"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.