220 Our Farming. 



from lodged wheat that must be mowed and a couple of days slip 

 by before we can do the cultivating. Should it rain again in a 

 day or two there would be no particular harm done, perhaps, but 

 if it did not rain for weeks as often happens at this season of the 

 year, why we might easily lose enough to pay for a binder by one 

 single delay of this kind on twelve acres of potatoes. We allowed 

 the ground to dry up hard and a crust to form and hundreds of 

 barrels of water to go to waste that we could have used. We can- 

 not afford to do such farming as that, particularly with money 

 seeking investment. However, when I bought the binder I was 

 not very flush ; paid for it with a note for a few months. If I 

 could be sure of getting a binder just the day I wanted it I would 

 not own one, but I found I could not. See how nicely it works 

 if we have our own. That Wednesday we stir the surface, in our 

 potato field in time, and Thursday and Friday cut the wheat, 

 which makes no difference with the wheat at all and enables us to 

 do our best in the potato field. Some may say : " This is draw- 

 ing it too fine. I guess my potatoes or corn can wait a few days in 

 harvest time." Yes, they may and luck may favor you, but this 

 book, you know, is about <( Our Farming," and we have depended 

 more on helping ourselves than on luck, on doing our best and 

 then trusting in Providence. Again, there is a sort of a good 

 comfortable feeling of independence and dominion where one has 

 his own tools in the tool house in prime order and ready to hitch 

 onto just when he wants to, that would pay me the interest on 

 their cost if I had the money to spare. For years I hired the use 

 of a fanning mill to clean my seed wheat. But it was no small 

 job to take the wheat to a neighbor's and bring it back, and as 

 soon as I was able I bought a good mill of my own, and now I can 

 clean my wheat in bad weather, as my buildings are all con- 

 nected. 



It is hard to say just what profit there is in wheat culture. 

 The dollars you get when you sell your wheat do not represent 

 the whole matter. You must have a rotation to do the best farm- 

 ing. The wheat comes in as a sort of necessary factor. Potatoes, 

 for example, are my main money crop. I must grow clover to 

 furnish fertility. I can as well as not raise the wheat along with 

 the clover, as a crop to seed with. Again, most farmers need the 

 straw to bed animals. It pays to make them comfortable. It 

 should be done anyway, but it does bring dollars, too. I could 

 not do without my straw. Should have to buy it if I did not 

 raise it, or use something in the place of it. And straw is 

 valuable on most farms as an absorbent. It pays to save liquid 

 manure. And the straw may be fed with grain, if desired, so as 

 to bring about half the price per ton of hay, where stock keeping 

 is a specialty. This is not theoretical ; I have so fed it and got 

 the money more years than one. So matters sort of link in 

 together in such a way that it is hard to say just how much profit 



