LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 263 



seven. With this small amount of stock are we not suffering a loss as well as 

 following an imperfect mode of farming. 



And again, look at our average yield of grain, and tell me, fellow farmers, 

 what is the cause of its running so low? Corn thirty, oacs less than thirty- 

 five, and wheat from ten to twenty bushels per acre. If we should double the 

 number of young cattle, thribble the sheep, and make it a point to save all the 

 farm food, (instead of wasting half as we do now), do you not think the yield 

 per acre of your farms would be materially increased. On my way to this 

 place to day I passed a tine farm of nearly two hundred acres, nearly all 

 improved. The stock consists of a small flock of sheep, five cows, and four 

 calves. In the barn-yard and in the field are large straw stacks, their snow 

 capped tops and sides gave to them the appearance of huge monuments ei'ected 

 in memory of good crops of grain that were once grown on this farm, and I 

 believe if this mode of farming is kept up for any great length of time such 

 monuments would be very appropriate. 



In contrast I will point you to another farm of one hundred and twenty 

 acres, where about forty head of cattle and nearly twice as many sheep are 

 being kept on grain, straw, and corn fodder raised upon the farm, and the 

 only thing the owner laments over is that he hasn't cattle enough to consume 

 the coarse feed. One of these farms is certainly suffering a loss, and I leave 

 it for you to say which one it is. 



A few words now in regard to the care of young stock — and I hope I shall 

 succeed in drawing out discussion. I will again give you a practical demon- 

 stration. Last June a farmer sold two calves, eight weeks old, for twenty-one 

 dollars. Last week I saw his neighbor sell two calves, forty weeks old, for 

 sixteen dollars. AVas there a loss in either case? And if so which sustained 

 it? 



I now come to the last and most unpleasant part of my subject. If I should 

 point out something that you make a specialty of, and carry almost or quite 

 to perfection, you would undoubtedly be pleased over it ; but it is not your good 

 qualities that I am aiming at; I am trying to hit you in weak places. 



Among the imperfections on the farm, we frequently notice costly farm 

 machinery exposed for months to sun and rain. We occasionally see farm 

 buildings so arranged that it becomes necessary in going back and forth from 

 house to barn, to pass through the yard where stock is kept — this always looks 

 like imperfection. You have undoubtedly seen (if you have not I can show 

 you), fields where flocks of birds alight on the branches of dead weeds, and 

 busy themselves in gathering the seeds that have not fallen to the ground. If 

 the birds had reasoning faculties, and could talk, we presume they would 

 admire and praise such farming. The blackened stalks, surrounded by a man- 

 tle of snow, not only gives to the fields an unsightly appearance, but adds 

 imperfection. 



We notice the old style of plowing into lands with back-furrows and deep 

 dead-furrows that has been practiced as long as any of you can remember, is 

 still kept up to-day. As you are doing away with surface drains by under- 

 draining, why not keep the surface of your fields even by properly plowing. 

 The ridges and depressions not only make it unpleasant, but is much harder 

 on teams and machinery. I can show you on a farm not many miles from 

 here, underdrained fields, free from all obstructions, that have been plowed in 

 lands east and west for so many years that they look as if they had been pre- 

 pared for a variety of widths and heights of turnpikes. Pointing to one I 

 asked the owner why he had allowed so fine a field to get in so bad a shape. 



