280 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



all kinds — nearly every lot on the farm would do it without fer- 

 tilizers. No such crops have been raised on those fields since the 

 introduction of the iron plow. 



But I am not going to stake my reputation as a farmer by stand- 

 ing up here and telling these old and intelligent farmers that the 

 iron plow has done all this, for not one of us would use any other. 

 But the removal of every stone from the land, then turning over 

 so flat, and following with the small steel tooth harrow, packs 

 the land hke a mortar bed, and, in many instances, the roller fol- 

 lowing these, and then we expect a hig crop. In some cases we 

 might about as well look for it in the public highway. I never 

 used the roller on such clean land but once, and I never had a good 

 crop on that field until it was loosened with the plow, and I have 

 not had a poor one since. 



Several years ago there was a great mania for rollers. Nearly 

 every large farmer had one. A wealthy neighboring farmer built 

 a very large, nice heavy one, and used it a few years. One day a 

 neighbor came to borrow it. " He was told that he could have it 

 under one condition, that was, that he should never bring it back, 

 and he never did. He used it and left it standing in the field. I 

 saw it stand there until it rotted down, and there has not been a 

 roller used in that neighborhood since. But these are not all the 

 reasons why farming " as it is " don't pay. Fifty years ago the 

 dairymen in the town of Goshen, in this State, used every fall to 

 drive into the adjoining towns a great many cows to be wintered, 

 many times at the halves, for they could summer more than they 

 could winter. But now only about twenty cows can be kept on the 

 farms that used to keep sixty. Surely the iron plow has not done 

 all this, for they have not plowed any. Fifty years ago these same 

 dairymen used to make cheese a specialty. They took it to New 

 Haven on wagons, and sold it for six cents a pound, and made 

 money by it, and now we grow poor making and selling it for 

 twelve cents a pound. Why this is so remains a hidden mystery. 



Many farmers at the present day practice skinning their farms, 

 and using the money for other purposes than farming. If the 

 farm goes down to the amount of money taken from it, have we 

 gained anything ? will it not take more to put the farm back again 

 than all they have robbed it of ? We must feed our farms if we 

 expect them to feed us. What we gain from a well-fed farm is 

 not skinning any more than the labor from a well-fed ox or 



