254 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July, 
Walks and Talks on the Farm.— No. 115. 
Last year the wheat crop of Western New 
York was t lie poorest we have had since I have 
been on this farm ; and Ibis year it is worse than 
it was last year. That which was sown early 
is badly injured by the Hessian-fly; and that 
which was sown late is thin and poor. 
Farmers are thoroughly discouraged. Said 
one of my neighbors to-day: " I hail calculated 
on getting five or six hundred dollars for my 
wheat, but I shall not get much more than the 
seed." 
" You farmers must be getting rich,'" said a 
city friend, " wiili wheat at $2.25 per bushel, 
potatoes at $1.15, and hay $32 per ton." 
"Yes," I said, " farming is a splendid busi- 
ness. Don't you want to buy a farm ? Farming 
is not a monopoly. It is not patented. This 
is a free country. If you think we are getting 
rich you will find plenty of farms for sale." 
But to be serious, taking the city view of the 
matter, farmers, in this section at any rate, 
ought to be doing better than they are. There 
are two main reasons why we are not making 
money. First, the extreme fluctuation in 
prices; and second, the low average crops 
per acre. 
There i3 no remedy for the fluctuation in 
prices. It depends on causes beyond the con- 
trol of an individual fanner. It is not caused 
to any great extent by "middlemen," or speeu- 
lators, or railroad monopolies. It depends on 
the great law of supply and demand. All that 
these men can do is to aggravate the evil. By 
refusing to buy when the supply is large they 
may depress prices to a point far below the cost 
of production ; and by refusing to sell when 
there is a scarcity they may force an article up 
to an exorbitant rate. But this is all that they 
can do. Instead of wasting our energies in try- 
ing to remedy this evil, it is better to accept the 
fact that it has always existed and always will 
exist, and act accordingly. The real remedy is 
for a farmer to adopt a fixed and definite system 
of management, and stick to it. At this time 
last year potatoes were not worth here 25 cents 
a bushel, now they are worth over a dollar a 
bushel. Taking one year with another, the 
crop, in favorable localities, can be made profit- 
able. Make up your mind about how many 
acres it is best to plant on your farm, and plant 
no more nor no less, no matter what the price 
may be. And so with wheat, barley, corn, 
oats, and other crops. And the same is true in 
regard to raising pork, mutton, wool, beef, but- 
ter, cheese, etc. Adopt a system, and stick to it. 
These articles will always be wanted, and will 
bring prices, in the long run, in proportion to 
the time, labor, skill, capital, and intelligence 
required to produce them. 
The other reason why farmers are getting 
such inadequate compensation for their labor is 
the low average yield per acre. The remedy 
for this is, to a considerable extent, under our 
control. We must farm better. It is the large 
area of land under cultivation and the low 
average yield per acre that is the chief cause of 
all our troubles. A favorable season floods the 
markets with produce which can hardly be 
given away; an unfavorable season causes high 
prices, but we have nothing to sell. A good 
farmer would have a fair crop even in an unfa- 
vorable season. If I had been a good farmer I 
should have had 200 bushels of potatoes pet- 
acre; hot as it was, I had not a hundred bushels 
per acre — and many of these were too small to 
sell. For the good potatoes I got $1.06 per 
bushel, and if I had had 200 bushels per acre, 
and ten or a dozen acres, I should have had no 
reason to complain of hard times. As it is, I 
say, "The weather was so dry that my potato 
crop was a failure." But, in point of fact, I 
know that this is not the exact truth. I had a 
bad crop because I am a had farmer. If I was 
a good farmer I should have had a good crop in 
spite of the drouth. This I know, because on 
one row manured for mangels, but planted with 
potatoes, I had a large yield of large potatoes. 
"That is all very well," says the Deacon, 
" but where are you going to get your 
manure?" 
"In your case and mine, Deacon," I said, "it 
is doubtful whether we can afford to buy any 
fertilizer except gypsum. We shall have to 
make our own manures. We must make more 
manure and of better quality. To do this, we 
must either buy more grain, bran, oilcake, etc., 
to feed to our stock, or we must raise more 
food to feed out on the farm. The better plan 
is to do both. We must drain our land — " 
" Draining is all very well," says the Deacon, 
"but what has it to do with making manure?" 
The Deacon plays shy of the drainage ques- 
tion. He lias a quantity of low, rich land that 
is so wet that it could not be plowed until June. 
I wanted to tell him that if that land was 
drained it could be cultivated with half the 
labor, could be sown in good season, and would 
produce more than double what it does now, 
and consequently enable the Deacon to produce 
double the amount of manure. Draining, bet- 
ter tillage, and irrigation are the means we must 
look to for growing larger crops and making 
more manure. We have to get the manure out 
of the soil, :ind when we have got it we must 
be careful not to waste it. 
I sent half a bushel of Diehl wheat last fall 
to E. F. Jackson, of Des Moines Co., Iowa. 
He writes me that it does not seem to he as 
hardy as their own wheat. "The seed," be 
says, "was the nicest I ever saw. It came up 
well, and I covered the land with stable manure 
and still it froze out." The truth is, that choice 
wheat, like choice stock, is not as hardy as in- 
ferior kinds. Mr. J. says that nearly all their 
wheat is winter-killed "except a lit tie now and 
then on a hill-side sloping south, or well pro- 
tected with timber." On the other hand, Mr. 
F. K. Adams, of Wisconsin, writes that his 
winter wheat is till killed except a small patch 
" lacing the north." I apprehend that it depends 
more on draining and on the fertility and 
condition of the land and on the period of 
sowing than on the exposure. We must aim to 
get the plants strong and vigorous before winter 
sets in. I do not mean that we must sow early. 
This may or may not be desirable. But the 
real point is to get the land free from stagnant 
water, and at the same time have it rich enough 
and moist enough and mellow enough to give 
the plants a good start. 
We talk about raising "wheat enough for the 
world," but our own population is increasing so 
rapidly that the lime will soon come when it will 
tax our skill to raise wheat enough for ourselves. 
We shall do it, of course, but we shall have to 
farm better than many of us do now. And he 
is the wise man who is getting his land cleaner 
anil richer. 
M. A. B., of Illinois, says ne would like to 
know " if plaster N a manure?" Certainly it is. 
Anything that will increase the growth of a 
crop is manure. Tillage is manure. " We 
have used plaster here in Illinois," he says, "on 
young corn, and could not tell where we put it; 
while in the State of New York, when I used 
to put plaster on corn I could tell to a row by 
the color of the plants where the plaster was 
used." On black, rich, moist soil plaster rarely 
has any beneficial effect. " Would a field," 
Mr. B. continues, " which had plaster sown on 
it every year, and the crop all removed, bold its 
own longer than if plaster was not sown ? or, 
does plaster simply make the plant-food of the 
soil more available, and must we put on manure 
to keep up the fertility ?" That is it. If plas- 
ter will increase the crops, use it. Then feed 
out the crop, or at any rate the increase, and 
return the manure to the soil. Plaster so used 
will make the land richer. But to use plaster 
to grow larger crops, and then sell the crops, 
will make the laud, sooner or later, poorer. 
A young farmer wants to know the relative 
nutritive value of hay, straw, and corn. It de- 
pends so much on circumstances — on the kind 
of stock and on digestion — that I can give no 
satisfactory answer. Of nitrogenous matter 
and available carbonaceous mailer: 
Nitroaenous 
Matter. 
Available 
Carbonaceous 
Matter. 
100 lbs. 
100 11)9 
moths 
100 lbs 
meadow-bay contain?. 
wheat-straw contains. 
clover-hay contains. . 
Indian-corn contains. 
b\i lbs. 
a 
1354 " 
10 
46^ lbs. 
84 
38 
85H " 
My young friend can figure out how much 
corn lie would have to add to a mixture of 
clover-hay aud straw to make the feed equal to 
meadow-hay, bearing in mind, however, that 
our animals, as a rule, object to being fed on 
chemical principles unless you mix plenty of 
grain with them. The chemists are correct 
enough, but they do not sufficiently consider 
the question of digestion. For my part, I am 
satisfied that we can feed our animals in this 
section cheaper on clover-bay, straw, and In- 
dian-corn than on timolhv-hay and oats. 
This spring we were feeding the farm horses 
chaffed clover-hay and corn-meal, moistening 
the hay and mixing the meal with it. We got 
out of clover-chaff, and it was over two weeks 
before we could conveniently cut any more, and 
so we fed long timothy-hay with corn-meal and 
bran. The horses manifestly did not do as well 
on this as on the chaffed clover. This was so 
obvious, that we gave them oals instead of meal, 
but even then they did not do as well as on the 
clover and corn-meal. So far this is strictly in 
accordance with chemical principles. I suppose 
horses driven at great speed on the road would 
do better with oats and timothy, but for the 
slow work of the farm the clover and corn-meal 
are better — and certainly far cheaper. 
I told you, I believe, that, the Deacon ha3 
adopted one of my ideas. He is feeding his 
cows a couple of quarts of corn-meal per day 
while at grass. The effect he says is wonderful. 
I have strong hopes of the Deacon yet. I tell 
him he will adopt another of my crotchets — 
that of mixing say half a pint of corn-meal in 
a pail of water for the horses when they come 
home from work at noon ; hut he shakes his 
bead, and is expecting soon to hear that I have 
lost a horse or two from colic. 
Dr. St iles, of Texas, asks me some questions 
in regard to the management of thorough-bred 
piirs. "My young thorough-bred Essex pigs," 
he writes, "are two months old. Is it time to 
wean them? I have fed them myself, lliree 
times a day, since they were three weeks old, 
