232 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Ou weedy laml I would uso buckwheat, being careful not to let the seed ripen. 

 I would in nearly all cases prefer using a green crop to a clean summer fallow. 

 The majority of farmers in this State, to keep tlicir land in condition to pro- 

 duce clover and grain, will have to grow less wheat, more clover and corn, feed 

 stock, and make manure. 



It is a settled fact that manure, whether of animal excrements, or remains, 

 guano, superphosphates, ashes, green crops plowed under, or any material that 

 adds plant food to, or renders soluble that which is in the soil, adds to its pro- 

 ductiveness. Practical experience has shown this for years, but all the science 

 of chemistry, the most careful experiments and practical experience for cen- 

 turies has not been able to give us any formula or set of rules telling us how 

 we can get and use fertilizing materials with the greatest economy and profit. 

 It is the most difficult question in modern science, a problem so intricate that 

 if -we attempted to solve it by algebra we would not have letters enough in the 

 alphabet to represent the unknown quantities. 



We all know that the manure from stock will give us larger crops, but the 

 question is, will the crops be enough larger to pay the cost of the manure and 

 leave a profit. It sounds well to talk of feeding stock, but the farmer works 

 for the dollar, and if feeding stock will not pay then he does not care to try it. 



As we read of the countless herds of stock grown in the far west on land that 

 is almost as free as the air we breathe, or when bought costs but a dollar or two 

 per acre, when we realize that those cattle can be grown to maturity at a cost 

 of from one to five dollars per year, and shipped to New York almost as cheap- 

 ly as from Michigan by reason of railroad competition, we may well hesitate 

 before taking up stock feeding. 



I doubt if we can make the business of stock feeding profitable — that is to 

 sell nothing but meat, milk, or wool — on the older and best cultivated farms 

 in this State But to grow good crops most farmers must have manure, and 

 to get manure they must feed some kind of stock ; and to make the farm profit- 

 able they must feed economically, save all the manure, and apply a considera- 

 ble portion of it to the growing of such crops as sell for cash. 



One of the things that require a g'ood deal of careful thought and study in 

 mixed farming, that is, growing stock and grain or other crops, is economy 

 in labor, having everything arranged so that a little work will go a great ways. 

 It requires more skill to do two things well than to do but one. It takes more 

 brain work to combine stock-growing and raising grain, than it would to prac- 

 tice either alone, and it requires careful study when practicing both to keep 

 one from interfering with the other. 



Economy in labor should first be studied in laying out the farm, arrange- 

 ment of the fields, second, in the rotation or plan of the crops to be grown, 

 and third and not the least important in feeding stock, the arrangement of 

 the barns. 



Farmers often fence too much, have too many fields. The cost of fences is 

 an important matter. At 90 cts. per rod it costs §567.00 to enclose a IGO-acre 

 farm. If the same farm is divided into 40-acre fields with a lane through the 

 center, it will cost at the same rate 84:"-i"^,00 more; divided into 20-acre fields, 

 $720.00; and into 10-acre lots, over $1,000.00 for inside fences, besides the 

 loss of the land taken up by them. But the greatest loss from having small 

 fields is time wasted in turning around with the plow, cultivator, mower or 

 other implement. It takes the ordinary teamster considerable time to get out 

 of one row and into the next. The larger implements cannot be used to good 



