:310 
AMEEICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[JUNE, 
of the shell is invariable and very peculiar. 
The birds from which the above engravings 
■were made, received prizes at the show of the 
N. Y. Stale Poultry Society in March last. 
The Rouens were bred and exhibited by Ben- 
jamin Haiues, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, and 
the Aylesburys by Geo. H. Warner, of New 
York Mills, N. Y., President of the Society. 
Grinding and Cooking Pood for FTogs. — 
Mr. F. T. Fisher, of Nashville, proposes to put 
up a small steam-engine to grind corn for hogs, 
and asks how he may make the same boiler 
cook the meal, amounting to 25 or 30 bushels at 
a lime. Six or eight pork barrels should be 
placed near the boiler, and two-thirds filled 
with water. Connect an India rubber hose at 
one end to a faucet in the boiler, and having an 
iron nozzle on the other end, which leads to 
the bottom of a barrel ; turn on the steam at 
full head. As soon as the water boils, meal 
should be stirred in until the mass is very thick. 
Cover the barrel, and leave it for some hours 
to cook. When cold, cut out the mush with a 
spade. AVhile the first barrel is receiving its 
meal, the water In the second is being cooked, 
and so on. By continuing to discharge steam 
into the barrel while the meal is being stirred 
in, the cooking will be a little more complete. 
Walks and Talks on the Farm— No. 66. 
The brethren in Ohio seem to be somewhat 
excited about my remarks in regard to the corn 
crop -which received the prize for 1868. One of 
the most influential members of the Ohio State 
Board of Agriculture writes to tile Agriculturist 
'as follows: "In your last number the state- 
ment is made that Ohio paid a premium on a 
crop of corn for 1808 that produced only fifty- 
one bushels per acre. I cannot imagine how 
the writer of Walks and Talks was so misin- 
formed. The truth of the case is, that the thir- 
teen and a half acres upon which the premium 
was paid produced 1.213 bushels of corn, mak- 
ing about ninety bushels per acre." 
This is all very true. But what I said was, 
that the field of a little over thirteen and a half 
acres produced only " fifty-one bushels of shtlled 
corn per acre." Mr. Barras' statement was that 
the field of thirteen acres and eighty-eight rods 
produced 1,213 baskets of corn, that is, of ears ; 
and that each basket of ears gave thirty-four 
pounds of shelled corn ; so that the thirteen and 
a half acres produced 41,242 pounds of corn, 
■which, at sixty pounds per bushel, is 687 2 3|«oth 
bushels of shelled .corn, or a little less than 
fifty-one bushels per acre. 
Mr. Barras further states, in a letter to the 
Country Gentleman, that he thinks five acres 
might have been selected from the field that 
would have " averaged eighty bushels shelled 
corn " per acre. Prom this it is evident that 
the whole field did not yield ninety bushels of 
shelled corn per acre. And it is equally evident 
that if the thirteen and a half acres yielded 
only 687 bushels, and five acres of the field 
yielded 400 bushels, the other eight and a half 
acres yielded only 287 bushels, or less than 
thirty-four bushels per acre. And this, mark 
you, as I said before, is the Premium Corn Crop 
of the great State of Ohio for the year of 
grace, 1868 ! 
It may be considered unkind in me to take 
Mr. Barras' own figures, and from them siiow 
that eight and a half acres of the premium field 
of corn yielded only thirty-four bushels of 
shelled corn per acre. But my object is sinioly 
to show that, while the rich lands of the West 
occasionally produce large crops, yet it will 
generally be found that there are often a good 
many acres on the farm that produce only very 
moderate crops. And the test of good farming 
is not a large crop on one or two acres, but a 
high general average. And this is the weak 
point in our farming, — not only in Ohio and in 
this State, but throughout the country. Our 
averages are exceedingly low. In a national 
point of view, and in the present condition of 
our finances, this is rather an alarming fact ; 
but to you and me, and to all others who are 
trying to farm better, and are willing to invest 
all the capital we can command in uuderdrain- 
ing and other permanent improvements, it is 
encouraging rather than otherwise. If it was a 
fact that the land of the West (wherever that 
may be) would produce large crops with little 
labor or expense, we might well hesitate before 
investing largely in draining, getting out stones, 
and other improvements. But it is not true, 
and I wish every farmer in the United States 
understood it. There are millions of acres of 
very rich laud at the West. But is it not a fact 
that on almost every farm there are parts of 
the fields that are poor, or wet, or weedy, or 
something, where the crops hardly pay for har- 
vesting. ? And that while a' few acres may pro- 
duce large crops with little labor, the yield on 
the poor spots is so small that the loss on the 
latter makes a serious hole in the profits of the 
former? At any rate, this is the case on my 
farm, and so far as my observation extends, 
nine-tenths of all our farming iand, East, West, 
North and South, is in similar condition. If 
there is a single hundred-acre farm on this con- 
tinent, or any other, that has never received any 
thing more than common treatment, and on 
which every acre produces good crops, I would 
like to know where it is. I am satisfied that 
there is, naiurally, no such farm in the world, 
outside of the garden of Eden. And I am 
equally satisfied that there are few farms that 
cannot be made such by a proper system of 
agriculture. But so long «s a man thinks he 
can find a farm that does not need draining, or 
manuring, or any particular effort lo kill weeds, 
he will make but a sorry farmer. Such a man 
called on me the other day, and he was actually 
angry because I was cutting so many ditches. 
He evidently thought that if my land need- 
ed draining, his land would also have to be 
drained; and he seemed to think that in some 
way / courted the necessity ! He believed in 
Nature, and thought the good Dame would be 
angry because I was not willing to wait until 
midsummer for the land to dry. I presume he 
thinks the reason why a common seedling ap- 
ple is not as good as a Northern Spy is owing 
to the nurseryman. But the truth is, that Na- 
ture will help us if wc will help ourselves ; but 
if we leave all the work to her alone, she will 
turn against U3. The time is come when this 
matter should be understood. American fann- 
ers work hard enough, and, taking one year with 
another, raise crops enough, but they do not re- 
alize enough profit. And the trouble is not 
altogether in the high price of labor, and the 
low price of our products. It is due in a good 
degree to using our labor and skill in a wrong 
direction. We too generally keep plowing and 
sowing the same old fields without any effort at 
improvement. I have known one of the best 
and oldest farmers in this neighborhood sow 
oats with places in the field so wet that he had 
to jump on to the drag and let the horses splash 
through the water to the dry land on the other 
side. Of course he lost his seed, and the labor 
of plowing, harrowing, and reaping. And this 
is the case year after year, and it will never be 
any better. The trouble is not in the season, 
but in the want of a little draining. When I 
bought this farm, there were ten acres of wheat 
sown. It yielded one hundred and fifty bushels., 
or fifteen bushels per acre. Five acres was on 
low, wet land, and five acres on dry, rolling 
land. The former produced not over five bush- 
els per acre, and the latter twenty-five bushels. 
The average yield was fair, and the wheat sold 
at a good price ; and if I paid nothing for la- 
bor, and worked harder, and lived more eco- 
nomically than a common laborer, I could man- 
age to get along pretty well with such crops. 
But I can hardly believe that a kind Providence 
put that five acres of wet land there where I 
must spend more labor in plowing and working 
it than the adjoining dry land in order to reduce 
my profits to the lowest point at which it is 
possible for a man to live. 
The profit from the whole field was probably" 
$10 an acre. But how was it attained ? Sa.V 
5 acres, 25 bushels per acre *250 
5 acres, 5 ' l " 50 
5 acres, plowing 
5 
.$100 
. 100 
£300 
seed, harvesting 
$200 
Profit gioo 
In other words, I made $150 from one five 
acres, and lost $50 from the other five. And 
this is a sample of thousands and tens of thou- 
sands of farms. Part of the land in a field pro- 
duces a good crop, and would, if separate, af- 
ford good profits, while the other parts produce 
poor crops, and involve actual loss. And the 
land is so situated that it cannot he given away, 
or allowed to remain hi grass or timber. It 
must be worked with the rest, and it reduces 
our profits to a minimum. 
This, it may be said, is an extreme case. I 
think not. The wheat crop of this count}', 
which is one of the best in the State, certainly 
does not average over fifteen bushels per acre, 
and if half the land produces twenty-five bush- 
els, the other half must produce only five bush- 
els. The average in Ohio for 1867 was a little 
over thirteen bushels, and in 1866 only four and 
three-quarter bushels per acre. And yet Ohio 
is probably one of the very best agricultural 
States in the Union. There is something wrong, 
and it is time we inquired into the matter. 
I have received several letters in regard to 
my remarks about putting the lines round the 
back in plowing, and all of the writers urge 
me to try the "singla line" system, as adopted 
at the West and South, and also to use left- 
handed plows. I have no doubt that this meth- 
od is much superior to ours, and I would give 
one-third more for a horse so trained, than for 
one needing to be pulled round by the line. 
But the trouble is, our seasons are so short, and 
it is so important to get the work done rapidly, 
that I am glad to let the men follow the old, 
beaten track, rather than to run any risk of de- 
lay, even by a change for the better. 
To illustrate: when I first commenced fann- 
ing, I got, at John Johnston's recommendation, 
four new Remington steel plows. Two of my 
new men liked them, but the two old hands, 
that had been on the farm for some j-ears, were 
not to be persuaded that such light, highly 
polished, dainty looking things could stand 
rough work. They might do for amateurs, but 
they "guessed they would not answer on this 
farm." And I actually had to buy some of 
the old, clumsy cast-iron concerns, that the_\ 
had been accustomed to, before I could get my 
