The Cultivator; A Monthly Journal Devoted to Agriculture,horticulture, Floriculture, and to Domistic and Rural Economy Volume 8

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1841 edition. Excerpt: ...less striking has been the result of abstaining from the common use of ardent spirits in the United States, and in no department of industry, has this influence been more beneficially felt than in that ofagriculture. Of this no one, we believe, doubts, who has made the experiment offarming without rum, or in other words, banishing ardent spirits from his farming operations. We are well aware there were thousa ds, in fact nearly every farmer in the country, who, w en the idea of farming without the use of ardent spirits was first proposed, deemed it wild and visionary, if not impossible. So intimate had the associations of work and rum become in the minds of most men, thatto separate them--to undertake to break in upon long established usage--to get in a harvest, or erect ii building, without such drinks, required no little exercise of reason and indepeudence of feeling. Many who were convinced the practice was useless, hesitated about abolishing it, lest the withholding spirits should be charged to a penurions disposition. Good sense, however, and a feeling of right prevailed; rum was banished from the harvest field and the raising, in numerous instances, and it was found that none of the injurious effects anticipated by many, followed. There was no want of laborers; the coarse grains still commanded good prices; and four or five distilleries in every town ceased to produce and distribute misery and death. In those neighborhoods, and on those farms from which intoxicating drinks have been banished, those revolting scenes unfortunately once too common, are now no longer seen. We remember when itwas the custom to find each laborer in the harvest field with his pint of spirits daily, that there was frequently more waste from the effect of...