1864. 



THE ILLINOIS FAEMEE. 



m 



BAKEE & PHILLIJrS 



FUBLISHESS. 



M. L. DUNLAP, KditoT. 



SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, JUNE, 1864. 



Thus far May has been a favorable month for 

 the farmer, and this time of writing (May 23d) the 

 work is in good state of forwardness. On Saturday 

 21st we drove into the country several miles and 

 was astonished at the amount of corn planted, 

 thousands of acres of which was cleverly up. Far- 

 mers have been put to their utmost, and every 

 member of the farmer family are busy. Women or 

 little girls of twelve to fifteen years old do the 

 check-rowing, or rather, working a check-row ma- 

 chine, for we did not see a single field that wag 

 check-rowed so as to work the corn both ways. — 

 The two horse cultivators do the work so thorough- 

 ly that cross working is not required. Rolling 

 and harrowing is becoming more and more popular, 

 and although the land is not cloddy all roll who 

 have the time or the implement. We saw one man 

 who had listed his land ; that is, plowed out the 

 old corn hills, or "cut and covered," as it is called 

 at the East. He dropped the corn from a small 

 pail hung on his left arm, while with the left hand 

 he led his team with a harrow, dropping the corn 

 between the two furrows, thrown near together by 

 the listing, and thus covered the seed and smooth- 

 ed down the surface. In this way he could list 

 about four acres a day, and would probably drop 

 and harrow in six ; that is, with five days' work 

 would get in twelve acres. This man had no one 

 to help him but will put in at least sixty acres with 

 one team, his plow, harrow and tin pail. 



Spring wheat and oats look well ; of the latter a 

 large breadth is sown. There is considerable rye 

 but little wheat ; corn is the great staple. Many 

 large farmers have laid their lands down to grass 

 and intend to ship the hay. At the present high 

 price of hay for shipment they will make money. 



A New Plow. —John Deer, of Moline, the vete- 

 ran plow maker, has sent us for trial one of his last 

 cast steel plows, patented July last. 



After several weeks' use in all kinds of plowing 

 we deliberately pronounce it the most valuable 

 plow that has come into our hands. We congrat- 

 ulate our farmers that they now have a plow supe- 

 rior to the Hartford cast steel plow, made in and 

 for the West. The fault with all Eastern plows 

 made for the West is that they are too heavy and 

 clumsy. In this new plow we have all the light- 



ness simplicity and ease of drop of the Moline steel 

 clipper, with a durability added that render the 

 rowing parts of great value. The shoe, landside 

 and mouldboard being of the best quality of csst 

 steel, it is impossible to clay them in any soil when 

 the plow is in proper order. We hav^some land 

 that from continued deep plowing in which the 

 steel clipper (cast steel) would not scour, but in 

 which the new plow turns a most beautiful furrow. 



The Moline steel clipper is the standard among 

 plows, and the nearest possible approximation to 

 it by other makers has been aimed at, and their 

 success has been in proportion to their skill in imir 

 tation. Mr. Deer should go one step further and 

 mount his new plow on wheels, when we will h^ve 

 all that is desired in a plow. 



The castiug of plows from cast steel must mark 

 a new era in plow making, which will result in a 

 more durable implement, and one that will scour 

 in all soils, besides cheapening their cost. It must 

 be evident that it will cost less to cast than to 

 forge a plow. The Hartford cast steel plow has 

 become popular from its durability and should 

 have come into more general use, but the high 

 price at which it has been held and its great weight 

 — two stumbling blocks in its way, both of which 

 are removed in the new patent of Mr. Deer. 



This plow IS admirable for all kinds of work, 



such as old land, second sod and meadow lands, a 



wheel coulter and gage wheel enabling it to do 



good work in all turf land except raw, impastured 

 prairie. 



*•• 



Culture of Corn. — Up to this date, May 20th, 



we have planted 20 acres of corn at the following 

 cost : - -■. ■ ; ' 



Use of land fioo 00 



Ten days' plowing last autumn 30 00 



Three days' cultivating with Stafford's 



Cultivator .' 9 00 



One and a half days' planting 4 50 



" " " boy to assist. 1 00 



Three and a half days' harrowing 10 50 



One and a half days' rolling 4 50 



Three bushels seed corn 3 00 



$162 50 

 or $8 12i per acre. 



The three dollars a day is intended also to cover 

 the use of implements. We need not say that the 

 land is in fine order, for every farmer knows that 

 it cannot be otherwise. 



We intend to continue these figures to show 

 the actual cost of our corn crops. 



We are putting in twenty acres of corn on spring 

 plowing. We have now spent but a trifie over a 

 day to the acre with our corn ; had we a planter 

 attached to our roller we would have made a sav- 

 ing of six dollars in labor and had the work just 



