1858. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



95 



verization. Then, too, on some farms, with a nat- 

 urally deep and strong soil, the surface of which 

 has been hard run by shallow plowing and close 

 cropping, and where an artificial hard pan has 

 been created by the oft-repeated pressure of the 

 feet of the cattle and the sole of the plow, in in- 

 variably shallow furrows, there is really a better 

 farm underneath than that which is worked on 

 top ; and by breaking through the crust and 

 bringing up a portion of the under soil, and mix- 

 ing it with the exhausted surface, the productive- 

 ness of the land will be increased. You will find 

 it advantageous to gradually deepen your plow- 

 ing. If the land is quite light, then bring up an 

 inch or so at each rotation of crops, until you 

 have made an active soil of seven or eight inch- 

 es. If the land is a close and naturally heavy 

 strong soil, then you can deepen the plowing 

 more I'apidly, until you can take a furrow from 

 eight to ten or twelve inches deep, according to 

 the quality of the subsoil, and the liberality of 

 the manuring. No baulks should be allowed in 

 plowing, and the furrows should be cut and 

 turned uniformly of the prescribed depth and 

 width. This alone will add perceptibly to the 

 products of the land, over what could be raised 

 if the plowing w^ere hasty and shallow, soil, ma- 

 nure and cultivation otherwise being equal. If 

 we do our part well, mother earth will be sure to 

 match us by doing hers. 



As fast as one's means will permit, it is gener- 

 ally better to invest a portion at least of the earn- 

 ings of the farm in the improvement of the land, 

 raither than in buying more land, or putting them 

 into stocks and other property, outside of farm- 

 ing. The stones, stumps, and other obstructions 

 to cultivation may be advantageously removed 

 from the land. They take up room, and hinder 

 good tillage e\ery way. Perhaps you have land 

 that would be greatly improved by underdraining. 

 If so, it would be well to investigate the methods 

 of draining. Such improvements in eflect add to 

 the territorial extent of the farm, by increasing 

 its productiveness, and they can generally be 

 made at a much less outlay than by buying 

 enough land to produce the additional crops that 

 may be derived from the improved land. 



3. If the various sources above mentioned do 

 not furnish manure enough, you may perhaps 

 find it profitable to purchase stable manure in 

 town, and compost it with muck and other sub- 

 stances on the farm. But this depends on cir- 

 cumstances unknown to me, and of which you 

 must be the judge. Perhaps you can buy un- 

 leached ashes at areasonable price. If so, they may 

 be mixed with muck in the proportion of about five 

 bushels to a cord of dry muck, which will make 

 a valuable compost for all dry lands. Poor dry 

 land, which has been well manured, and planted 

 a year or two, and is to be stocked down, may be 

 sown with fifteen to twenty bushels of ashes to 

 the acre, at the time of sowing tlie grain and 

 grass seed, harrowing the ashes in with the seeds. 

 The ashes will be likely to ensure a good catch 

 of grass. It is a desirable object gained, when 

 we can succeed in covering such land with a 

 thick firm sward. The quality of the hay is bet- 

 ter, the quantity greater, and when the land is to 

 be again broken up for tillage, there is a rich sod 

 to turn under to decay and help feed the succeed- 

 ing crops. 



4. It may perhaps be better to make butter 

 than to sell the milk ; for the skim milk and oth- 

 er wash of the dairy is worth a considerable per 

 cent, of what the new milk would sell for, and 

 will help materially towards summering the four or 

 five iSIarch pigs heretofore mentioned. The farm 

 must somehow be paid for what it furnishes you. 



Several of your questions depend so much on 

 local circumstances, that it is difficult to answer 

 them specially without a knowledge of those cir- 

 cumstances. 



5. Milch cows tax a pasture pretty severely. 

 They are generally taken out of pasture at night, 

 and then, too, the feed they consume not only goes 

 to supply the waste of the animal system, but al- 

 so to produce the milk ; so that the manure is 

 not so rich as that of dry stock, and the pasture, 

 especially if overstocked, ultimately shows a 

 marked deficiency of phosphates. If your pasture 

 now keeps five cows well, I should hesitate about 

 overstocking it with six. Perhaps you are sit- 

 uated favorably for plowing up portions of the 

 pasture that lie pretty level, and manuring and till- 

 ing them occasionally and then laying them down 

 to grass again, — meanwhile pasturing enough til- 

 lage land to compensate for the pasture land ta- 

 ken up. This is good farming where all things 

 are right for it, and if your case is such, you may 

 thus be enabled perhaps to keep six or eight 

 cows as well as five now. The improvement of 

 old pastures, within a reasonable expense, is in 

 many sections of New England almost the leading 

 question in farming. It is comparatively easy to 

 devise methods for profitably improving our til- 

 lage lands ; but not so for the more or less rough 

 and hilly pastures. Stocking them lightly is one 

 of the most obvious ways of improvement. 



6. It is generally profitable to raise vegetables, 

 if the market is large enough to consume them — 

 that is, to take, at a fair price, the various assort- 

 ed qualities, first and second rate, as fast as they 

 are fit for sale. It will not do to go to town on 

 uncertainties ; whatever goes in the wagon must 

 find a fair mai'ket, according to the quality of the 

 article to be sold. 



7. It is too early yet to speak confidently of 

 the merits of the Chinese Sugar Cane for sweet- 

 ening. 



8. Cannot answer as to the profit of a dog. 



9. If pigs are Avorth from three to four dollars 

 each, when eight weeks old, it is profitable to 

 raise them. 



10. A cross of the Suff'olk and Mackay breeds 

 makes the best pig I have ever fed. Pigs that 

 are half and half of these breeds mature early 

 are deep in the carcase, and have bone enough to 

 stand up on their legs till fattened fit for slaugh- 

 tei'ing. There is a constant tendency in our fine 

 bred swine to run too small. You must have size, 

 coupled Avith thrift and early maturity, to make 

 March pigs weigh, on an average, 300 lbs. each, 

 dressed, by the first of January following. Eith- 

 er of these breeds cross well with the best large 

 breeds of the country. 



11. The best cows of our old "native" stocks' 

 are excellent for the dairy. But the best dairy 

 cows, on the whole, that I have known, are those 

 half and three-quarters blood cows derived from 

 our best mountain cows of the "native" stock, 

 bred to a full blood Durham bull, of a good milk- 

 ing family, and the heifers of this cross bred in 



