338 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



in the country. Published by Luther Tucker, 

 Albany, N. Y. Josej>h Break & Co., agents, Bos- 

 ton. 



Western Horticultural Review, by Dr. 

 Warden, Cincinnati, is not a whit behind its con- 

 temporaries in interest and instruction. It has a 

 wide field open for its operations in the great West, 

 where it will do much good. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 NO TIME FOR STUDY. 



A TALE AMOX& THE WORKERS MR. THINKWELL AND 



MR. OLDSIDE. 



Mr, Thinkwell. — Neighbor, what do you think 

 upon the various theories set forth by different in- 

 dividuals in our agricultural papers of late, con- 

 cerning the potato disease, and the cause of it ? 



Mr, OlJside. — Why, indeed, sir, I have not 

 read them; and I do not suppose any body knows 

 anything about it. Besides, I think that I am 

 hardly ah' • to take any of the papers. They cost 

 a good deai of money, and the boys get so full of 

 new notions by reading them, that, really, I do not 

 want to have anything to do with them. 



Think. — So you do not take any paper for the 

 reading of your family? 



Old. — I do not. And T think the boys have as 

 good a chance as I had, to get knowledge. And 

 certainly, I believe that when we were boys the 

 people farmed it better than they do now, a great 

 deal. Why, I believe my father knew better how- 

 to raise corn, and potatoes, and wheat, than any of 

 our boys do. And I think that while books and 

 papers on farming have been multiplying, crops 

 have grown the lighter instead of growing the 

 heavier. 



Think. — And so you think that men knew more 

 without instruction, when we were young, than 

 they can now, with all the advantages given and 

 secured by books and newspapers. 



Old. — Why, I do know that my father raised 

 greater crops than I ever could, and I have raised 

 far greater crops on this very farm, years ago, than 

 I can raise now, notwithstanding all the talk of the 

 boys about what they have learned out of the news- 

 papers. And I think the man who knows how to 

 raise two hundred bushels of potatoes from an acre 

 knows more about farming than one who cannot 

 get more than one-third of that amount. 



Think. — Well, I perceive, according to your 

 reasoning, that you, compared with your father, 

 are an ignorant man. And I perceive also, that 

 your sons are more ignorant than yourself Yet 1 

 presume, that you sought to treasure up all of 

 your father's true ideas, and, in addition, to learn 

 what you could, by observation elsewhere. 



Old. — Why, yes, I think I have. 



Think. — Still, you see no other cause for a short 

 crop of potatoes, than the ignorance of tlie culti- 

 vator. Yet, if you set one of your boys to fill a 

 bag with corn for the mills, and he puts two bush- 

 els into it, — and you direct another to put up from 

 a particular place a bag of rye for the same pur- 

 pose, and he should put up only one bushel, be- 

 cause there was only one bushel of rye there, you 

 would not say that he was too ignorant to measure 

 up a bag full of grain. 



Old. — Certainly not. 



Think. — It would, however, be just as consist- 



ent, as for you to reckon a past generation of men, 

 possessed of so much more knowledge than the 

 present, because they took larger crops from the 

 soil. In taking a large crop, the soil is laroely 

 exhausted. The crop that is taken after will be 

 lighter, because the soil contains not the proper- 

 ties equal to produce another crop so large. Your 

 father's" ignorance allowed him to exhaust the soil, 

 and you have exhausted it still more, and neither 

 your father nor you had sufficient knowledge to 

 perceive what you were doing. Now, if your sons 

 do not succeed as well in cropping a worn-out soil 

 as your father did upon the soil in its full strength, 

 you charge it all to the books and newspapers, 

 which are laboring to instruct us. The fact is, 

 neighbor, we need to learn how to keep our farms 

 as good as they are, and make them better. All 

 our fathers knew or considered was how to raise a 

 crop. They did not keep their farms good as they 

 were for producing. If generation after generation, 

 over the face of the whole earth should do so, in a 

 very short period the whole earth would become 

 one vast desert, and the human race would perish 

 for want of sustenance. 



We must learn wherein the soil that our fathers 

 cultivated is exhausted. Henceforth, no man will 

 rank among intelligent farmers because he can 

 raise a single large crop; but he who shall be seen 

 to make a farm more and more productive, year 

 after year, continually increasing its real value, 

 will be known as a genuine and intelligent farmer. 

 And you may rest assured that out sons will need 

 all the information that they can gain from the best 

 publications of our time, to bring them into the 

 rank of genuine farmers, a iew years hence. Our 

 fathers imagined that when they had taught their 

 sons how to plough and plant, and to hoe and dig, 

 they had taught them how to conduct a farm. They 

 little thought that the most important of all know- 

 ledge to the farmer had been entirely neglected in 

 their teachings. Such, however, was the case. 

 Under their management, and that of their sons, 

 the soil has in most places lost its former power to 

 produce. We have got to study a new subject. 

 We must learn, and have out sons learn also, how 

 to raise crops with a fair profit and yet have our 

 farms continually growing better. 



OW.— Well, Mr. Thinkwell, I do not know but 

 you may get some knowledge from your papers ; 

 but my boys and myself have to work very hard to 

 bring the year even, and we cannot get time to 

 study so many new theoiies; and you know that 

 "Much study is a weariness to the Hesh," and we 

 can't expect to meet everybody's notions, these 

 times/ 



Think — Mr. Oldside, you and your sons work 

 extremely hard, and I am sorry that you do not 

 succeed better than you do. But much of your hard 

 toil is thrown away upon your worn-out land; and 

 what of your land remains not exhausted is likely 

 to become so far worn-out that no man could get a 

 profitable crop off from it. You may get a light crop, 

 but the whole rule of your farming must be changed 

 liefore you can make farming a profitable business. 

 You must learn to strengthen your land, while it 

 gives you a living. Then the land will give you 

 more than a living. Your difficulty in making the 

 two ends of the year even will soon be gone; for 

 when in the course of your improvement you shall 

 find that your farm gives a good living, you may 

 be sure that it will next enable you to lay up mon- 



