But the Explanation Given was not Sufficient.

The reasons for the foregoing state of affairs generally given by contemporary and later writers on the subject may be grouped under three chief heads: (1) the ignorance of the farmers of what we now recognize as the fundamental principles of scientific agriculture; (2) the conservatism which bound them down to traditional methods; (3) the cheapness of land and the consequent high price of labor. All of these conditions undoubtedly existed and each contributed in its own way to prevent progress, yet none of them, it seems to me, would alone, or in combination with the others, have been able to prevent progress in agriculture if it had not been for the presence of another and more decisive condition, the lack of a market.

Inefficiency of Agriculture was not Due to Ignorance.

The typical inland farmer was undoubtedly ignorant of the best methods of tillage and of fertilization, and of the fact of increased productivity which the application of these methods would bring. But this was not a necessary or an inevitable state of affairs. The knowledge of the improvements which had been accomplished abroad was accessible in this country. Beginning with the publication of the first of the Reverend Jared Eliot's Essays on Field Husbandry in New England, in 1749,1 an unwearying attempt had been made by men of education to bring to the attention of farmers in the Eastern states, and particularly in New England, the importance of changing their methods. The result had been the publication of a respectable body of literature on the subject, including at least sixteen works2 of a general nature, in which the contrast between the methods employed at home and abroad were pointed out, the improvements introduced by Tull, Bakewell and Young were outlined and discussed in simple language, and suggestions were made for adapting their discoveries to the conditions prevailing here. Besides these there were published a considerably larger number of pamphlets, dealing with special branches of the agricultural industry, such as the use of gypsum as a fertilizer, the advantages of rotation of crops, the breeding of sheep and the management of bees. The agricultural societies were spreading similar information through their published reports, and such periodicals as The Old Farmer's Almanack

1 These essays, six in all, appeared separately in the years 1749-1759, and were in 1760 published in collected form.

2 About half of these were published before 1800. For a partial list of titles of the general and special works on agriculture published in this country before 1815, see Appendix C.

and the American Museum1 were helping along the cause of education by repeated admonitions, "in season and out of season."

Little could have been expected in the way of results from this propaganda, if the farmers had not been fitted by nature or training to receive it. But it seems evident that the New England farmers were both intelligent and educated enough to see the advantages of the new husbandry and to apply its methods. It is universally recognized that the general level of education was at this time higher in New England than in any other part of the country. Common schools, at which attendance was compulsory, were found in every town2 almost as soon as it was settled. The terms in these schools were, it is true, short, and the teachers often inefficient, but even if the bulk of the pupils never progressed beyond the rudiments, still the training was universal and furnished a valuable working equipment. There is also evidence at hand that the farmers showed a disposition to utilize and improve their knowledge by reading. "Social libraries" were found even at this early date in many of the older towns and parishes, and newspapers, both those which were published in the inland towns themselves and those from the commercial towns,5 were read everywhere with avidity. So widespread

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1 The American Museum appeared monthly in the years 1787-1792. It was published in Philadelphia but seems to have had many readers and contributors in New England. The Old Farmer's Almanack was established by Isaiah Thomas in Worcester in 1793 and has appeared annually since that date.

2 An exception should be made for certain towns in Rhode Island. In that state the law requiring the establishment and maintenance of such schools had been repealed a few years before 1810. See Morse, Gazetteer, 1810, art. R. I.

No doubt the value of the education received in these schools has been overrated along with other features of "the good old days,” especially in comparison with the training given to children in modern schools. Here we are concerned with its absolute rather than with its relative value. See Adams, C. F., Episodes, II. 781.

4 In Pease and Niles' Gazetteer of Connecticut and Rhode Island the social library is almost as regularly mentioned in the descriptions of the various towns as are the saw-mills or the ministers and doctors.

As early as 1790, there were 37 periodicals published in New England, of which three appeared semi-weekly, 32 weekly, and two monthly. U. S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of the Census. A Century of Population Growth. Washington. 1909. pp. 32-34. A few years later, according to Dwight, Travels, IV. 344-345, the total had grown to 55. Before 1800 newspapers had been established in such inland towns as Worcester, Pittsfield, Stockbridge, Greenfield, Northampton and Brookfield, in Massachusetts; in Litchfield, Windham and Danbury, in Connecticut; in Brattleboro and Rutland, in Vermont; and in Hanover, Keene, Concord, Amherst, Walpole, and Gilmanton, in New Hampshire. See U. S. Library of Congress. Check List of American Eighteenth Century Newspapers. Washington. 1912.

was this habit that not only did travelers comment upon it,' but the conservative Dwight was moved to remark: "The reading of newspapers in this country is undoubtedly excessive, as is also the number of such papers annually published." The same author however, recognized clearly the advantages of education in general on the productive capacity of the community, setting them forth as follows: "A New Englander imbibes, from this education, an universal habit of combining the objects of thought, and comparing them in such a manner as to generalize his views with no small degree of that readiness and skill, which in many countries are considered as peculiar to a scientifical education. Hence he often discerns means of business and profit, which elsewhere are chiefly concealed from men of the same class. Hence, when prevented from pursuing one kind of business, or unfortunate in it, he easily, and in very many instances successfully, commences another. Hence he avails himself of occurrences, which are unregarded by most other men. Universally our people are, by this degree of education, fitted to make the best of their circumstances, both at home and abroad; to find subsistence where others would fail of it; to advance in their property, and their influence where others would stand still; and to extricate themselves from difficulties where others would despond."

As an instance of the effects of this universal education in quickening intelligence, Dwight cites one of those "many original machines for abridging human labour, and improving its results," the stocking-loom. He might have cited the machine for cutting and heading nails and tacks, the system of interchangeable parts in the manu

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1 Foreigners traveling in this country remarked upon the wide circulation of newspapers. Lambert while on a journey from Boston to Walpole, in New Hampshire, noticed that the stage-coach driver distributed these papers along the route, remarking: "There is scarcely a poor owner of a miserable log hut, who lives on the border of a stage road, but has a newspaper left at his door." Travels, II. 498-499. Rochefoucauld had written somewhat earlier of Massachusetts: "Not a house is to be found in the most remote corners of the country, where a newspaper is not read; and there are few townships that do not possess little libraries formed and supported by subscription." Travels, II. 215.

2 Travels, IV. 344, note.

Ibid., IV. 348-349. For a detailed description and discussion of educational facilities provided in New England see Ibid., pp. 282-298.

1 A patent for such a machine was issued to one Jesse Reed of Boston, 1807. See Bishop, History of American Manufactures, II. 125-126. A similar machine was invented by Jacob Perkins of Newburyport, Mass., about 1790. See Swank, J. M. The Manufacture of Iron in New England. In the New England States, I. 374.

facture of muskets, perfected by Eli Whitney in New Haven,1 and improvements in a number of other lines of manufacture, such as the making of tin plate in Meriden, in Connecticut, and the manufacture of wooden clocks in Waterbury, all of which displayed the ingenuity of his countrymen along mechanical lines. Why was it that this spirit of progress and invention, this capacity to work out new ideas and to apply the ideas of others did not display itself in agriculture? Certainly there was a large field for improvement there. The answer is simple. The application of genius and energy along mechanical lines was profitable, because a market could be found for the improved and increased product; a market for increased agricultural produce was not at hand, therefore progress along that line was not remunerative.

Conservatism.

Conservatism has always been acknowledged as a characteristic quality of any agricultural population, especially in countries where the land is held in small tracts in fee simple and cultivated by the owners. New experiments are always made reluctantly; with limited resources the failure of a single crop may bring disaster. The New England farmers were undoubtedly conservative, but it seems illogical to select this quality of their minds as a determining factor in the explanation of the lack of agricultural progress. For if conservatism had been so important it would have affected not only the inland farmers but also those of the coast regions. The latter had behind them the same ancestry and the same traditions, the conditions of land tenure were the same; but yet, as we have seen, they did not hesitate to make new ventures, to invest labor and capital in their farms, to modify their practices in any way that seemed to offer more profit.

Land was Cheap and Labor Dear-Washington's Explanation.

The third argument, that concerning the relative prices of land and labor, deserves more serious consideration. It is given most prominence by those writers who were intelligently seeking an economic explanation of the phenomena they observed. So Washington wrote: "An English farmer must entertain a contemptible opinion

1 See Dwight, Statistical Account of New Haven, pp. 38–39.

2 General Warren wrote: "Our farmers have all along followed the practice of their fathers, which might be adopted, at first, from necessity, and is pursued from want of spirit to adopt a better and more rational system by those who are convinced of the absurdity of it." American Museum, II. 346.

of our husbandry, or a horrid idea of our lands, when he shall be informed that not more than eight or ten bushels is the yield of an acre: but this low produce may be ascribed, to a cause which I do not find touched by either of the gentlemen whose letters are sent to you, namely that the aim of the farmers in this country (if they can be called farmers) is, not to make the most from the land, which is or has been cheap, but the most of the labour, which is dear: the consequence of which has been, much ground has been scratched over, and none cultivated or improved as it ought to have been; whereas a farmer in England, where land is dear and labour cheap, finds it his interest to improve and cultivate highly that he may reap large crops from a small quantity of land.”

Livingston wrote in much the same strain. Speaking of the disparagements cast upon the agriculture of this country by foreigners, he says: "To this we must add an erroneous idea, that most strangers entertain of the perfection of agriculture: they presume, that it consists in obtaining the greatest quantity of produce from a given quantity of land; and when they find that the arable yield of our fields is less than that of their native country, they at once pronounce us miserable farmers; not considering, that agriculture is good, or bad, in proportion to the return which it makes for the capital employed, and that the capital consists not of land only, but of stock, land, and labour. In countries in which a great population causes land to be dear, and labour cheap, the farmer expends much labour on little land, and renders that extremely productive, and the reverse where land is cheap, and labour dear. Considered in

this view, we are much inclined to think, that the agriculture of the United States is at least equal to that of Europe;

The Effect of Cheap Land-The Frontier.

2

In an examination of the influence of the relative values of land and labor on agricultural methods and progress, it seems to me that

1 This letter of Dec. 5, 1791, addressed to Arthur Young, is quoted by Blodget, Samuel, Junior. Economica: A Statistical Manual for the United States of America. Washington. 1806, p. 91. It is not, however, found in either Sparks' or Ford's editions of Washington's works. It was supposed to have accompanied a description of agriculture in the United States, which, in response to Young's request, Washington had compiled from queries addressed to prominent men in various states.

2 American Agriculture, pp. 332–333. In a later passage, p. 341, the writer admits that such a system may be disastrous for the community, even if it be justified from the point of view of the individual's interest.