not given much attention except in the few favored regions in the neighborhood of commercial towns, where a market for such produce was at hand.1 Gardening was much too intensive a process for the farmer at that time. Kitchen vegetables were therefore often lacking on his table, unless the women of the household could spare time from their multifarious other occupations to plant and care for a garden. The farmer had, however, learned the soothing effects of nicotine and consequently often grew a small amount of tobacco. Occasional instances of its export are found even at this early date.3

A few unsuccessful attempts at hemp-growing had been made in the Connecticut Valley. Although there was a considerable demand for this product at the shipyards in the commercial towns, yet such intensive cultivation was required, and so much disagreeable labor in preparing the fiber for market, that the domestic supply was greatly inadequate. The breweries in Boston offered a market for hops, which was supplied by the farmers in the nearby towns.5 Hops were also grown in small amounts by some farmers for the production of home-brewed beer. None of these smaller crops had the importance to the self-sufficient farmer, nor occupied as much of his land or attention, as the grain and grass crops. New England was at this time a region in which grazing was of more importance than the cultivation of fields, and hence the latter operations were subsidiary to the former.

The Rotation of Crops.

Very little progress had been made towards developing any systematic rotation of these crops. The simplest plan was a three

1 Dickinson, for instance, speaks of the cultivation of beans to be sold for "ship stores." Geographical and Statistical View, p. 9.

2 The editor of the Old Farmer's Almanack occasionally encouraged his readers to pay more attention to their kitchen gardens and to introduce vegetables into the bare menu of salt beef, turnip and stewed pumpkin. See Kittredge, The Old Farmer and His Almanack, pp. 84-85. Dwight gives a long list of vegetables grown in New England gardens, but fails to tell how many of them were regularly grown in any one garden. Travels, I. 18-20.

3 See Lees, John. Journal. New York. 1768. Also Memorial History of Hartford County, Conn. (Trumbull, J. H., ed.) 2 vols. Boston. 1886. Vol. I. p. 215. Also article, Tobacco, by Shamel, A. D., in Cyclopedia of American Agriculture (Bailey, L. H., ed.), 4 vols. New York. 1910. Vol. II. p. 641.

4 Dickinson tells of experiments with this crop in Deerfield, Mass. Geographical and Statistical View, p. 10. See also American Husbandry, I. 54.

5 Dwight found considerable hop-growing in Tewskbury, Mass., Travels, II. 189.

year course, alternating grain, grass and fallow, a system reminding one of the three-field agriculture of the Middle Ages. The first crop in this case was usually maize, followed by rye, oats or barley. It was the practice to sow one of the latter grains in the fall after the maize crop had ripened. After this second crop had been harvested, the ground was laid down to grass, or more regularly left to "sow itself;" which meant simply that it was allowed to grow up to weeds, producing the much-condemned weed-fallow. This primitive practice was varied by the extension of the alternating crops over a period of several years each, and also by the occasional interjection of other crops.1 The Massachusetts Agricultural Society summarized the answers from its correspondents on this subject as follows: "The answers from our other correspondents agree in stating the general succession of crops to be Indian corn and potatoes for one or two years; then either rye, oats or spring wheat; sometimes flax and when the land is laid down to grass, it is usually with barley. It may be inferred from the replies that the land is usually broken up after being in grass three or four years; and that it is usually ploughed about three years, and then laid down as above stated." There had been practically no improvement along this line since the Revolution, for in 1775 the author of American Husbandry had written: "They (the farmers of New England) sow large quantities of maize, some wheat, barley, oats, buckwheat, pease, and beans, turneps, and clover: hemp and flax in small parcels. And these they throw after one another, with variations, so as to keep the land, as well as their ideas permit, from being quite exhausted; which they effect by the intervention of a ploughed summer fallow sometimes. When the land has borne corn for several years, till it threatens to yield no more, then they sow clover among the last crop, and leave it as a meadow for some years to recover itself. But all this system proceeds too much on the plan of the worst farmers of Great Britain, to get corn (i.e., grain) from their fields as long as ever they will bear it.' In general we may say that some farmers were making

1 According to the Rev. Mr. Goodrich, the rotation of crops practiced in Ridgefield was: 1st year, buckwheat or rye; 2nd year, Indian corn; 3rd year, flax or oats, followed by rye sown in the fall; 4th year, pasture. After remaining in pasture a few years the land was broken up and the same routine was repeated. Statistical Account, p. 6.

2 Papers, II. 28.

3 3 Op. cit., pp. 75-76. Clover had been introduced in some parts, but not to any great extent, before 1800. It was valued rather as making good hay than for any appreciation of its service in recuperating the soil. Deane wrote in 1790:

a conscious but unsystematized effort to secure a more beneficial alternation of crops, but because of the limitations of their knowledge on the subject1 and because of the necessity of getting certain staples, such as corn, rye, grass and flax, under any conditions, they had made practically no progress along this line.

The Neglect of Manure.

There are two means of preventing soil exhaustion and of restoring the fertility of mismanaged soils; one is by a system of scientific rotation of crops and the other is by the regular and liberal application of fertilizers. As we have seen, the farmers at this period had very little knowledge of the former method, even of an empirical nature. Although we could not expect them to understand the principles of soil chemistry, the beneficial effect of common fertilizers was so obviously apparent that their neglect of this method of enriching their soil seems at first glance astonishing. The barnyard and stable manure would, if carefully collected and preserved, have furnished a considerable supply2 of first-class fertilizing material, but this resource was uniformly neglected. The cattle and horses were turned out to pasture early in the summer and often were not put into stables again, even for over night, until late in the fall. Even the small amount of manure which accumu

"Some think clover is so far from needing any manure, that it will recruit lands which are worn out. That it will do it more than other grasses, I cannot yet see any reason to believe. It will bear no crop worth mowing on lands which are quite exhausted. But it is probable, it may produce good crops on lands which are much impoverished near the surface, by bearing plants with short or horizontal roots; because clover sends its main roots to a great depth. And while a field lies several years in clover, the soil near the surface may be considerably recruited. But whether the land on the whole will be in better heart, after several heavy crops of clover are taken from it, and no manure laid on, seems rather doubtful." Deane, Samuel, A. M., The New England Farmer. 1 ed. Worcester. 1790. p. 60.

' The state of knowledge on this subject is apparent from the following: "There seems to be a general opinion that potatoes are a beneficial crop, and an universal sentiment that flax is a pernicious one. Another opinion is equally universal, that a succession of crops is absolutely essential to good cultivation, though there does not appear to have been any accurate experiments to ascertain the best order, or the duration of this rotation." Mass. Agric. Soc. Papers. II. 1807. 28.

2 In the Papers of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society for 1807 it was estimated that the live stock ordinarily kept on a 100-acre farm would furnish about 50 cart loads of dung. pp. 42-45.

3 General Warren wrote: "The common practice, in this country, is, in winter, when they (the cattle) are turned out of the barn, to take no further care of

lated during the winter was imperfectly protected from the weather and consequently a large proportion of it was wasted.1

An artificial manure, or commercial fertilizer, as it would be called nowadays, known as gypsum or Plaster of Paris, had been introduced in a few towns as early as 1800. Like other calcareous substances, it did not furnish a lacking element of plant food, yet its action was beneficial in counteracting the acidity of certain soils, and it may have also aided in retaining moisture in dry soils. The gypsum used in New England was quarried in Nova Scotia and transported hither by water. Then it had to be ground, either in plaster mills erected for that purpose, or more often, in grist mills. The cost of this process plus that of transportation and of quarrying, made this form of fertilizer so expensive that only a few farmers could afford to use it.2 Consequently its use was confined to a few towns in sections from which crops could be exported, such as the wheat-growing regions of the western counties and in the Connecticut Valley.3

On the seacoast two fertilizers were easily accessible, fish and seaweed. Along the Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound, whitefish were caught in great quantities and applied to the land at the

them for the day; they are suffered to range at large in summer; it is not uncommon to bring them up in the evening, and let them lie till morning in the roads; the first rains wash the roads clear for the traveller, without any injury to the farmer, who would not have taken the trouble to have cleaned them for any other purpose; .." Letter in American Museum, II. 347.

1 European travelers could not understand why the New England farmers and those of the Eastern states in general should be so indifferent to this means of fertilization. Harriott relates, Struggles through Life, II. 216, that on the farm which he purchased on Long Island there was “some hundred loads of manure which had been accumulating for several years, to the great damage of the buildings." This accumulation was looked upon by his neighbors as an encumbrance, merely, and the former owner advised him to move his barn, as this would be an easier way out of the difficulty than moving the manure. A similar state of affairs was described by La Rochefoucauld in Lebanon, Connecticut. Travels, I. 516.

2 Livingston, American Agriculture, p. 338, estimated the cost to the farmer at 50 cents a bushel. When we consider that the purchasing power of money was very considerably higher in those days, this price, which is about that which a farmer pays nowadays for his commercial fertilizers, seems extremely high.

3 Kendall found gypsum costing $20 a ton in use by the farmers in Sharon, in Litchfield County. Travels, I. 231. Dwight, in the course of his travels, found gypsum in use in nine towns in New England. It is significant that eight of these towns are in the Connecticut Valley. The ninth, Plainfield, Connecticut, profited by the outlet for surplus products furnished by the port of Norwich.

rate of 10,000 to 12,000 per acre.1 Seaweed, or rock-weed as it was called, was easily collected and served the same purpose to a less degree. Both at the shore and inland a variety of other fertilizing agents was used, such as marl, potash and lime, but only sporadically, according to the enterprise of particular farmers and the accessibility of the material.

The prevailing neglect of fertilizers, to which the occasional use of gypsum and white-fish are merely exceptions, illustrates not so much the ignorance of the typical farmer, as the inhibitory effect of the lack of a market on all progress in the science of agriculture. Of course the farmers of that day did not understand why spreading the dung of their cattle on their fields increased the yield of their crops, but they knew very well that such was in fact the result. Even if they had had more knowledge, it is not likely that they would have modified their wasteful practice. For carting and spreading manure entailed labor, which meant expense either of money or of their own physical effort. And from what source was that expense to be repaid? Not, certainly, from the sale of crops, for without a market that was impossible. The old practices resulted in crops sufficient to feed the farmer and his family. Why should he exert himself to produce a surplus? The only return he could expect would be a sort of psychological income, a satisfaction in seeing his fields yielding more than those of his neighbors. Such satisfaction was a quite sufficient stimulus for the gentleman farmer of the commercial towns, who experimented along all sorts of lines, regardless of expense, but for the self-sufficient farmer it

1 Dwight noted the use of white-fish in Branford, Killingworth, and Guilford. Of the latter town he remarks: "The soil of East Guilford is naturally less rich than that on which the town is built; but, being extensively manured with whitefish, yields abundant crops. These fish are sometimes laid in furrows, and covered with the plough. Sometimes they are laid singly on the hills of maize and covered with the hoe. At other times they are collected in heaps, formed with other materials into a compost, carted upon the ground, and spread in the same manner, as manure from the stable. A single net has taken 200,000 in a day. They are sold for a dollar a thousand, and are said to affect the soil advantageously for a considerable length of time. The people of East Guilford are not a little indebted to them for their present prosperity."

This prosperity, however, had its drawbacks. Dwight continues with conscientious adherence to detail: "One very disagreeable circumstance attends this mode of husbandry. At the season, when the white-fish are caught in the greatest quantities, an almost intolerable foetor fills the surrounding atmosphere, and however use may have reconciled it to the senses of the inhabitants, it is extremely disgusting to a traveller." Travels, II. 491-492.