578 ANNUAL REPORT OP THE Off. Doc. 



oughly working up the land several times before the corn is planted. 

 We do this by putting a crop like peas, beans or onions that need 

 lots of tillage ahead of the corn. In this way we get more corn 

 than if we had not done the early farming, the llrst crop is extra. 

 The same system is true of all such crops as tomatoes, melons and 

 cabbages., Then after all these crops we use cover crops, to protect 

 the soil during the winter and have it in the best condition in 

 the spring. We try to be land builders not land robbers. Kor are 

 we speculators nor boomers. We buy the farms low, they build 

 themselves up and are revenue producers and we do not have to sell 

 them, nor do we want to. 



We tind in most cases our New Jersey soil especially lacks lime. 

 Nothing is so cheap as lime. We have long known the good results 

 of lime on heavy land but the good effects of carbonate of lime on 

 light land still astonishes us. 



Now as to our method of farm management. It has been my 

 custom when I get a farm to engage an ordinary farm hand as fore- 

 man by choice a man raised in my own neighborhood. I sort of take 

 him as a partner and we run that farm together. 



I pay him by the month, and he has charge of the men on that 

 farm. In twenty years I have never had the first reason to suspect 

 one of my foremen of dishonesty. When you see one of those men, 

 you see a man who really feels he is doing it all. Why, they are 

 so good and true to me, I don't know. I have very seldom had to 

 change foremen; once or twice, but most of my farms have the 

 original foremen on them; the man who started them is there yet. 

 We get along nicely together. They always seem glad to see me 

 come, and I am sure I am always glad to see them. Instead of be- 

 ing a worriment and a care, it is a pleasure to run these farms. A 

 good many in this audience have come out there on the farm and 

 tried to cheer me up a little, and I always enjoy having them. 



On of the main things for a farmer is the sympathy of his own 

 household. Now, let me tell you. The very first time I called on 

 my wife — she had been a farmer's daughter and her father had 

 moved into town — I asked her which she liked best. Your life or 

 farm -life? She told me farm life. Now, wasn't that encouraging? 

 (Laughter.) That little woman would still tell you she likes farm 

 life best. She generally goes around with me to these farms and 

 is just as much interested as I am. My older boys are as enthus- 

 iastic as any farmers you ever saw. The oldest one is at Cornell 

 studying agriculture. The next two will be somewhere studying 

 agriculture next year. They are more enthusiastic than their father, 

 and when they come back we will do still better. I have got a 

 little red-headed boy at home so high. He wishes he could hurry 

 up and grow big and learn how to farm. 



My business has been developing these old farms. Instead of 

 buying the high-priced land, I have bought them because they are 

 cheap. I can see the possibilities in them. It is not what they are. 

 It is what you can make them. You can do it out of the farm and 

 do it at a profit, but times are changing. We have been doing this 

 for twenty years. My neighbors are doing it and a lot of other 

 things have come. First, stone roads, then rural delivery, then the 

 telephone, so each farmer could get in touch with his commission 

 man and know what stuff he gathered the day before sold for. 



