1867.1 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
407 
turned at all, the one would be well rotted, and 
in fine condition to put on the land, while the 
other would most likely be lumpy, with some 
parts heated too much, and others not fermented 
at all. Now then, if you should make a spas- 
modic effort to get this last heap into good con- 
dition, and should turn Hover a few days before 
you wished to use it, three times or even sis 
times, do you suppose the heap would be as 
fine, and as well rotted, and as rich as the other"? 
So far as enriching the land is concerned, stir- 
ring it over three or four times in as many days, 
does comparatively little good. Such treatment 
may be necessary to get the land ready for the 
seed, but by doing the work all at one time, you 
lose one of the chief advantages of working the 
laud. It should be understood that decomposi- 
tion or oxidation in the soil or in a manure 
heap is a kind of slow combustion. Now, any 
good housewife who bakes in an old-fashioned 
brick oven proceeds in strict accordance with 
scientific principles. She turns the fire from 
one side in the oven to the other, and thus ex- 
poses the black embers to the air, and when 
there are all aglow, she exposes another por- 
tion. If she should neglect to do this till the 
bread was all ready, and then should knock the 
fire back and forth half a dozen times in as 
many minutes, she would exhibit no more 
sense than her husband, who is, with plows, 
harrows, and cultivators, trying to get his laud 
ready for wheat in a hurry. In heating the 
oven, the fire heats the opposite side from that 
on which the wood is placed, and so in the field 
the effect of working the land is not felt wholly 
on the first crop, but on those which follow. 
Cultivating corn benefits the crop. This is not 
all ; its effects will be felt for two or three years. 
The Doctor says, he "never knew a man to sell 
his farm who did not regret it." This is perhaps 
staling it a little too strong. But being one of 
the oldest pastors iu Western New York, he has 
had good opportunities for observation. I think 
men engaged in other pursuits, who buy farms, % 
expecting to find nothing but pleasure and pro- 
fit iu agriculture, are generally very glad of an 
opportunity to dispose of them. Such men sel- 
dom regret selling. But with a farmer the case 
is very different. He either sells because he 
thinks he can buy a better or cheaper farm, or 
because he is tired of farming, and proposes to 
live in the city. In the latter case he is almost 
certain to wish himself back again on the farm. 
I heard of such a case the other day. A farmer 
was offered last spring what he thought a high 
price for his farm, and accepted the offer, think- 
ing he could live comfortably in the city on the 
interest of the money. After trying it six or 
eight months, he offered the purchaser $1000 to 
let him have the farm back agaiu, giving him 
the summer crops and the wheat into the bar- 
gain. A farmer who sells expecting to buy an- 
other farm, finds it not so easy to suit himself as 
he expected. If you must sell the better plan is 
to know beforehand where you are going. 
Like some of the other editors of I he Agri- 
culturist, I have been enjoying a rather long 
vacation the past summer. I look it at home 
— in the "stump lot!" We have had aright 
good time, pulling up slumps, piling old logs, 
tearing up the bushes, and making lots of bon- 
fires. We have cleared about twenty-five acres 
of land tliat was chopped over fifteen or twenty 
years ago, aud which has been allowed to run 
pretty much to waste ever since. It had never 
been plowed, and probably never seeded. The 
drier portions afforded good sweet pasture, but 
not much of it. The low, mucky parts were 
occupied almost exclusively with tall, rank 
weeds, sedge, rushes and logs. It was a rough 
looking place to take a plow and team into, but 
we managed to strike out a couple of furrows 
and then worked on both sides of them, remov- 
ing stumps, rotten logs, etc., and piling them in 
heaps on the plowed land. I believe I knew 
what a "rolling hitch" was before ; at all events 
I do now ! But my performances did not es- 
cape good-natured criticism from some of the 
old settlers. It was said that I should bum up 
all the land, and even the Deacon thinks the 
new ditch I am digging through it, from the 
creek, " will drain the creek instead of the land." 
There may be some truth in this. But what of 
it ? The only outlet for the water is the creek. 
It can go no where else, and if when the creek 
is high the water flows on to me, when it low- 
ers it will flow off rapidly. It will not be as 
stagnant as it was before the ditch was dug. I 
have burnt some of the land— did it on purpose. 
I had* three acres of the roughest land, where 
it was almost impossible to turn over the tough 
sod, and where the plow pulled up the old 
sedge roots and much soil into heaps. I set fire 
to the whole thing and the "burnt district" is 
now the smoothest laud in the field. " But will 
it not spoil the land ? " I think not. " Paring 
and Burning " is an old practice for enriching 
land. Hundreds of acres are burnt, or charred, 
every year in England. At all events the land 
produced nothing of any value before, and it 
can scarcely be any worse now. I have sown 
the drier portions of the field to wheat, sowing 
Timothy seed with it, and the rest I have sown 
with Timothy alone, at the rate of a peck pet- 
acre. The work could doubtless have been 
done better,' but at Ml events it is done. And if 
I had let it lie as it was for another twenty 
years, it is not probable that I should have done 
it then to the entire satisfaction of every passer- 
by. The whole, I think, has not cost me over 
$10.00 an acre, and if the drier portions of the 
land produce a fair crop of wheat, it will more 
than pay the whole expense, and I am mistaken 
if the low laud will not yield some tall Timothy. 
This low land was in front of the house, and 
was an eyesore. There were three or four 
" knolls " in the field, but they were hid by 
brush. Since we have pulled up the bushes 
and cut down some of the young trees, this ris- 
ing ground comes into view, and the whole field 
seems to have risen up tenor fifteen feet! I 
dare not tell an old farmer so, but between you 
and me I think this effect as viewed from the 
front piazza is worth at least $20 a year, or 
more than the interest on the whole cost, A 
fine view has a cheering, invigorating influence 
on any man who can appreciate it. It gives 
tone to the mind. A farmer, more thau most 
meu, needs pluck, faith iu himself aud iu nature, 
and above all patience. He must wait for re- 
sults, and while doing so it is important thai 
his surroundings should be as pleasant as he 
can afford to make them. A cheerful, healthy 
location, is of more value than a fine house. 
" I thought you advocated small farms and 
thorough cultivation," said a visitor some time 
since, in a tone that implied a doubt as to my 
consistency. "Thai field of corn," I replied, 
"has been cultivated ten times. Is not that 
thorough cultivation?" "Yes, but you have a 
i farm." " That depends upon circumstances. 
A ' truck ' grower near New York, who funis 
ten acres enough, would call it large, while Mr. 
Alexander, of Illinois, would call it a mere pad- 
dock for young calves, to run and graze in." It is 
a mistake, however, to class me with those who 
indiscriminately advocate small farms. I have 
never said that it was better to have a small farm 
than a large one,provided you have sufficient cap- 
ital and experience. The cost offences on a small 
farm is far greater per acre than on a large one. 
The amount of land occupied by them is pro- 
portionally much greater. You cannot plow, 
harrow, cultivate, mow, or reap, (with a ma- 
chine.) to as great advantage. In cultivating 
corn on a small field, you injure a greater pro- 
portion in turning at the headlands thau you 
would in a large field. One of my Dutchmen, 
to whom I was paying $1.30 per day, said he 
must have $1.75. I asked him how much he 
got in the old country, and, after considerable 
cross-questioning, he admitted that that he only 
received $8.00 a month and board. Now, hith- 
terto the price of many of our farm products, 
such as wheat, corn, cheese, butter, and pork, 
has been determined by the price in the Europ- 
ean markets, and we have received for them 
what they will sell for there, less the cost or 
transportation, commission, insurance, dockage, 
etc. Iu other words, we have to compete with 
the cheap labor of Europe. How can we do 
this? We have had cheap land, and we have 
been able to grow crops without payiug much 
attention to manure. This is still true of a con- 
siderable extent of country in the Western States 
at the present time. But as compared with the 
States on the Atlantic, this advantage is in part 
counterbalanced by the expense of transporta- 
tion. Much of our land is now no richer or bet- 
ter in any respect than that inEurope. We shall 
have to manure as highly- as they do, pay at 
least double the wages, and sell our produce iu 
the same market. True, we have cheaper laud, 
but this is in part counterbalanced by a higher 
rate of interest for money. The only advantage 
we have is that we make our labor more efficient 
by the use of better tools, implements, and ma- 
chinery, directed by active and intelligent men. 
We cannot use machinery to its fullest ex- 
tent and with the greatest economy on a small 
farm. We shall have larger farms. The ten- 
dency is already- apparent. We may deplore it, 
and argue against it, but cannot stop it. For- 
tunately we have a country almost bouudless, 
and we can have large farms here, if anywhere. 
It is certainly far better to have a small farm 
highly cultivated than to have a large one half 
tilled. But a large farm may be cultivated as 
highly as a small one — aud at less expeuse per 
acre. In England, as a rule, the largest farmers 
are the best farmers. One of the most highly culti- 
vated farmsl ever saw contained over 3000 acres, 
aud I do not recollect ever seeing a farm of fifty 
acres or less, that would at all compare with the 
more liberally managed large farms. This is 
very different from what it is here, and one main 
reason is, a deficiency of working capital. 
Peart, the butcher, who is a close observer, 
aud has gone the rounds for a great many years, 
thinks the permanent meadows iu this section 
are rapidly deteriorating. "It will not do," he 
says, "to keep them down so long. When Ren 
jamiu bought his farm, it had been in grass for 
fifteen years, aud the meadows produced a kind 
of June grass with a little Timothy not over a 
fool high, hardly worth mowing. I told him 
the farm was not run down, only neglected. He 
plowed it up, worked it well, put on plenty of 
plaster, and now see what a lot of stuff he 
raises! I know of several such cases, and you 
will Hud, this year especially, that all the heavy 
grass is on the meadows most recently seeded." 
