Peters, Judge (1851) Hints to the Farmers of Prince Edward Island. John lngs, Charlottetown, P.E.l. 58 pp.

James Horsfie/d Peters lb. 7 87 l, d. 789 7/, the scion of a New Brunswick loyalist family, arrived on Prince Edward Island in 7838 as a young lawyer to take on the agency of his father-in-law Samuel Cunard ’s recently acquired island estate, which was soon to total, to use Peters’ own words, ”about one-sixth of the island” in many scattered townships. In the same year he was appointed solicitor-general for the island and soon after to the Legislative Council. In a short time he acquired ”a formidable reputation as an exacting agent who could at times be ruthless and even vindictive”. He gave up these positions in 7848, including the agentship, on his appointment as assistant judge of the island’s Supreme Court, a position he was to hold until his retirement in the year of his death. Throughout his life Peters maintained a farm that was considered a model in terms of cultivation and livestock breeding. His Hints to Farmers, which was widely circulated on the island, is mostly concerned with crap rotation and turnip growing, but l have extracted his words of advice on the use of green manure and potash from the forest.

REFERENCES: Clark, A. H. (1959) Three Centuries and the Island. University of Toronto Press. p. 108, 110. Robertson, I. R. (1990) Peters, James Horsfield. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, XII: 838—42.

A new farm in The man who commences a new farm in the woods has many difficulties to the W00d$v overcome, much hardship to endure, and privations to suffer; exertion of muscle, rather than skill in husbandry, is at first chiefly demanded of him. The new land yields abundantly, and the temptation to over cropping is great . Nature has been

bountiful in giving great fertility to the virgin soil, but you cannot abuse her gifts with impunity; if you exhaust the ground by the reckless system of taking crop after crop, without manuring, be assured you and your children will suffer for it in after years. Look at many of the old farms of the Island: how many farmers do you see with forty and fifty acres of cleared land, selling their farms for a trifle, or struggling with poverty, and just obtaining a scanty subsistence, when they ought to have plenty? Yet these lands were once clothed with woods like yours, the soil as rich, the yield of crops as great: what caused the change? The answer is the foolish, barbarous system of cutting repeated grain and hay crops from the same land, without

manuring.

The first year the land is burnt, you will put in some potatoes . New burnt land Green manure gives turnips with very little trouble; sow as many of them as you can; In many from the woods. places fern grows plentifully, by the road side and through the woods; it is very

valuable as manure. Make it a rule, that each child shall every day in summer gather an arm full, and throw in the pig sty or cow house; in autumn when the leaves fall, gather as many as you can, and throw in the cow house; every spring turn all out of the cow house and pig sty, and make it into a heap. Every little helps, and in a year

Wood ash or two by the time you want manure, you will have a respectable pile. I often see

as ”73’7“"?- new settlers selling ashes; don’t do this—the trifle you get for them is not worth the time wasted in bringing them to the market. Keep every quart of your ashes, and mix it with mud if you can get it, if not, with earth and sods from the road side ;

The emigrant

The poor emigrant, when he arrives, has more obstacles to overcome than the and the forest.

native settler; anxious to form a home for himself and the little family dependent on his exertions, but unacquainted with the climate, and unskilled in the use of the axe. he attacks the forest under the disadvantages which a strong arm, a bold heart, and indomitable spirit can alone overcome. To such I would say, do not persevere in taking repeated crops of grain or hay off the same land, or in selling ashes, or neglect collecting everything that will make manure, one year longer than you can possibly help; and after you once get fairly under way, the stumps out of a few acres, and the plough to work, you will have no excuse for treating the land you clear each year badly. Then commence at once with the proper system; each acre of new burnt land will yield you turnips to feed your stock, will give you a crop of grain, and a crop of hay; then pasture it until it is fit to stump, and then, not having been exhausted, very little manure will carry another rotation.

[pp. 48-50]

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