I do not doubt the assertion of the plainsmen that rain increases as settlements are multiplied. Crossing the Plains in 1859, I noted indications that timber had formerly abounded where none now grows; and I presume that, as young trees are multiplied in the wake of civilization, finally thickening into clumps of timber and beginning a forest, more rain will fall, and the extension of woodlands become comparatively easy. But, relatively to the country eastward of the Missouri, the Plains will always be arid and thirsty, with a pure, bracing atmosphere that will form a chief attraction to thousands suffering from or threatened with pulmonary afflictions. A million of square miles, whereon is found no single swamp or bog, and not one lake that withstands the drouth of Summer, can never have a moist climate, and never fail to realize the need of Irrigation.
The Plains will in time give lessons, which even the well-watered and verdurous East may read with profit. Such level and thirsty clays as largely border Lake Champlain, for example, traversed by streams from mountain ranges on either hand, will not always be owned and cultivated by men insensible to the profit of Irrigation. Nor will such rich valleys as those of the Connecticut, the Kennebec, the Susquehanna, be left to suffer year after year from drouth, while the water which should refresh them runs idly and uselessly by. Agriculture repels innovation, and loves the beaten track; but such lessons as New-England has received in the great drouth of 1870 will not always be given and endured in vain.
XLVII.
UNDEVELOPED SOURCES OF POWER.
The more I consider the present state of our Agriculture, the more emphatic is my discontent with the farmer's present sources and command of power. The subjugation and tillage of a farm, like the running of a factory or furnace, involves a continual use of Power; but the manufacturer obtains his from sources which supply it cheaply and in great abundance, while the farmer has been content with an inferior article, in limited supply, at a far heavier cost. Yet the stream which turns the factory's wheels and sets all its machinery in motion traverses or skirts many farms as well, and, if properly harnessed, is just as ready to speed the plow as to impel the shuttles of a woolen-mill, or revolve the cylinders of a calico-printery. Nature is impartially kind to all her children; but some of them know how to profit by her good-will far more than others. No doubt, we all have much yet to learn, and our grandchildren will marvel at the proofs of stupidity evinced in our highest achievements; but I am not mistaken in asserting that, as yet, the farmers' control of Nature's free gifts of power is very far inferior to that of nearly every other class of producers.
I have been having much plowing done this Fall—in my orchards, for what I presume to be the good of the trees; on my drained swamp, because it is not yet fully subdued and sweetened, and I judge that the Winter's freezing and thawing will aid to bring it into condition. And then my swamp lies so low and absolutely flat that the thaws and rains of Spring render plowing it in season for Oats, or any other crop that requires early seeding, a matter of doubt and difficulty. All the land I now cultivate, or seek to cultivate, has already been well plowed more than once; no stump or stone impedes progress in the tracts I have plowed this Fall; yet a good plow, drawn by two strong yoke of oxen, rarely breaks up half an acre per day; and I estimate two acres per week about what has been averaged, at a cost of $18 for the plowman and driver; offsetting the oxen's labor against the work done by the men at the barn and elsewhere apart from plowing. In other words: I am confident that my plowing has cost me, from first to last, at least, $10 per acre, and would have cost still more if it had been done as thoroughly as it ought. I am quite aware that this is high—that sandy soils and dry loams are plowed much cheaper; and that farmers who plow wall (with whom I do not rank those who scratch the earth to a depth of four or five inches) do it at a much lower rate. Still, I estimate the average cost in this country of plowing land twelve inches deep at $5 per acre; and I am confident that it does not cost one cent less.
Nor is cost the only discouragement. There is not half so much nor so 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 £20 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: