44 



hardly realize the advantages which the men of 

 science, inventors and manufacturers, have be- 

 stowed on agriculture. Many of the operations j 

 of agriculture are dependent on the weather. A 

 large factory making shingles goes on, no matter 

 what the weather may be, but a single shower 

 will stop a whole field of hay makers. 



Twenty-five or thirty years ago a farmer witt 

 a hundred acres of hay to cut and a hundred 

 acres of grain had to hire extra men for a month 

 or six weeks, paying extra wages and convert- 

 ing his home into a large boarding house. And 

 he could not cut all his grass and gram just at 

 the right time. But now how is it? 



We start a couple of mowing machines in the 

 afternoon ; ted the grass the next morning : 

 rake it into windrows ; ted it again once or twice, 

 if need be, in the windrows; putitinto good cocks 

 and it is safe. We can draw it in the next day, 

 or as soon as we can get at it. In my own case 

 this vear though the weather was unusually 

 catching, we were all through haying and har- 

 vesting by the last week in July, the gram all 

 thrashed and safe in the barn ready for market. 



We have a bad climate for a poor farmer who 

 gets behind-hand with his work. But we have as 

 good a climate as any to be found in the world 

 if we know how to take advantage of it. 



I thrash my grain in the field by steam. I find 

 that we can get in a field of grain much more 

 expeditiously than if we put it in a stack or 

 barn, simply because the man on the wagon 

 can throw the grain to the machine easier than 

 he can throw it up on a stack or bay. And 

 when we are through we are through ; the straw 

 stack built, the grain in the barn, and men and 

 horses ready to fight the weeds during our splen- 

 did August and September weather, when even 

 quack grass is not difficult to kill. 



This i's what machinery has done for us. And 

 it has done much more ; but it is not necessary 

 to allude to it. Machinery makes us far less 

 dependent on the weather than formerly and 

 better farming also helps us in the same direc- 

 tion. When I first went to Rothamstead Mr. 

 Lawes asked me about my father's farm, 

 the character of the soil, the rotation and yield 

 per acre. " It is rather light land," I said, " but 

 yields good crops, if the season is not too dry. 



"I suspect," said Mr. Lawes, "that your fath- 

 er is not a very good farmer. There is nothing 

 which a good farmer dreads so much as a wet 



This was a new idea to me. I have an En- 

 glish foreman, and our climate is a sore trouble 

 to him. From May till November, he is always 

 wanting rain. " The mangles are growing sur- 

 prisingly," he said, some weeks since, but 

 another shower of rain would help them. 



"Perhaps so," I replied ; "but as we cannot get 

 rain when we want it, let us keep the cultiva- 

 tors going and kill the weeds." 



For my part, I like our climate. But it 

 makes no sort of difference whether we like it 

 or not. We cannot change it. What we need to do 

 is to study the climate and adapt our crops and 

 our methods of cultivation and manuring to it. 

 One thing may be safely said, that at least three- 

 fourths of our seasons are very bad seasons lor 

 bad farmers, but good seasons for good farmers. 



Take the barley crops as an illustration. In 

 Western New York 20 bushels per acre, weigh- 

 ing 48 Ibs. per bushel, is a good average. It 

 probably will not average more than this the 

 present year. And yet we have had rather an 

 unusually favorable season ; so favorable in- 

 deed, that the maltsters expect to get barley 

 at a low figure, say 75 cents per bushel. 



Now I feel safe in saying that on well-drained, 

 well-prepared and properly enriched soil our 

 climate is capable ot giving us an average yield 

 of 40 bushels of barley per acre ; and 1 thm& 

 the average price of six-rowed barley is fully 

 $1 per bushel. 



I have said that 20 bushels is a fair average 

 crop ; and this is taking good and bad crops to- 

 gether. There are many crops which yield 30 

 bushels, and consequently there must be many 

 that are nt over 10 bushels. But we will take 

 15 bushels as the average crop of a rather indif- 

 ferent farmer. He sows two bushels, and will 

 be very apt to leave two bushels on the ground 

 in harvesting the crop, and so, after deducting 

 seed and scatterings in harvesting, he has 11 

 bushels to sell, which, at 75 cents is $8.25 per 

 acre. 



The good farmer has 40 bushels. He sows two 

 bushels, and we will reckon that he loses two 

 bushels of scatterings, though a good crop does 

 not scatter half as much as a poor crop. This 

 leaves 36 bushels, which, at 75c is $27 per acre, 

 or over three times as much as from the poor 

 crop ; and this, mark you, is in a good season. 



Now, how is it in what we call a bad season, 

 that is, in a season unfavorable for the growth of 

 barley on ordinary land? 



In such a season we have hundreds ot farmers 

 whose barley crops will not be over 12 bushels 

 per acre. Deducting, as before, 2 bushels for 

 seed and two bushels for scatterings, we have 

 8 brshels of merchantable barley, of rather an 

 inferior quality, weighing perhaps, 46 Ibs. to the 

 bushel. 



Owing to the unfavorable season, barley will 

 be likely to bring $1.50 per bushel. The net re- 

 turns from such a crop, therefore, will be (8 

 bushels of 46 Ibs. at $1.50 per bushel of 48 Ibs. 

 $11.50) $11.50. 



The good farmer, on well-drained, well-pre- 

 pared and properly enriched land, will have, say 

 36 bushels per acre of 48 Ibs. per bushel. De- 

 ducting 2 bushels for seed and 2 bushels for 

 scatterings we have for sale 32 bushels at $1.50 

 per bushel, or $48 per acre. 



In the case of potatoes the advantage of rais- 

 ing a good crop in an unfavorable season is even 

 still more striking. And since the advent of the 

 Colorado beetle, rich land and better cultiva- 

 tion are absolutely essential, for the reason that 

 it costs no more to kill the " bugs " on a crop 

 that will yield 250 bushels per acre than on a 

 crop that will yield only 100. 



1 live in a great potato-growing section. One 

 hundred bushels per acre is a fair average crop. 

 Last year (1875) the season was remarkably fa- 

 vorable for the growth of potatoes in nearly all 

 sections of the country, and millions of bushels 

 were sold for less than it had cost to dig and 

 market them. In my neighborhood, I have seen 

 many pits of potatoes that were left in the field 

 to rot. The year before we got $1.00 per bushel 

 for potatoes, and it need not surprise any one if 

 they are $1.00 per bushel again before next 

 spring. Such a season as this is the good potato 

 grower's opportunity. With potatoes at $1.00 

 a bushel, a good farmer can make money, and 

 make enough to more than compensate for the 

 loss he suffers from low prices in seasons when 

 the average farmer has a fair crop. But I must 

 not dwell on this point. The truth of the matter 

 is this. With our large area, a fair average crop, 

 such as we have in a highly favorable season, 

 means low prices and small profits. A poor, 

 general crop means high prices for everything 

 we consume at home, such as beans, potatoes, 

 barley, oats, buckwheat. &c. A poor crop of 

 wheat and corn does not always result in high 

 prices, for the reason that we export largely, 

 and the price is dependent on the price in Eng- 

 land and on the cost of transportation. As a 

 rule, we should aim to produce those articles 

 which we import, rather than those which we 

 export. A short crop of barley, beans or pota- 

 toes always gives us good prices. But such is 

 not the case, with wheat and corn unless the 

 failure is so general and so severe as to entirely 

 stop exportation. When the price of these arti- 



