94 



NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 



Feb. 



laborer, at the common wages of the farm- 

 hand, and made his employer's interest his 

 interest, spent his evenings in reading agricul- 

 tural journals and other reading devoted to 

 the art to which he had determined to devote 

 his life. He remained three years, and had 

 his salary annually increasid, which he well 

 earned, when he went away to the State of 

 Georgia, to take charge of a larger plantation, 

 in which situation he remained but a few years, 

 when he purchased and stocked a fine farm of 

 several hundred acres, on which he still lives, 

 and lives as only the farmer out of debt can. 

 The firm he left in the grocery business have 

 since failed, and one of them has failed twice. 

 What a contrast ! 



How many young men have the same oppor- 

 tunity to-day, and how happy would it be for 

 them if they would only embraoe it. 



The mistaken, delusive idea that it is more 

 respectable and the chances of success are 

 greater to the young man to take the position 

 of porter, or lacky in a mercantile house in 

 the city, with hope of becoming a salesman, or 

 book-keeper, and finally a merchant, instead 

 of taking a situation as a farm-band where, 

 with the same industry and application that 

 would secure only a living in the former, he 

 might in a few years become competent to 

 take charge of a large and productive farm, 

 which he could take on shares, without capi- 

 tal, and with a great degree of certainty he 

 could in ten or fifteen years save enough to 

 stock a fair farm and make a payment that 

 would number him among that most enviable 

 class of men, known as lords of the soil. 



If the youth reared in the country could 

 only see behind the tinsel curtain that conceals 

 so much genteel misery in the city, he would 

 shun it as he would a viper, and would return 

 to the land of his nativity with the firm reso 

 lution to make the country his place of abode 

 and field of labor for life. 



If the writer with his experience with life in 

 the "country which God made," and the city, 

 the work of man, had a dozen sons to locate 

 in business, he would certainly settle twelve of 

 them on a farm, and the other one too, if it 

 were a baker's dozen. Not one of them should 

 come to the city by his consent, to take the 

 one in one hundred chances of success there 

 orfered. 



SHEEP ON THE FARM. 



In the Farmer of Dec. 5th, I noticed an ar- 

 ticle entitled "Sheep Benelicial to a Farm." 

 There are those who would take issue with 

 you on this subject, and stoutly maintain that 

 the keeping of sheep tends to i.npoverish a 

 farm. 1 know a good many farmers who af- 

 firm that their own and their neighbors' farms 

 in this vicinity have been rendered less pro- 

 ductive by reason of the change from keeping 

 cows to keeping sheep. 



Several years ago, I changed the stock on 

 my farm, from cows to young cattle, and then 



I changed from stock growing to sheep. I 

 was prompted to this, from the failure of most 

 kinds of grain crops upon the firm. My land 

 had become so infested with wire worms that 

 corn, oats and potatoes were almost a total 

 failure upon all the fields upon the farm, and 

 timothy grass would not do well more than a 

 year or two after stocking down a new piece. 

 The worms would bore into the bulb of the 

 grass, and it was killed at once. 



I began to keep sheep, and when a piece of 

 meadow began to fail, I had the sheep put 

 upon it for two or three years, in numbers as 

 great as could be well supported for a given 

 time. When fed down close, they were turned 

 off for a time, and when the grass had sprung 

 up fresh, they were returned. On the fields 

 thus treated for two or three years, I now suc- 

 ceed in raising corn, potatoes, oats, wheat, 

 and no interference whatever from wire worms. 

 On a field of two acres thus treated for two 

 years, and last year put to corn and potatoes, 

 I do not think that a single stalk of corn was 

 injured by any kind of worm, although told by 

 neighbors that I would loose my work in put- 

 ting in crops on that field. No better corn or 

 potatoes need be raised than were grown upon 

 this field. Another field treated in the same 

 way and put to corn the present season, has 

 given results about as satisfactory. 



My theory for this is, that the cutting and 

 stamping of the sod by the feet of the sheep de- 

 stroys the worms, and the fiy that deposits the 

 eggs, and the eggs themselves, to a very large 

 extent, thus ridding the land of this destruc- 

 tive pest. Am I right in this ? 



When I was a .^mall boy, my grandfather 

 kept a good many sheep, and he raised a good 

 many turnips of the Hat variety. His process 

 was this : a few days before the time for sow- 

 ing his turnips, he would plow over his field, 

 drag and roll the same till thoroughly pulver- 

 ized and smooth, then he would yard his sheep 

 upon the field for several nights. If his land 

 was not over rich, he would have his sheep 

 upon the field every night, when dry, for two 

 or three weeks before sowing. When ready 

 to sow, he would scatter on the seed, first go- 

 ing over the ground with his harrow, then he 

 would continue the sheep on the field until the 

 turnips began to come up. I never knew him 

 to fail of a crop. His theory was that keep- 

 ing the sheep on his turnip field so long before 

 putting in a crop, rid the land of the turnip 

 fly, so destructive to the crop when young. 



I am strong in the faith that sheep are a 

 good thing on a farm, even if wool does not 

 sell at more than forty to fifty cents per 

 pound, and shall continue them on my farm, 

 as long as I am of my present faith. — Ohio 

 Farmer. 



— Mr. Samuel Thornc, Thorndale, Duchess Co., 

 N. Y., has sold his entire flock of South Down 

 sheep to Adin Thayer, Jr., Hoosick Falls, Renssc-i 

 laer Co. 



