112 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



bay, fifteen by forty feet, holds six tons below 

 the floor ; and as six tons more will fill it only 

 six feet above the floor, twelve tons can be 

 pitched into this one bay without a man or a 

 boy to take it away from the carter. 



One man goes up from the field with a load 

 of hay and pitches it off without assistance, 

 leaving the others to rake and prepare for the 

 next load. This makes a great saving of labor 

 in the very busiest part of the day, and when 

 there is the greatest danger of loss from showers. 

 The hay in the bay may be levelled down in 

 the morning when all hands are near by and 

 no lost steps are taken. 



Under the barn carts can be driven without 

 obstruction, going in on one side and turning 

 about as occasion requires, to carry in loam or 

 to carry out manure. A pump stands a couple 

 of rods from the barn and a trough conducts 

 the water to the trough which stands in the 

 warmest part of the cellar and seldom freezes. 



Mr. B. having eighty acres of cleared land, 

 ten of which is natural mowing, and sometimes 

 flooded, he keeps forty more in tillage and mow- 

 ing. He has two acres of orcharding which 

 he keeps constantly broken up, and no cattle or 

 horses are allowed to run in it. 



There remain nearly thirty acres of pasture 

 land, most of which he can plough. On these 

 thirty acres he summers fifteen cows or cattle of 

 some kind, and he keeps half as many hogs as 

 cows. The refuse of his dairy furnishes the 

 principal part of the food for his young hogs, 

 and he fattens his pork with Indian and buck- 

 wheat meal, potatoes, &c. He plants two acres 

 of corn and one of potatoes, never planting the 

 same plat more than once before laying it again 

 to grass. 



Four acres of his lightest soil are devoted to 

 buckwheat. And as such land is not ploughed 

 till the last of June, a green crop of weeds, &c. 

 is always turned under, and he finds he may 

 have an annual harvest of buckwheat with 

 once ploughing and without manuring. But 

 he occasionally sows buckwheat in May and 

 ploughs in the first crop to enrich the land, and 

 when he has time enough to sow again for a 

 harvest. 



This course leaves him about thirty acres of 

 upland mowing, from which he sometimes gets 

 sixty tons of hay, besides about twelve tons of 

 stock hay on his low ground. Now as he 

 breaks up but about three acres each year his 

 English mowing land would yield him but little 

 if it must rest till its turn came to be planted — 

 it would not come more than once in ten years, 

 and in that time it would be so clogged with 

 grass roots and bound out, as we call it, that it 

 would not yield half a ton to the acre. 



To remedy this evil he adopts that branch of 

 the new system which consists in turning over 

 the green sward in August, and sowing grass 



seed at once on the furrow. This saves the ex- 

 haustion which is caused by grain crops — saves 

 the expensive operation of tillage — and secures 

 large annual harvests of that most important 

 article in a cold country, the most indispensable 

 item in New England husbandry — a good hay 

 harvest. 



Mr. Brinley's cattle look sleek and handsome. 

 If they are not all Devons they have the Devon 

 color and appearance. No filth is found adher- 

 ing to their sides and flanks, and they may be 

 approached most readily in the yard without 

 subjecting the inspector to a sight of filth and 

 slime. 



Mr. B. fattens ten hogs, which weigh, on the 

 average, 4,000 lbs. This, at 6 cents, $6 per 

 hundred — gives 6 times 40 = $240. His cows 

 — fifteen— nett him $40 each,=$600. He 

 sometimes sells from 15 to 25 tons of hay in a 

 year — and this at $15 per ton — the average 

 price of hay for thirty years past, gives not less 

 than $300 more. 



Mr. Brinley keeps a couple of horses and 

 with these he does the principal part of the la- 

 bor on his farm ; though he occasionally keeps 

 a yoke of oxen, and he sometimes fattens them 

 for market. Sometimes he purchases cattle 

 from the country in autumn, keeps them through 

 the year and sells them for beef, and keeps a 

 less number of cows. 



His four acres of buckwheat give him 80 to 

 100 bushels of grain, and his two acres of com 

 yield him, on the average, 120 bushels ; and he 

 raises his own rye and oats on three acres of 

 ground that were planted the preceding year. — 

 Occasionally he raises wheat instead of rye, for 

 his own use ; and generally he makes it a rule 

 to buy nothing which he can raise on his own 

 farm — so that whether prices are high or low 

 he is not affected except in regard to the surplus 

 which he has for sale. 



From his orchard he realises a profit. Some- 

 times he sells 200 barrels ; and whether apples 

 are plenty or scarce the nett income is not so 

 much varied as the quantity of fruit. He thinks 

 he averages not much less than $100 for his 

 apples. These four items give on the average 

 from 12 to $1300 worth for sale. Then his 

 family is supported besides from the same farm, 

 and supplied not only with all kinds of necessa- 

 ries but with numerous luxuries. These are, 

 honey from his bees, peaches, pears, quinces, 

 currants, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, in 

 their season, — and grapes of various kinds that 

 give him a great supply from the first of Sep- 

 tember to the first of November. 



Then he has a pair of horses to travel with, 

 either in a wagon or in a family carriage, and 

 he has always leisure enough excepting only in 

 July when his hay harvest presses. This whole 

 farm is carried on by the labor of one hired man 

 through ten months of the year, one more in 



