106 



ECONOMY OF FARMING. 



In three-fourths of the States in this republic, 

 wheat matures early enough for the ground to be 

 properly tilled before it is time to sow for another 

 crop; and the injury arising from the use of crude 

 manure may be avoided by rotting It either in com- 

 post or otherwise, before its application to the soil. 

 So long as winter wheat brings a high price it is a 

 profitable crop to grow; and if need be, by the aid 

 of Peruvian guano and without rotation. Land that 

 is not too wet nor too porous, but rich, clear of all 

 noxious weeds, and well plowed and harrowed, will 

 rarely fail in good seasons to produce fair crops of 

 winter wheat many years in succession. 



In Northern and Western Germany, winter rye is 

 grown year after year indefinitely on the same field ; 

 and generally on land too sandy and porous for eco- 

 nomical wheat-culture. In the cotton-growing States, 

 rye is cultivated for winter grazing. 



Economy in growing food for live-stock both sum- 

 mer and winter deserves far more attention than it is 

 now receiving in this countrj'. Our domestic animals 

 are generally thin in flesh, ugly in form, and compar- 

 atively worthless, on account of a deficient supply of 

 grass in summer and hay in winter, or from a lack of 

 other suitable nourishment. Defective nutrition 

 makes not only lean kine and lean hogs, but lean 

 manure, and leaner land. Now is a favorable time 

 to collect and save manure to increase the fruitl'ul- 

 ness of the earth the coming spring and summer ; 

 and having in our own practice an eye to a future 

 harvest of manure, we deem it wise economy to raise 

 fodder-plants in abundance. Any one who has occa- 

 Bion to purchase hay or other forage for his stock 

 this spring, as the writer has, need not be told that 

 it is a pretty expensive operation. In an average of 

 the soils and climates of the United States, which 

 are our best fodder-plants? Prof. Bueqer says : 

 " The pod-bearing vegetables need generally less ma- 

 nure than the plants of a grass kind; for in a given 

 soil, and in a given time, they produce more organic 

 matter than do the latter ; because they absorb a 

 greater quantity of atmospheric and mineral sub- 

 stances." 



The above suggestions are important; but we sus- 

 pect the principle applies only to common grasses, 

 and not to such cereal grasses as maize. Neither 

 peas, nor beans, nor vetches, are equal to corn in our 

 climate on good land to organize food for live-stock ; 

 although either of these pod-bearing vegetables may 

 be better than corn in Germany. In all our South- 

 ern States, peas are cultivated extensively with corn 

 for forage. At the North, peas and oats gown to- 



gether, often yield a liberal harvest ; but in skillful 

 hands, nothing pays quite so well as our native, indi- 

 genous Indian corn. 



No one knows how many tons of choice hay might 

 be made on an acre of not too thickly-sown corn- 

 plants. Put in drills thirty inches apart, on rich land 

 properly tilled, one may grow forage enough on an 

 acre to winter several cows in fine condition. Some 

 prefer to sow corn broadcast for soiling purposes, al- 

 though it generally yields a smaller burden than when 

 cultivated in drills. Less seed will answer in the lat- 

 ter case, while it requires some more labor to make a 

 crop. 



In selling produce of any kind off a farm, whether 

 vegetable or animal, one should add to the other 

 costs of production, that of replacing in the soil all 

 the mineral elements, including ammonia, removed in 

 any manner during the time when the article sold was 

 grown, and the land cultivated for its production. 

 Thus, in producing corn, tobacco and cotton, the 

 plowed and hoed soil loses more of the elements ol 

 fertility than is sent to market in the staple sold. 

 The land is leached and washed by falling rains, am 

 thereby impoverished, in consequence of tillage 

 American farmers commit a great mistake in goinj 

 over so many acres with the plow to obtain the gen 

 crally poor crops which they harvest. This practic 

 is bad, very bad, economy. It needlessly wears ou 

 teams, the implements of tillage, land, civilizatioi 

 and everything but human folly. To keep fields i 

 the same state of fruitfulness, there must be restore 

 to them in manure a fair equivalent for every elemei 

 taken out of the earth by the agency of the cultivs 

 tor. But in order to return to fields manure in pn 

 portion to their needs, it is necessary to know in whi 

 proportion plants absorb their earthy constituents 

 and also to understand that it is altogether impract 

 cable to manure large farms with small resources fc 

 manure, whether purchased or home-made. 



Sound economy demands that we plow deepe 

 cultivate fewer acres, make, save, and use more mi 

 nnre, have less extravagant notions about becomin 

 rich by robbing our mother Earth, and fostering thi 

 common disposition to run into debt, which is tl 

 curse of our otherwise happy country. Like spen 

 thrift heirs, we draw on the natural resources of tl 

 soil, as an inexhaustible estate, regardless alike of tl 

 wants and the rights of those who are to come aft 

 us. Our farm economy is as different from that pra^ 

 liced in Belgium and other well cultivated portioi 

 of Europe, as it well can be. Good farming in E 

 rope implies the full and adequate feeding of the li 



