thorough plowing among us, especially in the Fall; as there should be.
The soil is, for a good part of the time, too dry or too wet; the
weather is inclement, or the ground is frozen: so the plow must stand
still. At length, the signs are auspicious; the ground is in just the
right condition; and we would gladly plow ten, twenty, fifty acres
during the brief period wherein it remains so; but this is impossible.
Others want to improve the opportunity as well as we; extra teams are
rarely to be had at any price; and our own slow-moving oxen refuse to be
hurried. Standing half a mile off, you can see them move; if your
eye-sight is keen, and you have some stationary object interposed
whereby to take an observation; but it is as much as ever. If your soil
is such that you can use horses, you get on, of course, much faster; but
all that you gain in breadth you are apt to lose in depth. There may be
spans that will take the plow right along though you sink it to the
beam; but they are sure to be slow travelers. I never knew a span that
would plow an acre per day as I think it should be plowed; though, if
your only object be to get over as much ground as possible, you may
afflict and titillate two acres, or as much more as you please.
Now, I have before me a letter to _The Times_ (London) by Mr. William
Smith, of Woolston, Bucks, who states that he has just harvested his
fifteenth annual crop cultivated by steam-power, and has prepared his
land for the sixteenth; and he gives details, showing that he breaks up
and ridges heavy clay soils at the rate of six acres per day, and plows
lands already in tillage at the rate of fully nine acres per day. He
gives the total cost, (including wear and tear,) of breaking up a foot
deep and ridging 65 acres in September and October in this year, 1870,
at L20 _6s. 6d._ or about $100 in gold: call it $112 in our greenbacks,
and still it falls considerably below $2 (greenbacks) per acre. Say that
labor and fuel are twice as dear in this country as in England, and this
would make the cost of thoroughly pulverizing by steam-power a heavy
clay soil to a depth of twelve inches less than $4 per acre here. I do
not believe this could be done by animal power at $10 per acre, not
considering the difficulty of getting it thoroughly done at all. Mr.
Smith pertinently says: "Horse-power could not give at any cost such
valuable work as this steam-power ridging and subsoiling is." He tills
166 acres in all, making the cost of steam-plowing his stubble-land _4s.
8-1/2d._ per acre (say $1.30 greenback). And he gives this interesting
item:
"No. 5, light land, 12 acres, was ridge-plowed and subsoiled last year
for beans: that operation left the land, after the bean-crop came off,
in so nice a state, that cultivating once over with horses, at a cost of
_2s._ per acre, was all that was needed this Autumn for wheat next year.
The wheat was drilled four days back."
--Now I am not commending Steam as the best source of power in aid of
Agriculture. I hope we shall be able to do better ere long. I recognize
the enormous waste involved in the movement of an engine, boiler, etc.,
weighing several tons, back and forth across our fields, and apprehend
that it must be difficult to avoid a compression of the soil therefrom.
A stationary engine and boiler at either end of the field, hauling a
gang of plows this way and that by means of ropes and pulleys, must
involve a very heavy outlay for machinery and a considerable cost in its
removal from farm to farm, or even from field to field. Either of these
may be the best device yet perfected; but we are bound to do better in
time.
Precisely how and when the winds which sweep over our fields shall be
employed to pulverize and till the soil, are among the many things I do
not know; but, that the end will yet be achieved, I undoubtingly trust.
I know somewhat--not much--of what has been done and is doing, both in
Europe and America, to extend and diversify the utilization of wind as a
source of power, and to compress and retain it so that the gale which
sweeps over a farm to-night may afford a reserve or fund of power for
its cultivation on the morrow or thereafter. I know a little of what has
been devised and done toward converting and transmitting, through the
medium of compressed air, the power generated by a waterfall--say
Niagara or Minnehaha--so that it may be expended and utilized at a
distance of miles from its source, impelling machinery of all kinds at
half the cost of steam. I know vaguely of what is being done with
Electricity, with an eye to its employment in the production of power,
by means of enginery not a tenth so weighty and cumbrous as that
required for the generation and utilization of Steam, and by means of a
consumption (that is, transformation) of materials not a hundredth part
so bulky and heavy as the water and steam which fill the boilers of our
factories and locomotives. I am no mechanician, and will not even guess
from what source, through what agencies, the new power will be
vouch-safed us which is in time to pulverize our fields to any required
depth with a rapidity, perfection, and economy, not now anticipated by
the great body of our farmers. But my faith in its achievement is
undoubting; and, though I may not live to see it, I predict that there
are readers of this essay who will find the forces abundantly generated
all around us by the spontaneous movement of Wind, Water, and
Electricity--one or more, and probably by all of them--so utilized and
wielded as to lighten immensely the farmer's labor, while quadrupling
its efficiency in producing all by which our Earth ministers to the
sustenance and comfort of man.
XLVIII.
RURAL DEPOPULATION.
Complaint is widely made of a decrease in the relative population of our
rural districts; and not without reason, or, at least, plausibility. I
presume the Census of 1870 will return no more farmers in the State of
New York, and probably some fewer in New England, than were shown by the
Census of 1860. The very considerable augmentation of the number of
their people will be found living wholly in the cities and incorporated
villages. I doubt whether there are more farmers in the State of New
York to-day than there were in 1840, though the total population has
meantime doubled. Many farms have been transformed into country-seats
for city bankers, merchants, and lawyers; others have been consolidated,
so that what were formerly two or three, now constitute but one; and,
though every body says, "Our farms are too large for our capital," "We
run over too much land," etc., etc., yet, I can hear of few farms that
have been, or are expected to be, divided, except into village or city
lots; while the prevalent tendency is still the other way. An
inefficient farmer dies heavily in debt, or is sold out by the sheriff:
his farm is rarely divided between two purchasers, while it is quite
often absorbed into the estate of some thrifty neighbor; and thus small
farmers are selling out and moving westward much oftener than large
ones. Such are the obvious facts: now for some of the reasons:
I. Our State, like New England, was originally all but covered by a
heavy growth of forest. The removal of this timber involved very much
hard work, most of which has been done in this century, and much of it
by the present generation. When I first traversed Chautauqua County,
forty-three years ago, from two-thirds to three-fourths of her acres
must have been still covered with the primeval forest--a tall, heavy
growth of Beech, Maple, Hemlock, White Pine, etc., which yielded very
slowly to the efforts of the average chopper. Many a pioneer gave half
his working hours for twenty years to the clearing off of Timber,
Fencing, cutting out roads, etc., and had not sixty acres in arable
condition at the last. Outside of the villages, the population of that
county was probably as great in 1830 as it is to-day, though the annual
production of her tillage was not half what it now is. Her farms are now
made; her remaining woodlands are worth about as much per acre as her
tillage; there is now comparatively little timber-cutting, or
land-clearing; and two-thirds of the pioneers, or their sons who
inherited their farms, have sold out, or been sold out, and pushed
further westward. Meantime, Grazing and Dairying have extensively
supplanted Grain-growing; and farmers who found more work than they
could do on 60 or 80 acres, now manage 160 to 320 acres with ease. I do
not say that they ought not to farm better; I only state the facts that
they thrive by this dairy-farming, and are not exhausting their lands.
And what is true of Chautauqua is measurably true of half the rural
Counties in our State.
II. Formerly, Wood was the only fuel known to our farmers, while immense
quantities of it were burned in our cities, at the salt-works, etc. At
present, wood is scarcely used for fuel, except as kindling, in any of
our cities, villages, or manufactories, while the consumption of Coal by
our farmers is already very large, and rapidly extending. All this
reduces the demand for labor on our farms and in our forests, while
increasing the corresponding demand in the Coal Mines, and on the
railroads. Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, has doubled her population
within the last twelve or fourteen years; and this at the expense of our
rural districts.
III. Our agricultural implements and machinery grow annually more
effective, and at the same time more costly. The outfit of a good farm
costs five-fold what it did forty years ago. The farmer makes and
secures his Hay far more rapidly and effectively than his father did,
but pays far more for Reapers, Mowers, Rakers, etc.; in other words, he
makes Winter work abridge that of Summer--makes a hundred days' work in
some village or city save thrice as many days' work on his farm. This
enhances his profits, but swells our urban, while it diminishes our
rural population.
IV. Much has been said of the degeneracy and increasing sterility of the
New England Puritan stock. All this is shallow and absurd. There never
before were so many people who proudly traced their origin to a New
England ancestry as now. What is true in the premises is this: The New
England stock is becoming very widely diffused, and is giving place, to
a considerable extent, to other elements in its original home. Forty
years ago, at least seven-eighths of the inhabitants of Boston were of
New England birth and lineage; now, hardly half are so. The descendants
of the Pilgrims are scattered all over our wide country; while hundreds
of thousands have flowed in from Ireland, from Germany, from Canada, to
fill the places thus relinquished; and, since most of the immigrants,
whether into or out of New England, seek their future homes in the
spring-time of life, their children are mainly born to them after rather
than before their migration. The Yankees have no fewer children than
formerly; but they are now born in Minnesota, in Illinois, in Kansas;
while those born in New England are, for identical reasons, in large
proportion of Irish or of Canadian parentage. There are New England
townships, whereof most of the heads of families are long past the prime
of life; their children having left them for more attractive
localities, and the work on their farms being now done mainly by
foreign-born employes. As a general rule, the boys first wandered off;
leaving the girls only the alternative of following, or dying in
maidenhood. Marked diversities of race, of creed, and of education, have
thus far prevented any considerable intermingling of the Yankee with the
foreign element by marriage. And what is true of New England is
measurably true of our own State.
I have not intended by these observations to combat the assumption that
our people too generally prefer other employments to farming. The
obstacles to effective modern Agriculture--that is, to agriculture
prosecuted by the help of efficient machinery--presented by that
incessant alternation of rock and bog, which characterizes New England
and some parts of New York, I have already noted; and they interpose a
serious, discouraging impediment to agricultural progress. A farm
intersected by two or three swamps and brooks, separated by steep,
rocky, ridges, and dotted over with pebbly knolls, sometimes giving
place to a strip of sterile sand, is far more repulsive to the capable,
intelligent farmer of to-day than it was to his grandfather. So far as
my observation extends, there are more New England farms on which you
cannot, than on which you can, find ten acres in one unbroken area
suitable for planting to Corn, or sowing to Winter Grain. Hence,
Agriculture in the East will always seem petty and irregular when
brought into contrast with the prairie cultivation of the West. Grain
can never be grown here so cheaply nor so abundantly as there; while the
tendency of our pastures to cover themselves over with moss and
worthless shrubs, unless frequently broken up and reseeded, makes even
dairying more difficult and costly in New England and along its western
border than in almost any other part of our country.
Yet, these discouragements are balanced by compensations. Timber springs
luxuriantly and grows rapidly throughout this region; while our harsh,
capricious climate gives to our Hickory, White Oak, White Ash, and other
varieties, qualities unknown to such grown elsewhere, while prized
everywhere. Apples, and most fruits of the Temperate Zone, do well with
us; while our cities and manufacturing villages proffer most capacious
markets. Potatoes and other edible roots produce liberally, and
generally command good prices. Hay sells for $12 to $30 per ton, is
easily grown, and is in eager and increasing demand. We ought to produce
twice our present crop from the same area, and have need of every pound
of it; for neither our cattle nor our sheep are nearly so numerous nor
so well fed as they should be. In short, there is money to be made, by
those who have means and know how, by buying New England farms, tilling
them better, and growing much larger crops than their present occupants
have done. There are many who can do better in the West; but the right
men can still make money by farming this side of the Susquehanna and the
Genesee; and I would gladly incite some thousands more of them to try.
XLIX.
LARGE AND SMALL FARMS.
There is fascination for most minds in naked magnitude. The young
colonel, who can hardly handle a brigade effectively in battle, would
like of all things to command a great army; and the tiller of fifty
rugged acres has his ravishing dreams of the delights inherent in a
great Western farm, with its square miles of corn-fields, and its
thousands of cattle. Each of them is partly right and partly wrong.
There are generals capable of commanding 100,000 men, Napoleon says
there were two such in his day--himself and another: and these generally
find the work they are fit for, without special effort or aspiration. So
there are men, each of whom can really farm a township, not merely let a
herd of cattle roam over it unfed and unsheltered, living and dying as
may chance: the owners expecting to grow rich by their natural increase.
This _ranching_ is not properly farming at all, but a very different and
far ruder art. I judge that the farmers who can really till--or even
graze--several thousand acres of land, so as to realize a fair interest
on its value, are even scarcer than the farms so capacious.
But there is such a thing as farming on a large scale; and it is a good
business for those who understand it, and have all the means it
requires. The farmer who annually grows a thousand acres of good Grain,
and takes reasonable care of a thousand head of Cattle, is to be held in
all honor. He will usually grow both his Grain and his Beef cheaper than
a small farmer could do it, and will generally find a good balance on
the right side when he makes up and squares his accounts of a year's
operations. I could recommend no man to run into debt for a great farm,
expecting that farm to work him out of it but he who inherited or has
acquired a large farm, well stocked, and knows how to make it pay, may
well cling to it, and count himself fortunate in its possession. But the
great farmer is already regarded with sufficient envy. Most boys would
gladly be such as he is; the difficulty in the case is that they lack
the energy, persistency, resolution, and self-denial, requisite for its
achievement.
We will leave large farms and farming to recommend themselves, while we
consider more directly the opportunities and reasonable expectations of
the small farmer.
The impression widely current that money cannot be made on a small
farm--that, in farming, the great fish eat up the little ones--is
deduced from very imperfect data. I have admitted that Grain and Beef
can usually be produced at less cost on great than on small farms,
though the rule is not without exceptions. I only insist that there are
room and hope for the small farmer also, and that large farming can
never absorb nor enable us to dispense with small farms.
I. And first with regard to Fruit. Some Tree-Fruits, as well as Grapes,
are grown on a large scale in California--it is said, with profit. But
nearly all our Pears, Apples, Cherries, Plums, etc., are grown by small
farmers or gardeners, and are not likely to be grown otherwise. All of
them need at particular seasons a personal attention and a vigilance
which can seldom or never be accorded by the owners or renters of large
farms. Should small farms be generally absorbed into larger, our
Fruit-culture would thenceforth steadily decline.
II. The same is even more true of the production of Eggs and the rearing
of Fowls. I have had knowledge of several attempts at producing Eggs and
Fowls on a large scale in this country, but I have no trustworthy
account of a single decided success in such an enterprise. On the
contrary, many attempts to multiply Fowls by thousands have broken down,
just when their success seemed secure. Some contagious disease, some
unforeseen disaster, blasted the sanguine expectations of the
experimenter, and transmuted his gold into dross.
Yet, I judge that there is no industry more capable of indefinite
extension, with fair returns, than Fowl-breeding on a moderate scale.
Eggs and Chickens are in universal demand. They are luxuries appreciated
alike by rich and poor; and they might be doubled in quantity without
materially depressing, the market. Our thronged and fashionable
watering-places are never adequately supplied with them; our cities
habitually take all they can get and look around for more. I believe
that twice the largest number of Chickens ever yet produced in one year
might be reared in 1871, with profit to the breeders. Even if others
should fail, the home market found in each family would prove signally
elastic.
This industry should especially commend itself to poor widows,
struggling to retain and rear their children in frugal independence. A
widow who, in the neighborhood of a city or of a manufacturing village,
can rent a cottage with half an acre of southward-sloping, sunny land,
which she may fence so tightly as to confine her Hens therein, whenever
their roaming abroad would injure or annoy her neighbors, and who can
incur the expense of constructing thereon a warm, commodious Hen-house,
may almost certainly make the production of Eggs and Fowls a source of
continuous profit. If she can obtain cheaply the refuse of a
slaughter-house for feed, giving with it meal or grain in moderate
quantities, and according that constant, personal, intelligent
supervision, without which Fowl-breeding rarely prospers, she may
reasonably expect it to pay, while affording her an occupation not
subject to the caprices of an employer, and not requiring her to spend
her days away from home.
III. Though the ordinary Market Vegetables may be grown on large farms,
the fact that they seldom are is significant. Cabbages, Peas, Poled
Beans, Tomatoes, and even Potatoes, are mainly grown on small farms, as
they always have been. There are sections wherein no cash market for
Vegetables exists or can be relied on; and here they will continue to be
grown to the extent only of the growers' respective needs; but wherever
the prevalence of manufactures or the neighborhood of a great city gives
reasonable assurance of a market, they are grown at a profit per acre
which is rarely realized from a Grain-crop. No less than $100 per acre
is often, if not generally, achieved by the growers of Cabbage around
this city; and this not from rich, deep garden-mold, but from fair
farming land, underdrained, subsoiled, and liberally manured.
The careless, slipshod farmer may do better--that is, he will not fail
so signally--in Grain cultivation; but there are few more decided or
brilliant successes than have been achieved within the last few years
within sight of this City, and wholly in the tillage of small farms.
I trust I have here said enough to show that there is a legitimate and
promising field for agricultural enterprise and effort, other than that
which contemplates the acquisition and rule of a township, and that,
while farming on a large area is to many attractive and inspiring, there
are scope and incitement also for tillage on a humbler scale--for
tillage that permits no weed to ripen seed, and no nest of caterpillars
to flourish a month undisturbed--for tillage that achieves large crops
and profits from small areas, and rejoices in that neatness and
perfection of culture attainable only in the management of small farms.
L.
EXCHANGE AND DISTRIBUTION.
The machinery whereby the farmer of our day converts into cash or other
values that portion of his products which is not consumed in his house
or on his farm, seems to me lamentably imperfect. Let me illustrate my
meaning:
After three all but fruitless years, we have this year a bountiful
Apple-crop, in this State and (I believe) throughout the North. Our old
orchards being still, for the most part, preserved and in bearing
condition, while a good many young ones, planted ten to twenty years
ago, begin to fruit considerably, we had, throughout the three Fall
months, a superabundance of this homely, wholesome, palatable fruit. It
should have been cheap for the great body of our mechanics and laborers
to provide their families with all the ripe, good Apples that they could
consume without injuring themselves by gluttony. Good Apples should have
been constantly displayed on every workingman's table, to be eaten raw
as a dessert, or baked and eaten with bread and milk for breakfast or
supper. Each provident housewife should now have her tub of applesauce,
her barrel of dried apples, or both, for Winter use; while a dozen
bushels of good keepers should be stored in every cellar, to be drawn
upon from day to day during the next four or five months. In short,
Apples should have been and be, from last August to next May, as common
as bread and potatoes, and should have been and be as freely eaten in
every household and by every fireside.
How nearly have we realized this?