12 TALKS ON MANURES. 



Deacon. Very good ; but what shall I make it of ? " Make it out 

 of your straw and stalks and hay." So I do, but all the straw and 

 stalks and hay raised on the farm when I bought it would not 

 make as much manure as " high farming " requires for five acres 

 of land. And is this not true of half the farms in the United 

 States to day ? What then, shall we do ? 



The best thing to do, theoretically, is this : Any land that is pro- 

 ducing a fair crop of grass or clover, let it lie. Pasture it or mow 

 it for hay. If you have a field of clayey or stiff loamy land, break 

 it up in the fall, and summer-fallow it the next year, and sow it to 

 wheat and seed it down with clover. Let it lie two or three years 

 in clover. Then break it up in July or August, "fall-fallow" it, 

 and sow it with barley the next spring, and seed it down again 

 with clover. 



Sandy or light land, that it will not pay to summer-fallow, 

 should have all the manure you can make, and be plowed and 

 planted with corn. Cultivate thoroughly, and either seed it down 

 with the corn in August, or sow it to barley or oats next spring, 

 and seed it down with clover. I say, tfieoretically this is the best 

 plan to adopt. But practically it may not be so, because it may he 

 absolutely necessary that we should raise something that we can 

 sell at once, and get money to live upon or pay interest and taxes. 

 But the gentlemen who so strenuously advocate high farming, are 

 not perhaps often troubled with considerations of this kind. Meet- 

 ing them, therefore, on their own ground, I contend that in my 

 case " high farming " would not be as profitable as the plan hinted 

 at above. 



The rich alluvial low land is to be pastured or mown ; the upland 

 to be broken up only when necessary, and when it is plowed to be 

 plowed well and worked thoroughly, and got back again into 

 clover as soon as possible. The hay and pasture from the low 

 land, and the clover and straw and stalks from the upland, would 

 enable us to keep a good many cows and sheep, with more or less 

 pigs, and there would be a big pile of manure in the yard every 

 spring. And when this is once obtained, you can get along much 

 more pleasantly and profitably. 



" But," I may be asked, " when you have got this pile of manure 

 can not you adopt high farming ' '' X<>. My manure pile would 

 contain say : 60 tons of clover-hay; 20 tons wheat-straw ; 25 tons 

 oat, barley, and pea-straw ; 40 tons meadow-hay ; 20 tons corn- 

 stalks ; 20 tons corn, oats, and other grain ; 120 tons mangel-wurzel 

 and turnips. 



