THE DIVERSIFIED FARM. 



HOW TO RECLAIM AN ABANDONED 

 FARM. 



Mr. Arthur B. Clapp, of Brattleboro, 

 Vt., is the possessor now of the farm near 

 West River on which his great grandfather 

 settled in 1765. It was by no means an 

 abandoned farm when it came into his pos- 

 session, having good buildings and carry- 

 ing a stock of thirty head of cattle, besides 

 horses and swine and a lot of fowls; and 

 there are twelve acres of corn and fourteen 

 acres of oat fodder growing, with an ex- 

 pected crop of sixty tons of hay, at least 

 300 bushels of potatoes, 100 barrels of 

 winter apples and other smaller crops. 

 But Mr. Clapp is a practical farmer and 

 believes that a man can reclaim an aban- 

 doned farm and make it pro6table while 

 doing so. 



He says: "The first thing I would do 

 would be to provide sufficient fertilizers, 

 and begin in the spring of the year. If 

 without capital a man should be thrifty 

 enough to procure cattle to stock hjs pas- 

 tures. He should plant an acre of corn 

 for each head. The cattle should be 

 stabled nights to secure the manure. 

 Every farm has a muck bed. and this 

 should be drawn out in a quantity suni- 

 cient to use as an absorbent in stables and 

 yards, for which purpose it is one of the 

 best and cheapest. The herd should be 

 mostly of cows, and the milk might be 

 turned into butter. A separator should 

 be used if there were means to buy it, and 

 the cream might be sold to a creamery. 

 The skimmilk should be fed to calves and 



Pigs- 

 There is more money in poultry for the 



amount invested than in anything else if 

 they are properly cared for. Good fences 

 are absolutely essential to good farming. 

 If there is a sugar orchard it should be 

 kept up, as sugar is made at a time when 

 other farm work is not crowding. The 

 time is coming when sugar and syrup will 

 bring in a good income. Fruit trees 

 should receive the same attention as any 

 other crop, so far as working the ground 

 and fertilizing it goes, and the trees should 

 be kept well trimmed and healthy. 



" The second year the fertilizers should 

 be put on the land where corn had been 

 grown, and it should be seeded to oats to 

 be harvested in the milk, while more land 

 should be broken for corn. This process 

 should be repeated for three or four years, 

 increasing the herd as the fodder crop in- 

 creases. In this time enough should be 

 saved to pay for all the dairy implements, 

 and all necessary labor-saving implements 

 for the farm. Milk should be made the 

 chief product, and if one understands the 

 art of butter making it should be the most 

 profitable way of disposing of the milk.'' 



With most of this we would agree, but 

 if we had to reclaim a neglected farm we 

 would wish to begin in the fall, not only 

 that we might do some fall plowing, but 

 get ready in many other ways, and espe- 

 cially in preparing for a good garden, even 

 thongh we were too far from market to sell 

 many of its products. We have taken a 

 run-down farm in the spring and found so 

 much to be done that we felt like Hamlet's 

 uncle, who said, " like a man to double 

 business bound, I stand in pause where I 

 shall first begin, and both neglect. "- 

 America ii ( 'n/ 



