THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



29 



same time add a trifle to its advaneement, we have 

 coneluded to lu-come one of your eutisiribers and 

 advertisers. — I'roprielvrs of CliJ'lon larms, C'he»ler 

 County. 



TiiK Lancaster Fahmer. We are in receipt of 

 The Lancaster Fahmer, a niontlily newppapi-r, 

 devoted to tlie interests of a<;rieiilliire, liortieulliire, 

 domeslie eecinoniy and niiscelliiny. _ It is a valual)le 

 comjiendiuni of useful knowledire. a'nd should reeeive 

 nliundant putronaf^e. — York TtUi/ram. 



The first ximuer of The Lancaster Farmer, 

 under its new proprietorshij), presents Ifi pacres of 

 Bolid reading matter, that indicates diserinnnatini: 

 enterprise on the jiart of the publishers. The farmer 

 will lind in it nnieh to interest and suggest. It is 

 issued monthly, at $1 a year. — l.ihanon Courier. 



The Lancaster Farmer. The January number 

 of this monthly, edited by Mr. S. S. Hathvon, and 

 published by .Messrs. Pearsol & Cei.'st, is before us. 

 We have nohesitation in [jronouneine; The Farmer 

 one of the best papers of the kind now published. 

 Price $1.00 a year. — Laiicaslcr JJuily Xewt. 



AGRICULTURAL MISCELLANY. 



Binding Grain — Important Invention. 



Prof. Dana, in the Wesleru .Vev-Yorkcr, describes 

 a new grain binder, whieli liids fair to be an import- 

 ant acquisition to our agricultural machinery. He 

 says a new era has dawned iu the culture of the cere- 

 als, the golden age of farmers and farnuTs' wives, a 

 day of deliverance from a crowd of hungry, high- 

 priced laborers in harvest time. Mr. Daniel .McPher- 

 Bou, of Caledonia, N. Y., has invented an attachment 

 to the Marsh harvester, which binds securely, with 

 No. 19 annealed wire, the grain as last as it is cut. A 

 trial of the machine was held on tlic farm of the in- 

 ventor, in the presence of several grain farmers and 

 machinists. The trial was a perfect success. No 

 better work was ever done in a harvest field. Every 

 spear was bound in the sheaves; no rakings were left. 

 The strip, fifteen feet wide, between the standing 

 grain and the straight line of bound sheaves, was per- 

 fectly smooth and clean. The line of sheaves, ar- 

 ranged with military praeision, looked like a batta- 

 lion of soldiers. The iron fingers of the machine bind 

 thistles as easily as grain, without gloves. The draft 

 Is about the same as that of ordinary reapers which 

 do not bind. A team of medium weight made very 

 easy work of it. In going six times around a five acre 

 field of oats, not a failure occurred which could be at- 

 tributed to any fault of the binder. The wire, winch 

 was of jjoor quality and badly reeled, was broken a 

 few times. One circuit was made without missing a 

 single sheaf. 



Mr. J. A. McKinnon, a skillful machinist, who has 

 repeatedly examined the machine, says that it cannot 

 possibly fail to do its work perfectly, and that, if well 

 made of good material, it will last a lifetime. The 

 machinery is very simple, very strong, and w orks with 

 very little noise or friction. Major H. T. Brooks 

 thought that the binder would save the wages and 

 board of five strong men, say fifteen dollars a day 

 during harvest time. With it, a man can cut, rake 

 and bind ten acres a day. It can be set to bind a 

 sheaf once in any required distance; and, if the grain 

 Is very uneven, the distance passed over can be varied 

 for each sbcaf by means of a lever worked by the 

 foot. Sheaves may be bound tight or loose by vary- 

 ing the tension on the wire. All objection to the use 

 of wire bands is obviated by the use at threshing time 

 of a pair of nippers which cut the wire and hold it 

 fast by one end until it is dropped into a basket. The 

 wire bands can thus be removed as rapidly as straw 

 ones can be cut. 



Not an objection could be raised by any one present, 

 which was not lully removed. The inventor has been 

 studying and working upon his invention I'or fifteen 

 yearsi and has expended fifteen thousanil dollars uiw)n 

 it. A bushel basket would hold the result, but fifty 

 thousand dollars would not buy it. The nujthcr, wife 

 and sister of the inventor were present at the trial. 

 Their delight over its success may be imagined. The 

 nation and the world will reiterate their joy. MePher- 

 Bon's binder must be as world-renowned as McCor- 

 mick's reaper. That the inventor may not, in any 

 way, lose the honor or the pecuniary reward of liis 

 labors is the wish of the writer. 



How to Restore Fertility. 



Agriculture presents no problem more difficult of 

 solution than that of restoring fruitfulness to an im- 

 poverished field in the most economical way. A 

 practice that will do best in one soil and climate may 

 signally fail where the conditions and substance are 

 entirely different . In the matter of soils and sub.soils, 

 parent rocks, climates and plants, nature delights in 

 an endless variety. Hence our best rules for practice 

 have necessarily many exceptions. We will state facts 

 briefly, and let the reader draw his own conclusions 

 from them, how one can best restore fertility or 

 Impart it to land that is naturally .poor, and, it may 

 be, nearly worthless. 



Wood ashes and land plaster have been used about 

 one liuniired years in this country to increase the fer- 

 tility of land "and both have stood the test of this lung 

 experience. C'(il. \ViMcr,of .Massachusetts, is reported 

 as saying, at a i)ublic agricultural discussion, that he 

 regarilcd good ashes as worth •'iO cents a bushel to 

 apiilytothe commtm poor lands of New England. 

 Others of much experience in their use spoke in high 

 terms in favor of ashes as atop-dressing fiirmcaihiws 

 and pastures. Some use plaster and others salt, or 

 both, with ashes, on clover and other plants, at a 

 large profit. Simple and truthful as these statements 

 are, there are very few farmers who understand their 

 full meaning as compared with stable and cow yard 

 manure. As a general fact, not over two or tbrc(^ 

 parts in a hundred, and often less, are incombustible 

 iu the solid droppings of farm stock. There is no 

 part of eowdung or ]ilanls that will rise into the air 

 when either dceoniiioscs which will not fall again as 

 plant food to the earth in rain and dew. If 

 this were not so it would be inpossible for wood ashes, 

 plaster and soluble phosphates to act i)reciscly like 

 good stable manure. Most obviously good nnncral 

 fertilizers are nothing but the best stable manure 

 with the volatile or gaseous parts left out 



The venerable Mr. U. Lee, writing in The Country 

 on this subject says that for sixty years he has seen 

 with his own eyes the fertilizing power of plaster, 

 ashes and lime, and it is aliout that length of time since 

 Sir Humphrey Davy, Black and other chemists 

 taught confidently that jilants were composed of com- 

 bustible carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. 

 Before Liebig wrote a' word on agriculture, the fact 

 that decaying forest leaves send millions of tons of 

 carbon yearly into theatmospheresuggcstedtoothers 

 as well as to him that this carbon in some way re- 

 turned into new plant growth. For himself, the 

 writer had no doubt when a stuiient fifty years ago, 

 that plants led largely on air and water, like moss 

 growing on a rock. The farmer must learn to utilize 

 in a thousand ways this power in clover, grass and 

 other plants to organize air and water, that will cost 

 him next to nothing, and convert tliem into staple 

 crops. In an address before the Monroe County 

 Agricultural Society, iu October, 1844, and published 

 in the Genesee Farmer, Mr. Lee said : " I regard it 

 as one of the greatest discoveries of the age, that 

 about ninety-seven per cent, of the ingredients which 

 make up the whole substance of wheat, rye, oats, 

 barley, corn, beans and peas exist in the air in inex- 

 haustible (luantities. To transnmte these aeriform 

 bodies into the plants above named, and into grass 

 and roots, at the smallest expense, is the object of 

 nearly all your hard work." 



lie now reiterates that what he regarded thirty 

 years ago as "the greatest discovery of the age," 

 has not yet come home to the knowleilgc or api)reeia- 

 tign of American farmers. In 184.5, when secretary 

 of the New York State Agricultural Society, he lec- 

 tured in nearly half the counties of that State on the 

 above and kindred topics, but the idea of making 

 agriculture a science and a learned profession, was 

 generally regarded as the dream of a visionary. 



How to Make the Farm Pay. 



Our veteran friend Major Freas, of the German- 

 town Teleijraph, has been often heard to say that it is 

 amusing to listen to people who tell us how to make 

 the farm pay ; and ho again thus i)its practical suc- 

 cess against theoretical precept : It is fair-time and, 

 the Hon. General Jones is invited to tell >is 

 what is the matter with the thing. He is able 

 to tell just bow many greenbacks there should 

 be to every man, wf>man and child in the country, 

 and knows precisely how many miles of rail- 

 oads and canals arc necessary to the National 

 prosperity. Moreover, he ^^•as educated at the great 

 Jonesliorliugh University, and served his country well 

 on the bloody fielil of Jones' Cross-Koads. He ad- 

 dresses the farmers assembled on the situation and 

 shows chrarly that unless we have our beefsteak 

 analyzed we can hardly expect to have healthy 

 brcakfa.sts, and that the whole heart of farming is in 

 the nitrogen of the .soil. And the man covered with 

 hayseed laughs. The beefsteak is good enough as it 

 is for him, and he has made "a pile of money and 

 knows notion" of these tarnal things." 



We turn from all these abstractions and look at 

 things as they arc. We find lots of people who are 

 as intelligent as the world can make tbi'm, and lots 

 of others who pride thcniselvi's on •■knowin' nothin' 

 but natur," and both alike fail; and then there are 

 many of both classes who have all the success any 

 one could wish for. 



We have one such just now in f)ur mind. An 

 ae<iuaintance who has city business, has a farm of 

 alK)ut one hundred acres connected with his country- 

 seat. He has no time to farm it himself, so rents it. 

 For the first ten years, though every care has been 

 taken to get good men, there had l>een an annual 

 change. In some cases there had been a loss of rent ; 

 in all there was the profession that nothing could be 

 made of that farm. Two years ago a man took it 

 who was not a professional farmer, but an intellgent 

 ntan who had already much experience in matters 

 connected with farm affairs. He took it at $800 a 



year rent. He made sometliing the first year, how 

 nuu'h we did not liear ; bnt llie last year it is said 

 that his profits are not less than live thousand 

 dollars ! 



We might go on and show in detail how all thig 

 was done, but it would not teach anybody anything. 

 He simply finds out what will grow anil how to grow 

 it, and what will wll best, and raises that which best 

 will sell. He is liberal in his expemlilurcs after he 

 8c('S <'learly that expenditures will pay, and careful 

 to slop all li'aks that so often fritter great suecesBes 

 away. It is simply common. sense business tact 

 which nobody can teach but which everybody may 

 learn. 



Now, it does not hurt any one to know how much 

 carbon, or nitrogen, or phosphoric acid, or what-not 

 there is in his breakfast steak; it hurts no one to be 

 able to say that he was able to hold the plow or take 

 his turn with the mowers when he was fifteen years 

 of age. We like to know that people are well-in- 

 formed on these topics; but when we are aekcd liow 

 to make a farm pay we like to jwint to such men as 

 the one we have just described, for our answer. 



Plowing. 



A correspondent of the Country OentUman notices 

 that new fashions in plowing are coming into vogue 

 in Illinois, by which much expense Is saved. Instead 

 of the old plan of one man and a pair of horses and a 

 twelve-inch plow, an aiUlitional horse is used with a 

 sixteen or cighteen-inch phiw. One nnin therefore 

 attends to the work of three horses instead of that of 

 two. A further improvement is in the use of sulky- 

 I)low8. These are provided with seats so that lM)ysor 

 cripples can take a hand at plowing, and thus leave 

 the stronger hands free to do other work. Whether 

 much on the whole will be saved tiy this last contri- 

 vance remains to be seen. In a large number of eases 

 the heavy weights, as well as the light weights, will 

 not walk when they can ride, still theiwwerand abil- 

 ity to save, if one w ants to, is so much gain; and no 

 doubt these Illinois improvements will become ixjpu- 

 lar all over the country. 



Another move, although not a western one, is to 

 provi<le umbrellas, which are attached to the plow- 

 handles, and thus the plowman Is shaded from hot 

 suns, .\ltogether it would seem as if farming was 

 about to become rather a means of pleasurable exer- 

 cise than the hard and severe labor it was regarded 

 to be at one time. Laying all pleasantry aside, how- 

 ever, it is wonderful how great is the advance in 

 labor-savnig machinery, and easy, comfortable imple- 

 ments, over fil'ty years ago. 



In striking contrast witli the above, is the following 

 description (jf iirimitive plowing, as written by a .Mexi- 

 can correspondent of the Louisville Courwr: " On 

 our way back to Temiseo, we had an opixjrtunity of 

 observing more closely than diligence or railroad can 

 permit, the process of plowing as practiced in this 

 country. The plow itself is almost a fac-similiTDf the 

 pattern used by the Egyptians in the time of Abra- 

 ham, and certainly commends itself to all agricultur- 

 ists on account of its great simplicity and cheap- 

 ness. It consists of a wooden shaft about fimr feet 

 long and four inches thick, armed at its lower ex- 

 tremity with an iron point, slightly flattened, and 

 sometimes presenting a feeble forward curve. The 

 other end is provided with a round slick that passes 

 through a bole and serves as a handle. The \xi\c, 

 consisting of the Stem of a small tree, from which the 

 bark has been jieclcd, is fifteen feet long,and attached 

 to the shaft by means of a mortise and peg. The im- 

 plement thus constituted is fastened at the extremity 

 of the pole, to the middle of a very light wooden yoke, 

 about .-even feet long, which rests immediately behind 

 the horns of a pair of oxen, and is fastened there by 

 thongs of rawhide jassed anmnd the roots of the 

 horns. Not less than fiftysueh contrivances crawling 

 at a snail's pace over the' field which we stopiwd to 

 notice, scratching up the ground to the depth of two 

 or three inches, certainly to us, was a novel sight. 



Education of Farmers' Children. 



IIow is it that we can see men, who liavc mouIde<l 

 themselves on the anvil, who will not let their boys 

 be mimldcd on the anvil loo ! As the leather dealer 

 pounds the leather together to make a sole, so the 

 boy needs pounding to make him a man. If you 

 doii't you will bring up a tender child, a child that 

 will not wear well. And the same with a girl that 

 is brought up without knowing how to work. There 

 arc misfortunes enough that fall nimn the fair sex; 

 there are adversities and sudden revolutions iu affairs, 

 that more often fall like pitiless storms uixin their 

 heads than u|>on those of men; but of all adversities, 

 a tofilisli mother for a fair daughter is the most 

 adverse ; one who will not teach the child how to earn 

 her living, who will not teach her fruitful industry. 

 Music may be heard instead of spiniu'ng. In some 

 way or another, work sliimld be part of the education 

 of every boy, and the Ixjy who is brought up without 

 knowiiig how to work is not brought up at all ; he is 

 abused." The old Jews used to say, that a man not 

 brought up to a trade is brought up to be a thief. 



