70 HOW TO PLAKT. 



Indian corn for the purpose of feeding it to horses. Oats, 

 wheat, rye, barley, millet, and hay crops, are much cheaper 

 and also much better for the horse. I have known work- 

 mules to be kept in fine condition on clover hay, with a 

 feed of corn only three or four times a month. I have 

 known five or six months' time of a man, a horse, a plow, 

 and an extra hoe hand occasionally, spent in cultivating 

 ten or twelve acres in corn, and barely harvesting corn 

 enough to feed the horse. How much better it would be 

 to plant the land in oats, and devote your spare time and 

 labor to something else until harvest, if only to go a 

 fishing. 



My idea as to how success may be attained at farming 

 is, to concentrate your energies upon a specialty. That 

 is to say, direct all your efforts toward making a certain 

 crop your main dependence. If equal attention is devoted 

 to every crop planted upon the farm, the result will be 

 something of everything and not much of anything. But 

 to be more specific, suppose your inclinations lead you 

 toward the cotton plant ; then bend all your efforts toward 

 making that crop a grand success. Plant of vegetables, 

 melons, fruits, potatoes, corn, oats, wheat, etc., merely 

 enough to supply your family, and then make a " ten 

 strike " for cotton. Study it, improve it, humor it, pet 

 it, and bring up the yield from one to three bales per acre. 

 This can be readily done, and success will certainly crown 

 your efforts. Cotton is, beyond all question, the crop for 

 the Southern States. Some might choose fruits, or others 

 grain, or some particular root crop for a leader ; and in 

 the Northern States, such would have to be the case of 

 course, for cotton cannot be cultivated there ; but by all 

 means have a specialty. The successful lawyer or doctor, 

 while he attends to everything in his line, generally makes 

 a specialty of some particular line of practice in his pro- 

 fession. The avoidance of debt, strikes me as being of the 

 greatest importance to every farmer. 



