24 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[February, 



Under the present exhaustive system of crop- 

 ping the land will deteriorate until it will 

 have to be abandoned. A great deal is said 

 and written about the destruction of the for- 

 ests. The exportation of the products of the 

 virgin soils of the west at prices that will 

 never afford the farmer the means replenish- 

 ing the fertility of his exhausted acres, iilso 

 merits our consideration. — J. C. lAnville. 



ESSAYS. 



*LABOR SAVING FARM IMPLEMENTS. 



If times is money, and a penny saved is a 

 penny earned, then the question must be 

 answered in the affirmative : Provided, the 

 cost of the machine does not exceed its bene- 

 fits ; and provided, also, that good use is made 

 of the time saved. 



Without entering into a discussion of the 

 question now agitated between learned doc- 

 tors and evolutionists, whether man was 

 created a civilized being, and retrograted into 

 barbarism, or was originally a savage and has 

 gradually evolved into a civiled condition, one 

 thing seems certain : that the improvement 

 and multiplication of labor saving machinery 

 is one of the best evidences of the progress of 

 a people in the march of civilization. The two 

 appear to go together. In proof ot this we 

 ueed only contrast the condition of savage 

 nations and their rude implements and want 

 of machinery with our own condition in life 

 and the machinery of the present day. 



The inventive brain of scientific civilized 

 man has more than quadrupled the power of 

 his hands, and placed him, as it were, at the 

 long end of the Archimedean lever that moves 

 the world. Distant places have been broi.ght 

 near, and time almost annihilated. 



By the use of machinery the farmer gains 

 in several ways. He can work more quickly 

 and often save crops that otherwise would be 

 lost in unfavorable weather. He can do his 

 ■work better and in less time, thereby saving 

 many precious days and hours which may be 

 employed by himself and family in still fur- 

 ther qualifying themselves to manage their 

 affairs intelligently and profitably, and in edu- 

 cating themselves morally and mentally up to 

 a higher standard of true manhood and 

 womanhood. 



The time thus saved becomes so much cap- 

 ital, to be used or thrown away. As a gen- 

 eral rule our farmers have largely profited 

 thereby. That in some few instances good 

 use has not been made of it is the fault of the 

 individual and not of the machine, and if 

 any mischief is done, it must be attributed 

 more to outside evil influence than to any- 

 thing arising among the farmers themselves, 

 who, as a class, have always been a quiet and 

 sensible people. 



When leading men in the society of our 

 cities, who should set a better example, con- 

 descend to dance at balls, disguised as horses, 

 as they did not long ago in New York ; and 

 when in Pennsylvania, it is getting to be a 

 common thing,since tlie old law against it has 

 been repealed, for highly respectable people 

 to attend night masquerades, with their faces 

 concealed under masks, as was the custom in 

 the most corrupt and dissolute periods of 



France and Italy— when these performances 

 are published approvingly by the newspapers, 

 and are no longer denounced from the pulpits, 

 it is easy to see whither we are drifting, and 

 no wonder that some of the virus should have 

 reached even our quiet farm homes and turn- 

 ed some heads there. 



It does not necessarily follow that because 

 the whole of summer is no longer needed to 

 sow and harvest, and the entire winter taken 

 up in threshing out the crops, that the farm- 

 .should ;turn loafer the rest of the year, nor 

 that his sons should become idle drones, hat- 

 ing work ; or his daughters giddy butterflies 

 of fashion ; and together, like moths and 

 caterpillars of extravagance, consume what 

 honest industry may gather, or self-denying 

 rugality may have saved. 



There still remains enough for all of them 

 to do on a well conducted farm, and that of 

 the most pleasant and healthful kind of work 

 and recreation. We have space to mention 

 only a few of the many things that require at- 

 tention. The capacity of the soil and the ef- 

 fect of different fertilizers, the nature of the 

 crops, the diseases of trees and plants, the 

 disposition and management of domestic ani- 

 mals are still to be studied. The habits of 

 the birds and insects ought to be observed, so 

 that the useful may be protected and the nox- 

 ious exterminated. The farming implements 

 are still to he looked after and kept clean and 

 bright. The form buildings, particularly the 

 bouse, are to be made more healthy and at- 

 tractive by proper drainage and ventilation, 

 and their surroundings beautified by Judicious 

 planting and pruning. Constant vigilance is 

 now more than ever the price of success with 

 the farmer, and time need not hang heavy on 

 his hands or mind. A garden for the cultiva- 

 tion of small fruit should be kept in addition 

 to the one for vegetables. A modest library 

 of useful books on subjects of farm and gar- 

 den should be gradually got together, and 

 books for pleasant reading on rural matters, 

 such as can now be had from the pens of our 

 best authors, ought to be added to satify the 

 cravings of the minds of the young, which 

 demand food, and keep them from stuffing 

 themselves with sensational literature, or 

 rushing to other and more exciting pursuits 

 in life. 



It seems to have become one of the great 

 mistakes of modern times to suppose that an 

 educated person, or a youth who has acquired 

 a smattering of college learning, should be 

 above the cultivation of the soil, and that 

 farmers are without honor.t 



Some of our most learned and best men 

 have delighted in agriculture ; and those who 

 have by long and skillful experiment given us 

 new and better varieties of fruits and grains 

 —who by yiatient and intelligent investigation 

 have discovered means by which the products 

 of the soil have been increased, and the fail- 

 ures.lessened— or, who by inventing machinery 

 have lifted part of the burdens from the 

 shoulders of the laborers in the field, as our 

 real benefactors, and deserve as high a place 

 in our esteem and gratitude as those who 



from learned men in tnnes past, and 

 unlocked secrets for the agriculturist that his own un- 

 tutored eftorts failed to discover. A recent paper of 

 Prof. D. P. Penhallow, on " Hcach Yellow," in 21-L'2 

 Quartcrlv report of the Pennsylvania Board of Agricul- 

 ture, 1883, may be cited as a ease in point. 



successfully guided the councils of state or led 

 our armies to victory. 



Why should any one that has means de- 

 cline to become a farmer. The earth, with 

 which he has to deal, is no ungenerous 

 mother. She interests us by a circle of 

 changes each year— she mantles herself in 

 green, and wreaths her face in smiles of gold- 

 en harvests, responsive to the labors of the 

 husbandman— she proffers fruit and blossoms 

 to all who care to enjoy them— she even 

 hangs the luscious berries upon the despised 

 briars— she is forced to bear for man's trans- 

 gressions, that he may pluck and eat. 



There is a charm connected with country 

 life that clings to the memory of those who 

 have once tasted it, it can never be shaken 

 oft'. There is no fruit so tetupting as that 

 which we shook down in the old orchard— no 

 draught so cooling as that from the oaken 

 bucket at the old well. Men, when they have 

 become satiated with worldly success or 

 weary of its disappointments, delight to re- 

 turn to the quiet shades of the farm. Shiver- 

 ing old age longs for the sunny corner in the 

 country home, and poor worn out humanity 

 lies down to die "a babbling of green fields." 



Why then should we not delight to he far- 

 mers, and why not also allow our friends, the 

 inventors, to participate in our monthly meet- 

 ings. Let them be invited to come and bring 

 with them and exhibit their implements and 

 machinery or models of them, and samples of 

 fertilizers. The examination here will dis- 

 close the merits of such as are worthy of 

 patronage, and it may warn our friends 

 against being imposed upon by such as are 

 worthless. It will add to the interest of our 

 meetings and insure to the benefit of all. 



Selections. 



SUPERPHOSPHATE. 

 To prepare superphosphates on the farm 

 provide one or more good hogsheads, or large 

 troughs, fill them not more than one-third 

 full of fine, ground bone, the finer it is the 

 better will be the phosphate ; moisten the 

 bone with water to the extent of about twen- 

 ty pounds of water to 120 pounds of bone ; 

 then slowly add to above sixty pounds of sul- 

 phuric acid, 66 per cent, purity. This had 

 better be put in at three difteient times of 

 some hours apart, than to be all put in at 

 once. A considerable heat will develop by the 

 action of the acid upon the lime in the bone, 

 and it is better to keep covered with blankets 

 to retain this heat as long as possible. If the 

 bone is very greasy a smaller amount of acid 

 will suffice. By evaporation the 200 pounds 

 will be reduced to about ISO pounds. It 

 should be well stirred several times while 

 making. This mixture will probably be too 

 damp and sticky to use, and will need some- 

 thing to dry i't. For this purpose add twenty 

 pounds of fine bone charcoal, plaster or dry 

 earth. The first named is the best, as it will 

 take up the excess of acid, if there should be 

 any, and it does not reduce the percentage of 

 phosphoric acid in the mixture, as the other 

 mixtures will. The result will be the article 

 usually sold under the name of plain super- 

 phosphate, dissolved bone or acid phosphate 

 (though that usually sold under the latter 

 name is most frequently made from South 



