FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 227 



ECONOMY IN FARM MANAGEMENT. 



liY F. A. GULLEY, FOREMAN OF HORTICULTURAL DEPARTMENT. 

 [Read at Manchester and Mason Institutes.] 



Economy iu farming means good farming. But what is good farming ? 



Agricultural books and papers tell us that good farming means keeping good 

 stock, applying large quantities of manure, tile-draining, rotation of crops 

 and doing everything well. 



These things mayor may not constitute good farming; good in this case 

 means successful, making money at the business. I take it if a man is adding 

 to his wealth, either in money, stock, or increasing the value or productiveness 

 of his farm, he is a good farmer; if not, a poor one, no matter whether he 

 raises Short-horns or scrubs, cultivates well or poorly. 



I don't believe in the much advocated high farming unless it will pay better 

 than a poor style of farming. We must modify our methods to suit our vari- 

 ous circumstances ; what would be best for one would mean failure for another. 

 We cannot make any one set of rules for all farmers to follow. 



But, says some one, there are certain general principles that underlie the 

 whole system of profitable agriculture that we may adopt and modify to suit 

 our needs. So there are, but we may reduce them all to one, and it will apply 

 to any business. It is, make yourself familiar with your calling by every pos- 

 sible means, paying especial attention to the surrounding circumstances that 

 may influence your business, and then do that which pays, and leave that 

 which does not. Men who have traveled over Europe, especially England, 

 come back and tell us that as farmers we are way behind our English cous- 

 ins ; we do not use so much manure, cultivate so thoroughly, nor get half the 

 yield per acre. 



They tell us tlie English farmers are sending half way around the world for 

 guano and phosphates, and are buying bones for fertilizers, and oil cake and 

 cotton seed meal to feed their stock to make rich manure, from our farmers, 

 and make money by using them notwithstanding the great cost of transporta- 

 tion. 



We are told that the life blood of our agriculture is being absorbed in the 

 exportation of cur grain and fertilizing materials, and that we must feed out 

 more of our grain and keep everything that will enrich the soil at home or we 

 will soon be bankrupt. 



Again the farmer is referred to the truck growers or garden farmers, and 

 shown how they grow enormous crops by heavy applications of manure and 

 thorough cultivation, and told if he would be prosperous he must do likewise. 



Our farmers do not grow as large crops as do the Englishmen, nor cultivate 

 so well as our own gardeners. So advanced a system of cultivation would not 

 pay in ordinary farming; we can only improve our methods with profit to a 

 certain extent. It requires less judgment to know how to increase the pro- 

 ductiveness of our farms than it docs to know how much we can increase it to 

 secure the greatest profit. It depends on tlie value of the land, and of the 

 crops to be grown, cost of labor and of inarketing the produce. 



The market gardener on high priced land can afford to expend an hundred 

 dollars or more for manure and cultivation on one acre of land, for the crop 

 will sell for enough to pay expenses and a profit besides; but if he were to sow 



