1860. 



SFAV ENGLAND FAIl]MER. 



387 



buckwheat, so that the soil should not become 

 too sour by turning under the green crop. — 

 In thin sand)- soils that will drift by the winds 

 for want of vegetation on the surface spurrey 

 might be sown or planted. This plant is now- 

 grown extensively in Flanders and other Europe- 

 an countries ; the roots spread in a tangled mass 

 together, so as to hold the sand and thus help to 

 form a soil. That sandy drift on North Haven 

 (Ct.) plains would be a good place to try the 

 value of this plant. 



After grass had got a fair start on thin soils, 

 then cattle and sheep could be put on, which will 

 improve soils constantly. In plowing under a 

 heavy crop of clover for wheat or any grain or 

 farm crop, instead of turning it under when in the 

 blow, I think it would be better to wait till the 

 crop is about half ripe, or half the heads are dead. 

 In this way a good share of tlie acid would have 

 left the stock, so that decomposition woidd read- 

 ily take place without at all souring the soil. 



Derby, Ct. L. Dueand. 



Fur the New England Farmer. 

 IS THEBB AUY PROFIT IN" FARMING ? 



Mr. Editor : — Having read T. J. Piukham's 

 views under this caption, some months since, in 

 the Farmer, I felt inclined to answer ; but hav- 

 ing worked on a farm for sixty years, my sight 

 imperfect, and my hand somewhat palsied, I wise- 

 ly left the pleasing task to younger heads and 

 hands. I think the answer has been well given. 

 But as Mr. P. has come out in your last issue 

 with a somewhat clenching rejoinder, and called 

 earnestly for figures, I will endeavor to give some 

 facts which have fallen under my notice. 



Sixty-four years ago this present winter, I was 

 born in a small log-house, covered with bark, and 

 a hovel of the same materials, and sheltering a 

 cow, our only stock, occupied the exact spot where 

 I sit writing. On this piece of land, consisting 

 of 100 acres of forest, ray father, with no capi- 

 tal but a firm constitution and strong nerves, 

 converted this forest into a farm, on which he 

 reared his family of five children, and gave them 

 such an education as the stinted facilities of that 

 time afforded. Forty-two years ago, my father 

 sold me this farm for $1000, and personal prop- 

 erty considered worth $500, for which I was to 

 pay $750 to my brother and three sisters. With 

 the remainder I was to erect buildings, fence and 

 stock the farm, and provide for my parents, at 

 that time verging on the helplessness of age. 



Now I would respectfully ask friend P. if this 

 can be accomplished from tilling the soil, and 

 cultivating this small farm alone ? And can it 

 be kept in a good state of cultivation without for- 

 eign manures ? And if so, is not farming, even 

 on a small scale, at least a living business P 



Now for facts ! And here let me say that every 

 dollar has been drawn from this one source, la- 

 bor on the farm. In the first ]dace, I paid the 

 debts to the heirs, and to my aged parents ; have 

 erected buildings, and have added some 30 acres 

 of land. This farm, which is now occupied joint- 

 ly by myself and son, who is still a young man 

 with a young family, is worth four times its value 

 at the time it came into my hands. For the last 

 twenty years it has paid a small yearly profit ; so 

 that \\-e have invested in land, stocks, &c., a sum 



equal to $5000. This is not an isolated case. I 

 live in a town of small farmers ; the present oc- 

 cupants have inherited their farms from their sires, 

 who broke the forests, while some others have, 

 in their younger dajs, Morked for wages, until 

 they had obtained a sum equal to the price of a 

 Vvild lot, of fifty or one hundred acres; while etill 

 others have ])urchased their land on credit. These 

 have made their farms, and many of them are 

 now independent, and have laid by something ef- 

 fective for sickness or old age. I have in my 

 mind an individual who worked with one of my 

 neighbors for $10 a month, some years since; 

 his wife also was dependent, for her means of 

 house-keeping, on her weekly earnings, and neith- 

 er of them had a shilling but the earnings of their 

 own hands. What is now their condition ? They 

 have a fine productive farm, with good, conve- 

 nient buildings ; a stock of cattle and horses, that 

 any man might be justly proud of ; he has given 

 his three oldest children an academic education, 

 and has recently purchased and jiaid for another 

 farm. 



These are a few, out of many encouraging re- 

 sults of farming on a small scale, without capital ; 

 without the aid of foreign manures ; without the 

 aid of science, except that gained by hard expe- 

 rience. I am awaie that farming in the old town 

 of Chelmsford is a different business from what it 

 is in northern Vermont. But I would ask friend 

 P. if he knows how much his town paid for their 

 poor farm, on the old turnpike road, some thirty 

 years since, and how much money it has put in 

 the town treasury, after paying for itself in the 

 first eight years ; and whether this was the result 

 of the profit of the orchard and wood lot ? iMy 

 own experience, from a long life of toil, with a 

 proper proportion of draw-backs, from frosts, un- 

 fruitful seasons, and the multiplicity of ills that 

 attend farming, as well as other callings, teaches 

 me that farming has its proportion of blessings 

 f.nd encouragements, and if a fortune can not be 

 made as rapidly as by some other calling, still it 

 is a paying business ; and though the farmer's 

 progress is slow, it is sure. "I have been young, 

 but now am old, yet have I not seen the industri- 

 ous, prudctit, temperate farmer forsaken, or his 

 seed begging bread." J. Mudgett. 



Cambridge, Yt., Dec. 17, 1859. 



Seaweed for Manure. — From the able pen of 

 S. P. Mayberry of Cape Elizabeth, in the report 

 of the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, in 

 the Maine Farmer, is an article upon scav/eed — 

 its uses on the sea as well as on land. I agree 

 with Mr. M. on the value of seaweed as a man- 

 ure. Almost every farmer on the coast, if he 

 Avould take four parts of rockweed to tv/o parts of 

 his barnyard manure, two parts of muck, have 

 them thoroughly mixed by swine, then piled up 

 to heat, can produce more from his farm, and at 

 one-half the expense, than he can by using any of 

 the high-sounding fertilizers which are recom- 

 mended in most of the papers. On five-eighths 

 of an acre I cut three tons of hay the first crop 

 It was done by composting the manure. I would 

 not plo\v in manure to raise grass, more than 

 three inches ; dress it with a light coat of top- 

 dressing every year, and you v,-ill have large crops 

 of hay. 



