The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-12-23
English and American Farming.

"
has, in his last issue, the following note
on the "Wheat Crop in the United
States:''
j" Nine bushels is the average yield
of the United States wheat on every
acre so,cn. Many acres failed entirely
and were plowed up, which increases
the average per acre redped to ten and
one-half. do not understand all the
boasting they make about the richness
of the land in the United States. Either
the land is not suited to wheat, or the
farming must be, as it is here, execra-
bly, bad. The truth is, suppose, that
the land is not fdrmed, according to the
acceptation of the word in England,
at ALL"
Our Montreal confrere is entirely
right in his suggestions. The land in
America is not farmed, according to the
acceptation of the word in England, for
two very powerful reasons, viz: Q)
Land is abundant and cheap here, and
there is no monopoly of it-conse-
quently no tenant system, with the
right of the landlord to choose who
shall farm the land. (2) The present
extensive system of American farming
is quite as profitable to good farmers,
having reference to the money and la
Dor employed, as the intensive system
of ngland-probably more so. But as
land is plenty, and any man who wills
may be " farmer" on this continent,
we have large class of " scrub-farm-
ers," whose bad farming pulls down
the average per acre wonderfully, and
misleads very badly those who under
take to compare the farming of En-
gland and America.
If the facts could be got at, and ar
ranged in tabular form, our friend could
be easily convinced that the work of
the real farmers of the United States
the men whom it would be just and fair
to compare with Englishmen of the
same class-would not show any in
feriority. By this we do not mean
that the crop average of the best half
or the best third of our farmers would
equal that of the farmers of England,
but that the profits of their farming,
relative not to the acreage but to the
capital and labor expended, would
equal, if not exceed, the profits of En-
glish farming, including the landlords
as well as the tenants gain. We SUBJ
NIT that this is the true test of farming,
and we think that so able an agricul-
turist as Mr. Jenner Fust will admit the
fact.
Looking at the matter from its philo-
sophie side, is there any imaginable
reason why the English race, let loose
upon so noble continent as this (for
we cannot think that our friend doubts
the right Of Americans to ''boast of
the richness of the land" considering
the ease with which, not half farmed,
it feeds and clothes its own popula-
ton and produces surplus large
enough to feed and clothe the mother
country-there is no reason, we say
why the English in America should
not do as well, with an equal chance,
as those they left behind them in the
old isle? AS they have better chance,
so we think it indisputable that they
have done better.
New England people are sometimes
disposed to be vexed at the air of su-
periority, not quite free from contempt,
with which Old England people speak
of them and their doings. But if they
would stop a moment and think, they
would see how truly chips of the old
block they are themselves, when they
begin to talk about the West and the
South. An Englishman thinks the
farming of New England is very slip
shod and ineffective, but when the
same Englishman goes to farming in
New Englandhe soon finds that changed
conditions require changed methods
that is, if he is an English man, and
not an English fossil. There is quite a
difference in the two types of English
CudrdClcT' w ucu we were market
gardening in the suburbs of Louisville,
KY, thirty years ago, an English mar
ket-gardener, just over, took place on
the other side of the road from us.
Naturally DESTROYS to help new neigh
Dor and stranger, we tried to be
friendly with him, and post him up
in regard to crops and culture. But
we were not long in discovering that he
wanted no help from any "blarsted
Yankee" In the fiery sun, late and
early frosts and dry climate of the Ohio
valley, this skillful English gardener
undertook to practice the methods of
Fulham or Tottenham. OF course he
didn't get back the money spent for
his seeds. One season was enough,
and he departed, with unstinted curses
on America and Americans. That was
one kind of Englishman, the English
fossil. For specimen of an English
man in America we have only to refer
to Peter Henderson, who, in the same
business, is at the head of his pro-
fession among the market-gardeners