172 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



lessly by and see much of his crop drowned 

 by excessive rains. At many points corn is 

 so plentiful that 15 cents is a good price for 

 it, while here 70 cents is as cheap as any 

 one has sold his crop of corn. The Pecos 

 valley farmer can grow hogs enough on a 

 few acres of alfalfa to use all the corn 

 grown on a quarter section of ground, so 

 that he can always market his corn at a 

 good figure. The Pecos valley farmer 

 who stays at home and attends to his busi- 

 ness is the most independent man under 

 the sun, for he is not mortgaged up to the 

 eyes to the merchant, and he need never 

 be. The Pecos valley farmer, one of 

 whom we are which, is all right, with a 

 bright and happy future. Pecos (N. M.) 

 News. 



Lecturing the Old Style Farmers. 



Time apparently hangs heavily upon 

 many of our farmers. Prices of most of 

 the products are so low that the business 

 but little more than pays the running ex- 

 penses. A radical change the whole 

 length of the line is indispensable to any- 

 thing like fair success. 



Little less must be done, and accom- 

 plished in a great deal better manner, 

 says The American Cultivator. It is en- 

 tirely idle to expect to secure a profit over 

 the cost of production of ordinary to poor 

 goods. The best horses, the best cattle, 

 sheep, dairy products and the like usually 

 pay a good profit, and why? Because it 

 does not cost so much to produce good 

 stuff as the poor stuff costs. 



The farmer who raises a good horse or 

 a good ox wastes no feed. His feed is all 

 food of production; he don't feed them a 

 day without some grain. A good dairy- 

 man will make as much product from two 

 cows as a poor one will from six. The 

 good dairyman not only feeds the food of 

 support, but as much of the food of pro- 

 duction as his cows will bear and respond 

 to, while the poor dairyman rarely finds 

 much above the food of support, and of 

 course loses most of that. 



Farmers do not sell quite so much fer- 

 tility when they sell stock as they do when 

 they sell hay. If our farmers could pro- 

 vide themselves with first-class stock 

 and learn how to feed it and care for it, 

 they would rise in the scale of being in 

 short time. It is their only way out. As 

 a rule, from three to eight horses are kept 



on a 'farm, and not a good one among 

 them. 



All This and More too. On the subject 

 "What the Granges Have Done," Senator 

 Chandler of New Hampshire says: " They 

 have promoted and secured their most 

 natural object, better and more profitable 

 agriculture. They have taken up by 

 many wise heads the various questions of 

 importance to farmers; have investigated 

 and studied those questions; have searched 

 the world over for answers, and at last 

 many quick hands have put into practice 

 and proved the soundness of *the conclu- 

 sions reached. There is hardly a method 

 of farming which has not been im- 

 proved through the influence of the 

 granges. Better market gardening, bet- 

 ter flowers, better staple crops, better 

 forestry are the result of the inquiries, 

 discussions, plans and experiments of the 

 granges of America. * This most fruitful 

 subject of the results of grange action I 

 leave to be amplified by others." 



Butter and Eggs. Poultry and eggs 

 sold in Kansas during 1895 were valued at 

 $3,315,067. During the same period but- 

 ter to the value of $4,050,048 was sold. 



Exercise is of the utmost importance 

 for laying hens. One ounce of salt per 

 day for one hundred hens is a good pro- 

 portion. Supply grit liberally. Give the 

 hens plenty of room and keep them warm. 



Four hundred thousand sheep will be 

 sheared in the pens around Casper, Wyo., 

 this spring. 



The Warren Live Stock Company of 

 Cheyenne, Wyo., fed their sheep at Dun- 

 can, Neb., during the winter, shipping as 

 many as eight carloads at a time to 

 Omaha. The sheep were in prime condi- 

 tion and brought top prices. 



The live stock industry of Kansas last 

 year brought returns of $40,691,074 for 

 animals sold. 



Fred Wachter raised 5,400 bushels of 

 corn this year in this county from 120 

 acres, and did all the work himself, except 

 six days' work cultivating. This beats 

 the Iowa man and his two small boys, who 

 raised 5,000 bushels, which is being so 

 extensively quoted in the newspapers. 

 Aurora (Neb.) Sun. 



