372 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
and pick over the whole of the rows with the 
fingers, — a back-breaking, tedious task. Then 
the spaces between the rows must be hoed out 
by hand, because the plants were too small and 
delicate for the rough work of a dirt throwing 
horse-hoe. A fortnight later the sides of the 
rows must be carefully hand-hoed again, and 
some horse-cultivating tool put through the mid- 
dle spaces. At this cultivation the rows must 
be thinned out, and it was almost impossible 
to make the men leave the strongest plants 
standing, and allow sufficient intervals between 
them : — at least a foot, and better 15 inches. 
Early in July another hand-hoeing of the 
rows was necessary, and the horse-hoe found 
work enough as long as it could be run without 
injuring the crop. The labor was enormous; 
and the growth on heavy land was checked by 
the hardness of the soil that the repeated hand- 
ling of the rows occasioned. 
I now do otherwise, — as follows : — The field 
on which the crop is to be grown is put in the 
same condition, at the same time, as though it 
were to be sown, and is left bare. The seed is 
sown in small seed-beds, in rows a foot apart, 
the land having first been made rich and fine. 
When it begins to grow, the rows must be 
hand-weeded, and the whole carefully hoed. 
This requires no more labor than an equal 
length of row in the field. After this, all that is 
needed is to keep the seed-bed clean, and its soil 
loose — no thinning is necessary. As fast as 
weeds appear in the field, it is cleaned with the 
harrow at a slight outlay. Just beforo planting 
time — say the last of June — it has a tlwrough 
harrowing with a Shares' harrow, to make it as 
fine and smooth as possible, but it should not be 
plowed, although this would better loosen the 
soil. The repeated harrowing will have killed 
all weeds whose seeds have lain within grow- 
ing distance of the surface, but plowing would 
bring a fresh lot of seeds within the germinating 
range, and make work for the future. For 
planting, I use six hands (three would do half as 
well) — two to draw the plants from the seed- 
b(jd, two to drop them along the rows, these 
may be boys, and two to pick them up and 
plant them. 
Plants are selected which are at least as thick 
through as a man's thumb — if they are as large 
as a lien's egg it will do no harm — and they are 
trimmed to a length of about six inches, say four 
inches above the crown and two below it. This 
removes the tap-root and all the leaves, the stems 
of the leaves remaining for a handle. In this 
work the plant pullers are helped by the drop- 
pers, until the rows are marked out. This is 
done by the two planters who commence at one 
side of the field, but at opposite ends, stretching 
a garden line between them, and making its 
ends fast close to the ground. They then walk, 
toward each other, treading on tlie line until they 
meet, then they turn and go to their starting 
points. Each has a stick thirty inches long to 
measure off the distances, and the line is moved 
to the new position, hauled taut, and trodden into 
the ground as before. The subsequent rows are 
marked in the same way. This plan has the 
advantage of being very expeditious and per- 
fect. The impression made by the line is easily 
seen, and the marking is absolutely straight and 
at correct intervals. When an hour's work has 
been laid out, — a supply of plants having in the 
meantime been brought to the field, stacked up, 
with the heads all one way, and covered with 
mats or blankets, — the planting commences. 
Small hand-baskets are packed with rows of 
plants, and carried by the droppers to the end 
fit the row. These men walk backward, and 
lay down the plants one by one at intervals of 
about 15 inches along the lines, with the tops to- 
ward tlie left Imnd of the planters who follow 
them. Each planter has a dibber in his right 
hand. He (1st) takes up a plant with his left 
hand, (2d) makes a hole with his dibber, (3d) in- 
serts the plant, and (4th) drives his dibber again 
into the soil by the side of the plant, striking the 
point toward tlie lower end of the root, so as to 
pack the earth closely about it. The whole 
operation is done with these four movements, 
and he passes on to the next plant. A good 
hand will set out 20 plants in a minute, which 
is at the rate of 12,000 in 10 hours. Making am- 
ple allowance for interruptions, any clever 
workman will set out 6,000 in a day. My fore- 
man, who was nine years with Peter Hender- 
son, and is on his fourth 3-ear with me, will set 
out 9,000 plants a day, besides marking the rows 
and bossing the job. Any man will plant as 
fast as an equally good man or boy will drop, and 
the delay, if any, usually comes from the pullers. 
After the plants are out, the field need not be' 
touched until they are well established and 
have a good set of leaves. Then a horse-hoe or 
a one-horse subsoil plow may be run through 
the spaces, and the rows betwsen the plants 
may be stirred up with a pronged hoe. There 
is absolutely no finger work to bo done, and the 
field may be gone over with less work than 
would be required for the second hoeing of a 
field of drilled corn. Enough plants may be left, 
in the seed-bed to make a crop, and if the land 
is equahy good, these roots will not be nearly so 
good as the transplanted ones. 
Ruta-bagas may be treated in the same way. 
Round turnips will not bear removal. The se- 
cret is to have the plants so large at planting 
time, that the substance of the root will be able 
to furnish moisture and nutriment to start the 
new roots and leaves. Now let us make a cal- 
culation: — An acre will require, at 30 inches by 
15 inches, about 14,000 plants; the seed-bed will 
produce, say ten plants to the square foot, so that 
five square rods will raise the plauts for an 
acre. Again, in an acre planted as above, there 
are about 17,500 feet of row. In a seed-bed of 
five rods, (at 12-inch intervals), there are about 
1,400 feet of row, so that by this plan we save 
the finger-weeding and the baby-hoeing of about 
13,500 feet of row, tosay nothing of the infinite- 
ly greater facility with which, (owing to the 
killing of weeds by the harrow,) the crop may 
be kept clean, nor of the increased production. 
Objection is usually made to the labor of 
transplanting, but this is absurd. An average 
green hand will plant a thousand feet of row in 
the time it would take him properly to do the 
first finger-weeding, or the final thinning out of 
a hundred feet of seeded row. 
If I were obliged to fix on any one principle 
as the foundation of successful farming, I should 
take that of a just proportion between tlie dif- 
ferent departments of the farm organization. 
Nothing is more common than to sec, among 
those who are striving after improvements, a 
great want of balance between one part and 
another of their establishments. Farming is 
a composite business. It is like an army ad- 
vancing on parallel roads, where the only 
chance of success lies hi a simultaneous attack 
by all the columns. If one is forced in advance 
of the others, it is defeated for want of support ; 
and the others in their turn are defeated for 
want of the help that it might have given — the 
army is " whipped in detail." There can be uo 
success in farming, or at least no such success 
as we all should strive for, unless, a true balance 
is kept up between laud, labor, stock, and 
management. He who adds a hundred acres 
to his farm without increasing the number of 
his hands, the amount of his stock, and his in- 
telligence and attention in managing the busi- 
ness, probably does himself harm; — if it is pas- 
ture-land that he buys, and if he uses it for sum- 
mer slock, or if it be woodland, the case may be 
changed ; but on general principles, if the farm is 
enlarged without an enlargement of working fa- 
cilities, the work must be carried on at a disad- 
vantage. Very often, indeed, a farmer wakes 
up to the idea that the kej'to all success is to be 
found in manure; and he devotes himself most 
energetically to its procurement, sending his 
men and teams to town to haul out night-soil at 
a season when they should be busy with plow- 
ing, planting, or cultivation. Manure he has, of 
course, and his land is made rich by it; but for 
want of proper care and management, the rich- 
ness spends itself in the production of weeds in- 
stead of crops, and what would have been a 
source of great profit, with an addition of more 
men and more teams for home work, has been a 
losing business. Another may believe that his 
best chance for improvement lies in the employ- 
ment of abundant labor ; and he hires more men 
and teams than with his general facilities he can 
profitably employ, or more than he has the head 
to manage. Another, again, pins his faith to 
livestock of the finer breeds; and he bivys ex- 
pensive animals beyond his capacity for feeding 
and grooming. All of these men lose money, 
and all for the same reason. The}' give undue 
prominence to one branch of a business in which 
the growth of all the branches should be uniform. 
I write this not from theory, but from experi- 
ence. I have probably saved time by the course 
that has been pursued here ; but had I known as 
much two years ago as I now do, I would have 
bought more manure to use immediately after 
draining the land, and would have had more la- 
bor to enable mo to make use of the fertility, the 
drainage and manure would have given. I have 
maintained a pretty fair balance between the 
items of manure and labor, but by having more 
of both, I could have taken much earlier advan- 
tage of the capital invested in underdraining. — ■ 
Neither my experience nor a general statement 
of the principle can bo of direct value as a guide 
to any other farmer, — but they ought to be 
most profitably suggestive to every man as he 
walks over his farm and makes his plans for fu- 
ture operations. For every load of manure, let 
there be suitable land allotted, and for this land, 
let there be duo facilities for the most profitable 
cropping. If land is expensively underdrained, 
let it also be thoroughly manured and cultiva- 
ted. If fine stock is bought, let good food be 
provided for it, and let it be well attended to. — 
In short, let no part of the whole establishment 
fail to do its very best because some other part 
is defective. As soon try to ride a race with a 
lame-legged horse as to make your fortune by 
working a lame-legged farm. Every one of us 
is suffering to-day from this "want of balance;" 
let us all look sharp after the weak spots, and 
establish as much uniformity as we can, so that 
every dollar invested may bring its yearly ten 
cents of profit. If there is any better test of good 
farming than this, I have failed to discover it. 
In keeping up the balance, let us not forget our 
own heads, which are the most important part 
of the whole outfit. A good farm, with a bad 
manager, will "beat the dogs" at losing money. — ■ 
Ruskin says, "It is only by labor that thought 
cau be made healthy, and only by thought that 
labor can be made happy" — let me add that no 
labor can be happy that does wot pay. 
