100 
acres from sun to sun; now, a weak man, or an active boy, or even a young lady, with 
a team, can mow in less time, and do it better, ten to twelve acres; and grain is cut 
with about the same relative difference in labor. A mixed husbandry is the sure pre- 
curser of success with industrious, studious farmers. As an evidenee of encouragement, 
far exceeding all the discouragements which the most complaining can see, we note the 
fact that now farmers have carriages, carpets, music, many of them fine houses, out of 
debt, and money for all needed wants. 
Reynolds, Mo.—Ready sale can be found, at good prices, for all farm products, but 
the fact is that not one-twentieth of the farmers more than half cultivate their lands. 
There is no such a thing in this county as a sub-soil plow. I have told a great many 
of the value of sub-soiling, but they seem to think that it would ruin their lands. 
Nemaha, Kans.—Many of our agricultural societies and their fairs are looked upon asa 
nuisance by our farmers, such as will offer $20 or more to the fastest horse, and $10 or 
more to a scrub-race, and $1 or $2 for the best wheat, &c., and yet we all believe that 
farmers’ clubs, fairs, and societies are very beneficial when well conducted. ; 
Dodge, Neb.—Poverty, a want of enterprise, a spirit of speculation, a desire to get 
rich on the rise of property, instead of by patient industry and economy, facilities for 
transportation, and the high tariffs of railways are some of our discouragements. 
Oldham, Ky.—I would advise our farmers to pull off their coats and go to work; 
talk less of horses; quit complaining of the Government; dissipate all ideas of what 
has passed in the last twelve years; stop preparing for the professions every boy of 
talent; teach children to be both scientific and practical; elect only the best men to 
all offices ; never go in debt for mere show; pay as they go. 
Symth, Va.—Our farmers should be taught to plow under more clover, use more gyp- 
sum, build barns and stables, to enable them to save the manure; to establish schools 
to educate the laboring classes; a combination of some kind to lower freights and 
destroy railroad monopolies ; by some sort of legislation to make it for the interest of 
the large land-owners to sell what they cannot use to advantage themselves. 
Burke, N. C.—Want of knowledge in agriculture; the advantage of draining, sub- 
soiling, and manuring is what we need to make this part of North Carolina 
among the most desirable portions of North America. All fruits and vegetables 
raised this side of the tropics are grown in abundance; our land is good and cheap, and 
capable of being raised to the highest state of fertility. Our climate is mild and 
healthy ; chills and fever seldom known, and that disease so fatal of late years in the 
Northern States, consumption, is hardly known here. 
Bosque, Tex.—We need combination; a thorough, systematic preparation of the 
soil and rotatiou of crops, organization of agricultural clubs, and more mental and 
physical labor. We want united effort to develop the greut natural resources of our 
country. 
Santa Clara, Cal—The principal cause of unprofitable farming in this and every 
county in this State is a total lack of any system in working the soil and a want 
of practical knowledge on the part of many, and a reckless disregard of scientific 
principles which should govern the cultivation of the soil; also, a disregard of rotation 
and variety of crops. Two-thirds of the farmers purchase all the vegetables for 
table use from peddlers who bring them to their doors; buy most, if not all the ham, 
bacon, and fresh meat used in the family, and one-third, at least, purchase at the 
country store their butter and eggs. The large majority purchase their potatoes for 
winter use, and very many buy the most of their hay and all their grain for feed. 
Such is farming in California, a country possessed of the richest soil and most salu- 
brious climate in the world, capable of growing almost every variety known in the 
vegetable kingdom. 
Campbell, Tenn.—I would suggest the forming of farmers’ clubs, the circulation 
of good agricultural papers, the building up of good agricultural schools, and the 
keeping of careful farm accounts, that the farmer may know what he made or lost and 
what crop pays best. 
DEBT AND EXTRAVAGANCE. 
The tendency to extravagance in times of high prices, and to the 
entanglements of the credit system which are so ruinous on the’ re- 
currence of “‘ hard times,” is bitterly inveighed against, and its conse- 
quences portrayed from observation and experience of the harships 
which involve so many farmers at the present time; and the poverty 
resulting from war losses is a subject which causes much lamentation. 
Spottsylvania, Va.—When the rebellion ceased three-fourths of the farmers were in 
debt. The slaves being set free, the creditors induced farmers to give them deeds of 
trust upon their lands, and the farmer, to get a little longer lease for a home for himself 
and family, consented, for about one-fourth the market value of his lands. If the ered- 
