1856.] A Word from the West 



219 



[For the Cincinnatus. 

 A WORD FROM THE WEST. 



[We willingly give place to the following, from our friend Crowly of Hlinois 

 His sketch of the modes of firming too much in vogue, shows the 'great need 

 there is of Educated Farmers in the land.— Eds.] 



Our farmers here pursue the same ruinous course that has marked 

 their career elsewhere. Emigrating from the barren rocks of Xew 

 Eiigland, where the soil is so poor as to scarcely sprout a pea, they are 

 elated with the huge cars of corn and great yield of wheat our rich prai- 

 ries produce. But they adopt no means to preserve this bountiful supply 

 of nature's stores ; and the consequence is, that farms which ten years 

 ago produced thirty-five bushels of wheat per acre, and which by careful 

 management would produce forty-five, now yield scarcely twenty-fi^e 

 bushels to the acre. Among them the idea seems prevalent, that if they 

 penetrate the soil more than about six inches below the surface, they are 

 trespassing upon some other one's land ! The plain truth is' they all 

 own too much land for thorough cultivation. Fifty acres, well cultivated, 

 will actually yield more than two hundred acres, half tilled. When spo' 

 ken to on the subject of improvement, they tell us it is best to follow in 

 the paths beaten by our ancestors. But, do they do this? Ask thb 

 man who praises the good old ways, to use the same kind of a plow as 

 that with which his great-grand-father broke the soil, and he would 

 scout the idea. No doubt but that the man who first sharpened a 

 cmtclied stick, and shaped it into the rude similitude of a plow, where- 

 with to tear up the ground, was denounced as a dangerous innovator, 

 more daring than a Mapes or a Mechi, of our times ! Old fogies gravely 

 shook their heads, predicted that such an erratic genius m'ust come to 

 some bad end, and wondered why he could not be content to dig and 

 scratch the ground over with rude hoe and spade, as generations before 

 had done. Those same conservators, nevertheless, gradually adopted his 

 invention, though fiercely struggling against others that followed ; and 

 thus the old fogy keeps about one generation behind the progressive. 

 He will not use a plow like that of his grand-father, but is sure that 

 this thing of draining, irrigation, and sub-soiling, is all a grand humbug ; 

 and scarcely is a passing thought given to manuring on the prairie soH.' 

 Their beds of muck, instead of being made a source of profit, often become 

 a serious inconvenience to such farmers; and one such actually built his 

 barn and stable in such position that the refuse and manure might be 

 thrown into the adjacent creek, and carried away with its current ! 



