Farmixg ox the Islaxd of Jersey. 225 



This planted trench is filled by the ground taken from the next 

 trench. The potatoes are always planted whole, five or six inches 

 apart in the row, and rows ten to fourteen inches apart. In 

 four or five days — if the weather is favorable — you can see a leaf 

 breaking through the ground so that one can distinguish the 

 rows. The cultivating is done mostly by hand, as the rows are 

 too narrow to admit using a horse; however, some of the larger 

 farmers plant so as to cultivate with horses. It is no uncommon 

 sight to see a man and a woman or three women hitched tandem 

 to a cultivator and at work in this way day after day. 



When an American has spent a few weeks on the Island of 

 Jersey and sees the enormous crops they take from the soil it 

 makes him think that as farmers in America we hardly know our 

 agricultural A, B, C's, and that with all our Agricultural College 

 Experiment Stations, patented machinery, books and learning, 

 we are way behind the times in knowing how to increase and 

 maintain the fertility of our farms. Is that saying too much? 

 Let me call your attention to the fact that the average wheat 

 and corn yield in America has steadily declined until it is only 

 about thirteen bushels per acre. 



What do we know about agriculture in America compared with 

 these unlettered islanders? Nothing. Any fool can rob his farm 

 of its fertility and live for a time off of the fatness of a virgin 

 soil, but it takes a farmer, an agriculturist, to restore it, to in- 

 crease it and to " farm it " so as to win it back to productiveness 

 with ever increasing power. 



I can not close this article without calling the reader's atten- 

 tion once more to the prime cause of the islanders' success, i. e.: 

 The great number of cattle they keep, which means a great 

 quantity of manure, which means great crops, all which is 

 made possible by adopting the soiling system for their cattle. 

 I may also add that there is no system or farm practice that will 

 teach a person the art and science of agriculture in this country, 

 as will the adoption of a strict soiling system for his cattle. 

 First of all, it enables him to keep four or five head of stock on 

 land where by pasturing he could support but one. This means 

 that he is producing four or five time^ as much fertilizer (barn- 

 yard manure) in quantity as formerly and at least ten times as 



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