1868.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
407 
worth of guano, bones, or other fertilizers, would 
keep up (and in fact, greatly increase) the fertil- 
ity of the land— especially of the pastures. 
This is what may lie. Let us look at what is. 
Here is a naturally good, but somewhat run- 
down, farm of 400 acres, on which "me and my 
boys, witli two hired men and a couple of extra 
hands in harvest, do all the work." There are : 
40 acres of Wheat, lShush.p r:i. ■!■••.-.'; *-j.ui . $1,008 
20 ■• Oats, J'> '■ " ® 65c... 580 
20 " Baric v, 20 " " ©S1.50.... 600 
23 '• Com, 30 •• " ©81.00... 750 
10 '• Potatoes, 80 " •' @$1 00 800 
20 " Buckwheat. 1.". " " <■' '•' '■■ J'.'i 
11 Cows, mi lbs. bntter@35c 400 
It Calves sold hi the butcher (Tjsr '.IS 
10 Hogs, 300 lbs. @10c 800 
300 8b •!".. phearine 1 Ihs. wool ifi-Tie I-'" 
lid Lambs sold to the hutcher (0 S-'.">n 150 
80 \ i ■- li iv. I.", cut. per acre, <Ti SUo per ton '.Hill 
40 lores Clover hay, 1 ton per acre, @$10 4im 
40 Acres Clover seed, 1 bush, per acre, ®S 820 
3 Acres apples and cider 
Expenses. 
"Meand two boys," snv % 150.00 
2 Men, s months and hoard 600.00 
Extra help, thrashing, etc 400.00 
Half of the hav. corn, and oats, fed to I , ~- m 
In.i'-e-. pies etc., on the farm. j-i,wo.w 
Incidental expenses, repairs, etc 1.500.00 
Seed, 80 bushels Wheat, @$3.10 168.00 
50 bush il Oats 65i 32 50 
to bushels Barley, @$1.E0 80 00 
'■ 100 bushels Potatoes, ®$1.00 loti.in 
7 bnshels Corn, @$1.00 I 00 
111 bushels Buckwheat '.i in 
10 bushels Clover, @$S,00 80.00 
10 bushels Timothy, @$3.0U 30. 00 
.-? I.'. ill .r.n 
Profit $2,654.50 
This is apparently quite a respectable profit, 
but the farm is getting worse and worse every 
year. L md in the neighborhood is worth $150 
an acre, naturally no better than this. This 
farm would lie dear at $100, and if "me and my 
boys" continue to sell the hay and let what little 
manure there is made run to waste, how long 
will it be before it is worthless than $75? This 
man thinks I am mining myself because I spend 
nearly $8.00 an acre every year on my farm for 
labor, and perhaps I am; but my land is getting 
that much better every year, and his is getting 
that much worse. It is desirable to get along 
with as little manual labor as possible, but it 
certainly will not pay to neglect the hind and 
let the weeds get full possession, as they now 
threaten to do on many farms. Let us drain 
the land, cultivate it thoroughly , make plenty of 
rich manure, and farming will pa}-. If we can- 
not do this on a large farm, let us sell and buy 
a smaller one, until we have the capital re- 
quired to manage the farm to the best advantage. 
One of our nurserymen sent a man to Michi- 
gan to buy sheep to fatten this winter. He 
bought 400 good wethers, three and four year- 
old, that average about 95 lbs. each, at a cost 
here of $3.10. His object is to make manure. 
He gets about a load of manure Co a sheep, 
worth $4.00 or $5.00. He has adopted this plan 
three or four years, and his land already shows 
the effect. lie thinks it, far better manure than 
that which he draws from the city. I told him 
if he would use oil-cake instea 1 of corn the ma- 
nure would be richer still. There will be a 
great many damaged beans this year, which, if 
not mouldy, can be fed to sheep with advantage. 
And the manure from beans or peas is nearly as 
rich as that, from oil-cake. 
We have not bad such bad weather for har- 
vesting beans for four years. I have usually 
pulled the beans and placed them in small 
heaps on the ground, and if we have dry weath- 
er, this answers very well. I did so ibis year, 
and the day after we finished pulliug, it com- 
menced to rain, and rained more or less nearly 
every day for a week. "We turned the beans as 
often as possible, but many of them moulded 
ami rotted, and not a few sprouted. Had I 
adopted the plan recommended in the Septem- 
ber Agriculturist, it would have been a hundred 
dollars in my pocket. Some of my neighbors 
did so, and the beans kept perfectly safe. Mine 
will have to be hand-picked, at an expense, say 
of 25 cents per bushel, or $5.00 an acre. Two 
dollars an acre would have covered the whole 
expense of stacking them, and I should have 
saved all the fodder, which is now worthless. 
•-. — ■»» — >-m. 
Deep and. Shallow Culture. 
There are many soils in the world which yield 
fairly remunerative crops, for an indefinite 
number of years, (say 99), without manure of 
any kind, and with only a modicum of tillage. 
The reason is found in the fact that these soils 
decompose very uniformly, by the action of 
plows, harrows, and weather, combined, and so 
furnish just about as much plant-food each year 
as the crops require. Some of the Black Sea 
wheat lauds are said to be of this character. Here 
wheat has been raised for hundreds of years 
without manure; the yield is very uniform and 
remunerative, though small. All tolerable soils 
contain in great abundance all the ingredients 
requisite to make good crops of grain, but they 
are not all available. By tillage, by mixing 
decomposing substances with the soil, aud by 
exposing it to the action of the weather, sun- 
light, heat, dryness, freezing, and moisture, com- 
bine to influence the decomposition and disinte- 
gration of all parts of Ihe soil. Some soils are 
much more susceptible to these influences than 
others, and so require less tillage aud less ma- 
nure to produce the effects seen in other soils. 
The more, thoroughly and the deeper the soil is 
stirred and exposed to the action of the weather 
and of manure, the more available plant-food 
will be annually produced from its disintegra- 
tion. Manure, besides, supplies any deficiency 
which may exist, and enables us to obtain much 
more nearly maximum crops. Were the supply 
of ammonia which is obtained from the air 
abundant, asufflcient amount of ash-ingredients 
could he obtained from almost any fair soil, by 
a sufficient amount of cultivation. The prob- 
lem for the farmer is, what amount of tillage he 
can profitably apply for any series of crops. 
Tillage is really of two kinds, deep tillage and 
surface culture. As a rule, the deeper the soil 
is stirred, the more will it be exposed to the ac- 
tion of the elements, and the more plant-food 
will be formed. In poor soils this is diffused 
through great masses, and for this reason avail- 
able to but few plants. For such as feed near 
the surface, (wheat, for instance), surface cul- 
tivation and manuring are usually imperative. 
Very fair plowing is six inches deep, which is 
deep enough to plow for small grains. In 
plowing for other crops, if manure is abundant, 
or the soil rich, the soil may be gradually deep- 
ened until we reach the ordinary limit of plow- 
ing — about 10 inches. We go below this with 
the subsoil plow, and simply loosen and let the 
air into the soil below, when it is plowed, which 
is an exceedingly beneficial operation, and 
equally advantageous upon shallow and deep- 
plowed land. Where deep, thorough drainage 
is practised, which virtually extends some of the 
effects sought by tillage (namely, exposure of 
the soil to the action of the air) to a depth of 
several feel, the plants quickly respond. The 
effects of Ullage, however, go on most rap- 
idly ou the surface, and here it is that it is de- 
sirable to do the most work. For surface cul- 
ture we have the harrow, in all its varieties-, 
adapted to pulverizing and stirring the ground 
to a depth of about three inches. In this coun- 
try our assortment of scarifiers is small, but in 
Great Britain and upon the Continent, many 
different kinds are used, under the name of culti- 
vators, scarifiers, clod crushers, harrows, etc., 
which are used in bare fields. The variety of 
surface workers, (horse-hoes, cultivators, etc.,) to 
be used among the growing crops, is well-nigh 
endless. These obviously serve a double pur- 
pose, and not only stir the soil, but kill weeds and 
give fresh earth to the plants, to some extent. 
Deep aud shallow tillage are not incompatible 
on the same kind. In fact, the only really 
thorough culture consists of both ; and where 
the soil is in a fair state of fertility, and will 
bear good crops of clover or corn, the system 
followed should always be deep breaking and 
shallow after tillage, with surface manuring when 
small grains aud grass form part of the rotation. 
Experiments in Wheat Culture.— Drill- 
ing, and Horse-Hoeing'. 
The Secretary of the Goodhue Farmers' Club, 
of Minnesota, communicates to the American 
Agriculturist the following interesting state- 
ment in regard to some experiments in wheat 
culture made by one of the members of the Club. 
Field No. 1.— Two bushels to the acre was 
sown with the broadcast sower and cultivator 
combined, and the seed was planted at all 
depths from the surface, to 3 or 4 inches deep. 
Field No. 2. — Was sown with a common 
wheat drill, east and west, one aud a quarter 
bushels being used to the acre, planted about 
2'|a inches deep. 
Fit 'd No. 3.— Three peeks of seed were drilled 
in, east and west, 2'| » inches deep, and 18 inches 
apart. It was cultivated but once when about a 
foot high, -with a 5-toothed walking cultivator, 
at an expense of $1 per acre. 
The results are thus stated : " No. 1 was good 
wheat, not damaged by heat, head medium in 
length, well filled, stood thick upon the ground. 
Was unequal, some straws Sand G feet in length, 
aud some only 2 feet. Some heads were very 
green while others were ripe. The yield is es- 
timated at from 20 to 25 bushels per acre. No. 2 
was of a better color during growth than No. 1. 
Very even in straw and degree of ripeness. 
Heads about even, of extra length. Bundles 
very heavy, and the yield is estimated at 30 
bushels per acre. No. 3 was extra at all times. 
Its unusual deep green color and broad leaves 
attracted much attention. No one supposed it 
the same kind of grain as lots 1 aud 2. It 
stooled out much more than either Nos. 1 or 2. 
It was uniform in length of straw and degree of 
ripeness. The heads would average one-third 
larger than No. 1, and the largest and heavies! 
wheat avc ever saw. Strangers here picked for 
the smallest heads, and then shelled from GO to 
80 kernels from each head. Our binders (and 
we had some from other Slates who had had 
much experience), said they never saw such 
large heads or such heavy wheat of this kind, 
namely, China Tea. The yield is estimated at 
35 or 40 bushels per acre." 
The Club arrives at the conclusion that they 
have been in Ihe habit of using loo much seed 
for spring wheat ; that wheat needs cultivating ; 
that if half a bushel of seed were used per acre, 
and sowed in drills 15 inches apart, and thor- 
oughly cultivated, the average crop of Wiscon- 
sin might be doubled. They recommend, more- 
over, the expenditure of the price of the seed 
saved in giving the land a more thorough har- 
rowing. In this they arc wise; there is nothing 
