18 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[J.U^UART, 
Walks and Talks on the Farm. 
NO. 25.* 
The Genesee Farmer. — Cily Farmers. — Wandering Farm- 
ers. — Mtckie. — Sows killing Pigs. — Improved vs. con- 
mon Swine. — Grease/or Wool. — Dairr/mg versus Sheep- 
rnising. — Roots and Cabbages /or Coics. — The Doctor's 
Si/stem of Feeding.^Soft Corn. — Farrow Cows. — Root 
Cellars. — Hens on a " Strike.'^ — Sheep's Liver /or Poul- 
try. — Draining High Land. — Money invested in Farm 
Improvements. — Wide Sheds /or Animals. — Improv- 
ing Old Buildings, — Loss o/ Majiure and Hon' to Save 
It, — Barns, Skcds, aud Barn-yards. 
" So you have really sold the Farmer" writes 
John Johnston. " Many will be sorry. Will it 
be continued and shall you write for it ?" 
I never knew our venerable friend come so 
near a compliment as this ; for like all sensible 
men he never flatters. After all, you see, he 
does not say that Jte is sorry. 
The Oencsee Farmer, as such, will not be con- 
tinued ; it has been united with the American 
Agriculturist. I shall continue to write for the 
Genciee Farmers, ho'n-eYer, just the same. The 
thought of writing for the Agriculturist with 
its " hundred thousand subscribers and half a 
million of readers" may be pleasant enough to 
those who arc accustomed to it, but I confess 
that it makes me feel a little nervous. I shall 
try to think that I am writing for the Genesee 
Farmer, and if all our old friends take the 
Agriculturist we shall get along as pleasantly 
as usual. "We may be considered plain country 
people, but — in these times ten thousand good 
Genesee farmers and fruit growers are not to bo 
despised. Let us go in a body, and the editors 
and proprietors of the Agriculturist at least will 
give us a hearty welcome. 
" There are many city people who take the 
Agriculturist ? " Yes, there are many thousand 
copies sold each month in New York alone. 
But what of that; these city gentlemen teho 
Iwce a taste for agriculture and horticulture, are 
about the most interesting and agreeable people 
I ever met. They are so delightful!}' enthusi- 
astic, and like to talk over their successes and 
failures in cultivating their laud. With farmers, 
agriculture is an old stor}', aud when you meet 
them they seem to prefer to talk politics rather 
than about what is doing on their farms. But a 
city man rather likes to be considered a farmer. 
He has often the genuine love for agriculture, and 
sighs for the pleasures of country life. Of course 
there are those who affect this, now that farming 
is becoming fashionable and I should not be 
surprised if, in their desire to be thought farm 
ei-s, some city upstarts should wear homespun 
and dirty boots. In London, a century or so 
ago, a machine was invented for spattering 
gentlemen's boots with mud, and for a penny 
you could be converted into a countr}' gentle- 
men who had ridden into town I This was 
much cheaper than keeping a horse. And some 
New York fashionable tailor could get up a 
suit of farmer's clothes for far less than it would 
cost to live in the country. 
* eS" These ''Walks and Talks" are continued fiom 
the Genesee Farmer, which is now merged into the Agri- 
culturist. We have at the Agriculturist Office the stereo- 
type plates of the Genesee Farmer and can supply the 
yearly volumes for eight years past, beginning wiih 1558. 
Price per volume $1.-5 if bound. $1, if in numbers. Sent 
post-paid at the same price. The volumes for IP64 and 
1865 contain the first twenty-four " Walks and Talks," of 
which we here give No. 2.^. These articles are narratives 
of actual experience nn the farm. 
A man called to see me to-day who wanted a 
job at chopping by the cord. He was a Cana- 
dian farmer and quite an intelligent looking 
man. I asked him what brought him over here. 
He said, a neighbor told him that in the oil 
regions he could get ^') a day, and as this was 
more than he could make on his farm, he con- 
cluded to rent it and started for ' Pithole City !' 
" But he deceived me ; when I got there I could 
get nothing to do, and board was $10 a week. 
So I started home again, but thought I would stop 
here and chop this winter if I can get a chance." 
It is passing strange that so many farmers are 
willing to leave their homes to engage in some 
improbable scheme for getting an easier living. 
If a man has been so unfortunate as to settle in 
a swamp where there is no chance of drainage 
he had better pull up stakes and leave. But 
in almost every other case he had better stay 
where he is and " fight it out ou that line." This 
man had left a wife and family, because he 
thought he could make a little more money, and 
here he is, wandering about, losing his time, and 
only anxious to get something to do. He is 
willing to live in a shanty in the woods and 
board himself How much more comfortable 
he would be at home, and even if he should get 
a little more for chopping, he will find that, 
after deducting his -travelling expenses and his 
loss of time, he would have done far better to 
have stayed at home. In this country, wages 
cannot be much higher, all things considered, 
at one point than at another. It may be the 
case for a short time at some place, but the fact 
soon becomes known and men rush there like 
air into a vacuum and wages find their level. 
A year ago au Irishman informed me he had 
a friend in Ireland that wanted to come to this 
country, who could do all Idnds of farm work. 
I told him to come directly here and I would 
pay him all he was worth. He came and went 
to work without loss of time. He was a faith- 
ful fellow, and I gave him $15 a month and his 
board, whicli I thought good pay for a raw boy 
not over eighteen. But Mickie had a cousin in 
" Chickago," as he called it, who wrote him 
that he could get $3 a day ; and though I en- 
deavored to explain that though he might get 
such wages for a short time, the probabilities 
were that during the winter he would be thrown out 
of employment, and that he would make more, or 
r.ither s.ave more, by staying here, he concluded to 
leave. Poor Mickie. He is like till the rest. He 
did not know when he was well off. He has gone 
to " Chickago." 
Mickie loved pigs and tookcaplt.'^l care of them. • 
He met me at the gate one night as I came home 
from the city, and I saw from his excitement that 
something unusu.al had happened. " The sow has 
got ftewt little pigs, and such beauties!" A happier 
man than Mickie was not to be found in the town 
of Tates. He wanted everybody to see his Suffolks. 
It was a proud day for Mickie. But alas for human 
joy. Next morning Micl^ie bad to tell me that one 
of the little pigs was dead. " Oh well, never mind, 
ten is enough; they will do all the better." But 
the next night another was gone. The sow had 
lain ou it. " Tou should not have fed her so much ; 
she is too fat." The next moruing Mickie was 
sadder than ever. "The old baste has killed .an- 
other," he said. " Well, we must put a stop to it." 
Sows kill their pigs not by lying on them, but by 
crowding them against the sides of the pen. We 
put some poles round the inside of the pen, about 
one foot from the hoards, so that the sow iu lying 
down could not crush the little pigs .agaiust the 
sides, and we liad no further trouble. It is a simple 
preventive, aud did not take half an hour's work. 
Mickie had acquired one good trait on the Irish 
farm where he had been brouglit up. He had been 
taught to do things at stated times ; his hast request 
to his successor was : " Be snre you clean out the 
pigs and give them fresh litter every Monday morning. 
The doctor has often spoken to me about a re- 
markable pig he has, and to-day I went to see it. 
He has two pigs that he purchased last spring from 
different litters. One is a nearly thorough bred 
Suffolk, and the other has nothing but common 
blood in his veins. They are of the same age, .and 
both h.ave had the same food and treatment ; and 
yet the Suffolk is nearly or quite a.i heary agai7i as 
the other! Having been fed in the same pen, no- 
thing could more forcibly illustrate the value of 
good breeding. I think it will weigh 500 lbs. The 
doctor was not at home, but he has an intelligent 
"contraband" who does the honors of the establish- 
ment, and is evidently proud of the pig. " The 
Doctor can get a hundred dollars for him, Sah." 
" I guess not, Solomon ; pork is down, aud if every- 
body fed pigs as well as you do, it would stay 
down." But even if he brings only $75, he will 
pay well for the " pudding " and milk he has eaten. 
" By the way, Solomon, how do you make this 
'pudding' that the Doctor speaks so highly of? " 
" I put a quart of corn meal into a pail, and ponr 
some boiUng water over it aud stir it up." 
" How much water ? " 
" About half a pailful. It gets qnite thick, yon 
know, Sah, and we fill up the pail with milk to 
cool it before giving it to the pig'^." 
Few farm products command a higher price or 
are more profitable th.an good butter. In 1861 but- 
ter was sold in Rochester for 10c. a lb. ; now it 
brings 50c. At that time, aud for a year or two 
afterwards, nothing was talked about but sheep. 
Cows were neglected. I urged farmers in the grain 
growing districts to pay more attention to the 
dairy. It is a safe rule to do just what others are 
not doing : to buy when others sell, and sell when 
others buy. Sheep paid better than cows a few 
years ago, and everybody wcut Into sheep hus- 
bandry. The papers were full of sheep. Books 
were published on the subject, and wo had soon a 
full blown mania in regard to American Merinos 
and heavy fleeces. It will not be long before we 
sh.all look back in astonishment at the blind cre- 
dtdity which seems to h.-ive seized even intelligent 
farmers. We shall have no such maina iu regard 
to cows, for the simple reason that there is no par- 
ticular breed that it will pay to get up an eseitc- 
meut about. We have sheep that will produce 
fleeces weighing 25 pounds, twenty pounds of which 
is worthless matter, but which, for a time at least, 
sold as wool. Had we a breed of cows that would 
give five pounds a day of something that would 
sell for butter, but which cout.ained only one pound 
of the real article, we shoidd soon have .an excite- 
ment that would equ.al in intensity the severest 
form of the sheep fever. 
But fortunately we have no such breed ; .and we 
may now safely feed our cows as much food as they 
can tnrn into milk, with the certainty that the but- 
ter will more than p.ay for the little exti-as that can 
be given them. There is nothing so good as cab- 
bages to keep up the flow of milk during the early 
part of winter ; aud for Liter use beets and m.an- 
gold wurzels are invaluable. Of course, you want 
to feed some grain with them. Considered merely 
in relation to the amount of nutriment they con- 
tain, they are usually worth more to sell in the 
cities .and villages, th.an they are to feed out on the 
farm. But fed with corn meal they give tone to ■ 
the system, .and en.able the cow to extract more 
butter from the meal and hay, or corn stalks, than 
she could do without some such succulent food. 
The Doctor adopts a good system. He has only 
four or five acres of land, but he manages to keep 
two cows and feed a couple of pigs with consider 
able profit aud with no small degree of satisfaction. 
He makes pets of all his animals, .and usually en- 
joys seeing them eat. He studies their comfort and 
nothing disgusts him so much as a farmer whose 
stock is exposed to cold winds and driviug storms. 
I 
