8 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
How Mr. Jones Tilled his Land. 
AN INSTRUCTIVE CHAPTER. 
Mr. Editor:— I have “a bone to pick” with 
somebody, and neighbor Smith will be tempted 
to pick your bones almost, if you come this 
way. That dialogue which by some means got 
into the Advocate, has, I see, been copied into 
half the papers in the country. It got into our 
own county paper, and our neighbors having 
read it, have applied it to Smith and myself, and 
when I meet a neighbor, he doesn’t say “ Good 
Morning Jones,” as of old, but it’s always “ Good 
Morning Mr. Big Potatoes.” I don’t care any¬ 
thing about it, indeed I rather like it—and al¬ 
ways answer “ let them laugh that win.” But 
neighbor Smith don’t like his new name of 
“ Small Potatoes ”—though, after all, he rather 
enjoys the notoriety I suspect; he says, howev¬ 
er, there are so many Smiths that none but his 
neighbors will think that he is the man. More¬ 
over, he has confessed to me (we are on good 
terms) that the dialogue will do him good; and 
I think it will, for it has set him thinking, and 
that is just what is needed with most men. Not 
many let ‘their brains save their hands or heels.’ 
lie has followed my advice and taken the Agri¬ 
culturist, as you doubtless know by your books; 
(his name is not John Smith). The extra num¬ 
bers for November and December which you 
sent him free, he has read all through, and has 
borrowed and read a dozen or more of my back 
numbers, and he says I must look out, for he is 
going to turn the scales, and beat me on the 
next potato crop. So, after all, you will be civily 
treated even by Smith, if you will call here again 
next Summer. But this by the way. I com¬ 
menced to fulfil my promise to describe the pre¬ 
vious treatment of that potato field. The histo¬ 
ry will only be a common plain one, but I will 
try and make it just such an one as I would like 
to get from my brother farmers about their fields. 
I came here from N. Hampshire, in the Fall of 
1836, and bought this farm of an earlier settler 
who had just made a beginning, building a log 
cabin, and clearing ten acres, when he got dis¬ 
couraged, and went west to the prairies, glad to 
get from me $5 an acre for what cost him $1,25. 
I assumed his debts of $300, and paid him $500 
cash for the 160 acres. This left me a capital 
brought from the east of not quite $500, which I 
used up the first year in getting animals, imple¬ 
ments, and seed, and in paying a man to help- 
ne clear off the woods. Part of the ten cleared 
acres was in grass, and the rest I planted to 
corn, together with eight acres of new land we 
cleared during Winter. Five acres more we 
got into oats, and 2 acres into spring wheat. The 
crops of the first summer were only moderately 
good, but by close economy we saved enough 
to get in 15 acres of Fall wheat, and to live 
through the Winter, our cattle living mainly on 
stalks, straw, and “ browse ” or tender twigs. 
Well, I kept on in this way, clearing and en¬ 
larging my fields, until in 1848, I had about 90 
acres under cultivation. We had rather poor 
buildings, and had barely managed to pay my 
predecessor’s debts and to get my land fenced, 
and supplied with fair barns and sheds. We stuck 
to the old log house, which by sundry additions 
and fixing up, had been kept quite comfortable. 
We often talked of putting up a frame house, 
but wife always said: “ the old house will do 
for a while; let us get out of debt, and enough 
ahead for a good house when we do build.” 
I intended to keep all my land (160 acres) so 
as to have enough for myself and boys, one of 
them nearly a dozen years old; but some of my 
older fields more distant from the barn, and not 
manured, began to show wear, and the con¬ 
stant advice of the Agriculturist to sell off part 
of my large farm and apply the proceeds to the 
rest, finally told on me, and so in 1848 I fixed up 
a log house and offered 60 acres (including 10 of 
my cleared land) for sale, at $25 per acre. It 
was taken by one of my old New-Hampshire 
neighbors—$600 cash, and $900, in nine annual 
payments, with interest. 
We devoted $500 to putting up a frame dwell¬ 
ing, in the Spring of 1849, in such a form that it 
made the rear part of a larger structure which 
was erected in 1855. As we got out the timber 
during Winter, and hauled the sand and lime 
for plastering, etc., our $500 went a good ways 
in erecting a comfortable dwelling. 
The extra $100 cash, together with the $100 
and interest annually coming in, I had fully de¬ 
termined, through the advice of the Agriculturist , 
to devote to the purchase of clover seed, and to 
ditching, subsoiling, and other improvements. 
(I got the first subsoil plow seen here.) This de¬ 
termination 1 adhered to strictly, and the good 
effects were so manifest that I have often gone 
beyond the amount annually received in princi¬ 
pal and interest from the 60 acres sold off. The 
general results you have seen, Mr. Editor, and 
I need not describe them.* 
But you wanted a particular history of that 
one field, so I will give it: The land was a heavy 
loam, inclined to clay,and covered with tall white 
and black oaks, with a sprinkling of beech, ma¬ 
ple, basswood, etc. I cut out the under brush 
and all the trees, except the oaks, for fire¬ 
wood and charcoal. The finest oaks, also, I cut 
down and hauled out for fencing, and building. 
The rest, say one tree on every two square rods, 
on the average, I simply girdled and left them 
to die. The ground was then thoroughly har¬ 
rowed and winter wheat sown, which yielded a 
fair crop. Many of the trees were blown down, 
which necessitated the use of the sickle in¬ 
stead of the cradle in many places. 
The high winds of the Autumn and Winter 
following, turned many of the trees out by the 
roots. The rest we cut down. After taking 
out a year’s supply of fire-wood, and one or two 
lengths for rails from such trees as would an¬ 
swer, we commenced clearing. Instead of 
chopping up the fallen trees, we burned them 
into suitable lengths for log-rolling, by placing 
broken limbs across the bodies every dozen feet 
or so and kindling a fire. By using the brands, 
w T e were able to burn through most of the logs. 
In two or three days of dry weather a man can 
in this way burn in two, five to ten times as 
many logs as he can cut with the ax. The logs 
and limbs were piled in heaps and burned, and 
the ashes gathered and spread upon my mead¬ 
ows. This plan of clearing is the easiest and 
[Yes, we have seen them : Mr. Jones has a farm that will 
do any one good to look upon. His fields, though a heavy 
soil originally, are mellow, deeply worked, and dry. The 
buildings are not costly, but neat and every way comfort¬ 
able. He has added 10 acres of woodland by purchase, 
and cultivates 05 acres of the original 100 left after selling 
off 00. Finer corn, potatoes, etc., than his, no one could 
wish. He is out of debt, and has already helped his eld¬ 
est son some $700 or $800 towards paying for a poor run¬ 
down farm in the neighborhood, which will doubtless be 
brought up to fertility by one who has been trained up to 
habits of economy, and taught to read and think about 
his business. The old farm is worth at least $150 per acre 
for cultivation, and $115 an acre has been offered for it and 
refused, which is $40 an acre more than the market price 
of similar farms adjacent. It is supposed to be better 
land, but good, intelligent culture only has made it so, for 
the soil throughout the neighborhood is very much alike. 
We call Mr. Jones a rich man—he is independent, has a 
sure source of income, and is contented, which is more 
than can be said of multitudes who have more acres, or 
vastly more money value in other property.— Ed.] 
cheapest I know of, and I describe it particular¬ 
ly, as it may not be generally known. [It is ex¬ 
tensively practiced on heavy timbered oak lands 
at the West.— Ed.] 
The next Spring I plowed the field after pul¬ 
ling out all the stumps we could, and planted it 
to corn, getting a good crop, besides a splendid 
yield of pumpkins. In the Fall I sowed it to 
wheat, and sowed clover seed liberally in the 
Spring. It was pastured the next Summer, 
and mowed the Summer following. Most of the 
stumps then came out easily. The second 
growth or aftermath of clover was turned under, 
and wheat sown with clover seed in Spring 
again. It was pastured in Autumn and mowed 
in Summer following. In Autumn it was turned 
over deeply, light plowed in Spring, and corn 
planted, yielding only a fair crop. I now con¬ 
cluded to experiment upon this field with some 
of the hints I had gathered from the Agriculturist. 
Solomon Jones. 
[The details of Mr. Jones’ experiments are 
interesting and instructive, and being lengthy, 
we reserve them for a second chapter. —Ed.] 
- - -» --— --- 
The Farmer, the True Aristocrat. 
N. P. Willis, of the Home Journal, says: “ The 
star of the farmer is on the rise. To be a dis¬ 
tinguished man now-a-days, there is no safer or 
more substantial way than to be an ‘eminent 
agriculturist,’ ‘successful horticulturist,’ or the 
like—a Longwortk, a Wilder, a Grant, a John¬ 
son. There is no way for a man to be ‘ looked 
up to,’ for the next half century, like being an 
enterprising and successful farmer, and there is 
certainly no way to pass life so pleasantly, and 
no vocation which is so sure to keep him com¬ 
pany till he dies.” 
-- 
A Stack Shed. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist. 
Farmers in this vicinty thresh them grain and 
throw the straw in a pile out of doors at the barn, 
for the cattle to run to all Winter. Without a 
very large barn it is difficult, in threshing with a 
machine, to avoid doing so. I have improved 
somewhat on this mode. Instead of throwing 
the straw on the ground, I set nine forks of trees, 
say a foot in diameter, firmly in the ground, in 
three parallel rows, about 16 feet apart one way 
and 7 feet the other. I then put logs across 
lengthwise, and laid poles and rails over them, 
on which the straw was stacked sloping like a 
roof. It is high enough for cattle to go under. 
They pull down enough and not too much for 
bedding, and keep in good condition with very 
little grain. The manure is kept under cover, 
and they seem to be comfortable. This is per¬ 
haps not the best way, but it is better than many 
do; is very little expense (only about two days 
work for two hands) and is the best that many 
can do. John R. Lewis. 
Hamilton. 
Fawkes’ Steam Plow. —This was exhibited 
at the Illinois State Fair held at Jacksonville. 
The trial was made under adverse circumstances, 
but eleven and a half acres were plowed at inter¬ 
vals during the day, with but two men in attend¬ 
ance. At another trial three acres of raw prairie 
were turned over in one hour. This was cer¬ 
tainly good work. Some fault is found—we 
know not how justly—with the recent and past 
action of the managers of the Ill. State Society, 
in regard to their not standing up to their pre¬ 
mium offers. There are, of course, two sides to 
this, as to all other questions. 
