1878.1 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
335 
fouled spots be sprinkled with plaster. In addition, 
it will pay to follow cattle with a few sheep, which 
will clear off the spots left by the cows. The finest 
pastures are those kept the most evenly grazed; 
and to secure this, grazing lauds should receive con¬ 
stant attention from the first to the last of the sea¬ 
son. But close cropping, by animals which are not all 
the time in the pasture, will, after a while, exhaust 
it; to provide against which, 150 to 300 lbs. per 
acre of fine bone or superphosphate, should be 
applied yearly in the fall or early spring. The 
phosphates are first exhausted from pastures; an 
average cow requiring about 100 lbs. of phosphoric 
acid in her milk yearly, and growing animals a 
large amount for their bones. 
Talks on Farm Crops.—No. 19. 
By the Author of “ Walks and Talks on tin Farm," 
“ Harris on tin Pig," etc. 
We had a trial of a new binder. After the people 
had gone, the Deacon remarked : “Well, it did the 
work better than I expected. It did not tie the 
bundles quite tight enough to suit me, but I sup¬ 
pose that can be easily regulated.” 
“ One thing is certain,” said I, “ binding by ma¬ 
chinery is an accomplished fact. There are several 
machines that do the work well. Which will prove 
to be the best remains to be seen. This one ties 
the bunches with string instead of wire, for which 
many will prefer it. Before I buy a machine, how¬ 
ever, I will wait to see if some one can not invent 
a binder that will bind corn-fodder as well as 
wheat, barley, oats, timothy, millet, etc. We have 
cut corn-fodder for several years with a reaper. 
It does the work better than it can be done by 
hand. It cuts the corn, and throws it off into bun¬ 
dles ready to be bound, and if the machine would 
also bind it, I would raise 20 acres. I would drill 
it in rows 21 or three feet apart, cultivate it thor¬ 
oughly, and cut it during hot weather—early in 
September; put the bundles into stooks, as we do 
wheat, and let them stay until well cured.” 
“Is not that,” remarked the Deacon, “easier 
6aid than done ? ” 
“No. I have managed corn-fodder precisely in 
that way, and do not wish for better feed for milch 
cows, sheep, or horses. Bat I have also had con¬ 
siderable trouble in curing and handling it. I have 
had part of a field where the crop proved every 
way excellent, and part where it was almost worth¬ 
less ; and that is not all, the poor fodder entailed 
twice the labor of the good. Why this difference ? 
Simply because one was cut in the last of August, 
and the other two or three weeks later. The one 
was thoroughly cured during hot weather; the 
other grew larger, and was more difficult to cut, 
and the weather being cooler, with more or less 
rain, it was not fully and quickly cured, and lost 
much of its color and sweetness. 
“ I have not tried it, but I feel pretty confident 
that a crop of corn-fodder, if sown early, of an 
early, small variety of corn, and cut early, can be 
cured in August or early in September, so that it 
can be put in the barn or stack. The Germans call 
it ‘Maize hay,’ and I believe it can be so well 
cured that it will keep as well as clover or timothy. 
Why not? I have corn-fodder that is to-day (July 
24th) as thick and heavy as it can stand on the 
land. It is in drills, 35 inches apart, and it is al¬ 
most impossible to walk through the rows. Now, 
if such corn-fodder is cut the first week in August, 
and tied up into sheaves as we do wheat, and put in 
rather open stooks for a week or ten days during 
one of our ‘heated terms,’ there would be very 
little more sap in it than there is in clover hay. 
Stow it away in a stack holding, say ten tons, and 
do the work during a bright, hot day ; and if you 
are afraid it will not keep, put a layer of dry straw 
between each layer of bundles of fodder, and finish 
off the top of the stack with straw.” 
“Or,” said the Deacon, “put it in the barn at 
once, and have done with it.” 
“That,” said I, “would sometimes save labor, 
but all of us have not bam room to spare at that 
season ; and if the field is some distance from the 
bam, it is quicker to stack in the field, and draw 
in the fodder when we are not so busy as now.” 
“Busy as now,” exclaimed the Deacon. “I 
hope not! We have not had such a busy harvest 
for years. Everything ripened up at once. Wheat 
was ready to cut before we were half through hay¬ 
ing. Then the bugs were on the potatoes, and the 
weeds in the corn, and an extra man could not be 
had for love or money.” 
“It is your own fault, Deacon,” said 1; “ there 
are men enough if you would only take the right 
course to get them. I have heard you remark again 
and again, ‘ If a man comes here we have got to 
support him. He has got to have a living, and ho 
will get it out of us.’ And yet every year you go 
through precisely the game experience as you have 
this year. It is uothing new. It is so every har¬ 
vest, only you forget from year to year. Next 
spring you will forget again. If a man wants work, 
you will say, ‘ I guess I can get along without you,’ 
and you send the poor fellow into the city. He 
would be glad to work for 75 cents a day, and board 
himself. But you depend on hiring an occasional 
day hand. You leave undone much work that 
could be profitably done, and when the pinch 
comes you look around for your day men and they 
are not to be found. The Squire wants them, I 
want them, and others want them. One man told 
me that there were eight farmers after him one 
morning last week before breakfast. You offer 
§1.50, $2.00, or $2.50 per day, and board, for men 
and boys not actually worth 75 cents a day. And 
you will do precisely the same thing next year.''' 
“ Well,” said the Deacon, “ I have made up my 
mind to hire an extra man next spring.” 
“ I am glad to hear it; but that is not just what 
I want to see done. I want you and the Squire to 
encourage more good, steady, sober, industrious 
married men to settle in the neighborhood. The 
value of farm property, other things being equal, 
depends on the population. Our profits come 
from labor and not from land. We want more men.” 
“ That is so just now,” said the Deacon, “ but it 
is not so in winter and spring.” 
“ As a matter of fact,” said I, “ we had more men 
at work on this farm last December and January 
than we had during harvest, and still more in 
March, April, and May. There is no necessity for 
this fluctuation in the demand for labor on our 
farms. Unsteady employment and high wages are 
utterly demoralizing. But one thing is sure, we 
shall not lower wages by refusing steady work to 
steady men, and thus compelling them to turn 
tramps, and then paying high wages to some mis¬ 
erable scallawag for two or three weeks in the 
busy season. The system is all wrong. It makes 
young men idle, impertinent, unskilful, and vicious. 
There is work enough for all, and there arc men 
enough to do the work. But the less we do, the 
less there is to do. If we plant less corn, there is 
less to cultivate and husk ; and the same for other 
crops and in other industries.” 
I know that this is not talking about “ Farm 
Crops.” And yet the subject lies at the foundation 
of our agriculture—if not at the foundation of our 
national prosperity. I will not say that the cities 
need less labor, but I am sure the country needs 
more. How are we going to get it ? 
Do not be afraid to sell a good steady man an 
acre or two of land, and let him put up a small 
house. Or, if you prefer it, put up the house your¬ 
self and rent it to a good man, and give him work. 
And give his boys work. Geo. Geddes once told 
me, “The only way you will get a foreman is to 
raise him.” And the best way to get good farm- 
men is to let them grow up on the farm. I have 
two boys that were bom on this farm, and that 
have worked for me ever since they were able to 
work at all. They know my ways—know the land 
and the stock, and the implements and machines, 
and every year they become more useful and valu¬ 
able. They are happy and contented, and will in 
time have farms of their own ; and better still, know 
how to manage them and take care of good stock. 
A young man is far better off on a farm than in a 
city. Farming is no longer the dull, plodding, un¬ 
eventful, dreary existence that we read about. 
There is sufficient hurry, pressure, and excitement 
to stir the blood and stimulate the efforts of an en¬ 
ergetic boy or man. Our seasons arc so short that, 
a farmer must work lively. Whatever his hands, 
find to do, he must do with his might. He must 
battle with the winds and storms, with rain and 
snow, with heat and cold. He must fight if he 
would win. He must be a plucky man. He must 
work with a will. If there is no snap in him he had 
better find some dull, steady, slow, unvarying em¬ 
ployment in the city. He is not the man for mod¬ 
ern agriculture. Our work is constantly changing. 
It is rare that we have three days of steady labor. 
We have in the spring to plow for barley, then har¬ 
row, then drill in the seed. Then sow clover seed. 
Then roll. If it rains, we go into the cellar and get 
potatoes ready for planting. When the stubble 
laud is too wet to work, we plow on the sod. We 
have oats to sow, and corn, potatoes, and beans to 
plant. We are beginning to use more or less artifi¬ 
cial manures. Wc are raising more mangel-wurzel 
and other root crops. We are constantly getting 
improved implements and machines, and needing 
more intelligence and skill in our operations. We 
have not time to get tired of putting in the crops, 
and of hoeing and cultivating before the grass is 
ready to cut; and a bright boy can relax his muscles 
by riding on a new mowing machine. Then comes 
the harvest. But what is haying and harvest com¬ 
pared to what it was when I was a boy ? If we got 
through in six weeks we did well; now, with mow¬ 
ers and reapers, and rakes and unloading forks, we 
can do double the work in half the time. If a 
shower stops us wc “green” the potatoes. Then 
there is the excitement of thrashing with a steam¬ 
er. And all this time the weeds are calling to us,, 
“be quick,” “be quick,” — “we are after you,” 
“ we are after you.” And if we are not lively they 
will catch us, and then wc get a sound thrashing, 
which, if we are men, will make us work livelier 
another year. There is no time or chance for dull¬ 
ness on a properly managed farm. 
“ But what has all this to do with the labor ques¬ 
tion ” ? More than any of us realize. We want 
better men. And to get them, we must commence 
with the boys. We must get more married men 
into the neighborhood, and give their boys a good 
agricultural education on the farm. We must teach 
them. If you have a boy loading hay and two men 
are pitching, do not take delight in throwing the 
hay just where the boy does not want it. Put a 
good forkful on the corner, and another to bind it. 
The pitcher, if he is a man, can do half the work 
for the boy. Then in unloading, instead of the two 
big men standing on the top of the bay looking at 
the boy pitching the hay up to them, let one of 
them help him to unload occasionally. I have 
known two men and a boy drawing in hay ; the 
boy was unloading. I had a spare man, and sent 
him to the stack to help. Where do you suppose 
he went? Did he help the boy? No. He got on 
to the stack and looked down at the boy, pulling 
and working at the load of hay below ! And that 
is as much sense and manliness as you will find in 
half the old-fashioned common farm hands. Then 
when the load was off, if the men wanted a drink 
of water, the boy must go and get it for them. We 
must raise a better class of men. Look at the boys. 
They will soon be men. It will pay to educate 
them. Do not give them the poorest tools. If you 
have a new plow let the boy take it. Do not ask 
him to do the hardest work, or if you do, relieve 
him as soon as possible. These two boys I speak 
of will do anything I ask them. When thrashing 
with a machine, if there were two men and one of 
these boys on the straw stack, if anything should 
happen requiring two hands, and I called the boy and 
one of the men down, the chances are that the other 
man would think he could not take away the straw. 
He would give up the ship ; but I could safely take 
the two men away and leave the boy. I could de¬ 
pend on him to strain every nerve and muscle to 
keep the thing going. He would know that I would 
relieve him the first moment there was a chance. 
I baye had him in just such a situation more than 
once, and when I have gone to his assistance, he 
did not relax his efforts, but the expression of his 
face said plainly, “ I knew you would come.” He 
held the fort, and will do it again whenever I ask him. 
