102 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[July, 



For The Lancaster Farmer. 

 CROPS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 



Wheat and oats have beeu reaped, both of 

 which have turned out well. Some farmers 

 have threshed out their wheat, and new flour 

 is already in this market. The corn is very 

 promising, but early Irish potatoes will not 

 yield a full crop owing ^ dry weather in the 

 early part of the growing season. Cotton and 

 tobacco both look well, but the "stand" is 

 not so good as might be desired by sanguine 

 growers. It may Ije best, for this section at 

 least, that those crops should not turn out so 

 well. Less tobacco and cotton, and more 

 bread and meat is what is wanted most here, 

 for the good of the public generally. Garden 

 vegetables of all kinds planted here, are doing 

 finely. I have never seen apple, pear, peach, 

 prune, plum and other fruit trees, and grape 

 vines, so lieavily laden with fruit, and so 

 promising at this season of the year as they 

 are now, and if nothing happens to destroy it, 

 we will be blest with an abundant fruit year. 

 Cultivated strawberries at 25 cents a full quart, 

 and the old field (in common parlance) variety, 

 in some countries called tvild, at 10 cents per 

 quart ; and are better to the taste than the 

 best cultivated kinds — at least to cmr taste — 

 we have ever eaten in any country. 



Cherries, from the great quantity brought 

 to this market, we judge are very plentiful, 

 and are selling at from 5 cents down to 2^ per 

 quart. Dew and blackberries, growing wild, 

 5 cents per quart. I saw peaches of the 

 present season in market here on the 28lh of 

 Juue, flue and ripe, and apples three weeks 

 ago. Upon the whole, all things bid fair in 

 this country, and we expect better times, and 

 more business here, after the crops of this 

 season's growth are gathered and marketed 

 than we have had for a long time. M. R. 



Salisbury, N. C, Juue i:7, 1ST7. 



[God grant that you, and all other people 

 and communities, may realize these reasonable 

 expectations, for such a consumatiou is much 

 needed to remove the heavy business pall that 

 has been so long hanging over the material 

 interests of our country. If being at peace 

 with all mankind, the general prevalence of 

 good health and al)undant crops do not revive 

 the business of tlie coimtry, and afford bread 

 and employment to its honest,idle population, 

 then we mu.st be most desperately wicked, 

 and need a further chastisement. Let us 

 hope that when prosperity again returns, we 

 will have a higher appreciation of it than we 

 ever had before, and turn it to a good account.] 

 ^ 



For The Lancaster Farmer. 

 FROM NEBRASKA. 



Ml!. Editor: This prosperous young city of 

 about four thousand inhabitants is the capitol 

 of Dodge county, and located on the Union 

 Pacific Railroad, forty-six miles west of 

 Omaha, at the junction of the Sioirx City and 

 Pacific, and the Freemont, Elkhorn and Mis- 

 souri Valley Railroads, at the junction of the 

 Piatt and Elkhorn valleys, which here are 

 about ten miles wide. 



Freemont has a $25,000 public school house, 

 two daily and two weekly newspapers, and in 

 the county sixty school houses and about 

 thirty churches, and five mills ruiming twenty- 

 four burrs. Last year there were about three 

 thousand car-loads of grain shipped from 

 Freemont, nearly two thousand of which was 

 over the Union Pacific, and about eiglit hun- 

 dred of this went west. Only 76 deaths in 

 the county last year, including children and 

 invalids who came here sick. 



In the county are 67 miles of railroad. Two 

 large rivers, the Platte and the Elkhorn, flow 

 entirely across the county, besides a great 

 number of smaller streams tributary to these, 

 some idea of the number of which may be in- 

 ferred from tlie fact that in tlie county are 

 39 bridges, aggregating 9,563 feet in length. 



This region is thebest watered and timbered 

 in the State, and Dodge county has the largest 

 area of rich valley farming lands of any in 

 the United States. Tlie soil is the richest 

 and deepest the writer has ever seen. The 

 present crop pro-spects are excellent, and no 



grasshoppers. The prices of land near the 

 railroad here range from three to eight dol- 

 lars per acre. The Union Pacific is selling 

 rich bottom land here at about six dollars per 

 acre on long credit, and only six per cent, in- 

 terest, thus affording the best opportunity for 

 a man to secure a good fann near the beauti- 

 ful and growing great railroad centre, city of 

 Omaha, and on the longest and best managed 

 railroad in the world, and which, with the 

 Central Pacific and their connections, form the 

 great highway around the world, within the 

 belt of population, wealth, and Christian civi- 

 lization which encircles the earth between the 

 39th and 44th parallels of north latitude. 

 Nebraska is the most western agricultural 

 State, and nearest inexhaustible mining and 

 gi-azing regions, botli non-producing as re- 

 gards food supplies, insuring a ready market 

 and good prices for all farm, garden and or- 

 chard products. — Examiner. 



For The Lancaster Farmer. 

 ABIES— SPRUCE FIR. 



The valuable work on Book of Evergreens, 

 by Mr. .Josiah Iloopes, is one that was much 

 in demand and supplies great dissederatum to 

 the student of the coniferie. 



In his excellent description of the Abies 

 Nordmannia, so named by Link in memory of 

 the first discoverer of this desirable Fir, Prof. 

 Nordmann, who found it growing on the Ad- 

 shar Mountains, at an elevation of 6,000 feet, 

 from 80 to 100 feet in heighth, with a straight 

 stem. It is quite abundant on tlie Crimean 

 Mountains, and those east of the Black Sea; 

 also in various other localities. 



Mr. Iloopes describes it on page 205, and 

 says, " Our experience with this species has 

 beeu so very satisfactory that we wish it were 

 known. The most severe winters have never 

 afliected in the least, and it appears always to 

 retain the beautiful green color of its foliage 

 in all seasons and through all viscissitudes. 

 It is quite vigorous in growth, beautiful in 

 verdure, regular and graceful in form, of large 

 size and perfectly hardy in this latitude." He 

 also says, that the "leaves are 1 inch long, 

 linear, flat, incurved, dark green above, and 

 glaucous below," ttc; but he fails to inform 

 his readers of the very curious feature of the 

 leaves to attract the attention of a close ob- 

 server, and one tliat induces inquiry as to the 

 cause of it. Early in the morning and fore- 

 noon the foliage is uniformly of a whiteish 

 color, as also toward evening or about sunset, 

 while during the middle of the day they are of 

 a uniform green color. This arises from a 

 periodic movement in the position of the 

 leaves. In the day time the leaves are spread 

 out upon the branches and present their up- 

 per surface which is green, but towards the 

 evening, or sunset, they begin to erect them- 

 selves, until the under or whiteish side of the 

 leaves are presented to the eye, often becom- 

 ing nearly perpendicular during the night 

 season, travering an angle of OO'-". Tlius there 

 is a diurnal and nocturnal position of the foli- 

 age, which accounts for this change of appear- 

 ance, and is an interesting fact that should 

 not be omitted. J. S. 



For The Lancaster Farmer. 



LARGE FARMS AND SMALL FARMS— 

 THEIR ADVANTAGES AND DIS- 

 ADVANTAGES. 



In regard to the size of farms we find two 

 seta of champions — the one set advocate large 

 farms, the other small farms. Sucli a thing 

 as a farm of medium size has no existence 

 with them — it is sometimes claimed by one, 

 sometimes by the other set. Each set sees 

 and trots out the advantages, the disadvan- 

 tages being kept in the background, or alto- 

 gether out of sight. 



Locality has a great deal to do with the 

 term " large" and " small" as applied to tracts 

 of land. A large farm in the eastern States is 

 a small farm in the western States or Cali- 

 fornia, and what would be called a small fiirm 

 in New England is only a lot in Iowa or 

 Nebraska. For our purpose we will consider 



a large farm to contain two hundred acres or 

 more, of land in cultivation. 



But it is the advantages and the disadvan- 

 tages tliat we wish to consider, in what they 

 consist, and, if possible, to find a way to 

 remedy the disadvantages. 



We will consider small farms as first in 

 order. 



Their advantages are : they make close 

 neighbors ; close neighbors bring stores, mills, 

 schools, post-oflices, churches and other conve- 

 niences near each man's door ; they make a 

 more educated community, and as a conse- 

 quence create a better and a pleasanter social 

 life; roads are better graded, and kept in better 

 condition ; fences, houses, barns and other 

 buildings are kept in neater order and better 

 repair. 



The above and many more are the advan- 

 tages, claimed and real, and besides it is 

 claimed that small farms are better tilled, and 

 thus more productive than larger ones, but 

 here we come to the very disadvantages them- 

 selves. 



The disadvantages are: the cost of a dwell- 

 ing house is as much for the small farm as for 

 the large one, and in other buildings and 

 fences the cost is proportionally higher ; also 

 on a small farm many of the operations are 

 carried on by mere jihysical labor, because it 

 will not pay to purchase all tlie implements 

 and machines by which so much of the labor is 

 saved — and even that is done by horses ; to 

 buy all these would bring the profit and loss 

 account in a bad shape, as the interest, and 

 wear and tear would eat all the profits. 



For a community of small farmers it would 

 sometimes be well to have implements and 

 machines In common, each individual paying 

 his share of the cost, and be entitled to the 

 use of them on his own fiirm. There would 

 necessarily have to be a place to where such 

 implements would have to be returned, for if 

 this would not be done it would be sometimes 

 very annoying to hmit them up. Where 

 many of them are in joint ownership, it would 

 be the better plan to have each farmer hold 

 and care for one or more of the machines, and 

 when not in use always have them at that 

 place. 



Some of the objections against such joint 

 ownership are, that two of the farmers might 

 want to use the same implement at the same 

 time, and that many persons are very lax in 

 the care and proper usage of implements, and 

 this would be a source of great annoyance to 

 their more orderly neighbors and joint owners. 

 Grain drills, corn-planters, mowers (and reap- 

 ers combined,) hay-tedders, horse-powers, 

 threshing machines, power cutters, and such 

 other machines that do a great deal of work 

 in a short time, and that are used only at cer- 

 tain seasons of the year, are the proper ones 

 for joint ownership. 



The advantages and disadvantages of large 

 farms are just the contraries of the small 

 farms ; and in addition the schools are gene- 

 rally of a lower order and not graded. 



As far as we can see, the only important 

 advantage that large farms have over small 

 ones, is in the use of machinery. Like in 

 manufactories, labor can lie more economically 

 directed where there is a division of labor, and 

 special machines for performing such labor. 



To overcome some of the isolation of large 

 farms, agricultural writers have commenced 

 advocating that four farms should be located 

 on a cross-road, and the houses and buildings 

 belonging to the farms be built at this cross- 

 ing, so that four houses are quite close neigh- 

 bors. 



The above plan is only practicable in the 

 western countiy, where counties, townships 

 and sections, are laid out in squares like a 

 well-planned city, and where the country is 

 comparatively level. In hilly sections it 

 would, in many cases, be out of the question 

 to build in this manner, as the buildings 

 would have to be situated in accordance with 

 the lay of the ground. 



It is also recommended by some writers, 

 that in the unsettled west, former's villages, of 

 a dozen or more farms, might be started ; all 



