1877.1 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
4,23 
with no central supports, leaving the whole floor 
unobstructed by posts, so that wagons when driven 
in may go to any part of the building, and there 
deposit their load of hay. Horse-forks are used to 
elevate the hay in making mows, and ventilation is 
secured by making all sides of the barn serve as 
ventilators. Thus, the side walls are 10 inches 
thick, 3-ineh plank being used as joists. Upon 
these the clap-boards are nailed on the outside, 
and inside 1 x 3-inch laths are nailed about a foot 
apart, horizontally, all around, and from floor to 
eaves. A contrivance well worthy of imitation. 
One Thing about the Carrots 
is worthy of notice. It is a fact that the heaviest 
and best carrot seed is sowed the first year in good 
soil, producing plants which, if they have an es¬ 
pecially favorable season of growth, often seem to 
revert to a semi-wild habit, and throw up a flower- 
stalk, bloom, and bear seed the first season. The 
same seed, if kept another year, will produce solid 
good roots, with no tendency to run to seed. This 
is not generally known. A good seedsman will 
rarely trust carrot seed over two years old, and this 
running to seed so rarely occurs, that the best sell 
carrot seed habitually the season after it was grown. 
The carrots on this farm looked finely, so clean 
and thrifty—scarcely a weed to be seen—yet they 
had this trouble, many were going to seed, and the 
mystery could not be solved except by casting 
blame upon the seed grower. The conclusive test 
of the excellence of this very seed, would be the 
fact that the same seed would do well, and show 
none of this tendency, if tried another year. 
Talks on Farm Crops.—No. 9. 
By the Author of “ Walks and Talks on the Farm,” 
“ Harris on the Pig,” etc. 
"A. E. M. C.,” of Pa., reminds me that some 
years ago I said something in the American Agri¬ 
culturist about sowing rape. He wants to know if 
I found it a profitable crop. Taking everything into 
consideration, 1 thought it a decidedly useful crop, 
and some others who tried it, reported favorably. 
Mr. C. also asks, if it “is good for soiling cat¬ 
tle ? I should think not. 
“ Is it good,” he asks, “ to plow under as a green 
manure for vegetables ?’’—For this purpose white 
mustard would be better. 
The chief value of rape consists in its hardiness. 
It will stand frost better than any other green crop 
I have ever grown. I raised it solely for the pur¬ 
pose of affording my Cotswold sheep a bite of 
green food in winter. I wanted to give them exer¬ 
cise. The rape was sown in July. The crop kept 
on growing until winter set in. The frost did not 
hurt it, and we let the sheep pasture on it all win¬ 
ter. We did not have very much snow, and the 
sheep pawed the snow away, and managed to get 
at the rape. There were very few days during the 
winter that the sheep did not, of their own accord, 
walk to the rape field, and remain until three or 
four o’clock in the afternoon, when they came back 
to the barn. The exercise and the green food were 
just what the breeding ewes needed to keep them 
healthy. We had unusually strong lambs in the 
spring. The sheep were foddered twice a day with 
straw and corn-stalks, and a little bran or grain. 
In the more southern sections of the country, I 
I should think rape might be grown to advantage 
for winter pasturage, but at the North I doubt 
whether it will be generally profitable. If it was 
not for affording the sheep fresh air and exercise, 
1 should not grow it. Com fodder will furnish 
much more nutriment per acre, and mangel wurzel 
will give us all the green food the sheep require. 
Mangel wurzel will be the great root crop of the 
United States. It will stand our hot summers bet¬ 
ter than Swedish turnips, and, if the land is rich 
enough, will produce a far larger amount of nutri¬ 
ment per acre. Mangels will keep longer, and be¬ 
come more valuable the longer they are kept; they 
are worth more in April and May, than in the winter. 
“ You mean by that,” said the Doctor, “ that you 
can use them at that time to better advantage.” 
“Not only that,” said I, “ but the mangels them¬ 
selves are more nutritious. They contain less wa¬ 
ter, and more sugar, as they become ‘riper.’ By 
keeping them in a warm cellar, you can ripen them 
in January and February, but if pitted in the field, 
or kept in a very cool cellar, they are not in their 
prime before the middle of March. And at this 
time they are of great value for ewes and Iambs, 
or for milch cows, or breeding sows.” 
“ No doubt they are valuable,” said the Deacon, 
“the trouble is to grow them. My seed this year 
did not more than half come up, and I have a thin 
crop—but what I have are good. I sometimes 
think it would pay to raise them merely for their 
leaves. There is nothing my little pigs like better.” 
The great mistake we all make in raising mangels 
is in not getting the land ready the fall previous. 
We ought to plow the land in August, and again in 
September or October, and between the plowings 
harrow and cultivate,- to kill surface weeds. If the 
land is a strong loam, I would, in this climate, ap¬ 
ply the manure in the fall, the earlier the better, 
and work it thoroughly into the soil, and in No¬ 
vember I would plow the land, and get it all ready 
for planting in the spring—of course, doing the 
work only when the land was dry. 
Had I adopted this plan last fall, it would have 
been several hundred dollars in my pocket. I 
plowed my land last fall, but did not manure it, 
and this spring I had to plow it, and then ridge it, 
and spread the manure in the ridges, and cover 
them. Our springs are too short for this kind of 
work. I did not—and could not—get at the man¬ 
gel land, until we were through sowing barley aud 
planting potatoes and corn, and when we got ready 
to plant the mangels, the ground was so dry that 
much of the seed failed to germinate. The longer 
I farm, the more I am satisfied that we must pre¬ 
pare our land for spring crops in the fall. 
“When I was in England,” said the Doctor, “ I 
asked an intelligent farmer, what he considered the 
greatest improvement that had taken place in Eng¬ 
lish agriculture during the last half century. He 
replied, * the steam scarifier, and the use of arti¬ 
ficial manures.’ He did not think steam was so 
much cheaper than horses, but it did the work 
quicker and better. As soon as a crop was off, the 
stubble could be scarified, or, as we would say, cul¬ 
tivated. The light lands could be sown to late 
turnips, or rape, or mustard, and the heavy lands 
could be worked and got ready for spring crops. 
‘Autumnal cultivation,’ he said, ‘had done great 
things for English agriculture. That and the use 
of artificial fertilizers had greatly increased the 
production of root crops—and the more roots, the 
more stock ; the more stock, the more manure ; 
and the more manure, the more grain.’ ” 
“And yet,” said I, “there is not half the neces¬ 
sity for autumnal cultivation in England, as there 
is here. Our autumns are longer, and drier, than 
in England, and the land in better condition to 
work. And our springs are later and shorter, and 
if we get only a few days behind with our work, a 
drouth sets in, and we lose half our crop.” 
On sod land, if the soil is tolerably clean, and 
rather light, it may be better, for corn, late pota¬ 
toes, beans, and fodder-corn, not to plow the land 
until the spring. There are days, after heavy rain, 
when we can not get on to the plowed land, but 
when we can plow on sod, and by so doing we lose 
no time. Some good farmers, however, prefer not 
to plow until just before they are ready for plant¬ 
ing. Be this as it may, there is no special hurry in 
getting the land plowed for com, potatoes, etc. 
But for spring wheat, oats, barley, early potatoes, 
and mangel wurzel, the rule should be, to plow as 
much as possible in the fall, as any delay in the 
spring may make a serious difference in the yield. 
The two most satisfactory crops on my farm this 
year have been corn-fodder and late planted pota¬ 
toes. I had a piece of one-year-old clover that I 
pastured until the middle of June. There were 
more weeds in the lot than clover plants, and I was 
heartily ashamed of the field. But I was short of 
pasture, and could not 6pare it until the middle of 
June. We then plowed this field. It was dry and 
*hard, and needed a strong three-horse plow with a 
strong point, to do the work. But I have always 
thought that, if you can break up land during a 
drouth, and can pulverize it, one such plowing is 
worth two plowings, when the ground is moist 
enough to work easily. After plowing we rolled 
the field, and followed with a heavy pair of three- 
horse harrows, and then rolled the rougher parts 
again, and following with a harrow, until the field 
was reduced to powder. We then (June 15) drilled 
in half the piece with about three bushels of com 
per acre for fodder, iu rows 35 inches apart, and the 
other half was planted with Late Rose potatoes. 
The corn-fodder was cultivated two or three times, 
aud though sown so late, it grew rapidly, and by 
the middle of August it completely covered the 
ground. The stalks were fine and sweet, and we 
had at least a ton and a half of cured fodder, 
worth as much as the best hay. The potatoes were 
equally satisfactory. There was a good, fair crop, 
and the land in both cases was clean and mellow. 
Another crop, which has turned out so well that 
I propose hereafter to plant it largely, is cabbage. 
It has this advantage over mangel-wurzels. If there 
should be a good demand for cabbages in market, 
you can sell at a price that brings in a large return, 
per acre, while if there is no demand, you can find 
greedy customers at home. The cows, sheep, and 
pigs will be grateful for all you have to spare. 
“ Your best crop this year,” said the Deacon, who 
has just come in, “ and the only one that affords 
any real profit, is your apple crop. Your com is 
ail fed out on the farm ; so is the corn-fodder and 
mangel-wurzels and hay. You have ten acres of 
potatoes, but they are cheap. You had 33 acres of 
barley, but that will bring but little.” 
“If so, Deacon,” I 'said, “it cost comparatively 
little. There is no crop on the farm that requires 
so little labor as barley. It requires rich, dry land, 
and brings a relatively high price. And this for the 
simple reason that good four-rowed barley can only 
be grown on the best of land. I sowed wheat after 
the barley, aud the two crops afford a fair profit.” 
“ But look,” said the Deacon, “ at the labor and 
manure you expended on the land last year, and the 
year before, for mangels.” 
“True, Deacon,” said I, “but the mangels do 
not use up all the manure. Last year, after the 
mangels, I had 136 bushels of Earl}' Vermont pota¬ 
toes, per acre, and sold them for $1.35 to $1.50 per 
bushel, and the barley, this year, after the potatoes, 
was about as good a crop as is often grown. And 
so, even admitting that the mangels themselves do 
not bring in any money, and that they require con¬ 
siderable labor aud manure, their general effect on 
the farm is good—and, in short, they pay. 
And corn-fodder will pay and cabbages will pay. 
They enable us to keep more stock and to make 
more manure. It looks now as though we should 
get a good price for our grain another season, and I 
think we shall do well to sow and plant largely. 
At the same time the prospects for the stock raiser 
are no less encouraging. The fact that we can ship 
fresh beef, and mutton, and pork, and poultry to 
Europe, will have a great influence on our system 
of farming. It will give us a steadier market for 
live stock, aud better prices for improved stock. 
We shall be able to feed better, and to raise better 
feed we must farm better and manure more. It 
looks now a6 though for the remainder of this cen¬ 
tury, America is destined to be the great meat pro¬ 
ducing country of the world. And in talking about 
farm crops this fact must be borne in mind. We 
shall use, especially in the Eastern, Middle, and 
Southern States,a large amount of artificial manures, 
and they will be used more and more for growing 
crops to be fed out on the farm. The supply of 
goo.d beef and good mutton, will come from the 
cultivated and well farmed sections of the country. 
The meat eating people of the world are increasing 
with marvelous rapidity, and they will not be fed 
on game or semi-wild animals that have to use 
the food they eat in summer to store up fat to keep 
them alive in winter. It requires an enormous 
amount of grass to produce a five-year-old buffalo, 
and not much less to produce a thousand-pound 
Texan steer. We must have improved animals, 
and improved modes of feeding. We must supply- 
pur animals with abundance of nutritious and easi- 
