DISCUSSION OF FARM MANAGEMENT 



91 



necessary, to plant hedges and shade trees for the 

 purpose of protection against wind and storms. 

 Usually it is not desirable to have many hedges 

 around the fields ; and, although shade trees are 

 necessary in the pasture, it is not best to distribute 

 them over the field, but to have a group of trees in 

 one corner or in some spot which takes little of the 

 tillable land and does not interfere with the farm- 

 ing operations. 



As regards drainage and irrigation ditches, the 

 natural lay of the land will determine largely 

 where they must be placed. In every well-regulated 



Fig. 130. Plan of farm before (below) and after (above) lay- 

 ing out into regular fields; also plan for rotation of crops. 

 (Figs. 130-133 by Professor Wilson of Minnesota.) 



farm a careful survey should be made and a thorough 

 system of drainage established, so that the surface 

 water may be readily removed from the yards and 

 fields and carried to the natural drainage channels, 

 and not left where it may damage the land and 

 growing crops and form cesspools for the breed- 

 ing of diseases. It is desirable in some sections of 

 the country to build artificial ponds and lakes for 

 catching the drainage water. Such places should 

 not be made the wallows for cattle and swine, but 

 should be surrounded with dry, grassy banks and 

 kept clean and wholesome, otherwise they may be- 



come the breeding places for injurious germs and 

 thus the source of disease. 



A map of the farm. 



An outline map of the farm is valuable and 

 handy. It may often save steps in the directing of 

 workmen and others to different parts of the farm. 

 On a very large farm a map is almost a necessity. 

 By means of a set of outline maps, very condensed 

 records of the cropping of the different fields on 

 the farm may be kept each year. The map should 

 be large enough to note not only the crops growing 

 on each field, but the dates of planting and harvest- 

 ing, yield per acre, date of plowing, and other 

 records of importance. A better plan still is to have 

 a map small enough to be bound in book form, 

 introducing with each map several blank pages on 

 which the notes relating to each field may be writ- 

 ten. Sueh maps may be readily printed at small 

 expense from a zinc etching prepared from an orig- 

 inal inked line drawing. 



The several figures and diagrams here shown 

 illustrate what is meant by the map of the farm. 

 It is simply an outline drawing showing the divi- 

 sion of the farm into fields, the location and plan of 

 the building site, the location of lanes and roads, 

 and the natural features which need notice, such 

 as the groves, streams, draws, and the like. A 

 careful survey of the farm will have to be made 

 in order to locate properly the points and objects 

 which need to be noted on the map. The map 

 should be drawn accurately on a small scale, an 

 inch to 50 or 100 feet. Almost any bright boy or 

 girl, having exact measurements and distances and 

 the area of the fields, with a little help can draw 

 a map of this kind. 



Soil management. 



In the management of the farm, the handling 

 of the soil is of the greatest importance. It is 

 impossible to grow good crops on the same field 

 year after year, except by thorough tillage and 

 cultivation, the addition of fertilizers and the 

 proper rotation of crops in order to maintain the 

 fertility of the land. It has been truly said that 

 "tillage is manure" to the crop. The plant-food 

 of the soil is largely In an unavailable condition, 

 and is made available for the use of plants only by 

 the action of physical and chemical agencies. The 

 presence of air and moisture is necessary that 

 decomposition and chemical change may take place, 

 by which the Insoluble and unavailable plant-food 

 elements are made soluble and available to the 

 plants. Thus, tillage and cultivation, by aerating 

 and pulverizing the soil, and by the conservation 

 of soil moisture, make favorable conditions for the 

 development of bacteria, hastening the processes 

 of decomposition and chemical change which make 

 the plant-food available. 



Simple tillage, however, will not maintain the 

 fertility of the soil. It becomes necessary finally 

 to replace the plant-food, exhausted by the contin- 

 uous growing of crops, with the application of 

 manure or chemical fertilizers or by the rotation 

 of crops, in which the legume crops, such as alfalfa 



