1884.] 
AMEEIOAT^ AGEIOULTUEIST. 
407 
Walks and Talks on the Farm. 
New Series.—No. 4. 
JOSEPn UAKKIS. >1. s. 
“ I am undecided whether to pack my apples in 
the small or large barrels. I have quite a lot of 
the small barrels on hand.”—“ If you do not want 
to use them,” said the Deacon, “I will take them— 
so that need not stand in the w'ay.”—The fact is, 
the Deacon is getting tired of this discussion. 
“ 1 have just returned from Buffalo, Deacon,” I 
said, “and feel proud of the American farmers. 
Farmer life is supposed to be quiet and slow. 
But I could not help being struck with the intense 
activity, energy and enterprise eveiywhere mani¬ 
fested. The railroads, with their immense traffic, 
show what the farmers have done, and are now 
doing. There are four trunk railroad lines con¬ 
verging towards Buffalo, and all look to the farmers 
of the West for support, and in the meantime dis¬ 
tributing a good deal of money all along the various 
routes. We are disposed to grumble at railroad man¬ 
agers, and very justly, but they have done, and are 
doing, great things for us. India is going to build 
railroads, and will undoubtedly yet be a great 
wheat growing country ; but we have the railroads 
ready built and equipped, and able and anxious to 
■carry all the wheat we can produce. We have got 
the start in the race, and shall hold our own. 
“Nevermind all that,” said the Deacon, “ tell 
us what you saw.”—What I saw,” said I, “ is of 
little consequence. It is the impression left on the 
mind, the new resolutions one makes, and the 
hopes engendered that are of consequence. A man 
who stays at home on his farm as much as I do, is 
apt to get discouraged. He needs to see what 
others are doing. I came home and started the 
plows. That is the effect it had on me. I saw one 
man plowing a clover sod with three horses. It 
had been cut for hay, and he was turning under a 
nice growth of clover, intending, uo doubt, to sow 
wheat. This was the only sod land I saw being 
plowed. Occasionally I saw a summer fallow, but, 
as a rule, three-fourths of all the wheat is evidently 
growm after barley or oats. Barley is preferred, 
because it is harvested earlier than oats, and we 
have a better chance to get the soil into good con¬ 
dition before sowing the wheat. Three-horse 
plows were the rule. I saw but one two-horse 
plow at work, and I felt sorry for the horses and 
the man. The three-hoi-se teams went joyfully 
along, doing good woi’k with ease. It was a pleas¬ 
ure to look at them. Many wmre drawing out ma¬ 
nure, and plowing it under for wheat. They will 
doubtless use phosphates also. . I saw many large 
flocks of sheep, principally Merinos and their 
grades. If they do not bring in much money for 
wool, they cost comparatively little to keep them. 
They are the scavengers of the farm. One flock 
was in a summer fallow, another in a rough, bushy 
and weedy pasture. Cows, of which many are 
kept to supply Rochester and Buffalo with milk, 
receive better treatment. Near the villages we see 
some Jerseys and their grades, also patches of 
corn-fodder. Here is a team scraping out a ditch 
on low land. I have done this kind of work my¬ 
self, but gave it up. Repeated plowings on the 
side, turning the furrows from the ditch, followed 
with a bright, lotig-handled shovel, and a stout 
Irishman who knows how to use it, does the work 
cheaper, and what is more important, you arc 
likely to go deeper and get better drainage. On 
the next farm is a piece of basket willow’s, and then 
we strike higher, rolling land, with large wheat- 
fields, thrifty orchards, good roads, three-horse 
plows, steam thrashing machines, comfortable 
houses, and a mowing machine cutting weeds on 
some low land, lying between the upper portions 
of the farm. I mentally took my hat off to the 
man. At the next station I saw a farmer made 
happy by receiving some finger guards and sections 
for his I’eaper. The telegraph and railroads are 
wonderful institutions, and farmers are beginning 
to learn how to use them. A young farmer can¬ 
not too soon form the habit of sending for things 
rather than going himself. There are men who 
would have thought it necessai-y to go to the shop 
themselves, to have got these repairs.” 
“That is so,” said the Deacon, “but how are 
you going to teach them?”—“Nothing is easier,” 
said I, “let a boy sit down and write a letter to a 
seedsman for a catalogue, and then order a few 
seeds. If he sees a book advertised that he wants, 
let him send for it. If he gets bit once or twice, as 
he will be very apt to, he will learn to discriminate.” 
The next thing we want is the steam plow. It 
will surely come—and when it does come, we shall 
wonder how we ever got along without it. It is 
not ten years since a steam thrashing machine was 
a rare thing, and the Deacon and others shook their 
wise heads, and talked about fires, insurance, and 
explosions. Now we have steam thrashers by the 
score, and 1 do not know of an old-fashioned 
horse-power machine in use. The Deacon is 
thrashing with a steamer to-day, and a traction 
engine at that, with all the modern improvements, 
and is as happy as a clam. He would laugh at the 
idea of hitching his well-carcd for teams to a 
thrashing machine. The rapid introduction of the 
steam thrashers is proof to my mind, that when it 
is once proved that plowing can be done by steam, 
there will be plenty of people to take hold of the 
business. The farmers will not own the steam 
plow any more than they own the steam thrashers. 
They will gladly have the work done by the acre— 
just as many of us now have our wheat, and barley, 
and oats cut and bound by a reaper and binder, 
and our grain thrashed by the bushel. One of my 
neighbors has two or three binders, and two or 
three steam thrashers, and his boys go around 
cutting and thrashing grain, making quite a busi¬ 
ness of it. A few days ago he was building a stone 
wall, and wanted to haul some large stones for the 
bottom tier. We u.sually hitch three horses to a 
stone-boat, and occasionally four. My neighbor 
hitched his traction engine to the boat, and it walk¬ 
ed off with all the stones the boys could pile on. 
Steam plows have been used extensively in Eng¬ 
land for many years. Their use here has been 
hindered by the high rate of interest on money, 
and the comparativedy high price of coal. In a 
section where corn is used for fuel, there is no 
chance for the steam engine. Where hay and oats 
are dear and coal cheap, there we want the steam 
plow. If we keep all the horses we need to do the 
work promptly and thoroughly, there are times 
when there will be little for them to do. But the 
horses must be fed all the time. The iron horse 
eats only when he is at work. If he does not cost 
too much, and the food he eats is as cheap as it 
ought to be, he is just the horse that the American 
farmer needs. Our seasons are short, and we have 
a good deal of hard plowing to be done just at a 
time when there is plenty of other work for the 
horses. On my own farm, for instance, I have 
fifty acres of land that I would like to sow to 
wheat this fall. During the dry, hot weather in 
August, our strongest and best wheat land, es¬ 
pecially if we have just harvested a crop of barley 
or oats, is hard to plow. The poor horses come 
home at noon and night covered with sweat and 
dust, and tormented with flies. If I had a good 
steam plow, I could find plenty of other work for 
the horses to do, and if I could not, they would 
enjoy a few days vacation in a good pasture. The 
steam plow, or cultivator, would break up this 
hard, dry, strong wheat land, and the scorching 
sun would kill the weeds, and we could soon get it 
into prime order for winter wheat. We shall soon 
have plenty of young men able to manage the en¬ 
gines. Mark my word, steam plows will be as 
common as steam thrashers, as soon as railroad 
directors and coal companies have had a little com¬ 
mon sense hammered into them. 
The Fair of the Royal Agricultural Society of 
England was held this year at Shrewsbury, in 
Shropshire. I wanted to be there, but could not 
arrange it. The Fair was held there in 1845, and I 
attended it. How well 1 recollect several features 
of the Show, but especially the plowing match, 
when a boy with a gray team, without lines, won 
the prize—or ought to have won it, I forget which ! 
My impression is that he did the best work in the 
field, but was a minute or two behind time, and so 
lost the prize. I did not know the boy, but have 
thought of him a great many times since. Ilis 
furrows were as straight as an arrow, and turned 
over with mechanical accuracy. I wonder if’far- 
mers’ boys take as much interest in such things 
now as I did then. If so, we ought to have more 
plowing matches and more trials of implements. 
I have been to a great many fairs since then, have 
exhibited occasionally, and it has seemed to me as 
I have watched the people pass, looking tired and 
listless, that they took little interest in the exhibi¬ 
tion. But why should I think so ? 1 presume, at 
the Royal Fair in 1845,1 passed from pen to pen, and 
stand to stand, looking at the stock and the imple¬ 
ments as silently and listlessly as any farmer’s boy 
of to-day, and yet I know that the impressiO'ns 
then made have remained with me ever since. 
And I have no doubt that the fairs of to-day do 
just as much good as at any previous time. In 
1845, the fair ground embraced twelve acres, this 
year seventy acres. As I look back, it seems 
to me there was a grand display of implements 
and machines. The records .show there were nine 
hundred and forty-two implements exhibited in 
1845, and five thousand two hundred and forty-two 
in 1884, and so the boys of to-day have more to 
see than their fathers.”—“Yes,” said the Deacon, 
“ and more to learn.” 
“Well, Deacon,” said I, “how many bushels of 
wheat did you get ? ”—“ Two hundred and ninety- 
seven from ten acres. I sowed twenty bushels, and 
it shelled out on the ground as much as 1 sowed. 
Clawson wheat if not cut just at the right time, 
shells badly. But I did not expect over two hundred 
and twenty-five bushels, and so I have no reason to 
complain.”—“ 1 should say not,” said the Doctor, 
“ especially as It was after oats. In a good season, it 
is quite clear that our land will produce as much 
wheat as when the country was new.”—“This would 
seem to be the ease,” said I, “ provided the land is 
drained, well tilled, and you drill in one hundred 
and fifty or two hundred pounds of superphos¬ 
phate per acre. How long this will last remains to 
be seen. 1 think that sooner or later we shall 
have to keep more stock and make more manure.” 
“Yes,” said the Doctor, “ and raise something 
besides wheat. The whole world seems to have 
rushed into wheat growing. It would seem that 
wheat and wool can be grown on cheap land and 
sent thousands of miles to market. The yield per 
acre is small, and the profits moderate, but it is a 
good thing to have cheap wool and cheap bread.” 
“ I am not so sure about that,” said the Deacon, 
“ when the farmer suffers, everybody suffers with 
him.”—“I do not see much suffering,” said the 
Doctor, “ notwithstanding the low price of wheat, 
farmers are unusually healthy, hopeful, and happy. 
The sober, industrious, and economical farmer has 
nothing to fear except bad seasons, and this sea¬ 
son has been very favorable. Last year was the 
worst season in many years, and many farmers 
suffered more than is generally known.”—“ True,” 
said I, “ there is no lack of anxiety on a farm at all 
times, but the year 1883 was one that sorely tried 
our courage and faith. We had nothing to sell. We 
have now good crops, and even with the low price 
of wheat, we are not forgetful of the past, grate¬ 
ful for the present, and hopeful for the future.” 
“We have plenty of straw and hay” said the 
Deacon, “ and it will bo a good time to fatten 
sheep this winter.”—“ I think it will,” said I, “but 
John Johnston used to say that the year he made 
the most money in fattening sheep was when oats 
and corn were high. Farmers would not feed 
grain to sheep when it brought a good price in 
market, and the result was that few sheep were 
fattened in winter, and the few who had fat sheep 
the next spring got a big price for them. But 
since then, the times have changed, the low freight 
charges make corn, and mill-feed, and cotton-seed 
cake, nearly as cheap here as at the W’est. This is 
one point to be considered. Another is, that the 
price of good mutton is less variable than formerly. 
