288 WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING. 



Meantime, Grazing and Dairying have extensively 

 supplanted Grain-growing ; and farmers who found 

 more work than they could do on 60 or 80 acres, now 

 manage 160 to 320 acres with ease. I do not say 

 that they ought not to farm better ; I only state the 

 facts that they thrive by this dairy-farming, and are 

 not exhausting their lands. And what is true of 

 Chautauqua is measurably true of half the rural 

 Counties in our State. 



II. Formerly, "Wood was the only fuel known to 

 our farmers, while immense quantities of it were 

 burned in our cities, at the salt-works, etc. At pres- 

 ent, Wood is scarcely used for fuel, except as kindling, 

 in any of our cities, villages, or manufactories, while 

 the consumption of Coal by our farmers is already 

 very large, and rapidly extending. All this reduces 

 the demand for labor on our farms and in our forests, 

 while increasing the corresponding demand in the 

 Coal Mines, and on the railroads. Luzerne County, 

 Pennsylvania, has doubled her population within the 

 last twelve or fourteen years ; and this at the expense 

 of our rural districts. 



III. Our agricultural implements and machinery 

 grow annually more effective, and at the same time 

 more costly. The outfit of a good farm costs five- 

 fold what it did forty years ago. The farmer makes 

 and secures his Hay far more rapidly and effectively 

 than his father did, but pays far more for Reapers, 

 Mowers, Rakers, etc. ; in other words, he makes 

 Winter work abridge that of Summer makes a hun- 



