

nished the heavens. Man, awaking from the dust,
gazed on all things round him, and if not satisfied
with what his eye could reach, might in fancy hft
himself from the hill-top he had climbed, and look
down on the globe rolling beneath his feet, and pre-
senting to his eye all the rich regions of the earth.
How naturally did he exclaim,
“ Needs must the Power

“ That made us, and for us this ample world,
“ Be infinitely good.”

This world might still be a garden ; the curse of
human disobedience was not spread out upon the
soil—no; man, who was by heaven placed in this
garden to dress and tend it, became by disobedience
what he is now, unmindful of this great command,
and scourged some parts of it down to barrenness,
and suffered others to grow up into weeds and
briars and brambles. The Power that rules us
produces all effects by general laws. It is the duty
of man to bring particular cases with the influence
of them. This requires labour, but Paradise itself
was not exempt fromit. We have acountry grate-
ful to the hand of cultivation, genial suns, refresh-
ing dews, enriching showers, various soils, and
abundant materials to restore fertility to them when
exhausted. Let every hill and vale and plain teem
with the most abundant harvest; no surplusage
will be left to perish on our hands. Only drive
violence and robbery from the great highway of na-
tions, our commerce unrestrained will unite these
shores with other continents, feed and clothe the
people of a thousand realms with the harvest of
American fields and the fabricks of American
looms, and in exchange pour into the lap of our
country the wealth of every quarter of the globe.

OFFICERS

Of the Rhode-Island Society for the Encourage-
ment of Domestick Industry, for the
present year.

JAMES RHODES, President.
SAMUEL SLATER, Ist,
JAMES D. WOLF, 2d, Vice-Presidents.
SAMUEL KING, 3d,
“a Sranrorp Newen, T'reasurer.
Wituiam E. Ricumonp, Sceretary.

Standing Committee.

PHILIP ALLEN,

JESSE TOURTELLOTT,
DUTEE ARNOLD,
RICHARD ANTHONY,
DEXTER THURBER,
SAMUEL GREENE,
CHRISTOPHER RHODES,
ALBERT C. GREENE,
THOMAS BUFFUM,
JEREMIAH THURSTON,
WILLIAM WILKINSON,”
NATHAN BOWEN,
CHARLES DYER, |
FREEBORN SISSON,

ELISHA OLNBY,
JESSE BROWN,
JOHN JENCKES,
GEORGE D’WOLF,
STEPHEN T. NORTHAM,
JOHN HOWLAND,
JOSEPH 8S. COOKE,
JOHN B. FRANCIS,
GIDEON SPENCER,
WILLIAM HARRIS,
GEORGE W. TILLING-
HAST, and
ASHER ROBBINS.

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