No. 12. 



Raising Poor Land. 



365 



potatoes, and two bushels of field peas and 

 beans. 



Value of corn, $462 00 



Pumpkins, 6 00 



Irish potatoes, 150 00 



Sweet potatoes, 46 87^ 



Peas, 2 50 



On 25 acres, in 1845, 1 made 70 

 bushels wheat, at $70—600 

 bushels oats, $200, 270 00 



On ten acres of meadow I had 

 11 tons of hay ; the rest being 

 grazed, worth on the farm, 88 00 



$1025 37^ 



I say nothing of what is grown in the 

 garden; the advantages of grazing; increase 

 of stock, &c., &.C., including pork raised, 

 vegetables, orchard, &c., which I estimate 

 to be equal in value to the cost of raising 

 the grain, hay, &c., &c. 



Now let us see what the produce for 1839 

 was worth, or would have been worth, if the 

 same quantity of land had been tilled that 1 

 tilled in 1845. Assuming that they raised 

 the same average of wheat and oats to the 

 bushel of coin that I raised, it will be found 

 that they raised 190 bushels of corn, 



worth, $133 00 



21 bushels wheat, 21 00 



180 bushels oats, 60 00 



$214 00 



Thus you see that as $214 are to $1025 37^ 

 BO is the difference since I took it ; or it has 

 increased to nearly five times its former value 

 in cropping alone. I have no doubt that at 

 least one dozen of your readers are ready to 

 say that "this is all likely enough; we know 

 that poor land under bad management, can 

 be made to increase at fully this rate with 

 good management ar.d a larger outlay in la- 

 bour, lime, manure, &c." But let me tell 

 you, gentle reader, that it has been done 

 without any outlay for either lime or other 

 manure, or very little additional labour, ex- 

 cept what most men think barely sufficient 

 to cultivate the land and save the crops with. 

 I keep two men and a boy, whose average 

 wages and clothes amount to $175. I keep 

 two mules and two horses; the boy and one 

 man cultivate the crops, except at busy 

 times; the other man keeps the cart run- 

 ning, making and getting out manure; at 

 leisure times the others are either ditching 

 in the fields or cutting wood, rails and poles 

 in the branch, taking everything before them 

 there. By clearing so much meadow, which 

 once burnt over will want sprouting but once, 

 the grass blade will keep the balance down 

 after that. 



My neighbours say my stock is much too 

 large for the farm, but I am a head-strong 

 child, and will have my own way; so I keep 

 two horses, two mules, one colt, and thirty 

 head of cattle, besides calves; all of which 

 are well sheltered in winter, in stabling that I 

 have built for that purpose — for I have been 

 burnt out once since I have been on the 

 farm. My plan is to lose nothing that will 

 make the weeds grow about the house, such 

 as suds, brine, droppings of the poultry- house, 

 pigs, ashes, &c., all of which is taken care 

 of as follows. I keep a Jlat pile of dirt 

 hauled at a proper distance from the kitchen, 

 upon which all such things are put. This 

 pile is top-dressed with dirt as oflen as I 

 think it will bear it. I forgot to mention 

 that all weeds, the mowing of the lawn, 

 garden-walks, yards, &c., are all put there, 

 and a little dirt thrown over it as soon as it 

 withers a little. My feed yard has a regular 

 slope from the stables to the back part, at a 

 regular fall of three and a half feet in the 

 whole distance. On the lower side I keep 

 dirt hauled in to soak up the strength of the 

 liquid manures that would otherwise escape. 

 My rule is to haul out the farm-yard or sta- 

 ble manure and spread it regularly over the 

 feed yard, and then haul dirt and spread 

 over it, and so on through the summer. My 

 cows as soon as the grass is sufficient, are 

 turned upon the commons, and penned every 

 night in the field upon dirt, leaves, rushes, 

 &c., &c. ; this pile I top dress with this kind 

 of stuft' about once in two weeks, until feed 

 lime, when they are taken into the field 

 that is to go in corn the next spring twelve 

 months, and a pen made, and there I feed 

 away the corn-stalks; while they are a little 

 green they eat them cleaner than they will 

 later, and as soon as they get them sufficiently 

 thick under foot, I top dress with dirt, and so 

 keep on till the stalks are all fed away. 

 Then I take the cattle to the stable, where 

 they have plenty of good dry bedding all the 

 balance of the winter; these stables are kept 

 cleansed precisely as the horse stables are. 

 In this way I raise a good deal of good stuff! 

 My hogs are never allowed to run in the 

 field, but are kept in the woods. When I 

 take them in to fatten, I supply them with 

 materials, and they manufacture me a great 

 deal of manure: I let nothing escape. All 

 of my manures are put on spring crops. 



I should have added, the only reason why 

 I did not use lime and plaster in my compost 

 piles, is because I was in debt when I com- 

 menced, and had all the farm buildings burnt 

 down after I had put them up. This kept 

 me in debt to enable me to rebuild, and 1 

 am still in debt; but I make the farm pay 

 all expenses of cultivation and ordinary im- 



