334 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Septkmbek, 
"medium clover." This is the opinion of many 
experienced fanners in Western New York, 
while others who have tried both, prefer the 
ordinary variety. Bat the truth is that the old 
practice of sowing clover merely (or the purpose 
of plowing under, is almost entirely abandoned 
in that section. The land is kept in clover 
two and sometimes three years, and then as 
much of it plowed under as can be spared. Nine 
farmers out of ten prefer the medium variety. 
Walks and Talks on the Farm— No. 93. 
The sharp advance in the price of wool will 
be of great benefit to our agriculture. It will 
save the sheep iuterest. I have done all I could, 
during the depression, to persuade farmers not 
to sacrifice their sheep, but rather to weed out 
the poor ones and retain their best ewes, take 
good care of them, and breed to the best rams 
they could find. Those who have done so will 
now get their reward for their perseverance and 
common sense. There is nothing more certain 
than that a great leading product like wool, or 
wheat, corn, oats, pork, or beef, can not long re- 
main below the cost of production. And a 
farmer can not make a greater mistake than to 
abandon wool-growing, or wheat-growing, or 
beef or pork growing, during a period of tem- 
porary depression, and of engaging in some- 
thing that for the moment happens to be paying 
unusually well. Every body will now rush 
into wool-growing. Pork and beef are low, 
and thousands of farmers who have been en- 
deavoring to improve their stock of hogs or 
cattle, will now neglect or sacrifice them; 
whereas the wise farmer will hold on to his 
stock and continue to improve it, and by the 
time the tide turns, as turn it must, he will be 
ready to avail himself of the increased demand 
for his products. A year ago this spring I 
bought potatoes to feed pigs at ten cents a 
bushel. This spring they were worth $1.50, and 
yet we had abetter yield last year than the year 
before. The price was so low in the spring 
of 1870 that farmers planted far less than usual. 
Take one year with another, that farmer 
makes the most money who pursues the even 
tenor of his way uninfluenced by the fluctu- 
ations in the price of his products. It may be 
said that this is plodding work, calling for little 
intelligence and no enterprise. But this is a 
mistake. There are abundant opportunities 
for the exercise of skill, intelligence, patience, 
perseverance, industry, enterprise, and every 
thing that makes a man. A farmer had far 
better occupy his thoughts and his energies in 
determining the best method of enriching and 
preparing his land for potatoes, and how to 
plant, cultivate, dig, and market them, rather 
than in worrying, unsatisfactory, and uncertain 
speculations as t» whether *Ve crop will or will 
not be largely grown and command a low or a 
high price. Like other men, a farmer has only 
a certain amount of energy, and his success de- 
pends very much on its judicious and economi- 
cal employment. The less of it there is wasted in 
useless anxiety and worry, the more will there 
be left to manage the farm. And let me tell 
yon, it requires more brains, more energy, more 
thoughtful discrimination aud good judgment, 
greater activity, tempered with prudence and 
common sense, to manage a farm properly at 
the present day, with American machinery and 
old-country help, than it does to manage a 
church choir or run the Union Pacific Railroad. 
Ton have to work yourself and keep others at 
work, to lay plans and change them half a 
dozen times to suit the weather ; to keep all 
your tools, implements, and machines in work 
ing order and in their proper place, ready for 
use at any moment. You must be diligent to 
know the slate of the flocks and look well to 
the herds, to see that they are in good health 
and are fed- regularly, to give them an occa- 
sional change of pasture and a constant supply 
of water, and (to give a bit of my own experi- 
ence) to see that the fences are in repair, and 
that the cowsdo not get into the Deacon's corn. 
I think the Deacon will beat me this year in 
corn. He drew out his manure from the yard 
this spring, aud plowed it. under for corn. He 
put on only a very light dressing, and it was 
rather coarse and strawy, but it seems to have 
done considerable good. At any rate, his corn 
looks better than mine. The Deacon thinks 
that long, coarse manure is of great benefit to 
corn from its mechanical effect in lightening the 
soil and making it warm and porous. He did 
not put enough on, and it was not sufficiently 
decomposed to do much in furnishing plant- 
food to so vigorous and rapid-growing a crop 
as Indian, corn. I think the Deacon, too, for 
once cultivated his corn better than I did, and 
I am inclined to believe that this is the main 
reason why his crop is better than mine. We 
both planted in hills this year, so that the man- 
ner of planting could not make the difference. 
If I had the time I would try to raise a superior 
variety of Diehl wheat. All things considered, it 
is, for this section and on dry, rich, clean land, 
the best kind of white wheat yet tried. But it 
varies greatly in character. In the first place 
it is almost impossible to get it pure, and even 
the pure Diehl wheat itself, and, in fact, the 
different kernels in the same head, vary greatly 
in quality. The plan to adopt is to take a num- 
ber of the finest heads of Diehl wheat that caii? 
be found, and from thegc select the best ker- 
nels — such kernels as an experienced miller 
wants, to make the choicest flour. Sow these 
kernels, and next year repeat the process, 
selecting out the best, and continuing the prac- 
tice until the desired quality is fully established. 
I would myself give five dollars a bushel this 
year for absolutely pure Diehl wheat, but my 
plan contemplates far more than this. I want 
il not only pure, but the best specimens of the 
breed. Halleck's pedigree wheat has proved a 
failure, but this was due to the fact that he 
aimed at quantity rather than quality. What 
we want is not so much a wheat that is capable 
of producing a large yield per acre. We al- 
ready have varieties that are capable of pro- 
ducing more wheat per acre than the available 
plant-food in the soil will support. In other 
words, so far as quantity is concerned, our va- 
rieties are better than our soil. It is no use 
getting a variety capable of yielding 50 bushels 
per acre, and sowing it on laud not rich enough 
to grow twenty-five bushels. Our climate is 
better than our farming. The person, there- 
fore, who proposes to improve a variety of 
wheat iiad better aim at superior quality rather 
than at great productiveness. If he can secure 
the former, the latter will depend principally on 
the condition of the soil. 
One of my neighbors had a field of low land 
that has been little better than a swamp ever 
since it was cleared. He cut an open ditch on 
one side of it, and then laid a few stone drains 
across the field, which discharge into the open 
ditch. It was not by any means thorough 
drainage; so far from it, indeed, that it was 
deemed desirable to plow the field into lands 
only about four yards wide, and leave very deep, 
dead furrows to carry off the water. Last fall 
lie sowed the field with Diehl wheat, and he 
had the heaviest crop of wheat I have seen this 
year. The straw was about five feet high, and 
stood up stiff and straight, and was as bright as 
could be desired; and, notwithstanding the 
mucky character of the land, the clover had 
taken finely. I have rarely seen so great an im- 
provement at so small an expense. But the 
truth is, these low, swampy lands, abounding 
in organic matter, are of such a porous nature 
that an underdrain will dry the soil to a far 
greater distance than it will on ordinary up- 
land. If a good outlet can be secured, one or 
two open ditches, three or four feet deep, with 
a few underdrains, would render many of these 
swampy fields the best land on our farms. 
Mr. John S. Bowles, of Ohio, writes me as 
follows: "I see that you advocate a peculiar 
system of raising swine, which entirely meets 
my approval, only that I do not see how it is 
possible for a farmer to follow it for more than 
one year. You say, get good, coarse brood 
sows, Chester White or Magie, put them to an 
Essex boar, and the pigs will be splendid, even 
superior to thorough-bred Essex. So far, all 
right; but what am I to do next?" Do the 
same tiling over again, or, better still, select a 
few of the largest, healthiest, and most vigorous 
sow pigs, obtained from the first cross, and put 
them to a thorough-bred Essex. You will, judg- 
ing from my own experience and observation, 
get as good pigs for common purposes as a man 
can hope to see. If sows from this second 
cross are bred to an Essex boar, the pigs would 
make splendid "jointers" at four months old, 
or might be profitably kept nine or ten months 
and fattened for pork. For the latter purpose 
I do not think I should want a larger infusion 
of Essex blood. But for what the London 
butchers call "jointers," that is, pigs three or 
four months old that dress from 60 to 70 lb-., 
another cross or two of Essex blood might be 
desirable. 
I do not happen to know of any really 
thorough-bred animals of any kind, cattle, 
sheep, or swine, that I should consider as 
profitable to raise solely for the butcher as ani- 
mals having a dash of common blood in them. 
And the reason is that the perfection of an ani- 
mal that is kept solely for the purpose of put- 
ting on flesh and fat in the shortest possible 
time is not the perfection of a breeding animal. 
Early maturity is obtained at the expense of 
ultimate size and longevity. Bakewell's Lei- 
cester sheep, which, so far as early maturity, 
lightness of offal, and fattening qualities are 
concerned, have never been excelled, and which 
have done so much for English sheep and Eng- 
lish farmers, have themselves become extinct. 
They did their work and did it well, and then 
disappeared as a distinct breed. It will be so 
with Essex swiue. They will, if pure-bred, re- 
fine every breed they are crossed with, and in 
time they will cease to be needed. Fur my 
part I am willing to avail myself of them so 
long as they will improve our common race of 
hogs, without speculating as to their fate in the 
future. There are over thirty million pigs in 
the United States, and it will take some years 
to bring them to perfection. There is room 
enough, and work enough, and occasion enougll 
for all good breeds of cattle, sheep, and swine 
in this country. They are all needed. There is 
no breed that is absolutely best everywhere. 
There is plenty of room for the so-called Chin-', 
Poland, or Magie hogs, as well as for the Ch<-.- 
