402 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



can find opportunity, plow, and watch its effects, 

 and tell the world the results. 



Colts. — We have never seen a poor, half- 

 starved, shrinking human wretch, but it has brought 

 to mind the old adage — "He looks like a mother- 

 less colt." The idea has prevailed, certainly ever 

 since we knew a colt from a cart, "that any thing 

 will do for a colt — he can get a living by picking 

 up the scatterings about the yard, and fields, "and 

 under the stone walls." And a more pernicious 

 idea never prevailed about a farm-yard. The 

 profit of stock depends greatly upon the rapidity of 

 its growth. By proper attention the colt may be 

 worth as much at three years of age as he would 

 be at four, with indifferent care ; you save in this 

 case all the keeping and risk for one year, and the 

 use or interest of the money for the same time. 

 Beside the losses which have occurred from this 

 belief, the practice is a cruel one, to expose a 

 young animal half-fed to the peltings of the pitiless 

 storm. He stands tail to the wind, his hair long 

 and frovi'zy, and his buttocks and sides covered 

 with filth, a perfect picture of despair, and a fitting 

 representative of the age of rattling clapboards, 

 stuffed windows, and a tippling master. 



Young and old animals need the most care. 

 The middle aged and strong may do with less. 



Keep no more stock than you have plenty of 

 good fodder for, and time to prepare it in the best 

 manner, and to keep them cleanly, and consequently 

 healthy. This will yield a larger profit than any 

 greater number kept with the same amount of caie 

 and food. 



WHAT IS PRACTICAL FARMING ? 



Farming has become so respectable an occupa- 

 tion of late, and the title of Farmer so honorable, 

 that grave questions are likely to arise, which 

 may require the intervention of an office of Herald- 

 ry, to determine who has the right to bear that ti- 

 tle, and what order of precedence shall be estab- 

 lished among the various claimants of the exclu- 

 sive privilege of bearing the ensigns armorial of 

 Husbandry. The Practical Farmer undoubtedly 

 stands head and shoulders above everybody else, 

 but the question returns. Who is the practical 

 farmer? We have among us all kinds of farmers. 

 First, we have the amateur farmer merely, who 

 does not know the near from the off side of a 

 team, who has read of subsoil plows but never 

 saw one, and who knows all about chemistry and 

 geology that can be learned without soiling his 

 boots by stepping out of doors. Ask him if he 

 could conduct the affairs of a farm, and he would 

 give the same answer as the youth who was asked 

 if he could play the flute — "I suppose 1 could, but 

 I never tried." Manifestly, this is not the prac- 

 tical farmer. Then we have the man who prides 

 himself upon being a farmer and nothing else. 

 He lives on the same farm where his great grand- 



father was born, and inherited his knowledge of 

 husbandry with the old wooden plovi-s, which he 

 still uses. He takes no agricultural paper, and 

 reads no books on the subject, because he knows 

 all about it, already. He is not to be humbugged 

 by any science, or new-fangled notions about com- 

 posts, mineral manures, or deep plowing. Man- 

 ure, with him, is what he finds left in the spring, 

 out doors, under his hovel-windows — about a load 

 for each ton of hay consumed — and he plows about 

 four inches deep, and puts manure in the hill where 

 the corn can find it. His boys have discovered 

 that farming ivont pay, and have gone to Califor- 

 nia, while he finds the buildings and the tools have 

 grown old, and the interest on the old mortgage is 

 gradually gaining on him. However, he is sure he 

 is one of the class, which are termed the bone and 

 sinew of the country, and the only true practical 

 farmer. That he is a practical, as well as a most 

 impracticable farmer, there is no doubt. 



Then we have a third class of men who may 

 have worked all their lives upon the land, — of men 

 who, having acquired a taste for farming in youth, 

 after successful toil in another business for years, 

 have returned to tlieir first love, and devoted their 

 later years to agricultural pursuits — of professional 

 men and merchants, who having room in their 

 brains for more than one idea, are conducting their 

 farming operations at the same time with their other 

 affairs — in short, a class composed of all those who 

 believe in progress in husbandry, as in everything 

 else, and have the personal direction of their 

 farms. The farmers of this class do not believe 

 that the earth gave up all her secrets at once to 

 the tiller of the soil. They do not think, like the 

 Chinese, that they are precisely in the centre of 

 the world, and all others are outside barbarians. 

 They see that the soil of the country has been ex- 

 hausted by injudicious cropping, and feel the ne- 

 cessity of improvement. 



They listen attentively to the chemist, or man 

 of science, who tells them what are the compo- 

 nents of the soil, and of the crop, and in what way 

 they can best restore to the barren field the ele- 

 ments of fertility. They are willing to hear about 

 subsoiling and draining, and to think upon the rea- 

 sons given why those operations should be benefi- 

 cial. They can conceive, and believe, upon paper 

 evidence, that there may be manures besides what 

 are found in the barn-yard. In short, they are 

 willing to "try all things" that they may "hold 

 fast that which is good," or in other words to ex- 

 pend time and money in making experiments for 

 the benefit of their neighbors. These men are em- 

 phatically Practical Farmers — practical as opposed 

 to the mere theorist — practical in the highest sense 

 as men whose labors are of practical use to them- 

 selves, and their fellow-men. 



There is still another class, who, as cultivators 

 of the soil, are practical men. We refer to the 



