188 



NEW ENGLAIO) FARMER. 



April 



Having no money or opportunities for gaining an 

 education, except tliosc affoixled by the district 

 schools of tliat day, he availed himself of these 

 privileges f(jr two or three months in each year, 

 until he had attained his eighteenth year. His 

 natural ta«te for reading, and great desire for 

 knowledge, induced liim to read carefully all the 

 books within his reach ; and at a very earlv age he 

 devoted his first earnings to the purchase of an in- 

 terest in a public lil)rary. His life alfurds an emi- 

 nent examijle how the public library will intiuciice 

 the life and shape the character of a youth strug- 

 gling with poverty, but thirsting for knowledge 

 and culture. 



Strongly attached to agricultural life he has de- 

 voted hinisclt'to farming, and has long been known 

 as one of the most successful farmers of the State, 

 never having forgotten his early reading of that re- 

 nownicd maxim, "Time is money, economy is 

 wealth." 



He settled on his farm on the banks of the Con- 

 necticut, in the town of Siiringfield, in 1838, and to 

 which he had given the name of "Mont Yale." 

 ■ While steadilj- following the pursuit of a fiirmer 

 he has often been called upon to occupy honorable 

 positions, in the town, county and State, all of which 

 be filled to the acceptance of the people. He was 

 three years a Senator from Windsor county. As 

 chairiiKUi of a special committee of the Senate he 

 made an aljlc report upon the intricate question of 

 tariff. He was one of the Assistant Judges of the 

 Windsor County Court for four years. He was a 

 member of the Council of Censors in 1869. He 

 was one of the founders of the Exchange Bank at 

 Springtield, and was its President from its organi- 

 zation until it was supplanted l)y the First Na- 

 tional Bank of Sprin-field, in which he was a di- 

 rector at the time of his death. 



Judge Colbum, as an agricultural writer, was 

 well known, and his articles in the public journals 

 attracted wide attention, as they always gave evi- 

 dence of a discriminating mind and afforded profit- 

 able suggestions. His articles in 1866 and 1867, 

 upon "Protection to American Wool Growers," 

 were very gencrallj' read and were of great influ- 

 ence m Siiapiug the national legislation upon that 

 subject. 



Judge Colbum was one of the founders of the 

 State Agricultural Society, and has been one of its 

 directors from its first organization, now twenty 

 years, and for the last ten years its treasurer. He 

 was its President in 186.5 and 1866. In his death 

 the Society loses another of its earliest and faithful 

 friends and officers. Kcyes, Hammond, Colburn, 

 co-laborers for more than a score of years, have 

 followed each other to the tomb in rapid succession. 



Our personal associations, with Judge Colbum 

 for the last eight years have been frequent, and we 

 are compelled to testify our respect for his ability 

 and character. He was a man of earnest thought, 

 of comprehensive scope of mind, of steady and 

 unerring judgment, of inflexible integrity and un- 

 swerving decision of character. He was rather 

 marked as a man of large general powers, trum as 

 a sparkling writer or brilliant talker, as an honest, 

 independent fearlesspublicman. We bear our cm- 

 l)hatic testimony to his sterling worth. Cool, cau- 

 tious, conservative in his general tone of mind, 

 jx-rhaps he failed at times to win the approval of 

 the ardent and enthusiastic. But if he was some- 

 times slow to move, he always moved in a good 

 direction. He was never cajoled, or seduced, or 

 con-upted into any crooked ways. His path was 

 l)road and straight forward, and always illumined 

 by the light of a manly intellect and unquestioned 

 honesty of purpose. — Rutland Herald. 



— An eighty acre farm in Iowa is earned on by 

 twtn sisters, twenty-three years of age. A boy 

 sixtecu years old is all the male help they have. 



FARM OF N. B. S AFFORD. 

 About ten years ago Mr. Saflbrd, one of the 

 members of the Vermont Board of Agriculture, 

 bought a fami near White lliver Junction for 

 ■^10.75 per acre. A corresi)ondent of the Vermont 

 Farmer says that the first j'car the farm was let to 

 an old man who cut seven loads of hay, and tried 

 to winter two cows and a pair of three-}' ear-old 

 steers so small they wei-e called "Fergurson's rats." 

 Some haj- had to be bought to winter them out. 

 This farm has been enlarged hy additional pur- 

 chases to four hundred and tift}' acres, and cost 

 .■^6,000, and is now doubtless worth over #'20,000. 

 The land is mostly pine plain, but it tends to clay 

 rather than sand, and is retentive of manures. 

 The farm was covered with pine stumps, at the 

 time of its purchase. These have been removed 

 and put into fences, and the land judiciously tilled. 

 And now the stock consists of al)out thirty head of 

 cattle, eighty sheep, four or five horses and perhaps 

 a half dozen pigs, with abuiulance of fodder for 

 their winter sustenance, stored in the old barn 30 

 by 40 feet used for horses, and one large bara 120 

 feet long by bb wide, 18 feet posted, with a cellar 

 ten feet deep. 



The floor of the main bam is through the length 

 of the barn, and is nearly on a level with the eaves, 

 being entered from a long ;*cendin,i; )ilank drive- 

 way. This makes it very easy to unload hay and 

 grain as they go into deep bays each side. Instead 

 of backing the wagon out from the floor, there is a 

 simple yet ingenious way of turning it round. 

 About the middle of the barn the iloor is extended 

 out to the right. Here, on a corner post by the 

 floor, hangs a rope that is made fast to the off hind 

 wheel, and as the team backs, the hind end of the 

 wagcni swings out toward the side of the barn until 

 the horses can turn. When they start, the rope 

 still holds and the wagon is drawn into a straight 

 line from the post to the horse. The rope is then 

 cast off and the team driven out. On this .'^ide of 

 the floor is the feed cutter. The cut foeil drops to 

 the floor below, and is fed by pushing it with a 

 rake head into the mangers of the staijles each side. 



A portion of the stock are thoroughbred Short- 

 horns from animals purchased in Kentucky two 

 years ago by Messrs. Safford, Russ & Craft. The 

 btiU "Kentucky Duke," two years old, is a tine 

 one with many good points ; large size, quiet dis- 

 position. He took the first jjrize at the State fair 

 at Burlington, as a yearling. "Alice 2d" is a really 

 fine heifer. The cow "Fancy" weighed 1718 

 pounds a week after calving. "Nellie Grant" bred 

 by Mr. S. gained three pounds per day until five 

 months old, when she weighed 618 i>ounds, and at 

 18 months weighed 11-50 pounds. 



The method of cultivation pursued is to plough 

 in the fall, as a better yield of corn lias been ob- 

 tained on fall ploughing, than when i)art has been left 

 over till spring. Thirty acres were ploughed last 

 fall. There are also ten aci'es in winter wheat. 

 The manure is worked with the surface soil and is 

 in a fine state, as the coarse fodder is cut with a 

 machine. Most of the land is hoed one year, the 

 corn crop being a leading one. Twenty acres will 

 probably be planted to corn in 1871. 



In seeding to grass, timothy and clover are both 

 used, and si)ecial effort nuide to i)ut the soil in fine 

 tilth for seeding. On two pieces the fertility had 

 been improved by ploughing in growing crops. 

 One piece of clover ploughed iu was followed by a 

 crop of wheat, twenty-seven bushels per acre. 



