204 



THE ILLIISrOIS FA^HnSlER. 



BAILHAOHE & BAKER, Publishers. 



M. li. DUNLAP, Editor. 



SPRINGFIELD, DECEMBER 1, 18C0. 



This number of the Farmer closes the 

 work for the year 1860. To us the connec- 

 tion has been a pleasant one, and to the pub- 

 lishers one of profit, to us a labor of love, to 

 them a successful business transaction. Un- 

 der these pleasant feelings of the past, and 

 the bright prospect of the future, we close 

 this volume, and commit it the care of our 

 friends. That it has faults, vie arc aware, 

 but we trust that they are more of omission 

 than of commission. "When we took charge 

 of the Farmer, we had as much business 

 on our hands as we well knew how to man- 

 age, and we have had to snatch the time 

 from other duties, and to occupy all of our 

 spare time. Had it not been a labor of love 

 we certainly should not have undertook it; 

 nor would we continue in it. But when we 

 consider the kindness and uniform courtesy 

 that we have experienced during the year 

 now so near the close, we are encouraged to 

 go forward in the good work, and to labor to 

 advance the work in the great field of pro- 

 gress. 



The year 1860 has been a bright year for 

 tbe farmer. Good crops and good prices 

 have gone hand in hand, to lift him from 

 the depression to which the two past years 

 of bad crops had sunk him. Good health 

 has been a constant source of enjoyment du- 

 ring the year, enabling the farmer to perform 

 a large share of labor. When the spring 

 gave such bright promise his thoughts par- 

 took of the hope held out, and nerved his 

 arm for labor. The summer's sun and the 

 summer's rain verified that hope, in the lux- 

 ury of teeming fields, which the autumn 

 gathered in triumph. It is true that a po- 

 litical cloud has gathered in our horizon, 

 but we hope that it will vanish like the 

 morning mist, to no longer disturb the com- 

 merce of the West with its portentous 

 gleamings; but if, instead of this, it should 

 swell out into vast outline, we should not 

 stop in our onward progress. If armies will 

 be formed, they must have bread. If cavalry 

 are wanted, horses will be in demand. If 

 hot heads will fight, let them do so at their 

 own expense. The peaceful cultivation 

 of the soil is all that we ask; but we have no 

 dark side of the picture in our mind's eye ; 

 but instead, we look to a growing demand 

 for our great staples at the South. Our 

 corn, our pork, our wheat, our potatoes and 

 our hay, will find a ready market in the cot- 

 ton States, and in return, we need sugar and j 

 the tropical luxuries, aud we hope the day 



is not distant when wc shall need cotton to 

 to supply great factories that shall be built 

 up in our midst. 



Our railroads are doing a good business in 

 both freights and passengers, and every de- 

 partment of business has prospered during 

 the year. If the prospect of war has de- 

 ranged the currency, it must soon disappear, 

 and while we see little to discourage, we 

 see see much to encourage us to con- 

 tinue in the discharge of our duties, to 

 build up homes around which the affections 

 of the family will cluster, and where we 

 can sit down at the banquet with love as the 

 presiding genius. The destiny of our State 

 is a high one; the prairies are the last, best 

 gifl from the bosom of the heaving deep, 

 rich in all the elements of fertility, but they 

 need the hand and the genius of man to 

 carve them out into thousands of happy 



homes, from whose hearthstones shall go up 

 a nation's worship. 



••• 



Manures. 



All of the eastern agricultual jour- 

 nals teem with articles on the subject of 

 manures, compost heaps, mucks, liquid 

 ai:iplication8, etc. Many of the readers 

 of these papers, wonder that so much 

 space is occupied with these subjects, 

 they do not recollect that continued 

 cropping will exhaust any soil; even the 

 bed of the lake at Holingpolder, in Rol- 

 led, that had been drained, gave out 

 after half a century, under what was 

 called a fair system of culture, but with- 

 out manures, and new layers of bottom 

 soil had to be brought up. The Valley 

 of the Mohawk so long celebrated in the 

 history of wheat culture, and whose soil 

 is river drift of great depth, is no long- 

 er a wheat growing district, the ele- 

 ments of wheat having become exhaust- 

 ed to the depth of the plow. Our soil 

 is somewhat analagous, being dilulval in- 

 stead of river drift, but of much greater 

 depth, not of uniform quality, but in 

 layers of 'various material brought from 

 long distances and widely different points. 

 We have not as yet reached the same 

 points in wheat culture with our eastern 

 friends, but when the same number of 

 years have passed over our farm crop- 

 ping, we may begin to talk of manure 

 with as much of correctness as they now 

 do, unless we begin in time to ward 

 off. 



At an early day, farmers' stables on 

 the Mohawk were often placed on the 

 banks of the small streams that came 

 down from the hills, so as to throw the 



manure into the stream to be easily rid 

 of it, the same reckless system is prac- 

 ticed here whenever the opportunity 

 occurs, or it is allowed to waste in heaps, 

 to fill the air with the gasses instead of 

 being on the land where even now our 

 virgin soil can appreciate its value in a 

 greater return of farm products. Corn 

 is most essentially benefitted by its use, 

 next comes the grasses. Manure, unless 

 pure from the horse stable, has great 

 aflBnity for moisture, and on being mixed 

 with the soil holds moisture like a 

 sj)onge, hence, in dry seasons and in 

 well drained ground it has a mechanioal 

 as well as a chemical value. On potato 

 lands it is supposed to induce the rot, or 

 at least to increase its virulence. To 

 avoid this, pasture land or second sody 

 is preferable for this crop. 



Here, in the great corn zone, we need 

 it on our fields ; where the practice is to 

 feed the crop On the ground, the system 

 of manuring is good, but now we are 

 changing the old system of stock feed- 

 ing to a mixed husbandry of grain and 

 stock, and in this case, we must return 

 to the soil what we take from it. The 

 farm of Capt. J. N. Brown is remarka- 

 ble for its rich blue grass pasture ; the 

 secret lies in the amount of manure, that 

 has been put upon it by stock feeding, 

 and spread over the surface by the drip- 

 pings of cattle. If blue grass pasture 

 is so largely benefitted by manure the 

 mow grass feeders such as corn, flax, 

 hemp, barley, may be considered as fit 

 subjects of its influence. But manure is 

 not to be applied indiscriminately to all 

 crops, especially in a crude state. The 

 plowing under of a heavy crop of clover 

 for wheat is of advantage, while an ap- 

 plication of stable manure plowed un- 

 der, would not do at all, as it would en- 

 danger the crops by giving too rank a 

 growth of straw, but to the corn crop, 

 manure is always acceptable in any 

 condition, and in almost any quantity; 

 so of the turnip, cabbage and beet 

 family. The small grains follow on a 

 second crop after the application of ma- 

 nure to good advantage. In the north 

 part of the State, the application of ma- 

 nure is becoming general, and is largely 

 increasing the average acre product of 

 both the corn and small grains, at the 

 same time the farms are richer instead 

 of becoming poorer. We are now hav- 

 ing a new drain upon the resources of 



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