FAKMINt; AS A m'SINKSS. 13 



Tills would li'ivc inc alioiit ."iilO Idms dI" wtli-roUcil niaiiiirc 1 

 BJiuulil wiiiit 200 Ions of lliis for tia- in;iii<:;ils and luniiiis, aiul the 

 3U0 Ions 1 should want to top-dri'ss 20 a<ies of ij;rass land inU'iulni 

 for command potatoes tin" next y<ar. My piK- of niauiirc, there 

 fore, is all usv-d up on 2~> to oO acres of land. In other words, 1 use 

 the unsold produce of 10 acres to manure one. Is this " high 

 farming ? " I think in my circumstances it is good funning, hut it 

 is not higli farming. It gives mc large crops per acre, but I liave 

 comparatively few acres in crops that are sold from the farm. 



" High farming," if tlic term is to liuvc any definite meaning at 

 all, should only he used to express the iilea of a farm so manaircd 

 that the soil is rich em)Ugh {o produce ma.ximum crops (rti-y yiir. 

 If you adopt the system of rotation (piite general in this section — 

 siy, 1st year, con on sod; 2d, barley or oats; 3d, wheat; 4th, 

 clover for hay and afterwards for seed ; 5th, timothy and clover 

 for hay ; and then tiie Clh year plowed up for corn again — it would 

 be necessary to make the land rich enough to i>roduce say 100 

 bu.sbels shelled corn, 50 bushels of l)arley, 40 bushels of wheal, 3 

 to!is clover hay, and 5 bushels of clover-seed, and 3 tons (lover and 

 timothy-bay per acre. This would l-e mnderair, hi'i^h farninig. If 

 we introduced lucern, Italian ryc-gra.ss, corn-fodder, and man'ccl- 

 wurzel into tlie rotation, we should ne: d still richiT land to pnnluce 

 a ma.\iinum grt)wlh of these crops. In other words, we should 

 need more manure. 



The point I am endeavoring to get at, is this: "Where you want 

 a farm to be self-sup[>orting — where you depend solely on the pro- 

 duce of the farm to supply manure — it is a sheer impossil)ility to 

 adopt hijh farming on th/' whole of your I end. I want to raise just 

 as large crops per acre as the high farmers, but tiiere is no way of 

 doing this, unless we go outside the farm for manure, without 

 raising a smaller area ot such crops as are sol 1 from the farm. 



I do not wish any one to suppose that I am opposed to high farm 

 in ;. There is oecasioniilly a farm where it may be practised with 

 advantage, but it seems perfectly clear to my mind that as hms; as 

 there is such an unlimited supply of land, and such a limited .sup- 

 ply of fertilizei-s, most of us will find it more profitable to develop 

 the latent stores of plant-food lying dormant in the soil rather than 

 to buy manures. And it is ccr'ain that you can not adopt high 

 faming without either buying manure directly, or buying food to 

 fee 1 to animals that shall make manure on the farm. 



And 3'ou must recollect that high farming requires an iucrtiascd 



