1880 . j 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
343 
store. 2. It should be thoroughly applied so as to 
wet every leaf. 3. The application should be made 
as soon as the worms make their appearance. The 
crop was remarkably clean and handsome. The cost 
of the production did not exceed one cent a quart.” 
Tim Bunker on Too Muck Going West. 
-- 
Mr. Editor : I got your letter this morning just 
as I had got my scythe ground and was going to 
mowing on that Horse Pond lot, where the grass is 
breast high. We use the hand-scythe occasionally 
just to keep our hand in. Three young men were 
waiting to strike in with me, calculating to give the 
old feller a sweat afore noon; so you see I could 
not possibly stop to write anything until that grass 
was in the swathe, and them young fellers were so 
tuckered out that they wished they were where the 
grass was lying down. That Horse Pond lot con¬ 
tinues to be an eye-sore to Jake Frink, but is lovely 
as a rose to the rest of Hookertown. Ye see, it has 
been giving me three ton to the acre regular every 
season for nigh on to twenty years, and has been 
preaching tile-drain and high farming to all Hook¬ 
ertown and the rest of mankind, through the 
American Agriculturist. It may not have been 
worth much to the rest of mankind, but it was a 
grand job for me, and has paid enough sight better 
than any bank stock, or Government bands, I ever 
saw, twice over. It was waste land; it is a pro¬ 
ductive meadow, making money for me every day 
in the year. Jake uever seems to have forgiven me 
for the change wrought, and every season, when the 
purple heads of the herd’s-grass are blooming and 
waving in the breeze, he seems to be afflicted with 
something worse than hay fever. [The Squire still 
uses the early New England name of “ herds-grass” 
for what is called Timothy in other parts of the 
country, and at present the name is in frequent use 
in New England.— Ed.] I hope he’ll get over it by 
and by. However, I do not lay up anything agin 
him ; I am ready to do him a kindness any time, 
especially to buy another Horse Pond lot whenever 
he has one to sell. 
There is a deal of talk now about going West, as 
there has been for the last fifty years, and I am 
about tired on’t. If I read the census statistics 
aright, we have had enough of this business for the 
good of the older States, and it is about time Gree¬ 
ley’s advice, “Go West, young man,” was laid on 
the shelf. Up in Windham County, every farming 
town shows a loss of population in the last ten 
years, and this is true of every rural district in the 
State, and, probably, true of all the older States. 
Taking the whole State through, there has only 
been an increase of about 60,000 in ten years, and 
this is wholly in the cities and manufacturing 
towns. Many of the farming towns have less popu¬ 
lation than they had fifty years ago. Meanwhile, 
Connecticut has swallowed Greeley’s philosophy 
whole, and is sending off millions of money every 
year, with her sons and daughters, to the far West. 
There is a clean broad belt of them all the way to 
the Pacific coast. Connecticut capital and muscles, 
invested in California soil, raises wheat and sends it 
back to feed her people. We import in large quan¬ 
tities almost everything that can be raised on the 
farm—beef, pork, butter, cheese, mutton, lambs, 
hay, vegetables, and fruit. Not a quarter of the 
corn consumed in Hookertown is raised here, or on 
Connecticut soil; it comes up to Shadtown by the 
sloop and schooner load—much of it already 
ground, and the balance ground in our mills and 
sold to livery stables, to farmers even, and every 
one who has use for corn meal. The family pig in 
the village, with few exceptions, is fattened on 
Western corn. We consume immense quantities 
of Western beef—fresh, corned, canned; Western 
pork and lard, cheese, butter, etc. While this is 
the case, farming property is very generally getting 
cheap. Farms in many parts of the State can be 
bought for a little more than what the buildings 
cost fifty years ago, or less. The buildings often 
times are in fair condition, enough sight better 
than a dug-out or the cheap frame dwellings that 
Eastern men are content to live in on the prairies. 
These old farms can be bought for from twenty to 
thirty dollars an acre, as the advertising agencies 
show. They furnish shelter, fuel, and food for the 
family—the three great necessities. They are in 
the midst of good markets near at hand, good 
schools, churches, and good neighbors. The climate 
is about all that can be desired for Connecticut 
people. There may be enterprise, adventure, and 
romance in going away from home, but in many 
cases I do not believe it pays. Some men draw 
prizes, but a great many, blauks. 1 have seen too 
many men come back, heart sick and body sick, 
poor and discouraged, to take much stock in far- 
off homesteads. 
I’m ready to give a reason for the faith that is in 
me. One grand reason offered for going West is 
lack of room here. Well, it is the easiest thing in 
the world to double the cultivated acres of Con¬ 
necticut by going deeper into the soil. That two 
acres of Horse Pond did not pay the interest on ten 
dollars an acre; it now pays the interest on two 
hundred, easy ; it virtually added twenty acres or 
more to Connecticut farm lands, and became a 
profitable and safe investment, as long as it is 
looked after. Now, we have, in almost every town 
in the State, large tracts of land that only need 
draining to make ’em yield double. Oftentimes 
draining will quadruple their value. But if only 
doubled, they would carry twice the men and twice 
the stock they now carry. There are large tracts 
of stony land, now in gasture, that can be cleared 
and made profitable ; there are still larger tracts of 
sandy and light loams, called worn-out lands, that 
only need capital and brain manure to be made pro¬ 
fitable. A small part of the capital that goes off 
with our sons and daughters, and is spread out 
by them all across the Continent, if concentrated 
upon our own acres, would quadruple its agricul¬ 
tural productions and enable us not only to feed 
our own population, but to export to other States. 
It is about time Connecticut attended to its own 
business and turned the tables on the West. 
There is nothing like the “ Argumentum ad 
hominem ,” Mr. Spooner says, and I guess he is 
about right. Take my John’s case. He went to 
the war, you know, and came home with his head 
full of notions, and nothing would satisfy him but 
he must go away from home. I knew there was 
nothing like experience to teach people; and rather 
favored his going. Well, he went to Kansas ten 
years ago, took up land, pre-empted, and home¬ 
steaded, lived in a dug-out, built a frame house, 
raised wheat, corn, oats, and potatoes, for about 
four years, on soil from nine to ten feet deep ; no 
end of crops, but poor market; got discouraged ; 
went to clerking; made some money, but spent 
more. After ten years hard work, under more than 
average good circumstances, he comes home this 
season with a wife and two children, and two thou¬ 
sand dollars indebtedness above the value of his 
real estate. We cannot tell, of course, what is in 
the future, but the result of ten years’ work, in the 
prime of life, is rather a poor commentary on the 
wisdom of his course. In this short life a man 
ought to post the books once in ten years, and look 
results in the face. Half the money he has spent 
and earned in the last ten years, if invested here in 
Connecticut, would have given him a good farm, a 
good paying business for life, without any debt. 
From the Hookertown outlook and observation, we 
think there is quite too much talk about going 
West, stick by the old homestead, deepen the soil, 
use brain manure, and prosper. 
Yours to command, 
Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
Hookertown, July 10,1880. 
[Squire Bunker has so much sound sense that we 
always allow him to “ say his say,” even when we 
do not altogether agree with him. In view of his 
son’s experience, we can hardly blame him for tak¬ 
ing the view of things that he does. If every Con¬ 
necticut farmer were as skillful, as wide awake to 
improvements, and so well understood “ manuring 
with brains,” as he does, the Squire’s advice for the 
sons to stay on the old farm would have more 
force. But the Squire knows many farms in Hook¬ 
ertown that are capital places to go from. The 
fact is, there is much to be said on both sides ; it 
would be better for some to stay, and better for 
others—far better—to go West or anywhere else. 
We advise the Squire to hurry up his fall work and 
take a Western trip himself. He will find there 
grand farms, such as he never dreamed of, and 
splendid openings for enterprising young men from 
the Eastern States, and from the Western ones, too. 
Still he is right about the capabilities of Connecti¬ 
cut and of the other older States. There is many a 
horse-pond to be drained, and have its value in¬ 
creased many fold. There is many a farm that needs 
only “ manuring with brains” to have its product 
doubled, to the profit of those who do it. This 
country is so large that there is room and work for 
all the Squire Bunkers who know how to stay at 
home in the East, and the young men who, what¬ 
ever may be said, will “go West.”—E d.] 
Science Applied to Farming—LX. 
Among: Our Field Experimenters. 
I have lately had the pleasure of visiting several 
of the gentlemen who are making the field experi¬ 
ments with various kiuds of artificial fertilizers 
proposed by the American Agriculturist. 
Mr. Charles Fairchild, of this place, is now work¬ 
ing the fourth season. His trials on small plots, 
confirmed by experience in his field practice, in¬ 
dicate quite decidedly that he can get good crops 
of corn, potatoes, grass, oats, and wheat, with a 
mixture of fine bone-dust and muriate of potash. 
He buys the bone-dust at a neighboring bone-mil], 
very finely ground, at $32.00 per ton. The mu¬ 
riate has cost this season some $40.00 per ton. Ha 
uses, as I recall, from 150 to 250 lbs. of the potash 
salt, and 200 to 400 lbs. of the bone-dust per acre. 
Reckoning actual cost of fertilizers, labor, interest 
on value of land, and all other expenses, he calcu¬ 
lates that his corn costs him 40 cts. per bushef. 
Some of his neighbors adopted his plan last season, 
and had a like experience. I confess I am a little 
surprised at his good success in growing wheat 
with fertilizers containing no more nitrogen than 
the very small amount found in the bone. Nov 
am I by any means certain that for wheat, oats, 
and for potatoes also, it would not be more profit¬ 
able for him to use nitrogen in Peruvian guano, fish 
scrap, or some other form. It will bo interesting 
to learn how long the supply of potash in the pot¬ 
ash salt and phosphoric acid and lime in the 
bone will continue to bring him good crops. 
Mr. Fairchild, in co-operation with some other 
gentlemen, has undertaken a very thorough study 
of these questions by a series of ‘‘Special Nitrogen. 
Experiments” similar to those described in the 
American Agriculturist for May last. He has laid, 
out a piece of nearly two acres in some twenty-five 
parallel plots for as many different fertilizing ma¬ 
terials and combinations, leaving unmanured spaces 
between each two manured plots. He proposes to 
continue the experiment through a series of years, 
following the crops in a rotation which he thinks 
may prove profitable on his land. The labor will 
be considerable, but the results cannot fail to be 
very valuable for himself and for the public. As 
he tersely puts it, the application of what he has 
learned has made the difference between good* 
profit and actual loss in his farming, and he is 
ready to do more work in the same line. 
Mr. Chester Sage, of this place, has been experi¬ 
menting on a plan similar to Mr. Fairchild’s, as the 
readers of the American Agriculturist have noticed, 
from the reports of his experiments, and has 
reached similar resuits. Potash, in potash salts, 
and phosphoric acid in bone and superphosphate, 
bring him better crops than his best barn manure, 
and at relatively very small cost. And I must say 
that 1 have been very much surprised to find how 
many farmers in this region have had like expe¬ 
rience in their experiments and in their field prac¬ 
tice. I had the opportunity some days ago to 
make a visit to see some interesting 
Experiments on the Farm of the Maine 
Agricultural College, 
under the direction of my friend and former assist¬ 
ant, Prof. IV. H. Jordan, successor of Prof. Far¬ 
rington in the Agricultural Department of that 
Institution. Several of the field experiments made 
by Professors Farrington and Jordan have been 
