Proceedings of the FAFJfEns^ Club. 239 



unhealthy growth, insect ravages, and diminisliecl average crops. I am 

 tired of this poor-mouthed croaking. One "would think from the tenor 

 of our modern papers that the present farming community are a mis- 

 erable set of thriftless blockheads, and that even our wives could not 

 make a cup of coffee or cook a steak. The trutli is our system has 

 doubled and trebled the produce of Chester, Delaware, and Kew 

 Castle counties, and advanced the price of land from eighteen dollars 

 per acre to $150 and on upward. That system is generally practiced 

 in these parts to-day, and is founded on a seven-field course, first : 

 Corn, with lime applied in quantity, and manure as suited the fancy 

 of the applicant, mostly forty bushels per acre, spread the fall pre- 

 ceding. Second. Oats, barley or potatoes, or all of them, followed 

 in the fall by wheat, with all the manure that could be made on the 

 farm and seeded to grass, which was often allowed an annual dressing 

 of one and a half bushels plaster per acre, until that field^s turn came 

 again for corn. Some farmers had other resources than the barnyard 

 for manure, but the great improvement of this section of country 

 has been effected under this system of culture, and by men nearly 

 all advocates of deep plowing. Yet oui' best famis are only 

 plowed eight inches deep, and this depth has been gradually 

 acquired. There are many of 'us, who are fast growing to be old 

 farmers, that remember the sedge grass and rabbit fields of our boy- 

 hood, which being brought under this process, are now the finest 

 green grass pastures, and produce from fifty to one hundred bushels 

 of corn per acre. True, this system was established by our fathers, 

 and in the old fogy times, but it has resulted in many thousand com- 

 fortable, and even elegant homes, churches, schools, mills, shops, &c., 

 all built up by this shallow system. For this reason the Club-should 

 pause before adopting friend Greeley's recommendation, to turn this 

 immense tract of highly productive soil upside down two or three 

 feet under ground. Now I never wrote where there was danger of 

 being printed before, but if thee would like to see the proof of these 

 things, write me a note and I will attend to it, and if thee comes, I 

 will show thee a broad extent of well-cultivated country, an acre or 

 two of old sedge grass yet, and some fine farms owned by men who 

 started life as farmers as bare-handed as hands are made. 



Mr. N. C. Meeker, says that Mr. Greeley is misunderstood. Last 

 week he decidedly said that a farmer should start with eighteen inches 

 of fertile soil as a capital, and he expressly disclaimed advocating the 

 turning of barren subsoil to the surface. 



