94: 
AME H 1CAN AOHIO CJLT U RIST. 
[March, 
Improved Short-horns. 
We present a beautiful engraving' on another 
page of a group of Short-horns taken from life. 
From lime immemorial the counties of Dur- 
ham and York produced a race of fine, large 
cattle, the rows being famous as deep milkers. 
From these sprung the Teeswater breed, and it 
- from this original stock, grazing in the luxuri- 
iiil meadows watered by the Tees ami its tribut- 
aries, thai the Short-horns come. The name 
■• Durham," or "Durham Short- horn," was early 
attached to this breed, bul by consent of the 
principal breeders, ii lias been dropped and that 
of Improved Short-horn universally accepted. 
The breed, a- ii is, owes its celebrity, in fact its 
excellences, in a great measure neither to the 
Tees' pictures, nor to the breeders of Durham — 
but all England has contributed to the one, an 1 
distinguished breeders of various parts of the 
tingdom have from time to time increased the 
other. The characteristics of the Short-horns 
have doubtless been borne by the slock of the 
best breeders in the section where they originated 
for i great number of years, bul it was not until 
towards the close of the last century that they 
came to have such prominence among; cattle 
breeders as their merits deserved. Early in the 
present century they were imported into this 
country, ami from that day to the present have 
gained in favor with all breeders. The benefits 
winch have already accrued to this country from 
the use of Short-horn bulls upon our common 
cows arc beyond estimate. They have increased 
Hie size, rapidity of growth, and fattening qual- 
ities of our stock, thus improving the beef and 
cheapening its production. They have improved 
our milch stock also in a very marked degree. 
Iu breeding for general purposes — beef, milk and 
labor — wherever the soil is rich and the grazing 
is line, we think there is hardly a doubt that 
Short-horns are the best bulls to use with com- 
mon stock-. Now-a-days the farmer who breeds 
from either ''scrub" (that is "native") or 
grade bulls is shockingly behind the times, 
besides being blind to his own interests, 
Walks and Talks on the Farm.— No. 51. 
McAAister offered me $14 an acre rent for land 
i plant corn, provided 1 would plow it for him. 
I told him this was more than I should proba- 
bly get by planting il myself, but thai I would 
not rent because no one who lures laud for one 
crop would cultivate ii as thoroughly as it 
should be. One neglected corn crop will injure 
land vastly more than the rent comes- to. The 
weeds allowed to go to seed would affect the 
land for years. Our plan is to sow barley after 
corn, and wheat after the barley. Look at the 
barley stubbles, and in five cases out of six you 
will see them covered with weeds. These weeds 
frequently reduce Hie following wheat crop 
ei<rht or ten bushels per acre. And in this crop 
alone you lose more than Uk: rent received for 
the land. But this is not the end of the mi- 
chief. The eiover is not as good, and when 
you plow up the land the next time the weeds 
soon threaten the very existence of the crop. 
One year's seeding makes seven years' weeding. 
'■ Do you not think you can make $14 an 
acre profit on a corn crop?" At present prices, 
yes. At ordinary prices, no. Thirty bushels 
of shelled corn per acre is a good average crop 
in this section, worth, at 75 cents per bushel, 
$3-3.50 ; corn stalks, $3.50. Total receipts from 
the crop, $38. Preparing the land for the crop, 
$3; planting and seed, $1.30; cultivating 
three times, twice in a row, both ways, $S; 
hoeing twice, $3; nutting up the corn, $1.30; 
I husking and drawing- in the corn, $4; draw- 
i ing in the stalks, Ac, $1 ; shellHh» an'd draw- 
1 ing to market, $2. Total, $23. Profit, $5.00. 
'•Farming- is a poor business." Yes, poor 
I farming is a very poor business; but good farm- 
ing is as good a business, at present price-, as 
I want, and withal as pleasant. A good farmer 
raises 60 bushels of corn per acre instead of 30 
bushels. He doubles I he crop and realizes five 
thru* the profit. His land is cleaner, and he has 
| twice the amount of fodder to feed out. and 
: makes twice the amount of manure, and this 
j doubles liis future crops and quadruplet bis 
; profits. His land is getting richer and richer, 
I while in the oihcr case it will be likely to get 
' poorer and poorer; ditto the farmer, and alas! 
alas ! ditto his family. 
"But wha! is a man to lo who is poor and has 
i poor land?" If he ha? good health, is indus- 
: triotis. economical, and is possessed of a fair 
i share of good common sen=e, he need iiave no 
doubt a? to his being able to renovate iii s farm 
and improve his own fortune. 
Faith iu <rood farming is the first requisite. If 
this is weak, it ->\ ill be strengthened by exercise. 
If you have not faith, act as though you had. 
Work hard, but do nol be a drudge. A. few 
hours' vigorou- labor will accomplish a great 
deal, and I ncoiirage you to continued effort. 
Be prtfrfipt, systematic, cheerful, and enthusi- 
astic. Go to bed early and get up when you 
wake. But lake sleep enough. A man had 
better be in bed than al the tavern or griJcery. 
Let not friends, even, keep you up late; "mni- 
: iters is manners, bin still your clth's your ellh." 
•■ But what has this to do with good farming?" 
; More Ihan chemistry and all the science of the 
; schools. Agriculture is an art and must be fol- 
lowed as such. Science will help — help cnor- 
I mously — but it will never enable us to dispense 
j with industry. Chemistry throws great light on 
the art of cooking, but a farmer'- "if'- will roast 
I a turkey better than Liebig, 
The cities arc full of young men — many of 
them from the country — who are out of employ- 
ment and arc glad to work for enough to pay their 
boar,!. They could save enough money bj 
I working on a form for a few years, to buy one 
for themselves. Bui they think it more rc- 
spectable to sell pins and measure tape. For 
my own part, I respect any man who is striv- 
ing to make an honest living by any kind of 
manual or mental labor. But I give the prefer- 
ence to agriculture, because it is in itself the 
main foun tation of our national prosperity, and 
l ause it calls intoexercise the best faculties of 
our nature. A clergyman can be a farmer 
without soiling Ids cloth. As I was coming 
home to-day n city man asked me to give him a 
ride. ''Do you live on your farm now?" he 
asked, "and how do you like it?" "Pretty well," 
I replied. After a few remarks as to the scar- 
city of water, what good sleighing we had had, 
and how warm it wasto-day, vfcc, he remarked, 
" I wonder why you would not be a good man 
to keep a tavern." It seems that he and a few 
othcrs had built a tavern somewhere and want- 
ed some one to take charge of it. " If you had 
a few hundred dollars to buy furniture," he said, 
•'you would get rich out of it." I told him I 
did not know enough to keep a hotel and that 
Hiked farming-. '-But." said he, -'you could 
have a farm there, though I have known a good 
many fanners who went to keeping tavern that 
soon run the thing into the ground !" 
Xow, all this was intended to be very com- 
plimentary. In his eyes a tavern-keeper was 
considerable of a man, and in return for givins 
him a ride he wished me to go home with the 
comforting assurance that there was one man 
at least who thought I was fitted for something 
better than a farmer. It is to be feared that T 
did not thank him with that degree of warmth 
such kind intentions deserved. He will doubt- 
less conclude that " these farmers are a boorish 
set; they don't know enough to be polite." 
One of the best farmers I ever knew used to 
say that he never remembered a season of 
drouth that was not followed by heavy crop- 
the next year. The reason, in his case, doubt- 
less wasthat he. a vailed himself of the dry weath- 
er to culiivate his land thoroughly, and kill 
weeds, and of course better crops followed. 
But aside from this it is highly probable that a 
drouth enriches land by causing more water to 
rise from the subsoil, and, as it evaporates. I lie 
plant food which it contains is left near the sur- 
face. The country needs a heavy harvesl this 
year, and we may reasonably hope for ii. After 
the snow goee away the laild will turn tin su- 
perbly. I presume the West will pul in an im- 
mense area of spring grains and corn, and as 
the markets of the world are bare, and witli the 
present premium on gold, there is a fair chance 
for remunerative prices. What our agriculture 
nee ds is more capital, but as long as 5-20's bring 
in 9 per cent, there is little prospect of money 
being invested in farming operations. We can 
at all events, however, put in such crops as we 
do sow or plant in good order, and can subdue 
the weed- wherever the cultivator can be used. 
This alone would increase our crop- enough to 
nay all our taxes, high as they are. 
The trouble is that nearly every farm needs 
more or less draining, and till this is done, we 
lose half the benefit we should otherwise get, 
from manure and good tillage. The system ad- 
vocated in Draining for Profit, of making a plan 
of all the draining necessary on a farm, and do- 
ing (lie work at ouee, is undoubtedly the most 
economical, but few of us have the necessary 
capital. Mr. Swan, whose farm adjoins John 
Johnston'-;, underdrained iu this systematic 
manner, and the cost was much less than ^Jr. 
Johnston's. The farm contains 344 acres. It 
is high, rolling land, b:u Hie ridges are full of 
springs, the waterfrom which saturates the low- 
er portion-. Most people would say that such 
high land did not need draining, but the crops 
told a different story. The first year after Mr. 
Swan bought the farm the wheat yielded only 5 
bushels per acre. He then commenced to un- 
derdrain, stopping al! other operations. He 
put in only six acres of wheat the first year, 
and this was on thoroughly drained land. It 
produced more wheat than he got from forty 
acres the previous year. \\> did pretty much 
all the work in two years. The drains were 
dug by contract at 12 l |a cents per rod; laying 
the tiles and filling the drains with plows cost 
3 cents per rod ; average cost of tiles and cart- 
age, 13 cents per rod ; total cost, 28'|« cents per 
rod. There an over sitty-one miles of under- 
drains on the farm. The hills proved to be 
wetter than the valleys, and after the work was 
clone it was found necessary to put an extra 
drain between the other drains on the hiils. 
Tie-y are now about 27 feet apart on the high 
land and double that distance on the low land. 
The drains are from 8'|. to 3 feet deep. The 
whole cost was about $19 per acre. Al the 
present time it would probably co-t from $25 
to $00. Where a man has the capital it is 
doubtless best and cheapest to drain the whole 
firm in this systematic manner, but most of us 
