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BEING A SERIES 09

AGRICULTURAL ESSAYS,
PRACTICAL $ POLITICAL:

In Sixty-One Numbers.
Second Edition. ...Revised and Enlarged.

L?

By Col. JOHN TAYLOR,
Hi

Of Carouse CoisTr. Virginia.

Copy-Rkht Secured.
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED

By J. M. CARTER.

Georgetown, Columbia

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Price gl:~5, in boards.

PREFACE;

BY THE PUBLISHER.

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 tojudge
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
charge is, tne 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

417*

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 incongruitv
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 improvement 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. Lawyers and Physicians will have
richer clients and patients, and receive better fees.
The Politician m«y find more resources for defend-
ing his country, maintaining her independence and
rewarding patriotism. The Printers will sell more
books and newspapers. And the Parmer, 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 bed prosperity over ah q -se classes,
has some c. . ^cnt ral 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 in-
formation will be found in the following sheets.

ABATOR.

NUMBER^.

IHt ERBSENT STATE OF AGRICULTURE.

I shall consider in a succession of short es-
says, the present state of agriculture in the
United States, its oppressions and defects, and
the remedies, political and domestic, which it
Tieeds. 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-
larly apply to all states using slaves, or to the
three enumerated states.

Mr. Strickland, an Englishman, reputed
to he sensihie and honest, puhlished at London
in the year 1801, a 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 country,
for the special purpose of investigating it....
The judgment of this impartial stranger ap-
pears in the following quotations. — Page 20" :
" Land in America affords little pleasure or
profit, and appears in a progress of continually
alfordirig less." — P. 31 : " Virginia is in a ra-
pid decline.'* — P. 38 ; " Land in New-York,
formerly producing twenty bushels to the
acre, now produces only ten." — 1\ 11 : •• Lit
2.

Library
N . C State College

|i IB.-Z PEE;E5T sliTX,

lie 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 bare lee."

P. i.3 : •• Virginia is the southern limit of my
enquiries, because agriculture had there al-
ready arrived to its lowest -rate of degradati-
on.''— P. 4 9 : '< The land owners in this state
are? with a few exceptions, in low ran-

ce- : the inferior rank of them wrc i the

extremes* — P. 5,' : •• Decline has pervaded all
the stat.-."

These conclusions, if true, are awfully
threatning to the libeityand prosperity of a
country, whose hostage for both is agriculture.
An order of men. canting a hare subsistence,
in law rircumstaneeSj and -those inferior rank
is wretched in the udretac, cannot possibly con-
stitute a moral force, adequate to either ob-
ject. Ii is therefore highly important to the
agricultural elass, to ascertain whether it is
. that agriculture is in a decline. — A de-
cline tei ery other progress, at
the end bfits tendency.

Upon reading the opinion of this disinter-
ested fereigner, my impressions were, indigna-
tion, alarm, conviction : inspired successively,
by a love for my country, a fear for its wel-
b, and a reeolleetion of facts.

The terrible farts, that the strongest chord
which vibrat es on the heart of man, cannot tie
pie to the natal spot, that they view it
with horror, and flee from it to new climes
with Joy, determine f;ur agricultural pi
to l-c a progress of emigration, and net of im-
provi -rm nt : and lead to an ultimate recoil
from this exhausted resource,, toaa e.\hausud
atry.

<IF AGRIGULTURE. It

K UMBER 2.

THE PRESENT STATE OF AGRICULTURE,
CONTINUED.

A patient must know that he is sick, before he
will take physic. A collection of a few facts,
to ascertain the ill health of agriculture, is ne-
cessary to invigorate our efforts towards a cure.
One, apparent to the most superficial observer,
is, that our land has diminished in fertility. —
Arts improve the work of nature — When tliey
injure it, they are not arts, but barbarous cus-
toms. It is the office 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 an
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 to 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 other ? Yet it is a fact, that lands in their
natural state, are more valuable, than those
which have undergone our habit of Agricul-
ture, of which emigrations are complete
proofs.

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

12- THE PEESE5T STATE

not to an increased product, but to an increas-
ed; whereas, in every ease, where
pasture is limited, or isolated In local eir-
- . small towns l^c sprung up,
he lands, were fresh^ and decayed-,
they v. ere worn out. I have no facts to as-
certain certainly the products of Agriculture
liSerent periods relatively to the number
of i oil would furnish a demonstrati-
e. But I have understood, tJ

of tobacco, wercex-
. oiu Virginia, when it contained a!
one-fourth of its present population* If so,
had the fertility of tbe country remained un-
diminished, Virginia ought now to export two
hundred and forty thousand hogsheads, or an
equivalent. In this estimate, every species of
jii cxeept tobacco, is excluded at one
epoeh, and exports of every kind included at
' •! (he latter would fall far short

of exhibiting the equivalent necessary to bring
9ting, as to agriculture, with <b*
former. Two hundred and forty thousand
hoj.- r tobacco, which, op an equivalent,

Virginia would now export, if the state of
agriculture had been as nourishing as it wa*
b past, at the present va-
lue, by which all our exports are rated, would
be worth above seventeen millions of dollars ;
and g Virginia to furnish one seventh

part of the native agricultural exports of tbe
ht now to amount to
-.-lie hun< millions of dollars,

had the products of agriculture kej>t |tace with
increase of population. If this statement
is n*n exactly correct, enough' of it certain h i»
so, to demonstrate a rapid impoverisl meat of
■f the United States.

OF AGtllCUXTUTLE. 13

The decay of the culture of tobacco is te^ti
mony to this unwelcome fact. It is deserted
because the la ids 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
with 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 artifi-
cially increased. Whole counties compri-
sing large districts of country, which once
grew tobacco in great quantities, are now too
sterile to grow anv of moment : and the wheal
erops substituted for tobacco, have already
sunk to an average below profit.

From the mass of facts, to prove that tho
fertility of our country has been long declin-
ing, ami that our agriculture is in a miserable
state, I shall only select one more. The ave-
rage of our native exports, is about forty 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 the
• of flour, has passed through the hands oi
the manufacturer. Of the first portion he
receives the v\ hole 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 receive.*
about thirty five. The taxes of every kind,
state and federal. m:y 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 sour-

14 THE l'KEsENT sTATE

ccs of product and expenee in estimating the
state of agriculture, the people of the U.tited
States, may probably amount to about se^en
millions, and it may be fairlv assumed, tl
the interest or occupation of six millions
these seven, is agricultural. Of the whole
surplus product of agriculture exported, after
deducting the taxes it pays, t!\
each individual a few cents a dol-

lars. Out of this mass of pi*
for the manufactures, luxuries and
lies he consumes, not raised by L
the only remaining article tube carried to
credit of rgiiculture, is the small gain it
live? from its domestic sales, not to itself,
•m sclcs by one of its members to ano-
Jier, for that docs not enrich it. but to other
classes, Such as manufacturers an J soldiers.

•ir.st the former, agrieolture is to be debit-
ed with the bounties she is- made b^
pay them 5 against the latter^ she Las been
already debited by deducting her taxes f:
her exports. Neither can be a soi

alth or profit to her. because in one
furnishes the money by taxation, and in the o-
thcr by bounties, vith which I
purchased. It is therefore
Jiie income of agriculture is : 'ar»

per poll, and that this income i and

for supplying her wants and cxtti im-

provements. This estimate ;
correct, than one drawn fi 6m individual
or poverty. To infer from the fust ti
ry booy might become rich as a defence of our

ienliural regimen, would be a conclusion as
fallacious, as to infer from the

■ ■

0* AUKlCCLlliRE. 1*

badness. Extraordinary talents or industry
"will 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 nut to exhibit cases of individual prosperi-
ty, has never appeared, because an universal
scourge would he universally abhorred. It i9
uot 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 impove-
rishment of laud, are calculated to establish ;i
visible standard of comparison. A man must
be old and possess a turn for observation front
his youth, to be able to judge eorrecHy from
this source. I have known many farms 1V
above forty years, and though 1 think that all
of them have been greatly impoverished, y<
1 rely more upon the general facts 1 have sta-
ted for agreeing with Strickland in opinion
•• that the agriculture of the United States
affords only a hare subsistence — that the fer-
tility of our lands is gradually declining — and
that the agriculture of Virginia has arrived to-
the lowest state of degradation*?'

16 tiie Political state

NUMBER 3.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTURE.

In collecting the causes which hare contri-
buted to th«' miserable agricultural state of the
country as it is a national calamity of the high-
est magnitude, ve should be careful not to be
Minded by partiality for our customs or insti-
tutions, nor corrupted by a disposition to flat-
ter ourselves or ethers. 1 shall begin with
those of a political nature. These are a se-
condary providence, which govern unseen the
great interests of' society : and if agricul'
is bad and languishing in a country and cli-
mate, where it may be good and prosperous,
no doubt remains with me. that political insti-
tutions have chiefly perpetrated the evil : just
as they decide the fate »f commerce.

The device of subjecting it to the payment
of bounties to manufacturing, is an institution
of this hind. 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 effected, except by factions legally
created at the publick expence. The wealth
transferred from the nation to such factions, de-
votes them to the will of the government, by
which it is bestowed. They must renderthe ser-
vice for which it was given, orit would be tarken
away. It is unexceptionable given to support a
government against a nation, or cue faction
against another. Armies, loaning, banking,
and an intricate treasury system, endowing a

OF AGRICULTURE. 17

government with the absolute power of apply-
ing public money, tinder the cover of nominal
cheek?., are ether devices of this kind. "What-
ever strength or wealth a government and its
legal tactions acquire by law. is taken from a
nation : and whatever is taken from a nation,
weakens and impoverishes that interest, which
composes the niajority. There, political »p:
pressicn in every form must finally fall* how-
ever it may oscillate during the period el
transit from a good to a bad government.
as sometimes to scratch factious-. 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 without la-
bor, a share in the harvest of wealth and pow-
er, bestowed by laws at i'.s cxpence, thins its
ranks; an annual tribute to these legal facti-
ons, empties its purse ; and poverty debilitates
both its soil and understanding.

The device of protecting duties, under th&
\n\ iext 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 suhstanccs.it helps to rear
up an aristocrat ieal order at the expenec of
tUe workers in earth, to unite with govern-
ments in oppressing every species of useful in-
dustry.

The products of agriculture and manufac-
turing, unshackled by law, would seek each fut-

IS THL POLITICAL STaTC

ne#*
oial channels, bttl these markets would bu:

ever be the same; protecting du«i» s tie tra-

-rs together, whose business and intc
lie i:i <]]." re upon

nature, will, like ail unnatural ligatures, wea-
ken or kill. The best marki
eui: i -, whilst ihe !

i ket; of v.uv Dianofaetorefl are at home-— *
Our agriculture has to cross the ocean, and
encounter a competition with foreign agri-
culture on its own ground. Our manufactures
meet at home a competition with foreign manu-
factures. The disadvantages of the first com-
petition., suffice to excite all the efforts of agri-
culture to Bare her life : the advantages of
the second suffice gradually to bestow a sound
constitution on manufacturing. But the ma-
nufacture of an aristocratical interest, under
the pretext of encouraging work of a very dif-
ferent nature, may reduce both manufacturers
and husbandmen, as Strickland says is already
effected in the ease of the latter, to the lowest
state of degradation."

This degradation could never have been seen
by a friend to either, who could afterwards
approve of protecting duties. Let us take the
article of wheat to unfold an idea of the disad-
vantages w Inch have produced it. If w heat is
Wforth HTs. sterling m England the rolb. the
fan. it here at about 6s. sterling. —

American agriculture then nu i-h 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 manu-
factures take the field against English on
very different terms. These competitors meet

Or AGRICULTURE. 19

in the United States. The American 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
lor actual manufacturers, to intercept advan-
tages too enormous to escape the vigilance of
capital, impoverish husbandmen, and aid in
changing a fail to a fraudulent government ;
but they will never make either of these in-
trinsically valuable classes richer, wiser or
freer.

i hl, politic _vx ^tati

NUMBER 1.

"HE PC

In fins number] shall consider a reason Tor
protecting duties to encourage manufactures,
which if h i> sound; overturns the whole argu-
ment against them. In every essay en behalf
of manufactures, we are told, that by emu g
tliis class with bounties and privileges. v*e
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 h
price of wheat in England, is contrasted with
its low price here, to prove the latter ass.
on. It Mould he 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-
gy, army. navy, hankers and national debt
holders, 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
io buy high prices, by creating and maim.

©F AGRICULTURE. 21

ing 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 ofi*k» 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 such a 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 agrieulture in England, in bes-
towing money on noble, clerical, military aud
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

a.

22 THE POLITICAL STATE

manufacturers. One manufacturer supplies
man} labourers. Before the promise of Eng-
lish prices for bread and meat, tobacco and
eottou, 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-
biued wiih its"*oftier promise ef providing a
market for agriculture. The promise ^ f a
market, as we see in the experience of Eng-
land, ean only be made good, by reducing the
agricultural class to a tenth part of the na-
tion, and increasing manufacturers bv great
liianufaetural 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. Diseoutent 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
classes necessary to reduce the number of
agriculturists, low enough to raise the prices of
tli.ii- products, shall we become more inde-
pendent of foreign nations? What! Secure
our independence Tvj bankers and capitalists ?
St cure our independence by impoverishing,
discouraging and annihilating nine-tenths of
our sound yeomanry : By turning them into
swindlers, and dependents ou a master capi-
talist for daily bread.

OF AGRICULTURE. 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 hest 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
metamorphose 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 majority
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 beginstobe strong-
ly suspected, but the third has artfnlly 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 tor national honour; and the
real craft of advancing the pecuniary interest
of a few capitalists ; have conspired to paint
a protecting duty system, into so strong a re-

2* THE P&LITICJlL STATE

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

Library
N. C. State College

OF AGRICULTURE. 25

NUMBER 5.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTURE,
CONTINUED.

English Agriculture has completely tried
the project of enriching itself, by 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 own
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, loanersand
capitalists in abundance, and all of them have
an influence in the government. These are
the markets in 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
wealth they retain.

If the agriculture of the United States
would 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 les*

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
wheat, 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
itseli'in the happiest situation for prosperity
imaginable at the end of the revolutionary
Avar. It had not yet become such an egregi-
ous gudgeon as to believe, that by giving ten
millions of dollars every year to the trihe 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
certainly have the effect of raising agricultu-
ral prices very considerably ; but the agricul-
turists who pay and maintain these classes,
sliil 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 AGRICULTURE. 27

paid none of the ruinous expence of wealth or
libeity, which they cost. They might have
reaped the good, and avoided the evil. And
agriculture for once in its life, might have
done itself justice. But the wiseacre chose to
reap the 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 weak
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 by crea-
ting the English items of capitalists, or mas-
ters for manufacturers, bankers, lem'. rs, ar-
mies and navies. Our true interest was to pay
nothing for markets, spurious and swindling to

5S THE POLITICAL STATE

those who buy them, and ret to share in their
euhaneement 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 1 know many built
before v>hieh have fallen into deeay. Our
agriculture is complimented by presidents, go-
vernors, legislators and individuals : and the
Turks reverence a particular order of people
as being also favoured by heaven.

Ifct

or AGBICLLTITRE. 29

NUMBER 6.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTURE,
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 tliat protecting duties, or whatever else
shall damn agricultural effort, and impoverish
the lands of our country, is the only real and
fatal foe to manufactures ; and that a flourish-
ing agriculture w ill beget and enrich manufac-
tures, as rich pastures multiply and fatten
animals. He, who killed the goose to come at
her golden eggs, was such a politician, as he
who burdens cur expiring agriculture, to raise
bounties for our flourishing manufactures. —
He kills the cause of the e;,(! he looks fur.

I meet such an insinuation by another argu-
ment. Protecting duties impoverish and en-

s!f,v: L~:.":;frj^:r?r^he™?cfres, and are so far

t .. !.ing intended to operate in their favor,
or ' l \' ,\ . •■ of a nation, that their end and effect
simply, is to favor monied capital, which will
scz 5 u}M)n and appropriate to itself, the whole
profit of the bounty extorted from the people
h; protecting duties ; and allow as scanty wa-
ges to its workmen, as it ean. Monied capt-
tal drives industry without money out of the
market, and forces it into its service, in every
ca»e where the object of contest is an enor-
mous income. The wages it allows to indus-
try are always regulated by the expenee of

SO 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
say 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 themerean-
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, and place over themselves
an order of masters called capitalists, \vhich
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, ihe protecting
duty pill, or an equivalent drug, gilded with
the national advantage of dealing with fellow
subjects; and, after 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 AGRTCULT¥EiE. 31

depended considerably in both cases, 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-
uufuclural wants, and an ability to supply
ihem. 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-
icui is obtained, to get at its old markets (he
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 of agi'icultnre, would com-
plete its prosperity.

ft 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 sue*
tess of the project would annihilate.

32 THE POLITICAL STATE

NUMBER 7.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTURE,
CONTINUED.

The blessings of complete success in the plan
of expelling foreign manufactures, by raising
bounties upon Agriculture, may be exhibited
by figures upon data, however conjectural in
amount, eorrect in principle* Suppose agri-
culture annually to bring 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, Sl«50 for build-
ing houses, paying expences and improving
lands. But if we take into the account, that
foreign nations neither would nor could pay our
agriculturists with specie for their produce,
that they would countervail upon this prepos-
terous project, and that every countervailing
jact of theirs, would operate upon our agricul-
tural products, even this Si. 50 would become
the victim of retaliation, and leave the farmer
as fundless for purchasing manufactures, as
for improving his land.

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

OP AGHICTTXTTBE. 35

ter universally allowed. England takes spe-
cial care not to limit the sales of her manu-
factures directly or indirectly to returns in
specie, knowing that the attempt would des-
troy them. She endows them with the home
monopoly, and freedom to make the hest bar-
gains in all the foreign markets they can get
to. Manufacturing is her staple : agriculture
is ours.

The United States hit exactly upon the same
mode for the encouragement of our agricul-
ture after the revolution that the English did
before it, for the purpose of pillaging it. E-
vcry 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, arc,
quietly submitting to this spectre of patriot-
ic in-

The English before the revolution, quarter-
ed upon p«r agriculture, a necessity of buying
its manufactures at home, or within the em-
pire, whilst it enjoyed the equivalents of bei: «
free from iheir taxation, from paying auy of
the interest of their paper systems, from con-
tributions for supporting their armies, navies,
bishops and pensioners, from the frauds of
their treasury system, and of sharing in the
enhanced prices, produced by fraud which did
uot reach the provinces. The same svstem
inflicted by congress, is attended with none of
these equivalents. Agriculture pavs and must
forever pay most of whatever is collected by
taxes, by charters, by protecting duties, by pa-
per systems of every kind, for'armies, fo*r na-
vies, and though last, not the h*ast of its los-
ses, of whatever the nation is defrauded by a,
4.

Ji THE rOLITICAl STATE

treasury system 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 number of bauds 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 [io resist which she
had spent her blood and treasure in a long war
with that nation; been guided by these consi-
derations, she would nothave been subjected to
the very evil?, to avoid which, she hud so re-
cently and gloriously persevered through that
war.

The effecis of yoking agriculture to armies,
na\ ies, paper frauds, treasury frauds, and pro-
tecting duty frauds since a revolution, which
it labored for, like the ox who tills the crop
10 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 Loth 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
op; osite principles.

All the varieties of this order receive boun-
ties, and agriculture pays them. They gain
from six to twpn#7"prr centum profit on their
capitals : agriculture seldom or never gains
sis, except in a few southern instances. In
fiic t, it very rarely ^aius any thing, if aa hi-

©TAGRICriTUHE. So

rcmc, derived from an impoverishment of the
land, ill deserves the name of profit.

The injustice of superadding upon agricul-
ture these unnecessary hardens to those which
are necessary, is illustrated hy supposing the
duties upon foreign manufactures to he only
five per centum, and nearly or quite all our
duties are ahove the supposition. To such
duties are still to he added (he profits of the
Knglish and American merchants, through
■whose 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^suni
quite adequate to any encouragement which
lionest pciir-y would defnid, or common r jus-
tice sufier. And as all the occasional calami-
ties of commerce, are losses to agriculture,
and prizes to manufactures, her fatuity in
kneeling like the camel to receive burdens,
under the notion that she is receiving boun-
ties, can have no antithesis more perfect, than
the species of dexterity which inflicts them*.

56? THE POLITICAL STATE

NUMBER s.

T.HE POLITICAL STATE OF AGEIC'JLIIRJ

v. ;NTINV£D.

Protecting du!ies to enrich manufacturer*,
are Iil».c backs 10 enrich farmers, bishops to
save souls, or feudal lords to defend nations.
Ungland has demonstrated the character of
each member of this kindred c]uariuui\irau\
Protected by feudal lords.it was conquered
almost by everv invader ; taught by bishops,
•..jii,,,.,!.!.. iiuvM.u- ;„ .jn distilled ^,„„^n «•;

inferior ranks, deposits lis essence in this re-
verend order of senrifity- and selfishness ; en-
riched bv bankers, farmers See from the culti-
vation of lands, which yield the highest nomi-
nal returns to agricultural labor of any in the
world, until a surplus of bread is exchanged
for a deficiency ; and fed \>ith the endiess
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 distributing wealth by
law, can '»uly subsist by frauds and deceptions
to dupe ignorance into an opinion, that such dis-
tributions are intended for is benefit: but iu
genuine republics founded on the principle of
leaving wealth to be distributed by merit and
industry, these treacheries of government are
treasons against nations.

They suhstilale the principle which eeastt-

OF AGRICULTCRE.

tufcs 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 iuto an opinion,
that a distribution of wealth by the govern-
ment or by law, will advaice 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,
bestowed 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 gi\e it to the
majority, with that of its defrauding the ma-
jority to enrich itself and its partizans ; and
you will aceount for the regular current of
experience. Consider, however splendidly a
minority may live upon the labours of a ma-
jority, ihat 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 Hatter ourselves, that laws can be
made to enable majorities to plunderthe.se mi-
norities, or to plunder themselves ; or to fat-
ten a man by feeding him with sliees cut from
his own body. If a scheme could be contriv-
ed in favor of agriculture, similar to the pro-
tectingduty scheme in favor of manufacturers,
it would enslave thefarmersasit does manufac-
turers. The utmost favor which it is possible
for a government to do for us farmers and me-
o.

33 THE POLITICAL STATE

chanics, 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, ne>er fail to see that
their interest points to a republican form of
government, for the very purpose of prevent-
ing the passage of laws for quartering or pas-
turing on them minor interests. These ma-
jorities are the pasture upon which all minor
factitious interests, however denominated, fat-
ten : and it would 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 eudow it, is the enjoy-
ment of that portion of its own earning, which
the public good can spare. "Whenever boun-
ties are pretended to be bestowed on labour,
by privileges to feudal barons to defend it, to
bishops to save it, or to capitalists or bankers
to enrich it. an arisiocratical 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 aud mechanical

OF AGRICULTURE. 39

interest, the interest of labour, or the majority
of the nation, as to have delivered this majo-
rity, shackled by protecting duties, bounties
and prohibitions, into the hands of an inconsi-
derable monied aristocracy, or combination of
capitalists. Iuto this net, woven of intricate
frauds and ideal credit, the majority of the
nation, the interest of labour, the agricultu-
rists and mechanics have run, 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
political harpy, 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 shouid 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 for,
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 cheat, 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 nest 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 beiug 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.

01? AOXICULTUEE. 4£

NUMBER 9.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTURE,
CONTINUED.

Prosperity neither in manufactures, nor in
paper speculations, is ever expected without a
capital, ami yet capital is filched from agricul-
ture, under the preteuee that it will produce
her prosperity. The capital thus filched is
made hy laws to yield a better profit, without
labor, than it could with it. s*wd becomes a
premium offered by government to those who
desert the labors of agriculture. Hence w©
see capital Irving from the fields, 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 the slow im-
provements of agriculture. These 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
by 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
may have thrown into their hand:*. Audi tfce

l& THE POLITICAL STATE

capital thus drained from the uses of agrieuf-
ture, by this irresistible and perpetual legal
system, has reduced it to a skeleton for want
of nourishment.

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-infiicting operation in the
52d acd 53d pages of his pamphlet. »* Be-
fore the revolution. " says he, ■•the capital
"of the country was vested in the lands, and
** the landed proprietor's held the first rank in
•* the country for opulence and information,
" and in gei:r!>'. scceived the best education
" which America, and not unfrequemiy, ZTu-
" rope, could afford them. *' Now, « the ca-
u pital, as well as the government of the coun-
*' try has slipt out of the hands of land ow-
'• ners ; and these new people are employed
*• in very different, and. in the present state of
''things, more productive speculations than
'•the cultivation of lands ,- in speculations
'• frequently at variance with the best inter-
•• ests of the country. In some of the states,
" the gentlemen of landed property have pas-
sed into perfect oblivion: in uone do they
" bear the sway, or even possess their due
'•' share of influence.*' On the eleventh day of
January, 1797, a committee was raised in
congress for the promotion of agriculture who
reported "That the encouragement of agrieul-
" lure 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
H fro are e ©f national wealtk and prosperity —

QF AGRICUXT¥RE. 4v

" and that ihe seience of agriculture was ia
" its infancy." One would have thought that
these sentiments would have suggested the
folly of starving this useful infant, to fat tea
the pernicious legal infant called capital ; of
compressing one into a dwarf & stretching the
other intoa giant. No such thing. It was dan-
dled a little. A toy fop its amusement called
«• the American Society of Agriculture," was
talked of. This toy was found to be uncon-
stitutional because it would add hut little to
the power of the general government, and the
infant was turned to graze in impoverished
fields. The constitution was construed to ex-
clude congress from the power of fostering a-
grieulture by patents or bounties, and to give
it the power of fostering banks and raauufac-
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. Agriculture, ia
its foundering, like an ox whilst breaking,
gave the statesman a tumble, and then tame-
ly submitted to the yoke he had fashioned,

>i THE POIITICAX STATE

NUMBER 10,

•THX POLITICAL STATE Of AGE ICULTVRE,
CONTINUED.

As agricultural improvements cannot be
made without capital ; as capital will not be
employed in them, if it can find more profita-
ble employment ; as the laws have created a
v.-.rictv of employments for capital, attracting
it by bounties and premiums drawn from agri-
culture ; and as this .subtraction from one 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 improve-
ments cannot take place, whilst -a policy so
completely fitted to counteract them, remains.
Bring before vour mind some twenty or thirty
modes of employing capital, and imagine that
one of them produces the least profit and most
toil ; and further, that (his one is oppressed in
various ways to advance the prosperity of all
the rest. Could one of the emblems of agri-
culture himself (mentioned in the last number)
conceive, that capital would fiy from all the
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 an imaginary,
kiit .a real ease.

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 everv thine;
■which a fertile country and a flourishing agri-
- culture nurtures ; and the bounty of protect-
ing duties will inflict upon the manufacturer*
themselves, or real workmen, in lieu of com-
fort and competence, which a mul ( itude of them
would gain by free industry, an impossibility
of obtaining either, with the consolatory pros-
pect of tie vasJ: wealth of their 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-
ts , sufficing, if cultivated to make England
a great exporter of bread stuffy lies uncultiva-
ted. The average crop of wheat in England is
about 35 bushels an acre, and the average
price about los. 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 live shillings
sterling. AVill one seventh or one fourth of
the crops, and one third of the price here, e-
nable agriculture to bear a system, under
■which, with a product and price ten or t ^ ;jn-
tj fold better, it is not enabled to supply a
b.

1- .THI. FGTITICaL sTfTE

ration with bread ? An acre of wheat in En-
gland pi m - •• the farmer* 261. 5* stei lin^ :
here in some states li 10< in other* SL stea-
ling. Aadbere the profits m 3 -jobbing,
nr c: - -. are as great a? in England. —
If agrici 1 rices,
is so bad a business tbere, 1 mnpared with ere-
s to be unable 10 raise bread for
t be : a I fa e do our product* and pri-
efs ri enounce uj on it here ;

A. material between the landed

-• of the United Siat» s and ci England,

geof the former. Inere it

1- distio t from agrien'i&rtS and associated

a ■ pita lists. Here it i»

fated without e-

feed that aristoerae£. There it

isaL .here it is a tenant. There it?

ii niih capital to embark in ihe

; • ;• gj ocges for g the earn-

i . - ■ I ' !. : ; : bere it i? labor itself v, la.se

- ■ se nionej sponges &©i a. TL

fed with the most delicious inorsels of

. 53 «'< m for pil-

labor : here, but a

ofthese mora '.- fall to its share, and the-e

en previously tarred from iis own

■ est of idh pess legis-

- - fai 1. r of idleness

(lie interest ofls .■-.',-. tr?,. anil it *]-

ui favor of idleness.

OF agriculture. 47

NUMBER ii.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTURE,
CONTINU b.D.

The political evits which hear upon agri-
culture, are a providence which will unaltera-
bly determi^' hs fi«e, unless they are remov-
ed, ami therefore Nie^otily remedy, which eaii
avert this fate" is to remove them. I shall
quote Strickland hut once more, because hi*
veracity is insufferable. I have selected hi-
therto his softest passages, for he asserts, that
oar »»»! ;s nearly a caput mortuum : that <>ur
landed property is no longer an object of profit
or | hasure: — that few £cdd houses are buiid-
ing m I he country, or improvements of any
kind taking place : and that the opulent arc
quitting it for the towns. But when he says
page hSt "the mass of those we should call
»' planters or farmers, are ignorant, uneduca-
ted, poor and indolent" his veracity becomes
insolent. Has Mr. Strickland forg Men, that
We agriculturists had the sagacity to discover
tha't the t&nglish system of creating an order of
capitalists, was levelled directly at our prospe-
rity, arid flic magnanimous perseverance to
get rid Oi 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 aneomutou tliiug even in Ifte

49 THE POLITIC AX STA \

enlightened England, for the people to mistake
the shadow for the substance, or to follow
their passions in pursuit of the oppressor, ra-
ther ihan 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 retailing the tyranny ; And why
should we agriculturists be called ignorant anil
indolent, when we are only gulled, just as man-
kind in general, the enlightened citizens of
Europe, and his own fellow subjects are gul-
led r "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
can Sourish under oppression. Neither agri-
vulture nor civil liberty can exist i;: •Ir-;ie,;.a»
lions, or be toasted into prosperity. Our
struggles, to resuscitate dying agriculture,
must, like those of Sisyphus, >ield to a stron-
ger depressing power. The plough can have
very little success, until the laws are altered
which obstruct it. Societies for improving
the breed of sheep or the form of ploughs, will
be 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 depressing system of corrup-
tion. A good pee may produce a \ery bad
treatise.

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

OF AGRICULTVRJi. *9

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

The bounties, frauds and useless expences,
which strengthen the government and corrupt
the nation, and are drawing a vast annual capi-
tal from agriculture, would then he applied
to the invigoration of the militia. Such a
measure would return to manufactures and a-
grieulture their own capital, and improve both,
the national 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 ', aud a school of stock-jobbers and
contractors for a school ot 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-
griculture and the militia, and also capitalists
and standing armies.

The remedy of construing the constitution]
honestly is a simple one. It certainly intend-
ed to bestow as little power to tax agricul-
ture, in order to raise a bounty for manufac-
tures and credit corporations, as it does to tax
manufactures, in order to raise a bounty for a-
griculture. Let the imposts be regulated by
their constitutional intention, and agriculture
will cease to be oppressed by bounties bestow-
ed by statesmen out of her purse to advance
their own designs. The words and spirit of
o.

."» XKE POllTICAX STAXC

tI.c constitution are so entirely adverse to the
idea of enabling congress to exercise a partia-
equivalent to tLe min or opulence of
slates, relyieg distinctly upon agricultural or
mapufaeljtim) stajifc s of tommeice, that the
unconstitutionality of the power, 01 ghl to ren-
;he policv of its exercise an unnecessary
enquiry. It is further unnecessary^ because
however favorable ii may be to capitalists, it
is subjugation even to manufacturers, and
must imp«ivcii;h a vast majority of the people
in every state of the union to enrich a few. nei-
ther the uceessify or advantage of which is
suggested by the constitution.

Jt is easy to withhold futuie 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 dcj»ends, than the subversion of the
doctrine oi a judicial power, to turn laws into
contracts, and render them irrepealable, n ar-
tier a line of the constitution, which u*es the
identical words "law and contract" in differ-
ent se&ses. To try this doctrine, by which
r barters, once the vehicles of liberty, are inge-
niously converted into vehicles of slavery, I
wi;h that congress v. ould grant to 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 ta
consider it.

The last* though not the least political op-
pression upoa agileulture, which I have select-

or AGRicrxTrnr:.. 41

ed, for this short consideration of its political
state, is onr treasury system, copied from the
English, and of course liable to the same a-
buses. It is so utterly destitute of any securi-
ty for the honest application of public money,
that no congress, committee of congress, cr
member 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 cheeks
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 i's 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 lam pursuing. This a-
buse in both countries endeavors to shrink from
public view, behind screens called sinking
funds, for applying a surplus of revenue to
the payment of debt. These screens cever
pecuniary abuses against those annual critical
examinations of the items of public expendi-
ture, so wholesomely practised by state legis-
latures. Such annual examinations fcy eon*
^ress would probably leave with agriculture a
cons derable amount of capital annually taken
from her, to enrich knave-* : 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 of money in Ho!

50 THE POLITICAL STATE

land to pat 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 case, as in others,
is to elect into congress a genuine agricultu-
ral interest* uneorrupied I*y a mixture with
stock-jobbing, by a view of office, or by odiou»
personal vices, and combined with good ta«-
Ieats>

of AGrticuLTrr.E. »S

NUMBER 12.

THE POLITICAL STATE OF AGRICULTURE,

CONTINUED.

The political causes which oppress agricul-
ture have been considered, hefore the domestic
habits which vitiate it, to guard against the er-
ror of an opinion, that the latter may be re-
moved, whilst the former 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 ;
the iw» strongest human propensities, a love
of wealth, and a love of ease, will render it
impossible. The reason why agricui7u:ie is
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-
culturists are a species of slaves, goaded into
ingenuity, labor and economy, without pos-
seting any political importance, or the Jcust
share in the government. They are lashed
into a good system of agriculture in the s- me
way ratal good discipline i* proAoeed in an ar-
my : and this good Bysteni of agriculture is
also for the benefit of their landlords and 'c-
gislatovs, just as the good discipline of an ar-
my, is for the benelit of its generals and o'i cr
officers. It is more out of the power of En-
glish tenants or agriculturists, to become

Si THE POLITICAL STATE

landlords, capitalists or manufacturers, cr te
escape the coercion which forces then io
stretch the mind and the fncselei after im-
provement, than of soldiers to desert. Ilo^e-
rer ihey may move from plare to place, like
horses transferred from owner to owner, they
are doomed tothesamefate. Oppie--i
eauses agricultural improvements i i K: --'and,
will prevent it in the United States, because
it cannot seize and held fast the agricultuii-t.
There, he can only soften oppression h\ supe-
rior skill or industry. Here, he can iiee from
it iuto a wilderness, or into a charter, and grata
greater profit Midi less la!>or. \t e copy the
English frauds upon the agriculturist <;. for .
ting that the English po\»er over him dees
not exiit here. That instead of being ahle to
lash him into excellence for the bene ..: rf 5*
thers, we can only soli.- «* htm by his own iv
tere-J ^~£ happiness : and that this solicita-
tion is an insult upf,n his understanding, if it
honestly tells him. that government o ii! esta-
blish the policy of scattering bounties at his ex-
penee. and of bestowing more profit and ease
upon paper capital or fraudulent credit. I
he can derive from solid land and honest la
Eeing free, if he is wise, he will prefer a shuns
of profit and ease, to a share of los? and toil.
The cunning declaimers in praise of'those who
choose the yoke of eti's. for the sake of getting
the yoke of blessings for themselves, only de-
ceive fools, so that wisdom as ^ ell a? wea
is flying from the agricultural interest, and
raking up her residence wi<h the policy of ma-
king capital employed under charters, in cre-
dit shops and in manufacturing, more pcoifa-
lie than capital employed in agriculture.—-

OF AGRICULTURE. ba

Tliis union in wisdom and wealth, will in (line
reduce agriculture to the European regimen,
and the agriculturists to the grade of tenants
to a svstem for fostering dealers in money and
credit, at the expeiue of the makers of bread,
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 European form of go-
v. r •lment.

1 have heard it said that the weight of ta-
lents in Congress, has already appeared very
visibly against the agriculturists. Let 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. Tliis 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, ami 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 defeats sprinkled throughout the view I
have taken of t lie political state ofagricul-
Cure, ought injustice to be ascribed ; and if it
fails to excite the agriculturists in and out of
Congr 9 to look fnfo their situation, it will
onlv , rive that tfre sy stench as already had its
etfe'-t oa tin auftior or kis readers; Charter-
ed kn pvlerlg ■ k kepi alive by its aSsoi latl no,
and chartered interests advanced by frequent
auu mature consultations. An imitation of

$6 Tnz POLTTICAX STATE

this example is the only mode of reviving agri-
cultural knowledge, and of obtaining justiet
for agricultural i merest. And if the sugges-
tion of 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 \east
require the capacity of distinguishing betvecfl
good and evil. (Note A.)

gjp agriculture. St

NUMBER IS.

SLAVERY.

Negro slavery is a misfortune to agriculture,
incapable 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 poliey of introducing by law into
society, a race or nation of pe pie between the
masters ai.d slaves, having rights extremely
different from either, called free negroes and
mulattoes. It is not my intention to consider
the peril to which this poliey exposes the safe-
ty of the country, by the excitement to ir^ur-
reetion with which it perpetually goads the
slaves, the channels for communication it af-
fords, and the reservoir for recruits it provides.
I shall only observe, that it was this very po-
licy, which first doomed the whites, and then
the mulattoes themselves, to t!ie 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 (his. it is unne-
cessary forme to consider the political conse-
quences of this poliey.

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
6.

<S SLAYLHT.

it must be deeply affected by whatever sLali
indispose tliem to labor, render them intrac-
table, or entice them intoa multitude of crimes
and irregularities. A free negro and mulatto
class is exactly calculated to effect all these
em's. They live upon agriculture as agents
or brokers for disponing 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 itt prosperity. It is hov ever unne-
cessary to prove ^ hat every agriculturist in
the slave states experimentally know s, namely
that his operations afre greatly embarrassed,
and las efforts retarded, Ky circumstances hav-
ing the class of free negroes for their cause.

'1 he only remedy is to get lid of it. This
measure ought to be settled by considerations
#f a practical moral nature, and not by a mo-
ral hypothesis, resembling several inrehani-
eal inventions incarcerated at Washington,
beautiful and ingenious, but useless. It is sub-
stantial, not balloon morality, by which the
questions ought to be consider! d ; whether a
severance of tLc free negro class from the
whites and slaves, will benefit or injure either

slavery.

of the three classes ,* or whether it will benefit
or injure a majority of them as constituting one
body ? The situation of the free negro class
is exactly calculated to force it into every
species of vice. Cut off" from most^f the

rights of citizen?, and from all the allowa"frt
of slaves, it is driven into every species of
crime fur subsistence ; and destined to a life
of idleness, anxiety and guilt. 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 conditi-
on hy having an object of comparison before
their eyes, magnified by its idleness and thefts
wilh 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'-
ont 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 state
of misery itself, and contributes 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 reeommen-
i 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 (lie v»hole. No injury, but much
good to the whites and slaves is perceivable in
the measure. And relief iVom tli^ disad van-
tagesof inferior rights, from the necessity of
living in a settled course of vice, and from the
dangers portended to it by a eonimatien amoa^

60 SLAYERT.

the slaves, promises great benefits to the free
negro class itself from a severance.

It may be easily effected by purchasing of
Congress lands sufficient for their subsistence
in states where slavery is not allowed, and giv-
ing them 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-
vance both by bestowing rewards, cannot be
severe, unjust or illiberal.

At least it will be admitted by those ac-
quainted with the sulject, that the prosperity
of agriculture is considerably influenced by
the circumstances alluded to in this number.

SLIVEUY. Gi

DUMBER ii>

slavkrv, cox;::.

Societies are instituted to control and di-
minish the imperfections of human nature,
because without them it generates ignorance,
savageness and tlopravif.y of manners. Ti:
best constituted cannot however eu'. e it o? a
disposition to command, and to live by the la*
hoe of others ; it is eternally forming sub-so-
cieties Ibr acquiring p >\wr and wealth, and (o
rfidioiis, amotions, avaricious or \\\-
constitutftnal sub- societies^ the liberty and
property of the rest ofttJeSouy politic i;.is u-
ni versa! ly fallen a prey. They are of a civil
or military complex W/n, or of botli, as :he ci
cumstances '•!".'. • .• > c may inquire (V.uid or
ibree. Ajilicnt'y, the general ignoranee of
' i.i:!, causefl the frauds of sn.nei'stiiion lo
M'^vilrw.;,:,;.' ,,!, ,;:.'■ of traitorous sfft-
- : ti •. As these became exploded, the
more itc" pecuniary; frauds were resort-

ed to. XoWj on avemnt of t lie ine&aslng
knowledge and v.-.ovc prying temper of man-
kind, military force is united with pecuniary
frauds. Ami hitherto the must perfect socie-
ty i'j? the public good> has never been auje ( i
dcfcndftself against sub-societies income fotun
I*.;:- advancing the wealth or jicw?r oTq fiction
or a par/icutar interestJ Combine with this
universal «pfpcriencc tin* it i- mle to

conceive a form better calculated !o

.c and foster ftfffioits. or sub-societies, than
tr.

62 SLAVERY.

one constituted of distinct colors, incurable
prejudices, and inimitable interests, and tbe
inferences are unavoidable. If tbe badges of
foolish names can drive men into pbrenzy
without cause, Mill not tbose which powerful-
ly assail both reason and the senses, create
deadly factions.

Tbe attempt will undoubtedly terminate ac-
cording to the nature of man, as it has once
already terminated ; but its catastrophe ought
lather to be courted than avoided if the author
of the Notes on Airginia is right in the follow*
jag quotations. <• 1 he whole commerce be-
tween master and slave" says he "is aperpe-
*•" lual exercise of the most boisterous passi-
f. 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,
ii gives a loose to his worst of passions, and
* thus nursed, educated and- daily exercised
«' in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with
•4 odious peculiarities. The man must be a
*' prodigv 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
is the picture exhibited in the Notes on Vir-
ginia of "the manners" of the people, without
a single palliating circumstance; and Winter-
botham in his history of America has quoted
and varnished it anew.

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

SLAVERY. 65

"whole chapter on the manners of that state, a
stranger would hardly form a more correct i-
dea of ihem, than a stranger to Indians would
of their color, on seeing one painted coal
black. Circumstances affect the mind, as
weather does beer, and frequently produces a
sort of moral fermentation, which throws up
bubbles of prismatic splendor, whilst they arc
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 ;
the human mind was made still hotter by
the French revolution ; and let those who
were insensible of the mental fermentations
and moral bubbles generated by these causes,
censure Mr. Jefferson. I should be unjust to
doit.

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
ought not to be admitted as arguments for the
emancipating policy. The considerations,
which this chapter of impassioned censure of
slave holders, inspire, are too extensive for a
hasty essay,, but a few of them may be noti-
ced. I shall pass over the enlistment of the
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 extin-
guish the other ; and as inclining to think the
enrolment of his name on the side of the slaves
somewhat like a charge of inattention to his
own attributes, in apparently siding with mai-

64 ilAVEET. "

ters throughout all ages and aniens 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 groat
and good pat

all the rest of the world. In the United St i
ii is also lethat the public and private

character of individuals is as good, a- in the
countries where loco-motive liberty and stsre-
iv to a faction, exist ; nor do the " • .tesr
seem less productive of characters in whom the
nation is willing to confide than t lie others. E-
ven the author oft he quotation hiflGselfmay be
fairly adduced as an instance which refutes e-
vei-v syllable of hi* chapter on Virginia man-
ners, unless indeed this refutation, and an a-
huadance of others like it. can be evaded by
forming the best citizens into a class of pro-
digies or mongers, to evade the force of emi-
nent virtues towards the refutation of em
ous assertions.

These facts are referred to the considera-
tion of the physiologist. To me it seems, I
slaves are too far below, and too much in
power of the master, to inspire furious passi-
ons; that such are nearly as rare and ilisgraee-
fnl towards slaves as towards horses: I
slaves are wore frequently the objects of be-
nevolence than of iv.ge : that children I
thoir nature are inclined to soothe, and hai
ever suffered to tyrannize over them : I
they open instead of shut the sluices of L\
vobnee in tender minds : and that few g
public or private characters have been i ... ■
in countrie:> enslaved by some faction or j *

SLAVE!? Y. 6g

ticular interest, tlian in those where 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 association
with th'' character of slaves. Character, like
eo olition is contrasted, and as one contrast
causes us to love liberty better, so the other
causes us to love virtue better. Qualities,
odious in themselves, become more con-
tern])! ible, when united with the most de-
graded class of men, than when seen with
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 submission and
flattery of slaves will be despised, and cause
us rather to hate se*rvi!iiy than to imbibe a
dictatorial arrogance ; & onh in>; ire the same
passion with the submission and (lattery of a
Spaniel. It is the submission and flattery of
equals, which til's men with the impudent and
wicked wish to dictate, & an impatience of free
opinion & fair discussion, This reprehensible
temper is a sound objection against any species
of human policy, which generates it, and ap-
plies most forcibly against that conferring on
an individual a power, s » to dispense money &
honors, as to procute submission and flattery
from the highest ranks and coiiditions in soei-
etv, a thousand times more genial to pride,
than the submission and flattery of a poor
slave ; and ten thousaud times more pernici-
ous to nations.

66 SliVEEY.

Virtue and vice are naturally and unavoid-
ably coexistent in the moral world, as beauty
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
•annot be destroyed without the other. It
may be thus that personal slavery has con-
stantly reflected the strongest rays of civil li-
berty and patriotism. Perhaps it is suffered
by the deity to perform an office without which
these rays are gradually obscured and finally
obliterated by charters and partial lasts. Per-
haps the sight of slavery and its vices may in-
spire the mind with an affection for liberty
and virtue, just as the climates and desarts of
Arabia, would make 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. T!ie chapter on the man-
ners of slave-holders before quoted, concludes
with an intimation, that the consent of the
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 force to the recom-
mendation in the previous essay for separating
the enslaved and free blacks, as some security
against the prognosticated extirpation. And
after such a hint, " with what execration-
should the statesman be loaded" vho thus
forewarned, should produce the destruction of
the most civilized portion of society, and re*

slavery. Q7

people half the world with savages. Tf 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-
ncrgics. 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 sud-
den] v to change human nature.
rXote B.)

68 ©TXRSEERS.

NUMBER 15.

OTERSEERS.

So far from having a system of agriculture
among us, very few have even taken the trou-
ble to discover or provide any basis for one.—
Had Archimides proposed to move the earth
without any thing for himself or his mechan-
ism to stand on. or an architect to erect a city
without a foundation, such projects would Lave
been equivalent to ours for erecting a system
© 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 upen fertility. Before therefore, we
launch into any system, we must learn how to
enrich our lands. The soil of the United
States upon tLc Atlantic Ocean is naturally
thin, and exceedingly impoverished. It pro-
duces however good crops, v*l en made rich,
almost under any species of c-u'iivation. To
m;ike it rich therefore o«£bf to i>e the first ob-
ject of our eliwits. as without effecting this, all

6WEHSEEES. 69

other agricultural objects beneficial to our-
selves ov our country 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 id
the great returns bestowed upon had 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 for us to recollect how impiously we
have neglected the cultivation of a D ity so
propitious But this Deity has a rival demon
called ignorance, for whose worship the slave
stales have erected an established church,
villi a ministry, entitled overseers, fed. cloth-
ed am! paid to suppress eery effort for intro-
ducing the worship of its divine adversary —
This necessary class of men are bribed by a-
.gricuhurisls, not to improve, but to impove-
rish their land, by a share of the crop for one
\ear; an ingenious contrivance for placing
(be 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
ry is increased in proportion a% be cap im-
poverish the land. The greatest annual crop,
and not the most judicious culture, adv:::.
his interest, and establishes his character; and
the fees of these land doctors are much
for killing than for curing. It is common for
an industrious overseer, after n years,

to quit a farm on account Of the barrenness,
occasioned by his own in ,;e::f

changes of the sej \

7.

70 ovE.iJsrr.ns.

culture, each striving to extract the rem nam
of fertility left by his predecessor, combines
with our agricultural ignorance, to form the
completes! >ysteuiof impoverishment, ofwhieh
any other country can boast.

I mean not to speak disrespectfully of over-
seers : they arc as good as other people ; nor
is it their fault if their employers have made
i heir wealth and subsistence to depend on the
aent of half a continent. The most
v. bich the land can >icld. and seldom or never
improvement with a view to future profit] is a
point of eommc% consent and mntaal need be-
tween the agriculturist and his overseer; and
they 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-
grieulturc. Those of twenty one jears
found by experience to he two short for im-
provement. Must the practice of hiring a
man for cue year by a share of the crop, to lay
out all his skill and industry in killing land,
and as little as possible in improving it. sug-
gested by the circumstances and neeessith -
settling a wilderness among hostile savages,
he kept up to commemorate the pious leaning
of man to his primitive state of ignorance and
barbarity;

Unless this custom is abolished, the attempt
to fertilize our lands., is needless. Under the
frequent emigrations of owners from State to
State, and of o\ erseers from plantation to pi
t at ion. it cannot be ace
rishment viil proceed, distress will follow, and
famine a ill close the scene. It is a
which injures both employers and overseers.

OVERSEERS. f±

by gradually diminishing flic income of the one
and of course the wages of the other. Wages
in money Mould on the contrary, correspond
with a system of gradual improvement, by
which the condition of both parties would he
annually bettered, and skill in improving, not
a murderous industry id destroying land, would
soon become a recommendation to business and
a thermometer of compensation.

7.2 IX CLOSING.

*r

NUMBER 16,

IXCLOSING.

The modes of fertilizing land form a sjSr
tern, wholly 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 cover* 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 earth to extract the riches of
this treasury, larger than the earth itself, and
to elaborate them into a proper form for fer-
tilizing its surface. The experiment oi* the
willow planted a slip in a box containing 200
pounds of earth, and at the end of a few years,
exhibiting a tree of 200 pounds weight, without
having diminished the earth in which it grew,
demonstrates the power of the vegetable world
to extract and to elaborate the atmospherical
manure. This 200 pound weight of willow,
was a prodigious donation of manure by the
atmosphere to the 200 pound weight of earth

ixcxosixg, KQ

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 can 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 laml under inclosures, for
permitting animals to prowl at large, and for
punishing landholders for the trespasses
committed 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. Thus the two primary objects ofagricul-
turc, (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 bayonet only could

7i I5TL0SIXC.

eonfufc.. thai it was better to G gft

to the tail than the should*

It is yet a que-; ;her the ^n-

rkhcd by any specie? of manure, est
vegetable or.atau <-;]. and experiments

Lave hitherto leaned towards tl.e negative.—
Without r.cw accessions of vegetable matter,
successive heavy dressings \% iih lime, gypsum.
and even marie, have been frequently found to
terminate in impoverishment, lience it is in-

redythaf minerals operate a* an exciter
only to the manure furnished by the atmos-
phere. Frem this fact results the hnpossibi-
li'y of renovating an exhausted soil. by resort*
ing to fossils, whiefa will expel the poor rem-
nant of life, and indeed it is hardly probable
that dni :ged in the towels

the earth, the man are m Cor its sur-

face.

However this question may be determined,
the impossibility ining mineral manure

•amities sufUh lit 10 enrich an impove-
il-hcd country, leaves us no alternative; whilst
lie efforts it excites in the agony of
death., an- better calculated to accelerate the
oil, and to ; tc nation, sa by in-

to remedy tl.
i f raeessare culture.
lfi getable matter is tidier the only ma-
nure, ci the only aftaiaab]

.ins cast
'■:- sm u.ce. aad discover the demand, by coni-
..2; if e impoverishment. We Waal as much

aefe to the state
m which we set i
hefoie ve can i 1 he ration m

; it is the yokefellow cf the earth: these

lyctosrxo. »$

associates must thrive or starve together; if the
nation pursues a system of lessening the food
of the earth, the earth in justice or revenge
will starve the nation. The inclosing svstem
provides the most food for the earth, and of
eourse enables the earth to supply most food to
man. It is time working on space.

>£ i<ci:ii5?L

ST'MBER IT,

iscxos: rs.

I • us boldly face the fa unhj

early mined. H awn

trth three fourths of the vegeta-
ble matter it eontained, within reach of the
plough. Vegetable ma it
for convening food to us. If we suck our mo-
ther to death we must die ourselves. Though
she is redueedto a skrk us not d

pair. She i= indulgent, and if we reiura to
the ■ revealed by the consequences of

their infraction, to be prescribed by God.
demonstrated by die same eonseqnenees to
comport with our interest, she v
us milk.

We must restore to the earth i
matter, before it can restore to us its bo;
ful crops. In three or four j I as

I remember, the willow drew from the aiL
phere. and bestowed two hundred weight of
table matter, on two hundred weight of
earth, exclusive of 1 1 shed each

year. Had it been cut up and usee! r.; a ma-
Dure, how vastly would it have enriched the
two hundred weight of earth it grew on : The

rates that by the useof vegetal:
we may collect manure from the atmosphere,
withara] >jndanee. farexceed-

hat of which we have robbed the earth--*-
And it is a faet of high eneoura-
though it would be on -

JNTLOSIXO, ?7

to our happiness, to retrace our step*, should
i; even take us two hundred years to recover
the state of fertility found here by the first
emigrants from 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 proeess of resusci-
tation.

Forbear, oh forbear matricide, not for futu-
rity, not for God's sake, but for your own
sake. The labour necessary to I ill the rem-
nant of life in your lands, will suffice to revive
them. Employ ad to kill, it produces want
aud misery to youiself. Employed to revive,
it gives you plenty and happiness. It is mat-
ter of regret to be compelled to rob the liberal
mind of the sublime pleasure, bestowed by a
consciousness of having done its utmost for fu-
ture ages, by demonstrating that the most sor-
did \> ill 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 ; 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 arc
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
beat mode of practising the enclosing theory.
It is one which can only succeed in combina-
tion villi a great number of agricultural prae

75 INCLOSING.

tices. at enmity with those which at present
piv\ail.

If i; at enmity with the practice of summer.
fallowing for wheat. Being founded in the
doctrine, thai vegetables extract the princi-
ples ol' fertility from the atmesplu re. and ela-
borate ii;(iu into a manure fur the rani', it i-
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
npoii the atmospherical mar,:'!.', which may
have been introduced into, or i< floating
it. then a naked fallow by increasing evapora-
tion, will impoverish the earth, and «
each ploughing a portion < i this Heeling fer-
tility, without i(= being ed by a ei

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

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

It accords with deep ploughing, because it
enables the earth to absorb more atmospheric
cal manure through the two great vehicles,
air and water; and because it buries deeper
th.-manu re deposited ok the earth in a vegeta-
ble form: in one ease inhaling more, and in
both exhaling less.

It is at enmity with the custom ofexposfng

INCLOSING. 7 9

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

§& INCLOSING..

KUNBER 18.

INCLOSING, COUTIXV:

If plants feed on earth, why do they p
by drought ? If they did not feed on atmos-
pherical manure, why do (hey instantly revive
from rain ? And why do hem conside-

rably reuved even without rain, when the air
becomes condensed, after having been greatly
ratified, if the food it affords them was not
thin in one case, and more substantial in the
other?

Drought becomes far lc?s pernicious to
crops, in proportion to the stock of atmosphe-
rical manure with u Inch the earth lias been
stored to meet it, and the obstacles opposed to
its loss.

To avoid a frequent reference to experience
as a voucher for the doctrines advanced in These
essays. I shall once for all observe, that they
are always drawn from that source, except
when the contrary is expressed. But it would
he tiresome io the reader to wade throng
list of experiments made with stry

than scientific skill, for a lon£ coarse ofti
and suggested, not by a love of fame, but
necessity. Besides we must acquire pri
pies before we descend to details.

Let us return to the case of drought. Its
effects are greatly diminished by burying with
the plough a copious supply of veget able mat-
ter, and by opposing an uneven surface to
poratioa. It is because tbii vegetable rnatt^-

INCLOSttfC. 81

«r 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 shallow 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-
strates that it is loaded with their food ; and
its transitory efl'oet 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, the loss must be attributed to evapo-
ration, (.'hecks upon evaporation are of course
auxiliaries to the inclosing system.

The shade to the earth is a check it natural-
ly produces, and a consequence of this check
is, that the atmospherical manure carried by
air or rain into the earth, 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
vehicles.

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
.convened in rain will disappear in a l'<w 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 Mater, the shorter it will
last

i. txctosLse.

If (Lis principle is sound, a poiat of great
importance to the inclosing svsteia is settled :
whether it is better to plough in vegetables in
a succulent or a drr state I 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 in
the vegetables succulent, we stop the process
for extracting, elaborating and condensing at-
mospherical manure, and chiefly burv water,
liable to the laws of evaporation, demonstrat-
ed in the ease of rain, the richest, but tfcja
it short lived of every species of manure.
The rapidity with which the water of vegetn-
culent state evapc is demon-

strated in curing grass fur hay : and the lo-^ is
probably greater when tbe vegetable is never
ced at a!l to a dv\ and hard state. On the
contrary, by suffering the vegetable to acquire
its most -olid form, it will extract more ma-
nure from the atmosphere, and this manure
will be retained vastly longer b-v the earth ; so
long indeed? that a good farmer will accumu-
late fresh supplies upon a remaining stock
from time to lime, 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 i? also making daily ex-
tracts from the atmosphere, during its wholo
succulent existence, to be deposited within its
bowels.

IKCL05IXG.

NUMBER 19.

INCLOSING, CONTINUED.

To draw from the atmosphere the greatest
quantify of manure, to check the loss the earth
sustains from evaporation during the process
hy shade, to give the manure the most lasting
form, and to deposit it in the most beneficial
manner, are primary objects of the enclosing
bj stem.

The best agent known to us for effecting the
three first, is the red clover. Its growth is
rapid ; its quantity exceeds the product of any
other grass : it throws 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
many distinct drafts from the great treasure of
atmospherical manure in one year. Whilst
these drafts are repeated, the clover is daily
securing the treasure, in a form able long ta
elude the robber evaporation, tyhoni it also op-
poses by shade. To its extracting from the
atmosphere t lie greatest quantity of manure,
and elaborating it into a lasting form the most
suddenly of any other vegetable cover, clover
lavs for wheat are indebted for their fame. —
Their success lias been attributed to the por-
tion of the vegetable in a succulent state,
whilst it was owing to the greater portion
which had arrived to maturity previous to the
fallow. To ascertain this fact, let one moiety

4i KrcrosixG.

of a clover field be turned in as soon as its firs!
crop flowers, and the other after the stem of
the last crop is hard, and the whole sown on
«ine day in wheat.

The peculiar propensity of clover to he im-
proved by a top dressing of the gypsum, 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 ilie
clover, for imbibing atmospherical food by its
external parts: and so much as it thus gains,
affords to the earth a double benefit. One, 1 hat
this food not being extracted from the stock of
atmospherical manure, possessed by the earth,
docs 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 the clover also advances the
intention of the inclosing system in several res-
pects. By pierciMg the earth to a considera-
ble depth, apertures or pores are created for
imbibing and sinking deeper a great or quanti-
ty of atmospherical manure : so well defended
by the shade of the top : and the friability
t litis 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 the 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
-vyill powerfully second its efforts, and may be

1.NCL03IXG. Sj

successfully substituted for it, where circum-
stances deny its use. In the exhausted lands,
sandy soil and dry climate or the country be-
low the mountains, clover will not live. Re-
course must therefore be had to other means
of improving the land, to endow if, with a cap; -
city of resorting to its use. It is eminently en-
dowed with this capacity by a certain degree
of fertility, and thenceforth good management
will retain and increase it.

In the mean time, the best substitute for
clover sbould be sought 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 the gypsum,
affords early and good shade, makes a multi-
tude of seed, and may by a small degree of
skill, be kept up without being sown. Though
it perishes early in the summer, it yet leaves a
great cover of dry vegetable matter on the
earth, which defies evaporation, until theplough
ean turn it in. And its dead eo;:t is frequent-
ly pierced by other grasses, and somelimes by
luxuriant growths of weeds, before unknown
to the soil, which seem to come forward as
witnesses to the fact of its fertilizing the land.
This grass is an enemy to wheat on account of
its early and rapid growth, and of course ought
only to he used to fertilize land in which
wheat ought not to be sown. And as wheat
cannot be be beneficially sown in land, unable
to produce red clover, the 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 '.he best associ-
ate of wheat, for the purpose of sa-ving and im-
proving a good soli, bird foot is the best asscr*
o,

&6 ixtxasixti.

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

Individuals ofilie vegetable world are quot-
ed, not to insinuate that 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. Therefore
after having deduced the benefit resulting to
land by inclosing, from the hypothesis that ve-
getables draw, retain, and bestow en t lie earth
The atmospherical manure in great abundance,
I shall proceed to consider other modes of ma-
nuring it. chiefly founded in the same hypo-
thesis

MAXURIN«# *7

NUMBER 20,

MASURIXC.

It is not my design to advance any thing
strange or new, or to recommend expensive,
difficult, or uncommon modes of improving
land. Brilliant projects for improvement, iu
the present state of agriculture, would belike
diamonds set in lead. My utmost design is to
point out a few improvements which 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 offal of Indian corn, the straw of
small grain and the dung of animals. "NYe find
in the tuo first proofs of the value of dry vege-
tables as a manure. If these few means for
fertilizing the country, were skilfully used,
they would of themselves suffice to change its
Hate from sterility to fruitfulness. 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 food in abundance for man,
beast and land. By the litter of Indian corn,
and of small grain, and by penning cattle, ma-
i aged with only an inferior degree of skill iu
union with inclosing, I will venture to affirm,
that a farm may in ten years be made to dou-
ble its produce, and in twenty to quadruple it ;

■•i maxi :.i.v_:.

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

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

Details, however uneutertai:iing, may not
be useless ; therefore I snail often resort to
them. The stalks of corn should constitute
the chief litter and part of the food, both of the
U* rtiid farm pen yard, during the winter.
The sooner they are used after die corn is ga-
thered, the more saecharum remains to bestow
■vali;e on thera as food, and the more manure
will yield, as evaporation diminishes both;
and this proceeds IV.r more rapidly v. hilst
standing single, subject to the vicissitudes of
weather, than when immersed in the
moisture aud cold climate of the farm yard. —
I food, they are better for horses than for
cattle, because of the superior masticating
v of the former; whereas cattle are able
to eat but little of the stalk itself, and chiefly

selves <o picking an inferior ;
attached to it. Stalks carried morning and
evening in loads, into the farm pen and stable
yard, furnish both to cattle and horses much
food, but ta the latter early in the l inter, they
are a species of fodder the most beneficial I
have eve;- tied : and besides the manure they
furnish will amply recompencethe 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 horses, by the.

MANur.i>*cr. go.

preservation oFhay and blades for the summer's
use, and are in that way eminently subservient
to l he inclosing system.

To the stalks are to be added the blades,
tops, shucks and cobs of the Indian eorn, 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 far-
rows two or three feet apart, barely covering
them with a plough, and bringing the land
two years afterwards into tilth, 1 have found
them excellent. In every view they illustrate
the vegetable power of elaborating atmosphere
into 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 English
authorities, I have in various ways compound-
ed dunghills, kept (hem through the summer,
and covered with earth and with bushes the
manure of the farm pen : and the loss lias been
regularly graduated by the fermentation pro-
duced, from a moiety to three fourths, being
invariably greater, the better the litter was
1. or the greater the degree oF fermenta-
tion. As a farther experiment to ascertain
th«' same fact, I have several limes penned the
■ aitleon the same space for tW same peri-
od, ploughing up one portion as soon a* the pen
was removed, and leaving the Other uuplough-
ed fur eight or ten weeks. On putting ho'h
at onetime on the same erop, the result has uni-
formly been, a vast inferiority to a lire, of that
Jefl exposed to the eillots ol* evaporation.

00 MANURING.

XOIBES 21.

MANURING, CONTINUED.

An effervescence which shall become so in-
tense, as lo produce a visible evaporation or
smoke, is said to be an effect of ploughing in a
cover of green vegetables, and this effect is
stated as an argument of fertilizing conse-
quences to the earth. If an escaping torrent
of manure is calculated to impart lasting ferii-
lity to the earth, then the 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 by restoring it to the atmosphere, is
incorrect. The heat of the sun will some-
times make wet earth smoke, but instead oT
enriching, it thereby extracts the manure con-
tained in Water. The evaporation of green
vegetables in a perceptible smoke, must have
a similar effect. The idea that this smoking
of the earth was a proof that \vc Mere making
a great quantity of manure of green vegetables,
may have been borrowed from inferring the
same thing from the smoking of dunghills com-
pounded of dry; and whilst the latter opinion
is exploded by the common instances of the
vast loss of manure it produces in these dung-
hills, the former may have continued,, though

MANtBIXG* 91

->

founded la the same principle, for want of fa-
miliar experiments to disprove it.

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
not providing against the effects of exhalation.
Inhaled atmosphere being as rare and as light
a.s inhaled water, is as liable to the laws oi
evaporation, 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 less
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 opinion, that ten cultivat-
ed acres will not produce the means of manu-
ring above one. This error is founded on the
Inhaling, without considering the exhalinp
qualify of the earth ; audio supply the war.
of manure, v. e are ad\ ised to expose our land
to evaporation in the greatest possible degree
by 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 live years ago, I found more difficul-
ty in manuring one acre for live laborers, in-
cluding women and boys, owing to a waste ol
my means for raising manure, and an igno*

Qt Mimriterc

rence of apph ing it, than I now do in manur-
ing two acres for each. By manuring two
acres for each laborer, with the three resour-
ces only common to every bread stuflTfarm.it
follows that we may manure about one seventh
of the land we annually put in tilth, if. as I
suppose we can seldom plough more than four-
teen acres for each laborer, including women
aud 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, v hic-h contribute greatly towards eon-
ducting European farmers to the same stage
of improvement ; and without the vast beneiit
of inclosing. Two reasons exbt 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 waste
of manure by evaporation is avoided.

<MVtf USING.

NUMBER 23.

WAKURIKC, 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
liay it ought to be saved for the hottest and
inost 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
^ny 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 indispcnsible, as being
a vast saving upon the European custom of sta-
tionary cow houses. Arthur Young is, I think,
of opinion, that 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 be
«*HHueily manured : If this manuring is com*

9i> MANUXIKG.

nienced around a station for raising manure, in
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 un manured 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 ai
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
of infield and outfield, or that of highly impro-
ving a spot around his house, and highly im-
poverishing the rest of his farm.

An ambulatory cow house is the remedy for
this disastrous mode of management. rl he
sheep and cattle should be employed in manu-
ring abroad, and the horses ai borne. The
farm pens of the farmer should be placed in the
field for cultivation, with an eye to conveni-
ence or saving of 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 ofweather is infinitely greater from
evaporation, than to these other articles of
food and liiter. Some small quantities of straw

MANURING. 95

and shucks should however be used 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 shucks 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-
gree when the long litter of the farm pen is
carried on unploughed ground, generally
causes the loss of one half of the manure, and
•Be half of the crop.

-96 Mx^rEi.v^.

XUMBER %9.

JIAKUSIKG. CCNTIKfED.

The winter's fallow to receive the spring
manure, is a business capable of some improve-
ment, and economy of labor. This fallow,
i*ben the manure is for Indian corn, as it ought
to be where that grain is cultivated, should be
made by three furrows, forming a ridge five feet
& an half wide. Two of these i'urrows are made
by a large plough, calculated to cut deep and
wide, and to turn the sod complelely f.vrr ; and
the third by a plough called a trowel hoe, made
one third larger than usual, vrith a coulter on
the point, and a mould board on each side. If
the field has been left in such ridges at its last
cultivation, the large plough cuts a furrow on
the ridge on each sideof 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-hoe-plough, with
its two large mould boards will break up,
throwing the sod on each side. Both these
ploughs should be drawn by four horses, leav-
ing the furrow made by the trov* el-hoe un-
commonly deep and wide. In this state the
ground lies through the winter. Its vegetable
cover is buried so as to escape some loss by
evaporation, the unbroken space is so mellow-
ed by the cover of the sed,. as to become soft

MAXTJRINQ. 97

and friable by the spring, and the bottom of
the large open furrow, commonly a dead clay,
is invigorated by a winters exposure to the at-
mosphere.

The manure ought to be devoted to Indian
corn, because a crop of great value is thereby
gained, whilst it is going through the process,
supposed in England to be necessary to reduce
it to vegetable food. Complete putrefaction
is I here considered as necessary, for this end.
"Whereas, by planting the Indian corn, as soon
as the uurotled manure of the farm pen is car-
ried out and ploughed in, its growth is greatly
nourished and finally perfected, by the time
the putrefaction is completed. It catches the
evaparation produced by the moderate fermen-
tation of the rotting vegetable matter of which
the manure is compounded, and exactly
that portion of manure which is lost, by tho
custom of rotting it before it is used, becomes;
the parent of a great crop. By the fall the
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 the summer, exposed to
a violent effervescence, 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 enrichment
nearly the same.

Indian corn thrives better with unrotted ma-
nure, than any other crop, and is precisely the
•rop, 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

98 MANTRIXG.

same quality. The former certainly associate
veil with coarse manure,, but neither are pro-
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-
culture*

MAOTRINCft U'J

NUMBER 2iu

MANURING, CONTINUED^

Manure from the litter of a farm ought to
be chiefly made in the cool portion of the year
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
may 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 totheis
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, 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

100 MA5T7RIX*

©f mingling moist dung and vegetabTe lifter
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 dnng 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
fai*m 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 oa
the day the pen is removed invariably. The
loss from evaporation is so great that a pea
ought never to remain above two weeks. I
bave frequently seen cow pens continued in one
spot, until the daily loss balanced the daily ac-
cession of manure ; and the richness of the
land with these daily accessions, became 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 a far 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, Aff er 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

MANURING. 101

seven oars, 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 length 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, will 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 o? these acres will als(*
have yielded a good crop of turnips, good or
bad, according to the season and the soil.

But horses cannot be comprised in this mode
of management, because of the inadequacy of
tluir 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.—
Thpse precautions against evaporation, with
placing the summer cleanings under cover, or
at least where it may he trodden hard, may b«
resorted to without a great sacrifice «f litter
§r vegetable jjiajaure,

182 MAsrRiKC

NUMBER 25.

MAKCRIKG.COKTIJIVEB.

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

Of these pens, each with a shelter, there
should be at least five, or equivalent divisions
for cattle, beeves, sheep a..1 calves, muttons,
and hog9. A disposition of them ou^ht 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
seemed, and its secuiity agaiust evaporation
should be an object of as much solicitude, as
the security of hay against rain. On making a
breach in the body of manure, the olfactory
nerves will advise you of the necessity of pre-
eautions 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 its
rithest qualities. To deposit it in straight

MATCHING. 1GS

rows and at regular distances across the whole
field to be manured, that 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 evaporation
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 sqi^ares at ten yards distant from
each other, so that the extreme distance ia
spreading it will be five from the centre of
each heap. But this general rule admits of
important exceptions. Jf 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.

The reader will recollect that the ground to
he manured has been fallowed into high ridges,
five feet and a half wide, having a deep and
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' k was formed, each drawn by four
horses. On both sides of the deep furrow,
vith the mould board towards i\, a deep *ai

lOi ^MANURING.

wide furrow is to be run by a large plough,
cutting on its right side with one share, so as
to throw the earth it raises by its mould board
into this old deep furrow, and to form precise-
ly in it, a neat ridge or list on which to plant
the corn. And the large trowel-hoe- plough
with its two mould boards, splits the summit
of the fallow ridge, and throws its earth and
manure into the two furrows made on each
side by the preceding plough. If these ploughs
are of the proper kinds, and the operation is
well performed, the manure is seeured 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 the
land.

A considerable saving of labor may be made
by a very simple instrument for raising the
manure into the carts, and scattering the
heaps ; and by dividing and balancing the la-
borers so judiciously, that loading, carting,
spreading and ploughing may proceed, without
having too few laborers at one work, and too
many at another. The instrument is precise-
ly a hilling hoe, except that three strong square
iron prongs are substituted for the blade.—
These sink from the usual elevation of a hand
hoe by their own weight, into the bed of coarse
farm yard manure, easily rend from its edge
or its surface, a mass of manure equal to the
strength of the laborer, hold it well in raising,
and by a small jolt, from the helve's falling on
the top of the cart, drop it therein with cer-
tainty. In scattering the heaps, they take up
the manure, and eold it sufficiently to aid the
£ct£tfnof throwing it two or three yards. Over
*}Ugcd iusu-iuueot^ their advantages are iu|-

MANPRl&fi. iOb

nite, as coarse manure must be eut arid chopt
to pieces with great labor, before these
will raise or scatter it ; as several strokes are
often ncee-sary to obtain a hoe or spade full j
and as their contents often fall offin being rais-
ed. And orer the pitchfork with a horizontal
handle, 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 fine
manure, which falls to the bottom as the coarse
is removed. Hoes and spades collect this as
usual. This 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 f;irm yard manure in half the time
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
the 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 live yards from the edge
of his field, if his rows are to be ten apart, a?:d
measuring by 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 hu holes, ac-
cording to that criterion.
1«

lOp 'MANURING.

3SU3VIBER 26,

MANURING, CONTINUED..

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.
JKor my part, if 1 was driven to the alternative
of rejecting one, 1 should not hesitate to cling
to ihe atmospherical, as the matrix of all ; or
rather to that portion of it within our reach,
i.v other channels than those of farm yards and
animals. I would even prefer a confinement
to the single mode of extracting manure from
the atmosphere by vegetables, and applying
these vegetables to the enrichment of the earth
they grow on, by inclosing, 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-
gross 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, I have known a fourfold increase
of product from the same fields, produced
chiefly by the inclosing mode of manuring.
Wilhoiit however insisting on Us title to pre-
eminence, it surely deserves to be considered
as a powerful auxiliary of the valuable modes
of manuring land, recently treated of*

MANURING. 107

To make room for lliis 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 an improved 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 quite 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
/cars in three. The only question then is

103 MAyfRl>"G;

whether this los> will be compensated, by
grazing the fiejd bare during the third year.
From whence is the recompenee to cornel —
Soft from recent tillage, and unprotected by a
strong sward, the land is exposed 10 all the in-
jury the hoof can inflict. Thinly sprinkled
with an insufficient food, the restlessness of
perpetual hunger produces imabating industry
in the cattle, to tread it into a naked arena*
closing 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
our lands : in practice it fulfils its promise.

The inclosing system requires four shifts, fa
succeed tolerably well without manure, and
extremelv well with it. From a Jonsr course

* o

of experiments, my result is, that a three shift
system is far iuferior to fuur 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 three
and in four shifts for years, and the result is
extremely in favor of the latter, though it*
land was at first of iuferior 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 field*, are the most se-
rious. Answers to these objections, will be
more apposite in considering the subjects of
stock?, pasturage and labor, should these es-
*a^ re ever get so far, than in the midst of our

present subject. That is manuring, and the
object oi* 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 " that vegetables
extract their matter chiefly from the atmos-
phere, and are of course a powerful vehicle for
iixiug and bestowing atmospherical manure on
the earth," the following fact is circumstanti-
ally related, on account of its complete appli-
< ation, 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 bark above and be-
low. And the tree was left to its fate. The
plaster bark never grew 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 ^ic
wood of most trees, aud of the locust particu-
o.

J 10 MIBtjIWIi

Karrj, we find the chief channel of their juices ;
*nd ihe communication of these juice? was ut-
terly cut off. so that neither portion of the tree
toiild supply the oilier. If the part of the tree
fed from the root?, 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,
a it lost in feeding this part of the tree,
then even the small acquisition of the tree he-
low the interdict to communication, as well as
the great one above, is to be considered a*
wholly obtained from the atmosphere, and
mi.iht on that supposition be considered as pro-
le evidence in favor of the theory, that ve-
getables get from the air and giro to the earth.
But probable testimony is superfluous, when
the superior growth above so clearly evince*
that they do extract food from the atmosphere*
I might quote the fertile state of new nn-
sed countries ; their abatement in fertility
if grazed, though uncleared : the improvement
ef worn out lands by suffering them to grow
np in trees : their greater improvement if
se trees are cut down aBd suffered to ret oa
the surface., as farther proofs that the earth
not bear a constant drain of "vegetable mat-
. and lhat this matter in any form enriches
k. to e»iuce both the ruinous effeets of the
three shift system, and that mclosing i? the
remedy : but the intelligent reader will ad-* crt
to ihe?e and many other considerations,, and I
nnly add, that the feet of the earth's surface
heir " the A poshorj of its fertility, proves that
this fertility is owing to atmospherical or ra-
gi. table matter, and alone determines the effi-
Sai j of the iiiciosirg tneoiy.

MANURING. ili

JSOIBER 27.

MANtRIXG, CONTINUE.?-'

though we have past the best, all the fe-
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 by 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 eon-
elusion that it increases very considerably the
product of vegetable matter in almost all forms.
Now if most or all of the matter of vegetables,
is drawn from the atmosphere, and it' 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 five. Thus
by the help of enclosing, gypsum and vegeta-
bles, we may enable ourselves to fix, 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 recite a multitude of
experiments in the rapid excursions of an es-
sayist, through the agricultural kingdom^witb.
very little regard to method ; and therefore I
shall only trouble the public with the results
deemed most useful. Except when sown m
clover whieh it l>enefits almost at all seasons,
1 Lave found gvpsum succeed best when cover-

,11^ MASTRIXG.

esl. I would even prefer harrowing it in witli
oats and clover, to sowing it on the surface af-
ter they are up. The best modes of using it,
according to my experience, are sowing it on
and ploughing ir in with eoarse 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 iac-losed, so as
to bury it with the Htter; this is in fact the
same experiment with the last, except that the
gypsum has less vegetable manure to work up-
on in the second than in the hr«t ease: 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 sealed course of a farm for three or
four years, and within no equal term has it
equally improved. The wheat crop is h ss be-
nefltted immediately than any other, bnt this,
rolling of the wheat facilitates tli tion

ef the clover sown on h- snrfaee in the spring,
and strengthens it agaiust summer drought,
so frequently fatal to kin eoarse «;>ils: and
by thus improving the fertility of ihe land,
considerably augmeut s succeeding crops. In-
tervals of twelve yards wide, quite across large
fields,, sown with unplastered wheat, whilst the
rest was plastered bj mingling a bushel of one*
with a bushel of the other, exhibited to a line
on each side by the natural growth, an inferi-
ority of strength from the cutting of the wheat,
throughout the whole period of re-t.

The immediate benefit of -gypsum to Indian
corn, is vastly greater than to any other crop,
clover excepted, whilst its benefit «o the land
is equally ~reat. I. n plastered spaces Wl
oross large fields of clover, have in sundry iu-

MANX RING. IIS

stances produced a third or a fourth only of
the adjoining plastered clover. Unplastered
spaces across large fields of corn, have been
frequently visible during the whole crop, pro-
ducing not an equal but a considerable differ-
ence. Gypsum, 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 vears; 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 suffe? 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 arc t«
be used as a manure more sparingly, and when
they have, more copiously. In their unreduc*
ed slate, just from the chimney, when sprin-
kle;! an in h thick on the long litter and dung
from a re sentry; cleansed stable, they consti-
tute the be ?! manure 1 have ever tried for as-
paragus. » beds are well forked up in the
fall, covered two or three inches deep with the
un rotted stable manure, on which the fresh
ashes are placed, and so remain until they ar«
thrown into proper order in the spring.
[Note C.J

iiik £A*OCB»

XUMBER 2*.

la:

Perhaps this subject ought to Lave preceded
that of manuring, a? it is idle even to think of
a good system of agriculture in anv point of
▼lew, if the labor on which it depends is con-
vulsed by infusions the most inimical to its uti-
lity : and if (hose who direct it. are to live in a
eonstant dread of its loss, and a doubt of their
own safety. Such 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 ethieks
and logick could 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, virt»;o'i% or wicked I
"Will it advance i r destroy flu principles of
morality, religion and civil libt ty : Is it wi^e
or foolish :

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

men in all ages, up to robbery and murder in
their 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 contend, not about sounds and signs, but
for wealth and power.

And yet an amiable and peaceable religious
sect, have been Jong laboring with some suc-
cess, to plunge three fourths of the union, into
a civil war of a complexion so inveterate, as to
auii.it of no issue* but the extermination of one
entire party. Suppose the extermination shall
fall on the blacks, the ferocity acquired by
the whites during the eotv.est, and the destruc-
tion of the labour in three fourths of the union,
will not endow the remaining fourth with
wealth or happiness, lt'tlie whites should be
the victims oi this enthusiastic philanthropy,
and our northern brethren should succeed in
overwhelming the southern states with the
negro patriotism and civilization, what will
they have done for the benefit of the liberty,
virtue or happiness of mankind ? The French
revolution bottomed upon as correct abstract
principles and sounder practical hopes, turn-
ed out to be a foolish and mischievous specu-
lation ; what then can be expected from ma-
king republicans of negro slaves, and conquer-
ors of ignorant infuriated barbarians ? What
can those who are doiug the greatest mis-
chiefs 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 than
their own.

But. what will not. enthusiasm aUempt ? It
attempted to make freemen of the peopLc oV

ittt -LABOUR.

France : the experiment pronounced that they
jvere incapable of liberty. It attempted to
«ompound a free nation of black and white
people in St. Domingo. The experiment pro-
nounced that one color must peris.li. Aud now
rendered blinder by experience, it proposes to
renew the last experiment, though it impress-
ed truth bv 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 chisti-
ans, suppose that the negroes could be made
free, and yet kept from property and equal ci-
Til rights ,• or that both or either of these ave-
nues to power could be opened to them, aud yet
tbat some precept or incantation could prevent
their entrance ? As rivals for rule with the
Whites, the collision would be immediate, and
the catastrophe speedy. Divest pd of equal ci-
vil rights and wealth to prevent this rivalship,
frut 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 southern
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 an
explosion might follow, which would shake
our nation from the centre to its extremities.
Is it humanity, wisdom or religion, or some
adversary of all three, which prepares the
slock of combustibles for this explosion 2

LABOUR. 117

Suppose France was about to invade the
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 ; could the northern mem-
bers of the union find any motive drawn from po-
licy, religion, morality or self interest, for a-
greeingto 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
desperate 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,
afford to the northern 6tates a temptation for
incurring so dreadful an evil. Their manners
will neither be improved, nor their happiness
advaneed,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 tho Northern newspapers are
continually dealing out fraternity to this race,
and to this moral character, and opprobrium te
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
ancestors were concerned in stealing and tranv
11.

118 £.abot:b,

porting negroes from Africa ? If some rem-
nant; 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-
sure;, by continually exciting their negroes to
cut their Chroatsj v ill accuse them of tyranny
with as little reason, as the prosecutors of the
slave trade accuse them of negro stealing.

The fact is, that negro slavery is an evil
which the United State? must look in the face.
To whim over it, is cowardly: to aggravate
it, criminal ; and to forbear to alleviate it,
because it cannot be wholly cured, foolish. —
Reward; and punishment; the -auctions of the
best government, and the origin of love and
fear, are rendered useless by the ideas excited
in the French revolution : by the example of
St. Domingo : by the lure of free negroes min-
gled with slaves : and by the reproaches to
masters and sympathies for slaves, breathed
forth from the Northern states. Sympathies,
such a; if the negroes should transfer their af-
fections from their own species to the baboons.
Under impression; derived from such sources,
thejostest punishment v> ill befelt as the inilie-
tien of tyranny, and the mo;t liberal rewards,
as a niggardly portion of greater rights. For
where will the rights of black sansculottes stop?

Such a state of things is themo-t 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
other, and in contemplating its utter destituti-
on of good, our admiration is equally excited,
by t he error of those who produce, and the
ibllv of those who suffer it.

"LABOUR. lid

NUMBER 29.

LABOUR, CONTINUED.

Slaves are docile, useful and happy, if they
are well managed ; and if their docility, utility
and happiness are not obstructed hy the cir-
cumstances adverted to in the last number. —
Knowledge manages ignorance with great easej
whenever ignorance is not used as an instru-
ment by knowledge against itself. But our
religious and philosophical quixottes have un-
dertaken to make ignorance independent of
knowledge. They propose to bestow a capaci-
ty for liberty and rule on an extreme degree of
ignorance, when the whole history of mankind
announces, that far less degrees possess no
such capacity. One would suspect, except for
the integrity of these divines and philosophers,
that they were impostors disguised in the garb
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 of 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 iuterest which shall
gain the prize, will use it to oppress other
branches of knowledge. In its hands the
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 re*d slavery for themselves.

420 JABOTTB.

Under their present m2?tcvs. ^ie negroes
would enjoy more happiness, and e Ten niore li-
berty, than under a conqueror or a hierarchy*
Slavery to an individual is preferable to slavO
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 nurse, & to transfer it to its own pocket,
without difficulty retains the contents. Thu§
men imagine that they 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
body politick, and scripture having exhibited
no instance of one of these artificial bodies be-
ing consigned to the region of punisbment, their
oppressions, however atrocious, are considered
as a casus omissus, and as aiTording a mode for
fattening the body with crimes and frauds,
without hurting the soul.

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 misery
together. These associates he cannot disse-
ver ; he chooses the alternative indeed for both,
but he must choose the same.

If an inl erest or a combination of men is the
worst species of master, and if this black mass
of ignorance, turned at large and defined by the
plainest marks, must naturally fall under the

lAROrKv 12*

clSniinion of some interest or combination, tbe
miseries inflicted both on their owners and
themselves, bj 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
subject.

12& 1AB0UE.

NUMBER SQ.

LABOUR, CONTINUED.

Animal labor is brought to its utmost value,
by being completely supplied with the 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
cause, are often strong. The addition of com-
fort to mere necessaries, is a price paid by the
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 reflects
•ns throughout life, which will cost him no-
thing.

A projeet towards an object so desirable,
may possibly contain a hint which some one
will improve. Let the houses of the slaves be
of brick walls, able to withstand hard usage
and remain tight, built in one connected line,
with partitions, making each a room sixteen
©r eighteen feet square ; let there be a brick
chimney in the centre between each two rooms
affording a fire place to each, and two warm
chasms, one on each side of the fire 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 each door. No
joists or loft, but to be lathed on the rafters
sad their couplings, nearly to the top of the
roof, and the whole inside to be plastered.—

LABOTTli. 12$

Henee, though the house should be low, the
pitch of the rooms will be high ; and salubrity
av ill be consulted with a precaution against
fire, amounting to a certainty within the house*
as there will he no insula fuel, the floor being
of eartb. The roof will be a mere shell plas-
tered within, and if the cbimnies 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 coat, jacket *
and breeches, with the latter and the sleeves
of the former lined, two oznaburg shirts, a
good hat and blanket every other year, two
pair of stockings annually, a pair of shees, a
pair of summer overalls, and a great coat eve-
ry third year, will constitute a warm clothing
for careful slaves, and the acquisitions they
make from their usual permissions, will sup-
ply them with finery.

The best source for securing their happiness,
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 unite
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
subject of agriculture by slaves, that it i» «h©~

sen to terminate this subject Bread alone,
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, crmblins or pump-
kins. At other meals salt fish, milk or butter
milk. Vegetables are raised in great abun-
dance at little expenee, and at all seasons a
supply of some species should be allowed to
the slaves without stint. We shall be asto-
nished upon trial to discover that this great
comfort to them, is a profit to the master, in
its single effect 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 convenience as au instrument
of reward and punishment, so powerful as al-
inostto 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 ihe 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-
cing 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 innocent comrades, who will not surrender

LABOtTR, 125

their own daily comforts, that another may
occasionally steal luxuries, a solid check upon
theft. The hetter the diet of negroes, the

more effectual will such a system become

It should be executed rigidly, so as to produce
2 less of food additional to bread, of double va-
lue to the thing stolen, except the guilty person
is detected, who ought in that ease to sustain
the whole punishment, which must either be
corporal, or a sale to some distant place. The
latter, combined with the enjoyments provided
for slaves by this system, will soon become an
object of terror ; and as many buyers care lit-
tle Tor uwVnl character? it is unexceptionable,
provided the seller states it fairly and records
it in the bill of sale, as he ought to do, for his
own honor and security.

A daily allowance 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 subordination, must be
combined vith it, to gain any success at all j
and that so long as white soldiers cannot be
kept in order, or rendered useful, without all
three, he is not to expect that blark slaves can
without either ; nor that those can be govern-
ed by the finest threads of the human hearty
who possess only the coarsest.

128 LABOUR.

NTMBER 31.

LABCVR, COXTXKUE0.

Those tied by habit to the rotation of eonu
Wheat and pasture, or the three shift system,
object to the enclosing and four shift system,
** that having labour adequate to the tilling one
third of their arable land, a portion of it would
be unemployed, by restricting this labour 10 the
eultivation of a fourth only." The rotation
of corn, wheat and clover for two years, with-
out being cut or grazed, need only be confront-
ed with its rival course, to satisfy the reader,,
that under the latter system, the fourth will
soon overtake the third in product, and at
length infinitely exceed it. The profit of ma-
king greater crops from less land is visible 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 barrels of
corn, and the expences of cultivation amount
to a barrel an acre, there is no profit : but if
90 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 crop by cultivating lt?s land.

The error of making the mode of cultivation
subservient to fluctuating labour, instead of a-
^apf ing the labour to permanent land, however
egregious, cannot properly be termed vul-
var, because it is common to men of the b

IABODB. 127

as well as to those of the meanest understand-
ings. However glaring it is, it really consti-
tutes the most stubborn argument in favor of
using labour to kill ratherthun to improve land;
and though some readers may think it idle to
controvert a mistake, apparently not within
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 land, as far
more ridiculous. The collision between these
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, which 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 he general, seems incapable of* de-
serving the approbation of virtue, or the con-
currence of sclJishness. If the employment of
labour in the course of corn, wheat and pas-
ture, produces a regular impoverishment of
the soil, the practice falls within the scope of
this observation.

It is equally at enmity with the purest dc<-
votion of self-interest, which ever chilled the
human heart. This devotion pants for com-
pound 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-
nishes the interest crop. If the labour increa-
ses as in the case of slaves, the effect is not t©
enrich, but to impoverish the owner.

Flight is his resource against the poverty he
derives from the increase of his slaves, If

128 JABors,

the application of labour to the impoverish-
ment of land, was universal, an emigration to
another world, would be the only remedy ; if
national, it must amount 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 internal
struggle for the best birth in a bed of thorns,
the discovery will be made, that an endeavor ia
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 improvement of land by
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 eo's!4
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 ; fav
more is necessary to build than to destroy ;
shall we thence also infer, that labor is destin-
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 sugaF
trees, it threw a portion of their labour out of
employment, and therefore inferred, that it was
one of nature's wise laws, that labour should
kill the sourees 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 labour
caused a land killing agricultural system, and
its scarcity the reverse, Flanders should be a

IABOUR. 129

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 lands, to be applied to improvement.
"When we come to consider a project for the
management of a bread stuff farm, we shall
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 clover
every spot of land which will bear it, and con-
verting all moist land into meadow, would
alone be sponsors 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 lab«ur. —
if 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 reilections, 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 embracing
an assassin.

12.

4£8 4K9IAX CORN.

DUMBER 32.

INDIAN CORN.

It was very improbable that one who has
often joined in the execration of Indian corn,
should have been destined to write its eulogy.
Had we designed to transfer from ourselves to
an innocent plant the heavy charge of murder-
ing our land, its acquittal before a jury whose
ow n condemnation would be the consequence,
could not be expected ; but as nothing is more
certain than that the exclamations 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 corn to
trial before the real criminals, and its mista-
ken accusers.

Arthur Young, in his Travels through France
and Spain, observes, that the regions of maize
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 satisfactorily account for it.
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.

INDIAN COhN* 131

The first capacity is common to all crops ; the
last is possessed by 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 ex-
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 w ill 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 the
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 food for the earth. If any at-
tentive man who converts both his stalks and
straw into manure, will compare their product
in April, when he may distinguish one from
the other, lie wifl find of the former a vast su-
periority in quantity. The English farmers
consider wheat straw as their most abundant
resouree 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,
than any in England. In comparing crops, to

152 INDIA!*" COR !«\

ascertain their relative product, and operation
on the earth, we must contrast farinaceous
crops with each other ', and consider the litter
er offal they produce, not as wasted, but as ju-
diciously applied to the compensation of the
land. At the threshold of the comparison,
corn exhibits a return from the same Ian
more offal or litter in its stalks alone, than
wheat do.'s altogether. But to the stalks <>t
eorn. its blades, tops, shuck? and cobs remain
to be added, each of which will nearly balance
the liner bestowed on the land by wheat. Kut
only the quantity of the vegetable matter pro-
duced by corn, is far greater than the quantity
produced by wheat, hut 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 en the ground, is vastly
diminished in weight by moisture, and injured
after it is cut, even by dews. I think 1 have
known it thus lose two thirds of its weight.
Among the several kinds of litter furnished by
corn, the shucks and cobs lose nothing of their
value by evaporation ; the rind of the si
seems intended by nature to resist it. that the
farmer may have time to save them both as food
and litter ; from the same rind the lop derives
some security, and the fodder is only exposed to
it as grassis in being made into hay. But the
quality of every part of the corn offal is better
as manure than the wheat offal. The cob is
said to be a valuable food, reduced to meal ;
if so 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 shucks,
being more nutricious as food, must be alli-
ed some degree of richness beyond the straw.

1FDIAN COR*. 183

The whole of the corn offal is belter food than
wheat straw, but its blades and tops are so
greatly superior, that cattle prefer them to
hay. and Mill 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 riches!
consistence. To this object the straw is in-
competent.

Let us noweompare corn & wheat as farinace-
ous food only. Corn in a proper climate for it,
produces more farinaceous matter than wlieat
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 well cultivated, whereas even
half that crop of wlieat is extremely rare.—
And in districts where the average crop of
wlieat is five, that of corn is usually about fif-
teen bushels an acre. Besides, com 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 district,
either disproves its claim to the third, or dis-
allows any pretension of the inhabitants* to in-
dustry or agricultural knowledge.

/

13* INDIA* CORN".

Id Europe no husbandman expects a tolera-
ble crop of any kind, except the land has been
veil manured within seven years at most j
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 which
produces it. Is there 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 United States?

But not content with bestowing on other
crops, the meagre modicum of manure, which
happened to lie unavoidably in the way of ig-
norance, whilst the maintenance of every thing
was required of corn, without allowing it acy,
we have suffered the manure provided by corn
itself to waste and perish : and having both
withheld from it foreign anis, and transferred
to other plants the small portion of its own re-
sources for manure, which accident may have
saved, and permitted the residue to be lost, we
charge it with being an exhausting and killing
orop.

Such is the experimental process hitherto
pursued, but it must be reversed, before the
question can be tolerably understood or fairly
determined. 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 laud, 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 for
our even shortening the English manuring ro-
tation, which embraces the whole farm eve-

INDIAN* CORN. 135

ry seven years at most. Henee I conclude
that corn, besides being tbe most productive
ofain farinaceous crop, is also tbe least im-
poverishing, and even an improving crop aided
by inclosing.

Tbe brevity I have prescribed to myself, in-
duces me to pass over several inferior superi-
orities of Indian corn, and to conclude its en-
comium v it b 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,
is necessarily used. This is usually peas or
beans. It is less productive, less valuable as
bread stuff, less frougbt with fodder, 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 more skill, trouble and ex-
pencc in its cultivation. Under all these dis-
advantages, a fallow crop in England is pre-
ferable to a naked fallow. Under all the ad-
vantages of using corn as such, it 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 enumerated
considerations, and it certainly promises to the
American farmer, far greater benefits from a
good system of husbandry, than any crop with-
in the reach of an English farmer.

136 INDIAN GORtf;

NUMBER 33.

INDIAN CORN, CONTINUED.

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-
rowed from the aboriginal farmers of Ameri-
ca, except, that if product is the test of science,
they must be allowed to havebeen more accom-
plished husbandmen than their imitators. As
the Indians certainly made better crops to the
acre, and preserved the earth in belter heart,
than we do, we may at least hope to accomplish
a degree of perfection, winch 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 returned, of this
indigenous system, and to draw omc 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 assigued it by a special cognomina-
tion.

Neither in theory or practice, in Europe or
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 the
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 ploughings of two or three

inches deep to let in sun 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 than
we plough at present. In our dry and hot
climate, the preservation of 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 in-
crease of pasture for the plant. The maize is
a little < ree, and possessing roots correspondent
to its sizc,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 do
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
suffices to sustain both. By shallow ploughing,-

138 pnorur coRir.

the seeds of grass and weeds, are kept near the
surface throughout the year, locked up by
frost, drought or immersion, ready 10 sprout
upon the occurrence of every geuial season,
when they appear in millions, and instantly re-
quire the plough, however recently used : hy
deep, if skilfully done, these seeds, which a-
bound most near the surface, are deposited
below 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 ploughing*, 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 ir.

To demonstrate the difference 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 bot in one di-
rection, cross ploughing being wholly abandon-
ed. Their width is five and a half fret. The
field being once thrown into the position of
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,
sothat there is a regular alternity between
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 vhieh
to pJLant the; corn. The *ld ridge is split by a

INDIAN CORN. 17>9

large t rowel -h oe-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, the 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. TIig 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-
hoard, 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-boards, drawn by
two horses, to be repeated when necessary. —
The whole to be concluded with a narrow
weeding or hand-hoeing along the slip in the
direction of the row, not kept completely clean
by the skimmer.

J&fl rSDIA> COR*.

NUMBER 3k.

INDIAN CORK, CONTINUED.

The judicious reader will discern, that the*
effects of high ridges and deep furrows in cul-
tivating corn are numerous. The corn it
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 cioss
ploughing in the usual mode. Its roois are
never cut in one direction, and this 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 the
corn list is made, is a reservoir of manure, far
removed from evaporation; within reach of
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 on
each side of it, without hurting the erop on the
ridge, and with the bottom of the furrow re-
mains four years to be fructified by the atmos-
phere so as to escape the present loss some-
times accruing from mingling too much dead
earth with the soil by deep flat ploughing, and
yet to mellow and deepen it more rapidly.
And much labour is saved in planting the com

INDIAN COttN. Hi

whether the hoe is*ised after a string, or the
siring is carried across furrows previously
made on the ridge.

In all lands unable to produce forty bushels
of corn to the acre, the considerations 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 the distance of five
feet six inches, by two feet nine, leaving two
stalks in sandy, and three in stift'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 more profitable than naked
fallows. Several superiorities of Indian corn
over the faJIow crops used in England, have
been noticed. The following are, I believe,
omitted. The high ridges produced by the
mode of cultivation I have adopted, double
the surface exposed to the Atmosphere, and
lessen by one half that exposed to the sun, so
as to increase inhalation and diminish exhala-
tion .cry considerably. No other fallow crop
will enable us to obtain these benefits by the
agency of the plough, because none of them
will admit of being drilled sufficiently wide
apart, nor admit of an equal use of the
plough.

Corn is a fallow crop, peculiarly adapted to
eo-opcrate with the system of inclosing ;
whereas a fallow for wheat, by which an uu-
grazed lay of grass, weeds, or even of red clo-
ver is turned under, frequently defeats th<>
hopes of the farmer. Hence he is seduced jp-
13.

1A2 ~.:J.\DIAN COIN.

10 the ruinous practice of feeding oft* 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 lour horses, is a
pledge for good crops both of coin and wheat,
ewiftg to the quality of the former of thriving
upon the food yielded hy coarse litter, and the
time gained during its growth, for reducing

- litter 10 proper food for the latter.
1 The winters manure, like this litter is also
made more extensively henefieial to a crop of
wheat, than if it had heen exposed to putrefac-
tion throughout the summer, because whate-
ver i into the atmosphere, during a vi-
olent summer's fermentation, is lost hoth 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 oj its fertilizing qualities as the slow
putrefaction proceeds, and less of the manure
is lost when the wheat is sown, (nan if rotted
in a body, Whereby much of it is dissipated in
the atmosphere : a dissipation which corn
partly pn i , ;.: -. and ;

rj he manure made on the winter's farm pen,
remains wet I unrotted until the mouth

vpri!, ancl when composed of com stafttis
of a rough and hard nature. Yet land cover-
ed with fifty loads and sows with one ttishel
of gypsum to an acre, wi:i y reduce, threefold
re corn than in its natural sfate; and this
crop is made in i. s \ pace just suf-

ficientio reduce the r to a pabu-

lum proper for w heat. ri he better this coarse
lifter and the earth are < ti mingled,

the fermentation, and the
the crop* 'ihe sudden growth of the

INDIAN COKN. 113

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 figment at ion, and
putrefaction is finished in the earth, the resi-
duum is the same, as if i) had been finished on*,
of the earth ; besides this residuum, supposed
by the old theory of compounding, stirring
rotting dunghills, to contain all the fyrtiliziug
qualities of vegetable matter, Indian corn en-
ables us to reap a rich harvest of bread stuff
from the process towards it.

The same property of Indian corn presents
us also with a vast addition to our vegetable
matter for manure. The crop of offal 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 rotted ma-
nure to a naked fallowr for wheat. Xo two
nropa can be so exactly fitted for advancing ;i
good system of agriculture. The coarse or-
18 of the one. relishes the food rejected by
the delicate organs of the other, and by the
economy of sa\ing what would otherwise be
lost, not only enable us to obtain an additional
crop, but by enereasing our means for raising
manure in a three fold ratio, must have the ef-
i of increasing the wops of wheat them-
selves, far beyond the confines to which they
are limited by naked fallows.

£i4- INBIAX CORJT.

NUMBER 35.

IKDIAK CORN, CONTINUES.

The reader will remember, that Indian cora
is to be planted on a high ridge, and that cross
ploughing is excluded. These ridges should
rnfi North and South, to equalize both the be-
nefits and injuries derived from the sun. The
injury suffered by a flat surface from its ex-
eessive beat, would he rather increased thaa
diminished, by exposing one face of the ridge
to the South, whilst the Northern aspect would
Jose the benefit of its genial warmth. These
high ridges have another important effect.—
However s,teep the declivity, we never see the
roots of trees, shrubs or grasses, penetrating
through the ground into the atmosphere. It
is of course evident that they recoil fi»om one
element, and bend towards their food in the
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 lengthwayt
«»f 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 groun:! intended to be ma-
nured for Indian corn is fallowed in the win-
ter : that before or after the rest of the crop
i« planted, this manure is carried out, plough-
ed in, and the corn to be benefitted by it. plan-
ted : and that before it receives any plough.

INDIAN CORN. 1J>5

rng, 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 twenty-four
inches high. At this juncture the deep fur-
row 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 ;
aud that space will suffice 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 whilst it js 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 effects of drought
on the plant being thus diminished, its pro-
duct is increased.

The lirst 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 clover. This mass, in addition to its being
a reservoir of food, gradually supplying the
corn during (he summer as it putrifiea, ope-
rates powerfully in preserving the friability
and mellowness of the earth, by the passage
of the air perpetually escaping from it, through
Us tegument, into its congenial element. By
this process, the propensity of hard and cold
soils to run and bake, is removed or diminish-

Utf INDIAN" CORF.

ed ; a propensity -which is encouraged in the
highest degree by shallow ploughing on naked
or grazed lipids. And by the saw process,
tlie inconveniences of a inass of dry litter, on
enclosed fields, eonil)ined 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 eomes up bet-
ter : if. may be re-planted, and at last it may
be transplanted. This last precaution for in-
juring a crop, is executed with little labour
by planting a portion of it very early, in the
quarter of the held where it will vegetate and
grow quickest, somewhat thicker, to furnish
plants : and by transplanting those drawn out
in thinning in moist weather, or after a season,
as the tobacco-makers say. The corn plants
will live better than those of tobacco or any
other herb I ever tried, and may be transplant-
ed until they are eighteen inches high. The
large plants will be equal to the smaller and
later planted corn. Indeed I often till up va-
cancies by setting the plants of the same field
as it is thinned, and always thin as I set. to
avoid a double perambulation. A pointed
stick both aids in thinning and in setting th<-
eorn, ■which is done nearly as rapidly as tobac-
co is planted.

I 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 few. that the roots of corn and most other
herbaceous plants, seek their food only near
the surface : whereas the loots of wheat will

INDIAN CORV:. I*?

penetrate four feet of tilth, and those of corn
will strike still deeper. An objection that the
roots of the latter will not reach the reservoir
of food provided for them in the deep covered
litter of an inclosed Held, would therefore he
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 sweat,
and produce its better vegetation : and it in-
creases the crop, which is deeply influenced by
the length of the grain.

[Note D.J

US FXorGHIS^.

NUMBER 36.

S --. VGEIKG.

Tliis subject has been unavoidably anticipa-
ted by its connection with others, but yet it is
not 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
shallow, yet atmosphere being more subtle
tiian 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 by plough-
ing, because earth has not the power like ve-
getables of elaborating it into a lasting form.
Plants speedily die in atmosphere and live
long in rain or water.

AVe must avoid the plausible error, that if
the atmosphere is the matrix of manure, its
inhalation may permanently enrich the earth,
and supercede the slow process necessary for
it? elaboration into the vegetable form fur that
end. "We know that marie possesses the pro-
perty of permanently enriching itself hy fix-
ing the atmospherical fertilizing qualities ;
but we know also, that such is not the nature

PLOUGHING. Ii9

of other earths. This natural difference is
the reason prescribing different modes for fer-
tilizing marie and such earths, and exploding
Tail's exclusive reliance upon the mode by
which marie is enriched, 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 as transi-
tory as rain, may still retain a high value a-
nioug the several agents, necessary for produ-
cing the most perfect effects of good husband-
ry.

Lime and gypsum repeatedly applied tn
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 Miffieieut 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-
pi' es.

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 heeollected, condensed and render-
ed operative, by some process more effectual
than the inhalation of atmosphere by the
cn-ib ; which, alone, will hardly produce
more sensible effects than its inhalation by a
man as a substitute Cora dose of nitre.

The degrees of value in manure, probably
ris.' with its permanency, and maybe marked,,
biuipie atmosphere i. Rain 2. Green herbs o»

lcQ PicrcmxG,

. Bry herbs .'. AVooJ 6. If the
reader should plaee a large decaying Trunk of
a u -pot

rent si:

. would i
reserve tl iu heart.

Itare wkk ;ure,r

has b of the Southern

>. with this . " hat he pi

deep, they shallow : b\ i vet the complete de-
struction of a soil originally good* ¥ hieh if
effected, ought after two but died rears exne-
rience, to explode so much of it, as excludes
the ; y of manure. The same shallow

ploughing which product d good erops, whilst
the land was naturally rid . rod uce good

erops if it wa» made artificiallvrieh. rl
•rops obtained by had culture from rich land,
demonstrates that fertility i- the first ol
to be effected. But whilst 1 his i> admitted,
the effects of uniting fine tillage with a fci
soil, ought not 10 he forgotten, by any [
. 'a^te for excellence or foe
Ilenee deep ploughing has been often recom-
mended in these essays, and to these recom-
mendations are added the following n

Deep ploughing upon a naked and po< ir soil,
by which a caput mortuum is brought to the
surface, has frequently proved pi -. —

This has been owing lo a variety of can
but among them, the preservation of a flat
surface, though least suspected. 1. ibly

been the most operative. The simple pro
of burying under a sterile tegument, the little
Bgtli of the land, neither]-: omises mop per-
forms much : but the disappointment of hopes
really forlorn, frequently causes a? to abandon
rt, aad embrace despair.

PLOUGHING. 151

t

T3y 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 iarge stock of vegeta-
ble matter, and the last has the etfect 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 are
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 tiic reader is to observe
that. J am speaking of poor lands, whose soils
require doubling for present subsistence, and
improving for future comfort : and not of
these, whose soils cannot be pierced by the
plough.

Deep ploughing (by which I always mean
the best to lie 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 covered drain, and thus vastly
obstructs tiic formation of gullies in hilly
foods, even if fallowed with a level surface.
Hut such hinds will admit of narrow ridges as
well as level, by a degree of skill and attention
so easily attainable t fiat I observe it to have
existed in Scotland above a century past. under
a state of agriculture otherwise execrable, and
among the ignorant highbinders. It is effect-
ed by carrying the ridges horizontally in suck

•452 *LOTJGHIN«.

inflections as the hillyness of the ground may
require, curved or zig-zag, preserving their
breadth. The preservation of the soil is hard-
ly more valuable than (hat of the rain water
in the successive reservoirs thus produced to
refresh the thirsty hill sides, instead of its
«Flishing to and poisoning the vallies. This
classic system of agriculture has been intro-
duced into Virginia by a gentleman of Albe-
marle, in a style completely adapted to the na-
ture of the country, & which Mill be 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.
—Navigation itself is becoming its victim, and
in mauy parts of the United States, our Agri-
culture has arrived to the insurpassable state
of imperfection, of applying its best soil to %he
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
«orn, and the deep ploughing, by burying one
portion of the garliek very deep, and exposing
another to frost, will probably destroy ii ; a
conjecture founded upon its considerable di-
minution in grounds thus treated.

NUMBER 37.

CULMIFEROUS CROPS.

Among these wheat is the most valuable,
and is exposed to most calamities. These ca-
lamities are sometimes the 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 tbey are certainly avoided by getting
it out early ; a habit which v ill 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 harvest, 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. have a rem-
nant only in stooks capable of being gotten out
so soon after harvest as to avoid this calami*
ty. — The best bread and seed wheat, is inva»
1*.

\oi CrLMTFEROUS cBors.

rlab'v fliat 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 lo»s of crops
proceeding from bad tillage. Lands arc tired
by shallow and incessant culture, or by being
prevented from invigorating themselves with
vegetable substances. Even ihe richest bot-
tom lands are subject to weariness, and some-
times are said to have grown lousy, so that
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 niiked fallows in the same way.
And moreover , a probability exists that the
two deep ploughings one in tjie winter and the
other early in June, recommended by the
same system, might destroy the fly itself in
some form, and other insects, to great extent.
At least my experience has never furnished
me with a single instance, in which a crop has
suffered by any insect, when the land was in
heart and* we'll covered with dry vegetable
natter, when that matter was turned under
as deep as four horses in a plough could do it,
-when the land had received a second good
ploughing by two horses in a plough, and
when the wheat was seeded on high and nar-
row ridges, with a clean furrow.

The rust as it is called may be better un-

CFLMIFEROUS CROPS. 155

dcrstood, heeause it may be certainly produc-
ed, hy a due combination of beat, moisture,
shallow ploughing and a Hat surface. By this
process we shall never fail of obtaining it on
a stift'soii, from which the rain water cannot
escape, just as by dosing a man with arsenick,
we arc sure of poisoning; him at last. Of
course we should no more prescribe this sys-
tem of agriculture to the wheat, 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 ploughing, 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 (he heat and moisture, which
appear to be the chief causes of the disease j
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 benefitted
wheat in sundry experiments to the conjectur-
ed extent often per centum, when it has been
free from what is called the bird foot clover;
and iujured it thrice as much, when infested
With that grass, owing to the effect of gypsum
on its growth, which is such, that this species
of clover among the 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 wheat, that in several instances, I have seen
intervals of ten yards wide across large fields,

l'5& €TJXMrFBROTTS CROPt,

where it was omitted for experiments, exhi-
biting tbr 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 to commence a new slock of
seed.

fivecmLEjn* crops. 157

NUMBER 38.

SUCCULENT CHOPS.

The trials I Lave made of this family, have
resulted in the rejection of the whole, an in-
dividual excepted, as possessing hut little va-
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 comfort, to his health,
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 as 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 i» the fall, that
it was quite visible 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
of feeding the turnips on the ground by sheep
o.

158 STTOCUtENT CROP*.

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, althougk
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, aud used in the
spring ; the tediousness of planting and ga-
thering ; and the poorness of the food. Be-
fore 1 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 them 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
eultivation 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
oombination 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 fail season, in fattening cattle
and sheep, and enables the farmer to spare
his stock of both ; a circumstance highly be-
neficial to one, who does not abound in those.

SUCCULENT CROPS, 159

articles, by enabling him to feed his teams
better, and to save a sufficiency to allow them
enough, from the failure of the clover, until the
new crop of hay or fodder comes in. Per--
haps no circumstance has contributed more
to the impoverishment of several of the Uni-
ted States, than the negligence to provide dry
forage for summer, producing the evils of a
loss of labour, of weakening the teams, and
©f 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, it*
properly cultivated.

My mode of cultivating it is this. I select
the intended number 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 deep 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 foHr 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

160 SFCCUIENT •E0P9.

and a half distance in the direction of the rid-
ges, and two feet nine inches across them.
They receive one deep ploughing, the ridges
are raised high and the water furrows made
deep and w ide ; 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
eorn 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, and 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.

LEGUMINOUS CROF& 161

NUMBER 39*

LEGUMINOUS CROPS':

Indian corn must be recognised as the
prince of this family, if it belongs to it. No
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
ehief merit consists in preparing the ground
for wheat, or for some other culmiferous crop.
It was never imagined, that the least competi-
tion as to value existed between the fallow
•rop and its successor ; and the great doubt
has been, whether a naked fallow or a fallow
•rop ought to be preferred. Young decides
for the latter, on account of the profit result-
ing from the succulents or legumes used as
fallow crops there ; and his arguments are
tripled in weight, by the triple value of Indian
•orn used as a fallow crop here.

It results that I reject the succulents and
legumes resorted to in England as fallow
•rops, and prefer the maize for that purpose ;
wherefore in the previous chapter, the first
kave 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 sufficiently attended to,
whilst I admit that in every other view, inclu-
ding the danger ol destruction from accident,
they arc inferior to maize ; and that even ia
tins, they arc rather to be considered as its
coadjutor than rival.

Amjmg them, the pea is selected as cove*.*

162 lEGrmxors ckoR.

ing most individuals, and most fitted to our
climate. Four gallons of dry peas annually,
will add inconceivably 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 exponce 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
oulmiferous 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 fee selected, sufficient to pro-
duce four gallons of dry peas for each resident
on the farm of all ages, exclusive of what they
may gather and use at their will in a green
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 in
each bill. The ground is ridged, ploughed
but one way, and both crops are planted in the
direction of the ridges. It remains without
producing any other crop (these two excepted
growing together) inclosed, ungrazed, in deep
furrows and high ridges running North and
South, until Che revolution of the course of
culture, which consists of four years is com-
pleted ; and is very much improved. It is
more so if aided bv 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 culture beyond what would be
obtained by a state of perfect idleness.
If circumstances, prevent this course, the

1EGUMIN0US CROTPS. 163

peas arc raised in the same mode with pump-
kins on a portion of the intended corn field of
the following year, where noxious plants are to
be eradicated, equally enriched, and similarly
culticaled ; except that the labour is very
much le ssened by the use of a weeding plough
called a skimmer. They are drilled by the
hand as thick as the common garden pea, in a
shallow furrow on the summit of the ridges,
and covered with the hand hoe. If the land is
rich, they will cover the whole ground, so
that little is lost by the distance, required in
reference to the succeeding corn crop ; and a
small spot of laud will produce the necessary
quantity.

The best kind of pea for the end in view,
(which is extremely important to a well ma-
naged fa rn ) known to me, is white with black
eyes. But as there are many peas which an-
swer this description, besides a great number
of others, the reader must be referred to his
.own experience or enquiries for the necessary
selection.

16i LITE STOCK,

NUMBER 49.

LIVE STOCi.

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 lands
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 eapable
of being kept, it follows, that one of the expe-
riments of the proposed comparison, has been
completely tried in Virginia.

And what is the result ? It is found by com-
puting the consequences reaped by Virginia,
from her system of keeping these enormous
stocks ; enormous iu 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

LIVE STOCK. ioT'

is, to supply the deficiencies of her more
wretched system of grazing. If it is a fact,
that hinds will sink under a system of oppres-
sive taxation hy crops, is it not conceivable
that they will also sink under excessive gra-
zing ? And if by flopping them less, more
bread can be rawed, may it not follow, that
metre meat way also be raised by grazing them
less ? Fertility is as necessary a requisite for
raising stocks as for raising bread, and what-
ever will produce it, is a harbinger of both ; a
system of grazing therefore, which impove-
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 iu
fact unattainable without it, except by a vast
depopulation of the country, to make up the
loss of food for stucks, 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 iu
union with an execrable system of agriculture,
and therefore, instead of enquiring whether
we ought to sacrifice, our mode of tillage to
raising stock, or our mode of raising stock to
oar mode of tillage* the true question proba-
bly is, whether we ought not to abandon both,
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
U.

t€$ LIVE STOCK.

an injurious excess. There, meadows, natu-
ral or artificial, and well turfed standing pas-
tures, are prepared and used for grazing ; and
if these precautious are useful to a moist cli-
mate and a rich soil, they cannot he dispensed
with by a dry climate aud. 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 difficulties in
effecting this are discerned, they point directly
to another view of the subject. Supposing
that raising large stocks and inclosing arable
lanas against grazing, were really incompati-
ble objects, our attention is of course turned
towards our climate and soil, for the purpose
©f making the election ; and it is very obvious
thata warm dry ciimate 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 natu-
ral disadvantages in raising slocks, will not
find them insurmountable, so far as it is their
interest to surmount them, if they will resort
to the very system for fertilizing their lands,
mpposed to obstruct the object. This system
itself requires strong teams, meat for labour-
ers, and stock sufficient to consume the offal
of all the crops. Inclosing is only a coadjutor
to manuring, and had it excluded the means
for ihe latter, it would have excluded a more
valuable object 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-
mended in these essays, to Lave trebled its

hrvE stock, 167

crop? on the ^ame fields in twelve years — if
the 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 off.il of this treble crop, will support
a stock \hveo timos as large through the 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 fan her discerned, that as t he
crops bv tin* aore increase, the space cultiva-
ted may be gradually diminished, so as to re-
lease a portion of t ie labour for the purposes
I raining, manuring, ami raising artificial
grasses-; and in tliat view constituting a dif-
ferent mode of providing for stocks, from that
of grazing exhausted arable lands. A glance
of intellect decides between the two modes.

16& XIVE STOCK.

NUMBER 41.

LIVE STOCK, COXTIXUJ It.

The grazier and the ploughman are'eharac-
U-r.- so different, and llieii*- occupations are so
distinct, that had these essays rela<< i! to a sys-
ieui of grazing, *5 Pccuarius*' ought to have
been their signature. "What stronger proof
can exist of our agricultural ignorance, titan
a notion of succeeding in botfi lines at the same
liinr', by respectively violating i\u- first prin-
ciples of both. To succeed in grazing, it is
v to cover the land with a tin tig and
. iuri' : to succeed in agiieulture, tbisturf
st be destroyed. Having destroyed the
turfhy the plough, \\e endeavour to prevent
its renovation by assailing it with the tooth
and the hoof, the instant ii germinates; and
propose to raise large stocks -without grass,
and large crops on land loo poor to produce it.
in England, the ideas of promoting crops hy
treadiwg and grazing, and grazing hy plough-
ing tip pastures and meadows, would excite
great admiration : and the general prohibition
in leases against the latter, discloses the dis-
approbation of the system of reaping corn and
slocks annually from the same land. The
Question, whether the business of, grazing or
of* tillage, is the most profitable, frequently
occurs; but wlieilser <lie same land ought or
ouglit 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
distinction between tillage ant! grazing is well
understood, and their separation beneficially

LIVE 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 botb, 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 ot the other. The
better crops of grain we raise, 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 inerease
o.

170 LIVE STOCK.

of manure, because it begets an increase of
their food and litter, just us 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 inio the plan of grazing arable land,
of neglecting meadows and permanent pas-
lures, 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, In 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 glass, as an obstinate
culture of rice and cotton, A>ould be to the
state of ^Massachusetts. If therefore we are
to be brought to the proposed computation, the
election between tillage and stocks is settled
by the consideration of soil and climate, as
thev 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
ihe profit he would derive from doubling his
crops of grain, with that he gains by keep-

LIVE STOCK. 171

ing the largest stoeks Within liis power. He
will discern, (hat such an accession of annual
income, will generally oven exceed the whole
value of his stocks, instead of their profit ; and
if the enclosing system* aided by the means
heretofore explained, will rapidly douhle his
crops of groin, the preference between that
and it? rival i> determined ; and the object of.
grazing at the expence of tillage in an impo-
verished country, ought to he ahandoned.

ir-2 1IVE STOCK.

NUMBER ft%

LIVE STOCK, CCNTIN'CKP.

If we impoverish our land by grazing or til-
lage, both stocks and crops, whatever they
be, will gradually diminish : gradually be-
come less profitable : and finally, insufficient
to afford a maintenance. It is true that some
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 itself
with a luxurient coat of clover, the accession
of vegetable matter by a great portion being
trodden on and rejected by the cattle, and the
entire acquisition of 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 ease, lest we should be
led to reason from it. for the purpose of de-
ciding a different case. The most zealous a-
mor patrife will confess that the United States
have infinitely less need for a system to iia-

LIVE STOCK. 173

prove rich, than for one to improve poor land :
and instead of being blinded by 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
dow in a shite so far from being able 10 i:n-
prcve under the double taxation of tillage and
grazing; as fo require' a revolution of our ha-
bits to iie.prove under either : and the time has
come, when it is equally necessary to discover
some mode of raising meat as well as bread,
without impov dishing pur lands.

it is easj by a good system so wonderfully to
alter the case, as to make stocks profit ah re
simply from their manure, exclusive of the
labour, meat, lal'ow, leather, milk and butter,
they yield.; and to draw from them not only
the entire means for their own support, but a
surplus for enriching the soil. The mode of
doing this has been heretofore explained, but
in older to combine with it the subject now
under consideration, with more perspicuity. I
will take up and consider* separately, the mode
•f managing ea< h species of our domestic a-
nimals. usually comprised by the term •• slock,'*
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
h stable and stream, and to he excluded whol-
ly from grazing. For two months of the a ear,
elover cut daily, and exposed to six hours syn,
1 event the animal from being hoi en, should
!.cir hay. Jl will add to t!i<-ir health at
the ••«••.. s-Mi it comes in. After it fails, the !•■
fodder or hay. preserved for the holiest season,

17* LIVE STOCfe.

succeeds it. Corn stalks serve them from tht
iir>t of November, whilst they last, and are
succeeded by *he inferior tops, bladps or bay.
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
this enrichment is not exhausted by one crop,
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 ihe labour of col-
lecting the working animals from pastu:
and avoiding the loss of the morning, so ma-
terial in a warm climate, are inferior, hut ad-
ditional recommendations of the same system.
The oxen in summer should be penned and
fed separately from the other cattle, aud in
winter the same separation should take place,
with a more comfortable cover. They will
furnish the same supply of manure as the hor-
ses and mules in winter, and more in summer
from the removal of their pen. calculated t©
stand not beyond ten days. Whilst not at
work, they may be pastured with the Mher
cattle.

LIVE STOCK. 17*

NUMBER is.

livy STOCK, CONTINUED.

The horned cattle are happily able to en-
counter the hardships indicted on them by t!ie
impoverish me nt of our country These will
Li* graduallydecrcased >y enriching it. Their
food Lor half the year consists o!' tue coarse
oifal of bread grain in much of the greater
portion of the United S;,it-s, and a system
vrhieli will ine tease sueh crops, will increase
their food during t!i<a seasja of the year,
-when they suffer most, and perish in great
numbers, besides affording them a chance
from i;s greater: plenty/, of participating more
copiously of thf^grain itself. S ich an increase
of staple crops. 1) >.;<"'- eapit il a id rele ises la-
b mr, for draining improvements : and s icedily
points at swamps and marshes ofasoil, capa-
ble in general of being mule on*3 bra 1 Ired Fold
more productive in grass, than our exhaust d
lields. Meadows thus growtout ofc the enclos-
ing system, if that system increases th« staple
crops, and are a retribution with aceuja il.it-
iug interest to the stack. for the loss of naked
fields. This retribution extends to both fall
and winter. Meadows should be cut for hay,
and grazed with horned eat lie, after the se-
cond crop has arrived to iis most lu\arient
state. So far from being deteriorated by it,
they -are improved, produce cleaner and lar-
ger crops of hay. are longer defended against
(he intrusion of weeds, bushes and coaroe
grasses, and finally, when tillage becomes at*
eessar y for cleansing they^ their state for re*

176 XIVE STOCK.

ceivlng it will be belter, and the crop enbanc
ed.

By the increased oftal of increased crops,
and by the hay of these meadows, stocks will
be better7 provided for during the winter, than
under the unlimited grazing system j to which
add the grazing of the after math of the mea-
dows, and (his 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 unindorsed, to
recover what heart they can in their own way :
and ibeir progress in (ha! effort is accelerated
by enclosing them as pasturage for eaKle a-
lone, or at least excluding hogs. Such fields
presently produce shrubs and coarse grass,
and lands never chared, may be inclosed with
them, as auxi.iaries. Together, (hey v>i!l
constitute a pasture for cattle, far better in the
spring and summer, than that generally af-
forded by arable lands* which in (he maize
country of the United States, are particularly
scanty ofgras's until towards the fall, and (hen
the superior resource of the meadow grazing is
provided by the system of enclosing.

Jt would be too alarming, to subjoin to these
reasoniugs (and probably by its strangeness
might destroy (hem all) the idea of manur-
ing a spacious highland meadow, as a farther
auxiliary (o the inclosing system ; and there-
fore it will be deferred until crops are trebled
by it. But it is indispensab y necessary to
point out in what way this system is prepar-
ed, to satisfy those cravings which cannot be
deferred.

1TVE STOCK. 177

As crops increase in a warm and poor coun-
try, no department will more suddenly 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
»orn, the corn sta'ks succeed the pumpkins,
and 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 the 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. They 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
ealvos, 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 April, or from the
•lover's becoming three or four inches high ;
tne calves until frost. Small common fence
rails, and the common crooked fences, make
folds with less labour .:<{ hettr»- flan

any I have, tried. This pen oughi never t»
stand longer than three days. i-» which t me it
Might to he graaed ch-siu. .'t H stands loo<?-«-p,
the grasft is injured bv treacin^. When it i§

fffl LIVE STOCK.

to be remove'], the calves and steep are con*
lined in a cornet- next to rue new pen, by using
some of the top rails. An acre of* line clover,
unless it is disabled !)v drought* v\ i 1 J sjraze ten
calves, ten cues and ten lambs, through the
grass season, allowing for the gradual remo-
val of the sheep, all of v, Uich ought to be kill-
ed. To make them good meat, they must: be
allowed other food. Wash of c-orn 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
laud will be improved. Calves will make a
1 imbursement with a proOt for this mode of
raising them, by their superior value he-
ld those raised in the common wav, and
by surrendering at an early age their mo-
ther's miik. 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 be.stov.cd on the slaves. By harvest,
lambs have grown too large and coarse for the
table, and the e^es have become good mutton.
The mother should die within three days of
the Ian b. or she falls off. Both furnish a
supply of excellent food at that laborious sea-
son ; and as to have good lanibs we must make
their mothers fat, the luxury of the master be-
stows" a luxury on the slaves, wilhoyt an ad-
ditional expenee, and undoubtedly with more
economy, than to devote such sheep to their
usual destiny. These old ewes thus maiK :
yield line lambs, much wool, good mutton, and
hides able to bear tanning for the purpose of
making pads for the ba^k Lands of the plough
horses to pas* through.

SHEEP. ±79

NUMBER **»

SHEER,

It is with reluctance that T am about to ex-
press my opinions as to this stock., lest they
may discredit those upon subjects concern*
ing which I have had more experience. For
sixteen years 1 have laboured to estimate their
value and character, upon a small scale, hav-
ing a llock 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 stock, 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 tine meadows or extensive wildernesses. If
- voratiou not gratified, the animal

perishes or dwindles : if it is, he depopulates
the country he inhabits. The sheep of Spain
have probably kept out of existence, or sent
out of it. more people than the wild beasts of
the earth have destroyed from the creation ;
And those ef England may have taused a giea-t*

180 stf«EP.

er depopulation, than all her extravagant
wars. It may be owing to this animal that
the independence of one country is almost
overthrown, and of the other tottering, hi
both countries 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* which had long been a
eurse fo the place of its invention. It is ad-
mitted that the wool of sheep is to a certain
extent a necessary, and often a luxury ; hut
if I fancied a pearl, why should I dive for it
myself, when those who love the employment,
wish to supply me ; or why should a nation de-
populate itself to gain them, if it ean become
strong and populous without pearls ? The
earth's capacity to prodaoe food and materials
for elothes is limitetf, ami by endowing the
brute creation with so much of the former, as
to produce a deficit 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 capable of 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 tin* earth to
produce it to any needful extent, without pay-
ing depopulation Cor 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
ya-ltre of our volton> and opened an iuexhaust^

sn«EP. 181

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

.Their manure is the chief recompenee for
the expence of sheep, and worth more than
their wool if they are regularly penned. It is
true, that this will insomedegree injure them,
but it is indispensable, unless by surrendering-' 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 ease of cattle, are
best in the warm seasons of the year ; in the
cold, a farm pen shelter also, open to the south,
and elosed to the ground towards the other
three cardinal points, will suffice to the 39th
degree of North latitude. This pen should
be regularly littered with stalks, straw orlit^
ter of any kind.

Under the system of enclosing, the sheep>
may be managed like horned e;tttle, except
that they must be better fed. For this pur-
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.

i&2 sJMCEP.

injure. Of the first description, are grounds
infested with the garlick, over which the sheep
should he rapidly carried after it has headed*
to eat its seed ; of the second, the hanks of
rivers, rivulets or woodland. In winter, thef
sheep will cat every thing, and the hettcr the
ibod the more they will thrive. A great
quantity of corn, caught soft hy frost, most of
which hecame quite black, and all of it such
as to he refused hy hogs, was greedily eaten
by sheep ; and the supply heing copious, made
t«he hest flock I ever saw. In winter, their
farm pen is made in the field to he cultivated
"in corn the following summer, ia which field
the sheep are then allowed daily to feed under
the superintendance of the sliepherd. Being
covered with the dry litter of clover, the little
grass they get under it is of some service to
x he m. and the litter itself is more eon\eniently
disposed for the plough hy being trodden
down?

NUMBER 4#,

HOGS.

Few animals do us more real mischief, and
suffer more unmerited reproach than these.. —
They are the cause of dead wood fenees, 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 orJast-
ing improvements, is a cheek upon population
even greater than the English and Spanish
sheep system ;■ hut if we add to it, the impo-
verishment of land, and waste of herbage, by
the eradicating licence legally conferred on
hogs, it will require hut 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 allure-
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

innumerable hardships and of Indian scalping
knives, and lose the faeulty 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 Jr
fuel and stone for fencing. This destruction
increases in a ratio correspondent to the di-
minution of our means to bear it j 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-
mines ; just as the impoverishment of our
lands is ascribed to Indian Corn, as if that had
dictated the system of agriculture bv which it
is effected. But it is neither new, nor unna-
tural, to mistake our best benefactors for our
worst enemies.

Yet a single question refutes the calumny.
Did the bogs enact the laws, by which they
are turned loose, without rings in the nose, or
yokes on the neck to root out the herbage, and
assail the inclosures 2 Had they been legisla-
tors, self interest (allowing them wisdom)
would have suggested to them a mode of com-
ing at subsistence, infinitely better than one,
by which they are exposed to disasters, 'lun-
ger, poverty and assassination.

iroGsr. 1S5

Excluding from the argument all the mis-
chiefs flowing from the system 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,
by placing it on its strongest ground.

Meat is the end in view. JVo animal fur-
nishes hotter than the hog. If there i9 any
other which will furuish more at less expenee>
in a dry country, or which possesses more eon-
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 received. 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 thcjfirsf!
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 fortius opinion, drawn from a computation
which excludes all the mischiefs arising from
dead fences, it determines the mode of raising
ihem to be excessively erroneous\

18§ BOS^

This pecuniary loss must arise from fhe
mode of raising them, in those districts where
hogs are the best resource for meat, unless we
suppose that nature has treated the^e districts
with such severity, as to provide no animal to
supply a moderate comfort., except at an ex-
penee which must exclude a great number of
people from its use. And as Uus supposition
cannot be admitted, the evil c ght

for in this mode, where it will fl in the

disasters of the hogs, the inattention of their
owners, the badness and of their

food. And the mean quality of their meat, I
shall therefore attempt in the next number, to
point out a different one, more profitable to
the owner, more comfortable to the animal,
and entirely exempt from the ruinous vice of
*>peFating as an exclusion <#' live fences*

'HOGS. 1ST

NUMBER A6^

3IOGS, COXTZN'Vl

Xo domestic animal multiplies equally*
grows as rapidly, 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
©fall these qualities, designating him as the
best resource for meat, is a subject worthy of
particular attention, and would he a great im-
provement. My experience is inconsiderable,
and my knowledge limited in relation to it.
But I shall give the result of the former, with-
out deviating into conjecture, or recurring to
books. Indeed, as neither distilleries nor dai-
lies, constitute any resource for the country
within my > iew, little aid could be extracted
from the latter.

Indian corn, clover and pumpkins, are my
only resources for raising hogs. They are
raised within the enclosure of a farm having
no cross fences, regularly eonfiued in a pen of
nights, and suffered to run at large in the day,
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
each being left in red clover after wheat, sa
that a shift during the last year of its rest, is
well covered. The injury to clover by hogs
from grazing, is infinitely lass than that from
any other animal. No number necessary for
domestic consumption will materially affect
the field exposed to "in this mode. Twenty
skeep. would injure h wore than an hundred

iSS 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 eartilege of the
nose.

Until the pumpkins come in, the hogs sub-
sist by grazing, with an allowance of shatter-
ed Indian corn, sufficing to keep the sows ha-
ving pigs, in tolerable 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 cat, cut up in troughs, be-
sides a full meal of sound corn daily, raw or
boiled as their appetite fluctuates. And those
for slaughter are fed with corn about ten
days aft er the pumpkins are expended, to har-
den and flavour the meat.

By removing the pen "with regularity, and
ploughing it up, as in the case of cattle, hogs
will in my judgment manure land to the value
of the whole cxpence 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 whole 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 quickly,
the litters between the fii >t of June and the
first of March, will furnish an abundance of
progeny for the second killing time. Their
mothers will make fat and email, and the males
fat and large meat for the first. These pigs
are aeetlcrated in growth, by being suffered to
$bare in a!l the luxuries of the large hogs, un-
less it may happen to be necessary td wean a
litter occasfctfiaih/, to gain time for recover-

HOGS* 1S8

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

The mischiefs from hogs allowed such li-
cence, is the chief objection to be expected
to this mode of raising then. I know not of
any agricultural, mechanical or scientifical
object of m" h v: ic.. attainable Without effort
or skill. fine gree of both, and but a

small one, is nc -sary to avoid this objection.
The ho- ugh: -hilst young, to be made
quite gentle. 1 ;s are as docile as puppies.
They will not bt inclined to wander far from
their feeding p< in a ii« d of red clover, if
care is taken to cure for them an access to
water ; and a si. .11 boy v ilh a whip will find
it an easy task t( lisciplh.e them out of any
sueh inclination. Notemptati solicit stbem
at most seasons of tne year, a I should ':;y
occasionally light upon on< so irresiai,)! !e as
to render them troublesome, the;, mi r-bei on-
fined in their pen, until it is past, or they are
weaned from it.

Hogs are sufficiently bar* fob- art; wea-
ther, without injury for eight months oi tUe
year ; a warm cover is necessary for them
during the other four This is easily made
and removed by four forks let two feet i..to
the earth, the t . iv. front eight feet, and the
two in rear two fee bove it, baying a secure
roof of stalks and St. laid on poles, and the
rear and tivo sides c perfectly close by tvn

eourses of rails, one ,. : ig against the fori ,
and the other agaiust stakes two feet froi^
them all around, with the interval filled tight

17.

190 HOGS.

with ?traw. The front is open to the South,
and a diameter of ten feet each tray, uill 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.

HOG*. 191

NUMBER 47.

HOGS, COKTIKUED.

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 ho™, hut by repeated strokes upon
every part of her body. By laws of her own
making, she has quartered upon herself trihes
of factitious capitalists. By laws of her own
making, she has adopted the police of ming-
ling free blacks and slaves, mutually exciting
each other to rebellion, teaching one class the
trade of living upon herself by theft without
labour, and instilling into the othera hatred of
her duties. She spontaneously hires overseers
not to improve, but to exhaust her laud, with
the wisdom of a saint who should expect to
advance true religion, hy hiring a priesthood
to preach and practice idolatry. And she clo-
ses her 6ysteni by a mode of raising hogs,
which burdens her defective labour with the
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
of agriculture, which rendered them necessa-
ry.

As these evils united, are obviously killing
our lands, any one will cripple them, and
therefore a successful effort to remove any
one, isnot unimportant. If legislatures shoilii

life noGS.-

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

But this remedy would reach a portion only
of the evil we are considering, and will leave
in full operation the present expensive and ia-
sufficient mode of raising meat. By prohibit-
ing hogs from running at large, we should he
compelled to recur to a new mode, which might
possibly be more adequate to our wants. To
form a correct opinion, it behoves us to reflect
upon the present mode of raising hogs, and to
contrast it with that proposed, or with more
promising suggestions. Our subject is closed
with a specimen of this mode of reasoning.

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

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

By the present mode, one half of tlje pigs

HOGS. 193

antl hogs perish, and a considerable portion of
the residue are stolen ; so that less than half
come to the knife ; by the proposed, few will
perish, fewer will be 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
bogs, much is used and much is wasted ; by
the proposed, the use of the pumpkins and clo-
ver, vastly lessens the use of corn, and dimin-
ishes the expence, whilst itenereases the meat.

By the present mode, no return 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 ; ii 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 (sews giving suck ex-
cepted) they will thrive and grow on it alone
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 to
hogs in a pen, will be eaten greedily, and vet
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 by the
animal himself — ^Note E.]
o.

ifi SUCCESSION OF CROPS,

NUMBER 48.

SUCCESSION OF CROPS,.

This idea, according to the theory of ma-
nures advanced in several former Bumbers of
these essays, must contain much error, and all
its truth must be limited to the simple facts,
that the cultivation of one crop will clean and
pulverize the ground for the reception of an-
other, and that some crops will produce these
effects better than others, either as requiring
more cultivation, like tobaeco ; as killing grass
and weeds by shade, like the pea and pumpkin ;
or as rendering the earth more friable, like
thepotatoe. But an opinion that thoearth 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 the
labour and delay of resting land, reducing
tough swards, and raising and applying ma-
nure.

In England, a thorough manuring of ground
already rich, every- five or six years, is allow-
ed by all authors to be indispensably necessa-
ry to fulfil the promises of a succession of
crops ; what then have we to hope from a suc-
cession of crops applied to ground already poor
without this sex-ennial manuring ? 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 ; let your rotation of crops be what it

succession or croP&.' 195

will, it never lasts, if tins replenishment is
withheld. Industrious effort, and not lazy the.
ory, 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 upon
by the annual prime ministers of a Southern
farm, whose tenure is precarious, and whose
object is sudden income ; and they will 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 times
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 an
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
kind 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 been-
heretofore noticed ; more perhaps are over-
looked. They are scattered every where.

196 succession or crops.

around us ; and Providence has blest our shak
low soil with a capacity of suddenly throwing,
up thickets, constituting a bountiful provision
for manuring and curing galls and gullies. I
have tried 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-
luum of 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
a man worth only an hundred cents. The ca-
pital must precede the profit.

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*
cd, 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 Agriculture, and descend-
ing to the diminutives of improvement.

The effect of manuring and enclosing unit-
ed in stopping gullies and curing galls, is a£

SUCCESSION OF CHOPS. 19J?

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

A succession of crops is utterly incompe-
tent to the ends so neeessary to our lands, as
it will not produce their ronevation ; 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 be-
lieve, that our efforts to manure them may be
safely diminished or superseded, by any rota-
tion of crops, however skilful.

19S LITE FENCES.

NUMBER 49.

LIVE FENCES.

This subject, so extremely material to a
country requiring to be raised from the dead,
by vast and repeated doses of the only ge-
nuine terrene elixir, testifies in every quarter
of the U. States, to the scantiness of oar A-
gricultural 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 ease is hopeless:
but if it is only a dunce, it must in time dis-
eern the vast saving of labonr to be applied
to draining and manuring, the vast saving of
wood and limber 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-
eiety of Philadelphia," several modes of rai-
sing live hedges, suitable for different soils
and climates, are stated ar.d 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 bandied in a
book which evc"ry farmer ought to have, would
insinuate the existence of a general apathy
towards the eminent talents which ha\e pre-
sided over and greatly contributed to its com-
position : to say nothing, would be a neglect
of a subject of ih^ utmost importance;

LIVE FENCES. ±99

Several plants are mentioned in these me-
moirs as proper for making live fences, but I
shall confine my observations to one, because
my knowledge experimentally, does not ex-
lend to the others. The cedar is peculiarly
fitted for the purpose, throughout a great dis-
trict of the United States. It throws out
bows near the ground, pliant and capable of
being easily w oven 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
and 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 conformable 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 coining
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, the
plants in each row being two feet apart both,
in the direction of and across this ridge ; but
so 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 be
one foot from the fence, so that the top of the
ridge will be about eight inches higher than
tin- position of the plants. They should be
topt at a foot high, and not suffered to gain

$00 LITE FENCES.

above three or four i a des yearly in height,
such boughs excepted -an be worked int»
the fence at the ground. Of these great use
may be made towards th ekening the hedge,
by bending them to the .- -round, and covering
4hem well with earth i. the middle, leavi^
them growing to the stem, and their extremi-
ties exposed. Thus they invariably take root
and fill up gaps. If these hedges are cultiva-
ted properly, and the land is strong, they will
ferm 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 out hogs ? I am told by
travellers that few or none of the hedges in
England will do so. Yet hedges are both the
chief Agricultural ornament, and most valua-
ble improvement of that well cultivated coun-
try. But hogs are not there turned loose by
Jaw to assail them. I do however think that
•aerdar hedge is fur more capable of forming
a fenee against hogs than the thorn, because
one, as a tree, w ill acquire more strength or
stubbornness than the other, a shrub, can ever
reach 7 and because the cedar is capable of
being worked into a closer texture than £he
thorn.

Yet the wedge like sneut of the hog, the
hardiness of his nature, and the toughness of
his hide, certainly exhibit him as a dan?Tous
foe to live fences ; and the resource; of "ing»
ing aud yoking to coutroul his powers t. d Ms
disposition, ought to be adverted to £01 the
sake of an iaipravemen1 so moment .mi.-.-—
These ivi:" rot shock our prejudices nor >ior
late our habits* and are supported by a consi-
deration of weight, far inferior to tie import-

LTVE 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 more
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
iiogs are only modified, and besides the nar-
row hedges will be far more beautiful.
[Note F.]

II.

ORCHARDS.

NUMBER 50.

ORCHARD*.

In our 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 hecome a consi-'
derahle object to a farmer. Distilling from
fruit is precarious, troublesome, trilling and
out of his province. But the apple will fur-
nish some food for his hogs, a luxury for hi?
family in winter, and a healthy liquor for him-
self and his labourers all the year. Indepen-
dent of any surplus of cyder lie may spare, it
is an object of solid profit, and easy acquisiti-
on. In lie Southern states, the premature
decay and death of apple trees, is the chief
obstacle to its attainment. And this my ex-
perience tells 11. e i-> 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 siogle case only shall he stated. —

Some years past the following experiment was

tried. An area of above an acre was inclosed

bv a ceder hedge, in the form of a square,

wiih each side presented to a cardinal point of

the compass. Soon after, a young apple or-

!'d v as planted on the outside around the

feet from it, and at twenty feet

' bet ween tbe trees. The rad-

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 the

OECHARBS. 203

North or East side of it, many have on the
West and several on the South ; and the gene-
ral thriftiucss of the trees on the North k. East
aspects, greatly exceeds that on the two others.

If t!ic result of (his 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 (or 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 -hoot out above this junc-
tion, and by cutting off the stalk just above it,
when the young tree is transplanted, you get
rid of the defect in its constitution, sometimes
occasioned by the operation of engrafting, and
what is infinitely more important, all the sci-
ons sprouting up frora. its roots, during the-

>0* 0KCHABB9.

whole life of the tree, will be of the (me fruit,
unci furnish spontaneously and permanently
healthier orchards, than can be obtained by
the labour and art of engrafting.

Good cyder would be a national saving of
wealth, by expelling foreign liquors : nnd 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 eyder is demonstrated, by
an uncertainty whether the manufacture shall
turn out to be sweet, hard or sour. It ofteu
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 ir.cdes of Agri-
culture ; and the art of making cyder 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
perfected.

It is probable that a similarity exists in the
best process for making both liquors, and that
useful hiuts may be collected from the details
as to wine, towards forming a process for ma-
king cyder. From this source I 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
over, so that it is considerably sweeter than it
ought to remain, it is drawn off (throwing

ORCHARDS. 205

away the sediment at the bottom of the cask)
and boiled moderately abont one hour in a cop-
per, during which the impurities rising to the
top are taken off by a skimmer with holes in
it, to let the eydcr through. Twelve eggs for
each thirty three gallons, yolks and whites,
are heat 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 cyder and well mixed
with it, by stirring. It then boils gently five
minutes longer, when it is returned hot into
the cask. In eight or ten days it is drawn oft",
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 slopt close. For this
purpose a sufficient provision of cyder must be
made. 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 the
acetous. In the fall it is accomplished by the
above process. But cyder is subject to a se-
cond fermentation in the spring like wine,
which often demolishes bottles or ends in aci-
dity. To manage this so as to make it keep
good in casks, is an object highly desirable,
hut which I have not attempted to accomplish.
Perhaps it is attainable by racking it offin the
spring and making a second addition of spirit*
The simple process above stated, will carry it.
well through the winter, and furnish good bot-
tled cyder ; but it promises nothing more. —
J»y cutting off the corks even villi the bottle,
and dipping its mouth in boiling pitch, it is
a9 completely closed, as the best waxed bottled
efaret or burgundy.

o.

20G URAIIflNS.

NUMBER U.

DRAINING.

Prejudices have assailed, and will continue
to assail, every species of improvement, and
theory instead of experience w ill often sow
opinion. 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-
phere 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-
tirn^to the fact. It proves tbat the air may-
be contaminated beyond the purifying power
©f 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 ehy-
mistry by absorption, is a means provided by
providence, for its last filter ; but to infer from
this natural operation, that our efforts to ren-
tier it purer by draining are pernicious, would
be an equivalent inference to the idea, that
the cultivation of the earth is pernicious be-
eause it is capable of spontaneous productions.

DRAINING*. 2e7

Campania and some other flat and marshy
districts of Italy, are recorded in history as
having been made sj healthy and delightful ia
the flourishing period of the Roman Empire
by draining, 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 ordering
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
we may trust in recent history, by Opening
the lands to the sun, and with the plough, I
long since concluded, that this improvement

20 S DSAtviyG.

would be vastlv extended by resorting to every
other species of draining. And having remo-
ved some years past to a farm, reported to be
extremely liable to bili f vera, I threw se-
veral small streams into deep ditches, dried a
■wet road leading to the hou^p, by open or co-
vered drains, and cleared ami 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 tills swamp, made deep, central, and double
lateral ditches, entering into it cxery six yards
necessary throughout the ground. The la-
bour was great, hut 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, have
kept pace \>ith each other ; but I am under no
delusion in asserting, that the healthiness of
no part of the world, aceordiug to the tables
of mortality which I have seen, has equal-
led it.

A very large proportion of the country on
the Eastern vaters consists of level land,
swamps, bogs and marshes. The first is
chieily cleared and exhausted : the two last
are chiefly in a natural state : and all generate
poison for want of proper draining by the
plough, bv ditches, and by dams, instead of
producing the richest crops ot every kind tor
man 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-

DRAINING. 209

change 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-
lit, 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 ; or at least to awaken
great districts of country to the facts, that
their best lauds, those capable of yielding
the most prolit, if not those, only capable, of
yielding any or much prolit ; lands able to sup-
port more people than those at present under
culture, lie wholly useless ; except it. may be
useful to kill people who are employed in kil-
ling land, and thus shelter the survivors ia
some measure against the evils of penury.

£16 DB4<imro.

NUMBER 52.

E 3,

The simplest mode of draining is by the
plough, and vet even this isrs nsidera-

ble di-tricts of fiat, stiff and close land, are
soured bj s water and baked by the

sun. for want of this plain operation ;
increase labour* diminish id faint

air. Sometimes this rigid land, though in-
tended for Indian corn, i* left unbroken thio'
the winter, a I ire*

fur want of a declivity to discharge it : at
others, betng fallowed level, the water be-
comes a menstruum for melting dowa the soil
into a brick like cover, which is srenerally ren-
dered excessively bard 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 furmed which, obstructs absorption, and

spends the water excessively exposed to
evaporation : bo that the fti r more

Thau those of any other kinds of laud, both
from its excess and deficiency, under the flat
culture habit.

For bo lb these misfortunes, draining is the

DRAINING. 211

only remedy, and in most cases it can be ef-
fected by the plough. This will make ridges
and furrows, differing in their level in propor-
tion to the breadth of the former. The wider
the ridge, the deeper she furrow maybe made ;
and in ridges calculated for Indian corn, of
five feet and an half wide, the bottom of the
furrow may easily he 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, of being converted
into the host 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 cutting the same
number from East to West, and so cutting
and tilling 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 ; 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 suffice) by which to dispose
of tlte 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 ease of a
perfect level, essential benefit will yet accrue
from the proposed mode of draining by the.

DRAINS

plough. The climate of the country under
consideration is by no means a Avet one, and
therefore) even in this case an instance would
rarely happen of a fall of rain so excessive, as
to drench tl.e earth, fill thepropost-d furrows,
and overflow ihe ridges : because the earth of
these ridges having been retrieved from a sa-
fority of moist u.-e. keeping it in winter con-
stantly unsusceptible of an addition, and hav-
ing heen rendered friable by lying in ridges
exposed to frost, will absorb infinitely more
than the same earth in its Sat compact state ;
furrows having passed below
the crust caused by the union between the
earth of the surface, and the gluciness 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 wa

An infallible mode however of perfecting
the operation of by the plough, exists

unjoining tc it a dry ditch, which in no case
need be above eighteen inches deep, and twen-
ty-four wide to be placed on the ride of the
field most proper for conveying off the water.
If there i? anj descent, this ditch must run at
Foot : if none, it must receive the water
nearest to. some d to which the ditch

inued. In both i ery 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 Ea- iter 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 useless. Our agriculture is hard-

D3AIM3Q. 213

ly prepared for the plainest improvements, and

an attempt to introduce those of a complicated
nature, would of course be unsuccessful. The
double paradox how ever contended for, having
been the result of experience, may safely be
referred to the same tribunal, with a word or
tv»o to solicit a fair trial. It is asserted that
the flat surface in the kind of soil I have been
speaking of, will produce (he evils, both of too
much and too little moisture ; and that the
high ridges and deep furrows earnestly recom-
mended, will prevent botb. In addition to tbe
previous observations in tbis number, 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 fiat
than from a ridged surface, and therefore in
winter when it is too slow, the furrows may
carry otfihe superfluous water, and in summer
when it is too rapid, the ridges may obstruct it.
If twenty inches of rain falls in 1 be year,
which would retain moisture in droughts long-
est ; a level iron pan of an hundred acres area,
or an hundred acres of earth of a soil absorb-
ing all that fell ? The soil 1 have been speak-
i f. Hat and undrained, is somewhat of the
nature of the pan ; drained by ridges and deep
furrows, it is converted into one more absor-
bent.

19.

214 DRAINING.

NUMBER 55.

DRAINING, CONTINUED.

The next species of draining to be consider-
ed is nearly as simple, as useful, and as much
neglected, as that we have just past. — A great
part of the country below the mountains is of
a sandy scil, and abounds with a multitude of
creeks, bogs and rivulets, generally furnish-
ing tine land up to their \e\y springs, if they
were 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 rallies. To ar-
rest and repair so ruinous an evil, would be
the means 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 unhealthine.?s,
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
homo by highly improving a tolerable one,
and < ourtiog long life.

hualkin-g. 215

There is hardly a habitation in most, of the
Eastern States,, however distant from the lar-
ger rivers, without the atmospherical influence
of this vast mass of creeks, bogs and rivulets ;
and accordingly their effect is almost every
where in some decree, experienced. Few of
their channels retain any appearance of their
natural state, being every where obstructed
by sands, bogs* blishcs ami rubbish, so as to
form innumerable putrid puddles, pools and
bogs, upon the o,ceurrene'e °* every drought ;
to several of which, ail 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 aU times, in wet seasons, poisons the
earth, and in dry, the air, because then evapo-
ration becomes its only channel.

Every rational being will acknowledge, that
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 ac-
complished by draining our creiks, rivulets
and bogs, s:> as to bestow on them unobstruc-
ted cur; eats, and to cultivate their borders. —
ja sandy countries, where they are most ex-
tensive, valuable and pernicious, their last
qtmlity is mest easily removed, as 1 shall en-
deavour to shew'

Side and straight ditches, where ditching is
necessr.ry ought generally to be abandoned,
and the stream trained nearly to its natural
course, avoiding acute angles, and aiming at
gent le sinuosities. The loose texture of a san-
dy soil suggests these precautions. In constf-

216 DsAixrsc,

faience of it, = i f 1 e d itches are speedily filled
up. Straight ditches give an impetus to I
current, exposing a crumbling soil to a coti-
r abrasion, and devoting the point upon
ill it expends its greatest fury, to great in-
jury. Acute angles create strong eurre
are unable to withstand weak The

est ground is naturally thehest Tor drains.
I gentle behtls check the impetuosity of
: cats. From adhering to the lowest
ground or natural course of the stream, v. e
avail 01 <o great extern of the

>!r. - perfecting the drain, by

.ily removing such obstructions as it
i . . . or disc'1 sitting a

If. These in tin untries,

(■nsionaUy of
re rigid - rth : the

•moved, tie hitter to he cut thro*.
In ei 'itches, widening channels, pairing

off points, cleaning and deepening drains
any kind, one of (lie most us, and n

errors, is to leave the ea '..-ir

borders, so as to dam out a considerable por-
tion of the water the drain was ! to re-
'iu1. and to destroy all the crop within its;
ittfhten^e. This ear • unexr-epuonably
'«• he e:: , leaving the

>wer than
Uds will
return to
tbe channel very

rain falls,
of it, and for

ler he reduc-
plete i"edueti'jn of
race to crop-, few of
whv from a •

DRAIN ING. 21>

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 aftbrd this remedy, in the most perfect
manner.

»

213 »EAIM>C.

NUMBER 5*.

DRAINING, CONTIXUFD.

A 5 all our streams have fliers falling into
ill em. and are attended with a multitude of
springs breaking out at the termination of the
highland, some substitute for the side ditches
bo unsuccessfully tried for ike purpose of in-
tercepting these rills and springs, is indispen-
sable. I have tried three with entire success,
ut an expenee of labour, infinitely less than
that so frequently lost In adhering to side
litehesj in such eases a? we are considering,
if the tributary stream rises beyond the
; •-' draining, it is managed by the
s as the chief stream, so far up-
»'. ai-ds, as is necessary. If it rises in a bold
nring at the junction of the hills with the
re reclaiming* a channel is made for
t in the lowest ground, and by the short* ?t
i • anee, to the central drain, as narrow as the
til allow, never more than eighteen fn-
- deep, with perpendicular sides., which in
• narrow tuts last much longer than
because they are not equally exposed
-. If springs ooze in a continued line
lie junction of the hill and flat, a side cut
w a- possible and deep enough lo in-
t ihen a'l. with a direct cut as -above to

< I i. i? one remedy. The labour

ofn. Is is trifling. The last however,

irehes above the lowest ground in san-
<iy soils, s liable to be filled up. To obviate
e (which in these small cuts
! i er/ great) I have -frequently tried eo-
vercd lira os, constructed as follows, with in-

*V .'•!«' 5UC€

DRAINING* 219

A ditch at least ictif tect deep is cut so as
©omplete'y to intersect the whole line of these
oozing springs, to the depth of about three
feet, and it is continued to tfie open drain in-
to which it. niiisi -Lseharge its water, by the
rout affording thf most convenient fall for that
purpose. The ditch is cut gradually narrow-
er from the top to 'he bottom, where it is not
above eight inches wide. A row of poles of
such a size as nearly but not entirely to touch,
is laid on each side of the ditch at bottom. — •
Green or seasoned brush, without leaves,
trimmed to lie elose,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 be up stream, 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.— The brush is then to be covered with
four inches of dry sound leaves of any kind,
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
fcs to its cheapness. The oldest I have had an

£20 DRAIlflXG.

opportunity of attending to, was constructed
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 firm, and the land,
ofthebestin the field. 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 brickwork would be equal to the brush.

But this is like shooting speculation a cen-
tury beyondvhope. 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 laud 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 aud small ri-»
vers, a very large quantity of the best land,
now yielding foul air, may be brought at a tri-
fling expence to yield line crops.

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

DRAINING. '2:t

(.lie most profitable, a law is necessary. I do
not know that Coke's sum ma ratio provides
for the ease, and the absurdities to he found in
the code., upon which this exalted encomium.
is pronounced, are records of human folly suf-
ficient to shake a confidence in th^ good sense
and justice of an entire nation, however plain
the case may he. A proprietor below may
perhaps he found, blind to the clear moral ob-
ligations wbieb 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 establishment
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 advantage, and shares in the ge-
neral calamity of a bad climate.

Such laws are not novel. Pennsylvania is
indebted to them for some of her finest farms.
J much question whet her the state legislatures
have a power to pass any laws, equally b:ne-
fieial. They might try the experiment, short
of that requiring social embankments, by only
imposing the simple and easy obligation of
; iag up a social current, sufficient to drain
all lands above, in every stream lying above
tide wafer. Such laws might at first be limi-
ted to the removal of obstructions of wood or
earth, until experience should decide, whether
they might not be beneficially extended even
to obstructions of stone.

22? DRA1S1SG.

XOIBER 5?.

DRAIVIKG, COVTINVED.

The residue of this subject contains in eve-
ry view 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, tho
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. We know that the
Dutch in both hemispheres, haye reclaimed
rich countries from 1he ocean, whilst we aban-
don them to the 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 -i-
rnilar to the body of marsh and wet land, a-
bopnding on the tide rivers and creeks of the
Eastern States, to an extent, sufficient if re-
elaimed, to dispense wealth and comfort, and
unreclaimed, unwholesomeness and death.

About two hundred acres of such land, three
fourths of which were subject to the tides,
Which fluctuate to the extent of about three
feet, and within half a mile of a large river, is
the subject of the experiment. The remain-
ing fourth, though a few inches above tide
water, was sunken land, covered with t!;e usual
growth of such ground. A large portion was
soft marsh, subject to common tides, aad near-

DKAIXIX<£ 223

ly as much a sheet of water, shallow at low
tides. On one side of (his area, has been con-
structed a canal about eighteen feet wide, to
conduct a creek sufficiently large for two mills
above ; and 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 between 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 enough to resist either inun-
dations or high tides ; that the earth became
so porous, on drying, as to produce leaks ami
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, t\\<, 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
conducting the creek, which afforded earth
when cut about one foot deep, to cover tjte

2£t DRAINING.

stakes. The result was, tbat the wooden watt
under this spout; brous earth, was do

security against the musk rats, ami tbat the
hauk was pierced by them at pie, I lie

labour in wood was therefore lost, but not the
insufficient channel nor the bank.

The channel being about twelve inches
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, chasm- of fif-
teen or twenty feet, wide were made in it at
about three hundred yards apart, to let
water pass out when high. The creek was
turned into this canal, with a view of floating
the sand from above, and depositing it along
the bottom, conveniently for removal to the
hank in order to oppose its friable nature to
the architectural skill of the muskrats.

At some convenient season once a year (for
the experiment proceeded for years) the
ter of the creek being turned successively
through these chasms above, left its bo;
lielow 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 channel of the creek became det
and the alluvion was increased, so that finally
the first embankment, being greatly rai
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 cliastns left for mundaiioas being of
the kind of soil described, were not liable to

lit by the water into new channels,
their edges or banks, being higher than tae
bottom of the creek, very little sand could es-
cape through them.

DRAINING. 2-Z5

As the body of water on the left side, was
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 three
miles, so deep as to have reached many of the
springs, with a bank able to command inun-
dations and tides. The bank was composed
of sand only, (the wooden staecade having
turned out to be useless) and being of consi-
derable size, proved a complete barrier against
the muskrats, in the following eases executed.
In three several places the bog or marsh, pro-
truded into the dry land at right angles with
the course of the ditch, in narrow necks not
Worth the etfpence 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 the
muskrats. A sandy soil lny on both sides oi"
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
was cut on the inner or lower side of the bank
close to its base, three feet wide, and as many
deep, quite across the mouths of the two, lar-
gest guts, and tilled with thi it sandy
soil : and this thread of sand was continued
on the back of the spongy part of the bank
above higii water mark in the canal. At the
20.

DRASlfflSG.

nar: bank was freH coated ah

ground with sand. At all three, success was
complete.

Before the inefficacy of Hie

ed to in maJ
d:im across the creek and mai acd

feet long, ivcn

about three i earth across both, in the

. and in a triple
- - de on each.

bg wattl
was made, for tiie purpose ding

tije moist soil of the the dam

- to be compounded of it, and of arresting
the sand, v here ii was to ! ion.

By laying plank for the labourers on each side
at fifteen feet distance fron . and

working backwards towards them, cutting out
the earth as the labourei

reach, marsh earth v
tides to raise the dam to a
far as the marsh extended : hut though it was
eigl oved um.

either the « ater or the mnskrats. It therefore
became nc- the

whole length of >y of the dam, bind-

ing on the cent ei r feet v>ide<,

and two fe . r tlian the summit of the

marsh, and to fill it with at 1 ±il-

teiv I is remedy has hither-

to h . but nin j haying

clap? d. it is not entirely

toniiufd i

ukaixixg. 2%\

NUMBER oC.

DRAIXIXG, CONTINUED,

The remaining moiety of the dam was cn-
lively composed of alluvion sand. For this
object, the canal for the creek was made to
terminate at a sleep sandy hill, being put close
to i; Cure was (aken to keep the hot-

torn 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 staceade and the watllings. gradually eon-
veyed the sand into them, and forced the creek
to retire in(o a narrow channel. To accele-
rate the operation, the sand of the bill 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 kepi near its base. This was done by oc-
ca&ionalk- removing the stones and pebble-',
'rally round in sandy soils, and left behind
ii\ the filtration, to the base of the hank, where
d need the indispensable end of pre-
venting the attrition of t.jje current.

A> much sand being thus conveyed and deb-
ited its t\ic descent would allow, two close
parallel green cedar watljings were made

htecn feet below the lowest hitherto men-
tioned, IVom ;!:;■ highland to the marsh : the
cut through the marsh on the lower side, made
in ; .. at part of the dam, was converted

into a ehauncl for the creek to the oppo
high land, and a short eanal was cut through
a neck of marsh, to conduct it from thence to
tide water below. And thenceforth the sand

€28 BRAUffKG.

was deposited by the current along the v*hole
extent of (he dam, from whence it was occasi-
onally '.villi great ease removal upon it, by
taking off the creek in low tides and dry sea-
sons, in which there is no difficulty.

In carrying the staecade across the creek,
great care was taken to make its top one foot
higher than the highest tides, and on covering
it with the sand, the aperture left for the fides
Mas closed. The dam was however twice bro-
ken by high tides, before it was conjectured,
thai the sand by iis weight, had compress
the porous niarsh soil of which the bottom of
the ereekwas composed, and lowered the whole
staecade with it. Upon a strict attention to
this idea, however, it was concluded, that such
a compressure, in proportion to weight and
compressibility took place throughout the dam.
and hanks : and that though it required occa-
sional additions to both, to preserve their level
at least two leet above the highest tides and
inundations, its effect of obstructing the per-
colation of the surrounding water into the
. c to be drained, admitted by the nature of
.1, .*«/)! to a great extent, was a full retribu-
tion fur i he labour thus expended.

The dam and banks being closed quite a-
found, to get rid of the internal water, con-
stituted the remaining difficulty. It was ne-
cessary (o construct a gate to discharge it at
low tides. A tide gate in the center of the
dam was unsuccessfully tried. Ami finally a
trunk made of two inch oak plank, sixteen feet
long, with a cavity three feet wide and one
3eep, answered the end much better than any
other experiment. The water on the inside
pas-es along the dam, parallel to the water on
ihe out, in the chancel cut for raising the daw

DHAIXIXG, 229

across the marsh, to the small canal near the
junction of its bank with the dam. At this spot
thefoundationisan unctuous fullersearth. The
place being made by hay-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 hinge#
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 small branch for grinding gyp-
sum, in a simple tub mill, built for that pur-
pose. Only oue 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 wi»h a small
lever, was necessary to open it. A hole of
two inches diameter, kept, closed with a large
peg, tc be nulled bill by a pole fastened to it,
was resorted to for diminishing the resistance,
of the water, • id :-.«• d;or to open more

easily. Awl the end >g~tlie water was

very well eftectcd.

It was discover. I that ]y Jutei'v »' water to

be voided by the truiiK, increased

by springs passing nm er the >r which

there was no remedy but to ik u theni.—

o.

2o0 LiHjage.

This rented* was applied to il:e small one with,
such effect, that its continuance, until the bot-
tom in its whole coarse shall be brought to a
level viib the water at low tide, is confidently
sidered as a certain cure for Ibe evil. The
number and size of the springs discovert d,
Were beyond expectation, and the interception
of the residue is considered as certain. The
large canal could not be deepened hitherto,
because it has not quite finished the work of
alluvion. But there will be no difficulty in
cutting off the springs beneath it. by a Barron
ditch in the center. For when this work is
done, the obstructions- to prevent the creek
from deepening itself, will be removed, and
thai operation Anil both lessen i he work of
letratlng to tie springs, and also bestow
upon the bank a more perfect degree of
strength.
The efforts used to prevent the abrasion of
water in acute angles, eddies or strong
currents, consisted of single or double wat-
tle- of green cedar, in proper declivities to re-
water, and to retain earth : and of throw-
ing all stones and grave! washed from the base
the hills cut by the canal, to the base of the
bank. The bank also, generally, had covered
(lfnefbre it- apertures, for allowing a pas-
e to inundations, were closed, with a strong
>it of shrub-, weeds or grass : and these
several remedies against the attrition of the
current have hitherto been effectual. A por-
tion of the lard heretofore flooded by common
tides, is quite dry, and will be this year culti-
vated. After widening the dam by alluvion,
to about thirty feet, the creek will no longer
be kept parallel w ith it, but will be sent straight
on from the right bank. And the bank is des«
1 to the use of apple trees.

\

DRAINING. 231

The sandy soil approximating upon mos( or
all of -lies and sunken grounds of the

Eastern ates, seems to he the providential
provision of thi neans for reclaiming them j
and the multitude of ourrents passing through
this soil, are like vehicles for conveying these
means to the necessary positions. They are
vehicles which disregard distance, travel con-
stantly and never decay. They will calk the
most porous soil, overwhelm the strongest vlr-
min, and follow the slightest direction. Their
efforts may he aided by the plough, by remov-
ing obstructions, and by tumbling into them
sandy declivities with little labour, near to
which they should be guided for that purpose-

Zo$ TOBAOCC.

NUMBER 57.

i

The extent of country vet devoted to the
cultivation of this plant, entitles it to a plate
in an agricultural cphemeris, the object of
which, is to kill had habits, and to be killed
itself by a complete system. The preserva-
bleness of tobacco, endows it with the rare
capacity of wailing for a market, and consu-
tuted a recommendation which indueed me to
cultivate it attentively during two years-^-
Both crops succeeded beyond the medium cal-
culation, and the experiments still exhibited
results conclusively proving the propriety of
its abandonment. These results were all with
ease reduced to figures. It was easy to fix
the value of labour bestowed on an acre of to-
baeco, and on its crop after severance: and
en 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 soil^
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 aesount, the formida-
ble obstacle it constitutes to the improvement
of laud.

This objection is not founded upon the er»
roneous opinion, that it is peculiarly an impo-
verisher. On the contrary, my impression
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,
and its diminutive returns of manure. It

TftBACCO. 2.»S

would startle even an old planter, to see an
exact account of the labour devoured by an
aere of tobae o, and the preparation of the
crop for market. Even supposing that crop
to amount to the extraordinary quantity of one
thousand pounds, he would iind it seldom, if
ever, producing a profit upon a fair calculati-
on. He would lie astonished to discover how
often he had passed over the land, and the to-
baeco through his hands, in fallowing, hilling,
cutting oft* hills, plan ting, replantings, toppings,
suckcrings, weedings, cuttings, picking up,
removing out of the ground hy hand, hanging,
striking, stripping, stemming, and prizing,
and that the same labour, devoted to almost
any other employment, would have produced a
bttter return hy ordinary success, than tobac-
co does by the extravagant crop I have sup-
posed.

Though its profit is small or nothing, its
quality of starving every thing exceeds that of
every other crop. It starves the earth by pro-
ducing but. lit lie litter, and it starves ils cul-
tivators, hy producing nothing to eat. What-
ever plenty or splendour it may bestow on its
owner, the soil it feeds on must necessarily
become cadaverous, and its cultivators squa-
lid. Nor can it. possibly diffuse over the face
of the earth, or the faces of its inhabitants,
the exuberance which flows from fertilization,
nor the happiness which flows from plenty.

A substitute is the object of enquiry, after
we are convinced of the detrimental nature of
any crop. When flour sells for as much as
tobacco, by the pound, wheat would be a com-
plete one, at any distance from water carri-
age ; but as that is seldom the case, others
must be sought after. The extent and pop»-

TOBACCO.

huion of the country, within reach ol
to the tobacco district

n suffice to i aiT

tobacco : and n
vide foi .

*

live

in the bread wa-

ter-
beyond the

they are immediately surrounded : and if it is
a question in th cultivated countries,

whether grazing and breeding live stock,
even upon I b in of navigation* is no:

most niturai employment : eve-

ry doul in comparm;: it with ihe

cnlture -co. in situations where *

eapaciiy of walking to market, will create a
considerable item of that eompans

sg stem of a.^, . for a hi

farm, according to the experience I !
requires live stock sufficient to t

to manure, ei
and Jitter : in i R« etihg which, a - y of

meat may be pro". Iier

Bui if J in eoncludin: Liie live

such a farm o int.

-

trans] grain to : rivial. i; f.l-

lu\ vs, ti t market would. remain for the

' live stock of I In «q district,

-i-ting of town?, artiz who live by

j ; and of
the bread staff fenpers themselves, a- to 1.

TOBACCO. 235

m'S and mules, the breeding; of which is exclu-
ded by (his 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, ray 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 (he 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-
iit, exclusively of a return of comfort, far ex-
ceeding that to which it has been accustomed.

it% THE ECONOMY

NUMBER 53.

:? OF AGRICULTURE.

There is no subject less understood, nor
more generally mistaken than this ; nor any
more essentia) to the prosperity of agricul-
ture, ^sufficient to afford mattci lot an entire
treatise? it cannot be embraced bv a -
chapter. But a short chapter m unds

upon the tract, able to unfold hs i;, ...'.ions
with every branch of agriculture, aud more
specially to disclose its value.

Diminutions of comforts, necessaries and
expenee, are too often mistaken for the in ans
of producing the ends they obstruct ; and the
rapacity which starves, frequently receives
the just retribution of a disappointment, be-
gotten 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
the same reasoning which demonstrates the
bad economy of a shattered loom.. vvil: tkruon-
ttrate the 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

dding and insufficient clothing, to acquire
wealth, destroy the vigour both of th** miud
and bbdji 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 gre-.iter sufferer. He loses
the profits produced bv health, strength and
alacrity ; aid suffers the losses caused by dis-

OF AGRICt'I.THTKE.

ease, >hort life, weakness and Rejection. A
portion or the whole of (he profit, raising from
their increase is also lost. Moreover^ lie is
exposed to various injuries from the vices in-
spired by severe privations, and rejects the
best sponsor for his happiness, as we'll as pros-
pefity, by banishing the solace of labour. In
like manner, the more perfect, the more pro-
fitable are working animals and implements.
and every saying by which the capacity of ei-
ther t-o fulfil their destiny in the best manner
is diminished, terminates with certainty in
some portion of loss, and not unfrequentiy in
extravagant waste. Eren the object of ma-
nuring is vastly affected by the plight of tho^c
animals by which it is aided.

A pinching miserly system of agriculture,
may indeed keep a farmer out of 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 expenses, contains the agricultural
i t, for acquiring happiness and wealth. -1
! farmer will sow tin- Crst 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 w<

applied. Liberality to the eanb i:. man'i
and culture, is the fountain of its ' p u?

Ia1)' slaves and working is, iC

the fountain of their pro-'

tic brutes, is the fountain of in
mg in proper modes a sufriciencv of i
lor our labourers, we bestow a strength i
21.

C,;S TJfE ECONOMY

their bodies,, and a fertility upon the ground,
er of v liic-li will reeotnpence us for the ex-
peuee of the meat, and the other will be a pro-
lit. The good work of a strong team, causes
a pro lit beyond the bad work of a weak one*
after deducting the additional expenee 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 produces health,
ogth, 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 oferops. And Hbera-
litv in the 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
It consist? in preparing work
all weather, and doing all work in proper
weather, and at propertimi s. 'i : lii la
the United Slates makes the first easy, and
second less difficult than in most countries —
Ruinous violations of this important ruie are
vet frequent from temper and impatience —
\ thing is more common than a persistanee
in ploughing., making hay. cutting wheat, and
other works, when a small delay might have
a great loss : and the labour employed
to destroy, would have been employed to save.
Crops of all kinds are often planted or sown at
improj er periods or unseasonably, in relation
to the sate of the weather, to their detriment
or destruction, from the want of an arrange-
ment of the w oik on a farm, calculated for
ciesofit precisely at theperi-
. and in the seasons, moat likely to enhance
profit.

ird item in the economy of agriculture

OF AGRICULTURE. 239

is noi to kill time by doing the same thing twice
over. Hdweverlaboriously at work, we are do-
ing nothing during one of the operations, & fre-
quently worse than nothing, on account of the
double detriment of tools, teams ami clothing.
The losses to farmers occasioned by this error,
ace prodigious under every defective system of
agriculture, and under ours are enormously
enhanced by the habit of sharing in the crop
with an annual overseer. Shifts 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 appeal- spread over a farm, in the form
©f ruined houses, fences, orchards and soil ;
demonstrating that every advantage of such
shifts is the parent of many disadvantages, and
that, a habit of finishing every spe :oXf>f 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,
Which supposit ion devotes about thirty-six days
in the year to that object. It would cost him
five whole years in fifty. If his farm afforded
stone, and his force could in one whole year
make his inelosurcs 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 transmit fed to his
posterity. If his farm did not furnish stone,
as live fences can he made with infinitely less
labour than stone, his saving of time Would he
greater by raising them, hut the donation to
posterity less, from their more perishable na-
ture, it seems to me that the time neccssarv

2'td THE ECONOMY

to rear and repair li\c fences, i* lcs> than «>ih*
tenth of that consumed by those of dead wood.
By doing this article of work in a mode thus

assing the present miserable fencing sh
in use, our- farmers would gain the enorm
I of four years and an half in fifty* and an
e country that of nine years in each hun-
dred. Tine constitutes profit or loss in agri-
culture, and many other employments. £:
an enormous loss is itsell -obank-

nipt the soil of a fine country. T med

into an equivalent gain, the difference of eigh-
teen : urn to the same country might
trievc if. The case simply consists of the dif-
ference between pacing and receiving enor-
mous usury, for the sake of growing rich.

I hare selected a few items merely to attract
the reader's attention to the economy of agri-
culture, that his own sagacity may pursue the
suhjeet hfMJnd 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 kno^
one exhibiting to experience and talents a
stronger invitation to make themselves useful.

OF AGiUefJLTUUE. £11

NUMBER b9.

FLEASURES OT AGRICULTURE.

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

Under a free government it has before it,
the inexhaustible » of human pleasure,

of fitting ideas to substances, am! substances
to ideas : and of a constant rotation of hope
and fruition.

The novelly. frequency and exactness of ac-
commodation* between our ideas and operati-
on, constitutes the most exquisite souree of
mental pleasure. Agriculture feeds it with
endless supplies in the natures of soils, plants
climates, manures, instruments of culture and
domestic animals. Their combinations are
inexhaustible, the novelty of results is endless*
discrimination ami adaption arc never idle
and an unsatiated interest receives gratificati-
ons in qiiick succession.

Benevolence is s(> closely associated witfc
this interest, that its exertion in numberless

Oi

2i2 THE PLEASriiES

instances, is necessary to foster it. Liberality
in supplying its labourers with the comforts
of l|fe, is the best sponsor for the prosperity of
agriculture, and the practice of almost every
moral virtue is amply remunerated in this
vol Id, whilst it is also the best surety for at-
taining the blessings of the next. Poetry in
allowing 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 aw fill 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 employment 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-
rore 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-
thy competitors for pre-eminence in the prac-
tice of this cardinal virtue, a profound author
aligns a high station tohim who has made two
blades of grass grow instead of one ; an idea ca-
pable of a signal amplification, by a comparison
between a system of agriculture which doubles
the fertility of a country, and a successful war
which doubles its territory. By the lirst the

0* AGRICL'LITBE. 2*2

territory itsfilf is also substantially -doubled,
v: icm wasting (he lives, the wealth, or the
liberljfcof the nation which has thus subdued
sterility, and drawn prosperity from a willing
source, fty the second, the blood pretended
to be enriched, is spilt; the 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 staik in the glittering 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
rccompence 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 wants of the other. 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 vet 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.

*ii THE PLEASURES

If this eulogy should succeed in awakening
the attention of men of science to a skilful
practice of agriculture, they will become mo-
dels for Individ uals, and guardians for national
happiness. The discoveries of the learned
will be practiced by the ignorant : and a sys-
tem which sheds happiness, plenty aud virtue
all around, will he gradually substituted for
oue, which fosters vice, breeds want and be-
gets misery.

Politi ho 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) viL appear, of
more practical knowledge, or at least of bet-
ter theoretical instruction ; and 1 he hopeless
habit of confiding our greatest interest to peo-
ple most ignorant of it. will be abandoned.

The errors of politicians ignorant pf 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 affected 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 ev^ry othev case, the industri-
ous of all professions suffer by war, the effi
of which in its modern form, are precisely the
same to the victorious and the vanquished na-
tion. The least evil to be apprehended
fr m victorious armies* is a permanent sys-
tem of heavy taxation, than whieh, nothing
tan more vitally wound or hill the pleasure*
agriculture. Of the same stamp are exclusive
privileges in every form : aud to pillage or
steal under ihc sanction of the statute book*

OF AGKICTITUHE. 245

is no less fatal to the happiness of agriculture,
than the hierarchical tyranny over the soul,
under the pretended sanction of God, or the
feudal tyranny over tffe 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 had 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 statesmen, or by its own ignorance.

1\6 THE RIGHT*

NTJMBER 60.

THE RIGHTS OF A GRICULTfP.E .

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-
vcry where el«e; agriculture is a slave : here
she is only a dupe. Abroad she is condemned.
by avowed force to feed voluptuousness, ava-
rice and ambition : 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 lake from her a few
inconsiderable slipes, they will at length draw
a spacious circumvallation, within which w ill
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 AGRICVVrrilE. 217

single 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 assoeiator.
Its abuse consists in artiiice 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 difficulty 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 <#f
law. As the members of the government,
and the members of legal frauds, both extract
power and income from the majority, they arc
apt to coalesce ; and each party to favor the
designs of its ally, in their operations upon the
common enemy. Hence governments love t»
create exclusive 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 ambition,
(iood government is graduated by this latter
kind of contribution thus unfortunately allied
to the former. The highest amount consti-
tutes the worst, and the lowest, the best possi-

<£*$ THE RIGHTS

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 docs co-
ver this majority, the agricultural interest is
almost, universally its slave.

The consequences to agriculture will be 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 forni
of excommunication.

"May you be taxed in your lands, your slaves,
your houses, jour 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 be taxed through your
wheat, 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 yon be taxed for the
support of govt riiraent, or to enrich exclusive
or chartered interests, through every article
you import, and through every article you ex-
port, by duties called prelecting, bul intended
to take away your constitutional protection
against taxation for the benefit of capit;?
May you be taxed through every article pro-
duced by your labour or neeessar to vour
subsi- - ••', comfort and pleasure. by
And whilst even - of your-produeis, and

«f your consumptions are thus taxed, may your

OF AGBICUI/rFRE. iL'tV

capital, being visible, be moreover taxed in
various modes. May all these taxes whether
plain or intricate; (after deducting the small
sum necessarv 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 Amies. After you
have been taxed as far as you cun 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 capital;
Ami 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 p
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 prolit drawn
from such principal stock or capital; nor thro1
any of their sinecures, salaries, contracts or
incomes ; but on the contrary, may such stock,
principal, capital, profits, salaries, contracts,
and sinecures, he constantly fostered by bounties
in various injurious form s,tti be paid by you, you
danined dirty working, productive bitch, agri-
culture." Throughout the world, agriculture,
like one of Ernulphus's contrite excommuni-
cants. responds, amen, to this pious invocation.
Throughout the world, agriculture has en-
joyed, and in England, continues to enjoy, one
of the sights in which she has a share in the
United States : tbat of a voice in elections, —
And throughout the world, this

!c to shield her against an anatjiema,
h prescri erfect a hell,

the formula ofErnuIphus prescribes
here lick. Let the agncultura

TITX RIGHT?

State?, pause here and look around.
I- i littd confidence in a rigtil er-allv

ineflfeetnal, a sufficient safegoa its free-

dom and that an

uever be long free, which blindly
eontides in a coalition, it i«todraw

rand wealth. 1
!
and a? w atcl, . e minor

into: dare it. And that agriculture

lj keep 1 ;pon the eo-

n. to avoid it* operations upon her. as the
eoali i lie purpose

ef transf - - of her

iJ wealth, wh - - .

II ieal suggestions

be found i I

much good in an ruent of agriculture,

togetluxur ^:.<] tyranny for

a f tchedness for a multitude. —

Th- lie \*orld, a-

bounds s and thieves, -Agri-

[itieian t ale ;

- to
kn< ss intend by persuad-

ind confidence, built

:i the frai .n. to expose her

to i' 1 t, if

she ures,

lie light of 1.

^upinen-
iappines« » . be-

• f course
it i

^ued to obstruct it.

moa\uth all other k

OF AGHICrXTtKE. 251

eats, haying any thing to export, is bestowed by
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
will longest be sensible of her elective influence;
&itsrclimjuishmeut will bcthcmostfatal wound
which can be inftieted on her. The coalition I
have described will try every art in her most un-
guarded* moments, to snateh it from her, and it
will he the last relinquishment it will need. To
determine whether her elective inlluence can
bear further wounds. let agriculture re-survey
the legislation of our whole term of independence
and compare the catalogues she may select, of
laws for creating or fosl ering privileges and ex-
clusive interests, with those for fostering her-
self; and let this comparison form the criterion
for ascertaining her legislative influence. Thus
only can she judiciously increase this influence,
if it has settled too low, or diminish it, if it has
raised too high. There is no fair mode of
judging, except by these legislative acts. To
infer, that the agricultural interest influences
legislatures, heeausc it chiefly elects them,
would be, like infering, that the French nati-
on influences 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 the
ambition of usurpers, and the avarice of capi-
talists, nor be deluded into the absurd notion,
that it is wise to relinquish the only peculium
of industry, for the sake of some temporary
operation upon foreign nations, inevitably re-
sulting upon herself in the form of retaliation,
whilst the protection of exports against taxa-
tion, will be gone forever.

252 ASiUCrLTLttE

NUMBER 61.

E AXD THE MIXITfA —

The rocks of our salvation ; as they are
called by legislatures, presidents governor?;
and toast- makers, throughout the United
Slates ; and hard rocks indeed they need be,
to withstand ihe saws, wedges, and^hisels,
made bylaw, to eat, split and chip them to
piec< --. It is provable that more {<:h-nts were
wasted upon <he hank of the United States,
:it each of its epochs, than have been expend-
ed for the improvement of these national for-
tresses, for securing wealth and independence,
since the revolution. Edihce, after edifice,
lias been raised upon their ruins ; but the new
structures resemble the venerable fabricks
from w hence they are torn, as the modern huts
raised of its ruins resemble the ancient city of
Palinyra.

A pernicious little army, (pernicious as con-
stituting a reason for neglecting the militia) a
species of marine preparation, whose most
striking features are deciry, imbecility and
expenee : and an awful unconstitutional pre-
i -edent, for reporting to a volunteer militia,
officered by the President instead ci the States,
have dismantled one fm tress, and all the arts
to enrich capital and speculation legerdemain*
Fry paper, at t hf- exp« nee of property and in-
dustry, as practiced in England, are playing
upon the other.

When the future historian of our republic,
«hall search for acts of patriotism, and matter
"for biography, the contrast between the heroes

AND TirE MILITIA. J.cl>

who have created, and the politicians who
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
he avoided hy impoverishing the soil and its
cultivators ; hy beguiling the militia of its
power and importance, with substitutions
founded in the pretext of diminishing its duty,
hut preparing the means of usurpation for
some ambitious president ; and hy taxing agri-
culture in various crafty modes, under pro-
tence of enriching it, hut iu 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 these 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
wit bin our reach. But of what avail is it, that
one set of patriots should have cutaway the
causes which enfeebled our militia, and im-
poverished our agriculture, if another does not
enable us to reap from their valour the rewards
which excited it ? After wading through the

calamitiesofwarnearto these rewards, tore j*>ct
them, one by neglect, and the other by the pre-
ference of a harpy which a' ways cats and never
feeds, seems only consistent with the policy of
the British parliament,.which excited the re-
sistance of the revolutionary heroes. Had
o.

■254 AGRICULTURE

• hey been told that they were fighting to de-
stroy the militia, and to make agriculture food
for charter and paper capital, they would have
discerned no reason for making theinsehes
food for powder.

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

Executive, legislative and festive encomi-
ums of these twins, which ought to he 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 ^ice
and secret purpose, to impose upon the enthu-
siastic and unwary, in pursuance of the pre-
cedents so often exhibited b\ rapacious priests
ek thed in the garb of sanctity : but ^et rapa-
ciiy may sometimes assume the language of
patriotism, to keep the people blind to the
dangers which threaten., and to the measure*
v-Lich can save them.

The good humour of the festive board will
Lear illustrations of these assertions, with

discomfort than cold design, or deluded
negligence; and therefore however ineoasis-

:t maj be with the gravity and importance

AND THE MILITIA. 23,?

of our subject, an aversion for giving pain (o
any one, induces me to supply it with the fol-
lowing toasts.

THE JIILITLl....The Bock of our Liberty.

Unarmed, undisciplined, and without uni-
formity, substituted by an ineffectual na-
vy, an ineffectual army, and paper volun-
teers, ofReered by the president.

Unpatronized even at the expence of a gun
boat.

Flattered and despised.

Taught self contempt, instead of a proud
and erect spirit. — *Vme cheers.

AGBICULTUBE....The fountain of our
wealth.

A land killer.

A payer of bounties and receiver of none.

A beautifier of towns and a sacrifice!" of the
country.

A cultivator for stock, without stock for cul-
livaiion.

Giving its money to those who will give it
flattery.

A weight in the legislative scales of the li-
nked Stales, as much heavier than a fea-
ther, as a feather is heavier (ban nothing.

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

Producing 40,000,000 dollars annually for
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 40,000,000 dollars

256 AGRICTJITURE AND THE MILITIA^

exported, compelled by protecting dutie3
to pay heavy bounties for the encourage-
ment of manufactures, already amount-
ing to above 150,000,000 dollars annual-
ly.— *Yine 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 hi in 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 or
an idol, he will rather presume, that our agri-
culture is perfect and undefrauded, than take
the trouble of enabling himself to judge ; or
silently swallow the grossest errors, than give
up 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
Cullen. 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 afford suggestions capable of becoming
subservient to better talents, awakened to the
discussion of subjects so momentous to national
happiness. To awaken such, was the summit
©f tb« author's design. [Note G.J

Library

JfOTES, 237

r^QTES.

[Note A.]

Upon a review of the foregoing 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 cfscund
political principles, was the only mode ot'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. To
an union between public interest and public know-
ledge, the world is indebted for the beutfit it has de-
rived from the Grecian and Roman republics, and
to the want of such an union, the regions which once
lined them, for their present state < f si very. —
No :ssociatinn to inflict or to avoid oppression, can
succeed, if it is ignorant of the means for procuring
success irr both objects Political knowledge is as

sssary tojtfte people for one end, as to princes,
orders, I I usurpers tor the other, With-

out i' "he soil in tlir United States, must

gradually become the slaves of some legal aristocra-
and, « xprsed by political ignorance to the rapine
ofanjendh g ue of exclusive factiti us interests,

I I soon resemble moo keys stiTpt b*y the superior
'igence <f man, of diamqitds they had dug out of
the c.-.rth. As agriculture with its dependencies,
almost covers*. pu > ic interest of the U.States,

so degrading a consequence of its political ignorance,
demonstrates how intimate i*~ c Onexion ought to be
with p< lilies. The first produces; the latter secures.
Exclusive political knowlc.'gt , creates exclusive le-
gal A. comph te agricultural treatise,
would comprise the s un ie t agricultural prii c:.
chymical, experimental an.', political; and tin iini-

• of the two first items might be more plausibly

25 S W0TE3.

asserted, because they only teach, men how tolabourr
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 who 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 of ten per
centum and an annual interest of six, in fifteen years
it pavs 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 en this credit trade, because it
must be the payer not the receiver ; nor can it have
anv 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 ore istri..
binary 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 interest, by which the donation is paid.
The impoverishment produced by this species of tri-
bute, is demonstrated by the difference in the price
of products in the paying and receiving districts, by

30i 259

their 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 undei stand
this political machine ?

An amendment of the constitution for empower-
ing the general government to tax exports and to
make local regulations, would 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 tire passions
of non-exporting districts ; and although the appa-
rent favours to the latter would be delusive and en-
trapping, they would 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 powerful, but mere intelligent and ac-
tive exdush e interest-'. Ought it not to understand
political principles to meet occurrences of this kind ?

As nointerest covering the majority of a nation can
avoid oppression except under a free form of govern-
ment, because the end of every other form is to foster
partial interests, should not agriculture be able to see
the importance of maintaining the 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 and ally of patronage, funding, armies,
and of many other interests subsisting upon her. If
it should by new powers be enabled to enlist still
more of such dangerous auxiliaries, or to break over
the boundary between general and local concerns* in
a single place, the breach will pr> duce consequences
similar to those produced by that of the Tartars in
the great wall of the Chinese.

A fanatical love or hatred of individuals rr 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
ities and connexions flow from interest, accor-
ding to which thev reconcile or break them, wi
any of those sensibilities excited in ignorance by its
own imaginary idols. As this idolatry is an uoh
cause of oppression, should the truth be concealed
from agriculture, that she. a

260 NOTES.

ths: ;ch falsehood and

. political bigot
-cer, as a
e pi Lest

The s e
ture -

tice or ret ; . The :

:e author has
suggested to him, : to the im-

. .-.nee of this its prospe

and happiness, that iing

e manage

of their negiv : : :>nsequen : .

n cf these e -:- the

possibility
I
efft "■: never m;-..

..pressiaE,
-
ed by 1c . for

the regulation of slaves

improver: 5si-

I
rtn. A fc
agri

D the mir
fiuence, ai .han

the destruction of a tyrant can over-rule bad pr:
pies the

es of i pprrssion. T on of a f:

-

_s overloekc K

by iaw, fcr contri _ -egulaiit::

which aroul-
t'.::~ are pro-

>vOTE&. 261

Uuced, together with the ruinous national misfortune
of an impoverishing and depopulating system of
agriculture. As the remedy for these evils lies on-
ly within the reach of law, it is the 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,
bv withholding from his slave even a necessary sub-
sistence, may compel him to steal it from others, and
thereby increase the profit of his labour ; or he
might drive 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 purvevance ?
One grievance robbed openly, the other robs secret-
ly ; one was subject to some legal regulation, the o-
ther is subject to none ; one paid something, the
other pays nothing. Can 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 slave
himself may have imbibed from a vicious disposition,
a habit of indiscriminate theft, so ruinous and dis-
heartening to industry ; nor can any excuse justify
his robberies from the ir.nocent. The insufficiency
of the laws to correct these evils, will be discerned
by comparing the number of such robberies, with the
instances of their receiving any species of punish-
ment. The object of punishment is to deter by ex-
ample, and not to gratify the passion of revenge

But this trivial risque amounts 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. Agriculture in the slave states,
is every where languishing under this mertif\ ing and
consuming malady. She possesses no moveable which
she can call her own. Bleeding continually under
these numberless scarifications, legislatures continue
to act towards her, like surgeons who sh>.uld desert
a patient covered with wounds, because he was not
quite dead. It would be better to cure her bv pro.,
tecting her property. A law, compelling the sale of
every slave who should run away or be convicted of

ass ?«otz?.

theft, out of the state, or at a considerable distance
from his place of residence, would operate consider-
ably towards correcting these great evils. If it?
ecution was ensured, as might t -. ifceffecte
would strongly influence both the master and the
slave; it would on! h in a vei j

the prerogative ; : . for their common good.

and it wculd render the remaining mass of those pre-
rogatives infir.. ietrimental to nati:
peri:-

[Xote C— Pa.§re 113.]

The foregoing essays having been written several
\Tears past, subsequent experience has made some
change in a few of the author's opinions. Those in

..on to the essential article of manuring are
ted i;: I

The exteat : surface now m-.nured upon the same
farm, by a more careful employment of the same re-
sources, has so far exceeded his expectations. 3S to
have transfered his prefeienceas means cf improv-
ing the s: . :losing to manuring, without how-
; the value cf the former in his -pinion,
i : two hundred acres aided by both, produced
; raging fifty bushels
an acre, and another of eighty, aided only by inclos-
ing :.. The first
beir c: second one third beyond
:s when last in culture. Un-
- f the stocks quoted, the surface
undred acres, and
Mill- r.d to one hundred and thiity. It is
contemplated tc e:-:.tr.d it. ur.til it reaches annually
a sp corn crop of
the farm. There raps furnishes
add- ". the chief bs sis of this

position " that ten cul-
not produce the means of manur-
:te erroneous. Four acres already pro-
duct able of manuring one, frcm the corn
:; e of the bread stuff they
far sale. By removing the cattle and sheep
the spring from the farm pens, and fori

NOTES. 26S

ing to return them thither until late in the fall, the
space manured by penning is greatly extended, and
the manure raised in the farm pens but little dimi-
nished, because its quantity is regulated by litter. —
This is in a small degree diminished by extending the
period of penning, and as both cattle and sheep will
require some food, early in the spring and late in the
fall in these pens, the litter arising from that food
will enable the farmer more frequently to remove the
pens at these seasons, whilst a mixture of various
manures causes a greater benefit to the soil. These
pens on removal are fallowed in high ridges five and
an half feet wide, and those thus treated before the
middle ofAugust,ifthe land is strong, cover themselves
with a heavy coat of grass, furnishing a fine pabulum
for a bushel of gypsum to the acre, to be sown therev-
on. This cover, by reversing the ridges, is com-
pletely buried, and bestows on the ground a second
valuable manuring. The hog pens are managed in
the same way, excluding the litter, not because it
would be useless, but because it is used otherwise. —
For these, stiff cold soils are selected. Thus the
same stocks have been brought to manure by pen-
ning, nearly double the surface quoted. In the win-
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 applying
the corn cobs in the former mode, thev are weekly
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 decay ;
thus constituting a valuable addition to the manure,
and saving the labour 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
b» appropriating a small portion of the labour of the
farm to this object for one month before the com-
mencement 'i corn planting, that left to be subse-
quently carried out will be finished in good time. —
The holes for depositing the manure, are more judi-
oio'ish arranged under the direction of a person ou
fc«»>seback, (whose elevation and .sole attention to that

26& « NOTES.

object, will enable him accurately to distinguish the
variations in the quality of the land, and to bestow
the manure accordingly) than by the labourer who
walks, measures, and digs. By equalizing the ferti-
lity 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 discriminations too intricate to be cor-
rectly made. The rider pronounces aloud the num-
ber at which the walker is to make each hole, ex-
tending or contracting the distance according to the
variations of the soil ; and the walker counts aloud
his own steps to this number, at which he digs a hole
as a mark for depositing each load of manure. To
a farmer, this occupation furnishes an agreeable
mental amusement.

Two great errors in relation to the use of corn
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 te
gather and lay them in the furrows, to remain unco-i
vered for a year or two. When the 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 trodden. Its po-
rous texture enables it speedily to absorb what it
can contain. After this is effected, it is only necessa-
ry to brin;; it into a putrescent state. When the
stalks are all in, this is soon done, by covering them
with straw, chaff 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. Thtir richness
as a manure will be discerned by their capacity to
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 ; namely, their extreme porousness. —
Their surface is dry, nothing evaporates, and nothing
tuns from them, if the depth of litter is as consider-
able as I make it. As absorbents, no litter equals
,them, but exposed on the surface, they suffer more
than any other from evaporation.

A common question discloses another general err^r

NOTES. 265

in relation to manuring. When the surface manur-
ed is stated, an enquiry after the number of stocks
follows. We shall never succeed to a great extent,
if we consider animal manure in any other light, thnn
as a kind of sugar to sweeten the copious repasts of
vegetable, with which we ought to feed the earth. —
It mav also, mingled with vegetable matter, dispose
the mass at particular periods of its putrescency, to
extract salts from the atmosphere. But however
useful it may be, the epithet " animal" is only to be
admitted connected with a recollection of its origin.
This is vegetable matter, of which animal manure
is only a remnant, having undergone one or two se-
cretions, and the diminution arising from animal per-
spiration. Vegetable matter therefore is the visible
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 number of stocks, but by skill
and industry in raising and applying vegetable mat-
ter. Let us then banish from the agricultural dialect
this misleading question ; which blinds us by insinua-
ting a falsehood ; and substitute for it one, which dis-
closes a truth, the thorough belief of which must
precede agricultural improvement. The correct
question is " how many acres do you manure for each
labourer employed on the farm ?" It took me more
years to reach one, than to exceed four, and my
stocks were rather diminished, as the space manur-
ed increased. During the first period, the delusion
of the first question misguided my efforts ; duriug
the second, they were directed to the raising, preser-
ving and applying vegetable matter in the most be-
neficial mode 1 could. How far manuring may be
carried, is not to be foreseen, but I think I can dis-
cern through the remnant of the mist which long hid
from me the idea of its being pushed to four acies
for e ich lobiurer, a possibility of its being exte ded
to double th it quantity.

In this calculation I exclude gypsum, lime, nvivle
and inclosing. The more valu ible auxiliaries they
may be to our vegetable resources, the more our suc-
cess will be accelerated. Vegetable matter only,
can bestow on gypsum a boundless fertilizing power,
and perhaps it may be also a necessaiy ass> ciate of
lime and marie, with neither of which I have been
able to make any satisfactory experiments; at least,
o.

*66 NOTES.

the universal capacity of creating it every where in
great quantities, establishes its vast superiority over
even- other species of manure; and designates it as the
basis of agriculture. Applied in greea bushes it is
much more beneficial in curing galled declivities,
than animal manure. I use it with great advantage
for that purpose, and also for manuring level land in
the following mode. The brush is laid in furrows,
made in cultivating 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 succeeding the
culture of the land in corn, in a course of four shirts, it
is ready for the plough at the proper time. Even the
ridges, as well as the furrows, will be highly improv-
ed by the brush, from the scattering power of air and
moisture. 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 grrund. —
The objections to the other modes of using brush,
wood, which I have tried are these. Spread over
the whole surface 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
any 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 net to incomnude the
plough when the ridges are reversed in the fourth
year afterwards. This preservation of the wood, di-
minishes cr delays its efficacy as a mai ure. Drilled
green, lying uncoverad three years, then covered by
the plough without disturbing it, and lying four years
more until the ridges come in course to be reversed,
the wood is made useful as a manure, without pro-
ducing these inconveniences. I have u-ed all kinds
of brush wood, but chiefly pine and cedar. 1 he lat-
ter are preferable iu a small degree to other green
wood, when both are applied in the winter, because
of their leaves. A confidence in the benefit of this
mode of manuring, has induced me this year V cut
down a thicket on the broken ground of a creek a-
round a^el field, and to apply the brush to the fur-
rows of the Weakest parts. All wood of above two
inches diameter, was used as fuel. The residue be-

NOTES? i2(i7

stowed a handsome dressing on double the surface 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 aff.rd 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
frum such lands, (in which we unfortunately abound)
capable of extending our means for manuring very
considerably, and of conveniently improving fields
inconveniently situated for folding or farm pens.

[Xote 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 thi furrow. The
hoe will have little else to do, and two thirds of the
labour usually attending this operation, will be sav-
ed. It is better performed. The deep furrow de-
stroys all the grass in its range. In rows five and an
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 ot 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 ) ouug and weak by

268 JF0TE9.

a cover of earth, will both obstruct this misfortune,
and enable the coin 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 opinion, that the
species which combines the three circumstances of
producing the most stalk, the largest cob, 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 counter-
balanced by many disadvantages. Early kinds are
unexceptionable' dwarfish, and the latest I have pro-
cured has the largest stalk. The length ^f the grain,
supposing the cob to be equally long and large, deci-
sively settles the superiority of farinaceous product.
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
the high value contended for in these essays, and if
it is chief! « 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 saved from twin ears. In the before men-
tioned latitude, corn constanth push-s out barren
shoots, or more than it can fi'l with grain, which pro-
babl\ serve to impoverish such as succeed. If so,
there would be no advantage gained, could we in-
crease their number by planting from twins.

NOTES. 26*9

[Note E.— Page 193.]

The mode of raising hogs has continued to attract
my attention, on account of the vnst 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 ardently 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 far
more plentiful supply of pork without purchasing,
than I could previously afford to obtain by purcha-
sing. It has also as strongly convinced me, as 1 cat*
be convinced without an exact experiment, that the
expences 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
with 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 rne hundred of different ages, to an acre ; by
removing it once a fortnight, when the hogs are con-
stantlv 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 ^ king corn until it is sour, in
a number of barrels sulfickiit to provide in successi-
on, according to the warmth of tlie season, their
Chief food in this state ; by giving them the sour wa-
ter to drink as each barrel is emptied ; by a small
allowance of any vegetable food after the pumpkins
are expended ; (they will eat cornstalks in the early

2*0 NOTES.

part of the winter) by penning them without rii
such food is scarce, on ground well covered with
any kind of grass, the r :ch will contribute

eir healu.. e land Era

plough; and by using them :' era-

dicate the gariick, than which no food is healthier.

[Note F.— Page 201.]

Since these essays were written, my experiments
: dar hedging have become two or three years
. er, and have remored every doubt of its cheap -
. pricic ability and irr. They

menced by planting a single row of cedars on the
inside . : :. :"; ce, two feet apart, about eight inches
» the summit of the bank at a titch. The

_ ".urate the young plr-.nts, to
crop or to manure them, and to plant a second row
on the outside of the fence, were for several \ears
committed. Struggling with hungry rivals for a
scanty food they .• - meager and

wet branches began to perish from
omitting to check theperpenc.iculi.: growth by crop-
ping, and the hope of training the cedar intc a 1

ed almost desperate. Thcugh the land is gene-
rally- poor, manuring (a small dressing with b

. But topping,
iteral branches, culture, and tilling
nto them and covering boughs to
. leading out their ends have been imper-
fect! i for two years. Another row of ce-
nas also been ] .he fence.
old hedge has r>een so h ghly improved by these
'.-.'. nsiderable aids, as to have assumed a handsome
appearance, and to promise a speedy exhibition of a
farm incited b • a five fence.
I .e cedar planted in a good soil, well manured
* properly cultivated, cropped at one year's old
and rises only as it spreads ; and
id at the ends nf its branches, those excepted;
e to fill gaps ; will thicken
like box ; and after it is brought
.t intended height, by raising the bank of the
ill jt :~~ rlhrTT outact with it. My expeiT-

NOTES. 271

meat 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 if the ditch, so
as just to take off the grass and not to injure the roots
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, which strikes the 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, patriotic
or pious, to neglect the means for its improvement ?
Live fences attended with appk- trees would, 1 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 object for its sustenance.
The conversion of the brushwood now lost in making
dead fences, into manure, is a smaller item of the
same nature. But the single advantage of securing
to agriculture the benefit of making a permanent and
constant use of atmospherical manure, arising from
the security of live inclosures, alone suffices to sus-
tain the opinion. By gradually spreading fertility

3T2 xote«.

overbarre : losing -will increase pppulati «•

an e:: - jrate with its own progress. For

•'.em 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 thtra. Wealth instead of poverty ; national
stre. | : weakness ; and perhaps liberty

m arch in the train of permanent
ed against computati-
ed in figures, by comparisons arising from
superficial prejudices. Beggary 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 co_ m comparisons made among cur-

bing darkness up'>n truth, because
always influenced by several of the worst or weakest
-3ns 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 shallow7 compari-
.itutes the duty of'legislatures, and the real
& of patriots. The appalling difference between
the average product of wheat in this country and in
E' glai .. mght to dissipate our delusion as to the
- Bty of our sril, to awaken our enquiries
after the causes of an inferiority so deplorable, and
to rouse all our capacities in search of a remedy.
Our wretched, expensive and ineffectual mode of
-ing, is in my view the chief of those causes. No
history has preserved, and no country exhibits, a
good system of agriculture in union with dead wood
Homer, in his description of a Phceatian gar-
den, informs us, that green fences were understood
and used in his I i

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

He' -tone and thorn inclczures, selects the

-i to adorn his most splendid horticultural scene,

and - to dead wood fences. Were

exploded abo\e three thousand years ago, to

i as an evidence of man's rotary dis-

r.eed not dive into antiquity, nor

■ er the glebe to be „uestion. At

the waste of soil graduated from north

nth, by some inexplicable circumstance, distinct

NOTES. U76

from original fertility. The different modes of fenc-
ing is pr< b tbly that circumstance. In Connecticut,
I have seen many fields apparently so naturally poor
and stoney, that-I could never account for their ferti-
lity, until I discovered the advantages of permanent
inclosures, a.id recollected that they were surround-
ed by stone fences. Prejudice, sustained by consci-
ence, is too strong to be subdued by reason, and too
respectable on account of its honesty, to deserve con-
tempt. Yet it ought to be persuaded by its senses,
and to be induced to follow its own interest by the
plainest evidence. Though at length convinced thro'
its eyes, of the benefits arising from inclosing, it will
cot be convinced through its mouth, 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 wooden fences are
too transitory, too subject to imperfections arising
from idleness or accident, and too easily impaired by-
thoughtless or malicious trespassers, to guarantee to
a nation the benefits of an inclosing system. They
are here to-day and gone to-morrow. Live, possess
the rights and the respect of a freehold. Attached
to the soil, they soon efface the unjust and ruinous
prejudice, nurtured by their evanescent rival " that
arable lands, when out of actual culture, ought to be
turned into a common." This opinion, (suggested by
a 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 h< rses, would
be gratified, by throwing open every stable to all who
wanted thrn) 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 culd never have been
more useful to the poblick. Throughout the world,
cuntne- 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 nf Virginia bel <w the mountains, pain-
ted on ti.e same canvass, would be a foil to the poor-
est of Connecticut. The incapacity of the firsi, for
rendering inclosing subservient tot t improvement
of land, by excluding ruinous or injudicious gv .z; g ;
and the capacity of the latter to avail itself oi this
24. •

27i SOTES.

agricultural panacea, is a chief cause of the contrast.
In Britain, live fences are substituted for stone,
vrhere 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 demonstrations?
If permanent fences aie indispensable for the pur-
p se of changing the state of our agriculture from
bhd to gor d, they are also necessary for the preser-
vation cf our happiness. The portion of liberty and
h.ppiness enjoyed under the expensive system of go-
vernment existing in Britain, is owing to the produc-
tiveness of labour ; and not to the operatic ns of the
paper, patronage, paity and official conspiracy for
pilfering that labour as the ingenious conspirators
pretend. Thrugh her average product of wheat is
thirty-five bushels, worth at le^st one hundred and
five dollars, she finds it better to convert so much of
her land and labour to the still more profitable ob-
jects of raising wool, cheese, meat, with other agri-
cultural products, and to manufacturing, as to have
occc.: x importation f bread-stuff. To this

great productiveness of iabour it is owing, that she is
the happiest and freest country of Eurrpe, under the
greatest load of pecuniary expenditure. In the U-
niteci States, agriculture must for ages giaduate the
productive-ess of labour, in spite of the projects of
statesmen, and the fallacy of stockjobbing. If »ve
rush into English extravagance without gaining the
productiveness in that occupation which must feed
it, the majority of the people must be speedily ground
down to a degree of poverty, below an ability to pre-
serve a free government, or to acquire personal hap-
p; ess. Let u>. therefore prcvid" the foundation, be-
fore we rear this splendid superstructure, by abolish-
ing a mode of inclosing lands w hich produces nothh.g,
c nsuroes a great portion of our labour, and by im-
poverishing the soil, daily diminishes the productive-
ness of the residue.

NOTES. 275

[Note G.— Page 257.]

A date being necessary for estimating the opinions
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 the notes were written in the beginning of the
year 1814. Though the last number was better cal-
culated for the place of its original appearance, (as
-weil as some other parts of the work) than for that
it now unexpectedly occupies, it is suffered to remain,
because however light, it is true ; hut lest its tone
may infect its matter, it seems proper to advert to the
same subject more seriously.

Society is unavoidably made up of two interests
only, in one of which all special ana particular modi-
fications of interest are included ; namely, one sub-
sisting by industry ; the other, bylaw. Government
is instituted for the happiness of the first interest, but
belonging itself to the second, it is perpetually drawn
towards that by the strongest cords. Therefore, unless
the first is able very accurately to distinguish between
laws calculated to do it a benefit or an injury, i;i :nust
be gradually sacrificed to the appetites of the second,
because government, a member of the second, legis-
lates. All men enjoying 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 fortis, self-interest,
indelibly imprints it on the human mind. From this
fact, the preference of a republican government is
deduced, as being calculated for checking 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, compos-
ed of natural interests ; including all who subsist, not
by means < f It gal donations, but by useful talents in
every form, such as those employed in agriculture,
manufacturing, tuition, physick, and all trades and
scientific professions. The propensity of law to sa-
crifice the great or natural interest of nations, to the
class of little or factitious interests, arises from two
causes ; on--, the government being the matrix of the
latter, views her pr geny with the eyes of an owl, and
iders them i s beautiful ; the other, that although
la Mi can enable the small class to live on the great one,

276 a?OTE».

it cannot enab'e the great class to live upon the small
one ; uniting to pr nluce this propensity in a degree so
violent, that mankind have pronounced it irresistible,
except by a countervailing union between strong
republican fetters upon government, and a degree
of political knowledge in the major class, sufficient
to prevent these fetters from being broke* by laws.
The remedy is so rare, that many honest men doubt
of its ex *:ence ; andhave concluded in despair, that
the major class or general interest of a natr n, must
inevitably become the slave of the minor cr factitious
interest in some mode. Others believe, that by ex-
citingthe genera! inteiest to watch, to think, and to
judge for itself, its intellect will be brightened, and
its rights preserved. But all agree, that neither any
individual nor any intce^t dictated to by another,
can] d ignorance universally

'very. Elect] n has no power be*
I a charter or a coin mission, to prevent the elec-
y his elect inn from the
ral interest, to the little class
of factitious or legal interest ; on the contrary, the
structure of republican government is raised upon
the principle, that it necessarily transfers him from
one to the other, at least in mos1- instances. This
■ admitted by the elected themselves.
They separate into two parties, called inns and outs.
The inns say that the outs are influenced bv 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-
• to the minor class, and neither to the major class.
:h nn neither get in nor keep in ; these two
• of the minor class vote in constant oppositi-
ise they stand in e?.ch ether's way, which
. possibly happen if they were genuine mem-
of the general interest cl iss. How then car. the
.ss expect happiness from this species of
:al gambling for a rich stake which it pays, and
>lers alternately win, if it has no skill in the
game ?

Ag he most powerful member of the

- constituting the general interest, but if her sons
are too ignorant to use this power with discretion,
(like a body of elephants thrown into confusion in a
battle", they rush in every direction trampling down
friends and foes for a short time, and inevitably be-
e an easy prey to their enemies. As the most

NOTES. %7i

powerful individual constituting the major class of
general 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, each of her moieties
enlist under an avistocratical or monarchical power;
whether it be called executive, legislative, credit or
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 .ire two classes of interest only in society,
there are also only two political codes, each appro-
priated by nature to one class. The code of the mi-
nor class is constituted of intrigues and stratagems to
beguile the major class, and to advanr.e the separate
interest? of the individuals, parties and legal combi-
nations, of which the minor class is compounded. —
The c de of the major class consists of good moral
principles, by which the national rights and happiness
can only be preserved. The guilt of offensive war,
and the virtue of defensive, are the essential qualities
of the respective odes. One is compounded of the
best, and the 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 they are
skilled in both.
As the extension of comfort and happiness is the only
good motive for writing an agricultural book, what-
ever would dele ;t the end belongs to the subject ;
and as a lethal profusion in overstocking a nation with
Members of the minor class, is the solitary process
for enslaving it, unless the major class 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 1 ,11
being extinguishe'l. The treasury of the United
States has been cit<*d «s a proper subject for its ap-
plication. If the agricultural and other members of
th< major class should discern that the president had
become a king of the treasury, surrounded with n»-

%?8 XOTES.

minal 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 which it
was 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 corrupting application of their own treasure,
would n<"t the correction of the evil be founded in
genuine political morality, and be plainly adverse to
the erroneous and flagitious political code of the mi-
nor class.

The intimate connexion between agriculture and
the militia, arises fr m theirbeing both interests be-
longing to the major oi general class of national in-
terest, of such magnitude, that they must live or pe-
rish, politically, together ; and the rights of the whole
class will be tost by the subjection of either. By
transfering the power of the purse from agriculture
to the stockjobbers, or the p wer of the sword from
the militia to a mercenary army, the destruction of
a free form of government naturally ensues. This
single consequence suffices to refute two hundred
thousand artifices eternally practised by the sundry
members of the minor class to discredit the militia.
The> might be refuted by an hundred thousand facts.
The most eminent 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. Thermopo.e was defended, and Xerxes
defeated by militia The Rom An 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 ai rested by the militia of Sp 'in.
The i.ride, '.he habits and the interest of mercenary*
armies is however its hist riographer, and the hatred
of government -and parties, its patron. These con-
vert it> tulogy into u crime. "It is unfit" say they,
44 for 'he execuf. n i f the projects of statesmen, and
hence diminishes the energy of government." But
it is the best security against foreign conquest, and
the only security against domestic oppression from
a c >mbination anions* the members of the minor in-
terest ; nor will any project plainly calculated to ad-
vance the happiness or secure the liberty of the ge-
neral interest ever fail of finding a complete security

NOTES. 2,79

in the power of a militia, organized to sustain and
not to betray that inU rest, fiow often has the zeal,
virtue md courage of a militia, burst through the
artifices or neglect of the minor interest for suppress-
ing all three, and demonstrated its natural alliance
with political morality and national liberty.

ERRATA.

The reader will correct the following er-
rata with his pea*

Page 21, line IS, 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.

56, 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.

101, 17, for "a good crop" read, a crop.

104, 36, ior " cold" re d, hold.

113, 2.t, for " opposed" read, exposed.

116, 13, for ' cnistians," read. Christians.

153, 11, for "exception" read, exceptions,.

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

195, 29, for M for" read, trom.

198, 3, for ** a vast" read, vast.

INDEX.

Page,

The Present State of AgricuVure 9

The Political State of Agriculture 61

Slavery 57

Overseers 68

Inclosing 72

Manuring 87

Labour 115

Indian Corn ........ 130

Ploughing 1+8

Culuiiferous Crops 153

Succulent Crops 157

Leguminous Crops 161

Live Clock 16*

Sheep 17 9

Eogs 182

Succession of Crop:; ..... 19i

Live Fences 198

Orchards 202

draining 206

Tobacco 232

The Econoni of Agriculture . . 236

The Pleasures of Agriculture . . 2-il

The Rights of Agriculture . . . 2+6

A&ricuiiuie aud the Militia . . . 232

me'm

Its!