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AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
II 
tra currying and other care in feeding which each 
boy was likely to give his own animals when 
thus to be taken out into “ company,” was not 
wholly thrown away 
We have given these illustrations not to re¬ 
commend such unusual training for general prac¬ 
tice, but to indicate what may be done, and to 
impress the suggestions that a moderate degree 
of early training may be adopted by all, with de¬ 
cided advantage. How much better this course 
every way, than the usual method of allowing 
young animals to literally run wild until three or 
four years old, when they are headstrong, and re¬ 
quire long, vigorous, and even hazardous coercion 
before they are thoroughly subdued. 
Blinks from a Lantern.XV. 
BY DIOGENES REDIVIVUS. 
THE KEY TO PROFITABLE FARMING. 
In my researches, I often find 
this question put: “How shall 
the poor man make farming 
profitable!” It is easy enough 
to see how a man owning a 
large section of virgin soil, can 
transfer something of its fertility to his purse, 
and make money. If he have capital to work it, 
and a good market for wheat, he can make money 
rapidly by a few successive crops of this cereal. 
But this is not farming, strictly speaking, for 
nothing is done to husband the resources of the 
soil. It is simply an ignorant skimming of the 
soil,—a robbing of posterity—a work to which 
any vandal is adequate. 
It is also easy to see how a man of capital, 
with a good farm, can keep up its fertility, and 
make money by the sale of a portion of its crops. 
But how the poor man with nothing but a poor 
farm and his hands, is to make a good farm, a 
good living, and at the same time save some¬ 
thing for old age is not so readily perceived. It 
inay reasonably be expected that my lantern 
should throw some light upon this subject. 
It is of great service to the farmer, that he 
should cherish reasonable expectations of what 
he can accomplish in his business. The cultiva¬ 
tion of the soil is unlike other occupations, in 
several respects. It does not afford the chances 
for sudden wealth which trade offers—or any 
speculative enterprise. But the security of its 
returns is a compensation for all other disadvan¬ 
tages. Labor, wisely directed, is more certain to 
be rewarded than in any other occupation ; the 
farmer, then, should abandon the idea of sudden 
wealth. It is not among the probabilities of his 
position in life, and he should feel no disappoint¬ 
ment when he labors years and finds that his 
bank stock is not increased, and his superfluous 
change is very small. If he have got a good liv¬ 
ing, and kept his farm improving in its productive 
capacity, without involving himself in debt, he 
ought to be satisfied. 
It is not a reasonable expectation that a man 
can carry on a farm without some capital. This 
is required in other pursuits still more largely 
than in farming. If a man, therefore, have 
nothing but his hands to begin life with, he 
should be content to sell his labor to the highest 
bidder, until he have some capital to invest in 
the soil. In this way, he will all the while be 
increasing in skill, which is quite as available in 
this business, as either capital or labor. Too 
many, in their ignorance, set out in this business 
without counting the cost. They run in debt for 
the whole farm and stock, and enter upon a 
business requiring skill and labor, when they 
have nothing but labor to bestow. The amount 
of capital needed to begin with, depends much 
upon circumstances. Less of course is needed 
where land is cheap, than in the older Stales 
where it is dear. Much also depends upon the 
extent of the business with which one can con¬ 
tent himself. The capital should be somewdiat in 
proportion to the extent of the farm and the skill 
of the cultivator. A farmer of great experience, 
who knows just what to do with every dollar, can 
use a large capital to much better advantage than 
a beginner in the business. 
A first principle in profitable farming is to cul¬ 
tivate only so many acres as you can make bet¬ 
ter. It may be your misfortune to own a large 
farm, and to be without any other capital. It is 
your ruin and the ruin of the land, to continue 
running over a large surface, and secure crops 
that barely pay the expenses of labor. It were 
good policy, in such a case, to sell half of the 
land to get capital to work the other half. If this 
cannot be done, seek to cultivate only so much as 
you can make remunerative. It is not improving 
land to plow it and take off a crop. It should 
have manure enough to raise seventy-five bushels 
of corn, sixty of oats, thirty of wheat, and three 
tons of hay to the acre, when it is laid down to 
grass. Crops less than these ought not to be 
considered good farming—that is, where the nat¬ 
ural soil is not decidedly bad. Almost any of our 
exhausted soils, that now yield but twenty bushels 
of corn to the acre, or a ton of hay, require from 
fifty to seventy-five loads or half-cords of farm¬ 
yard manure to give them a start, and put them 
upon a course of improvement. If a farmer has 
only manure enough for one or two acres, let 
him attempt to cultivate no more. As to the rest 
of the farm, let it. take care of itself, until you 
have the means of improving it. 
Another principle in profitable farming is to 
keep only so much stock as you can keep in a 
thriving condition. The profit of an animal, 
reared for his flesh, ceases when he stops grow¬ 
ing. He should be well fed until he reaches ma¬ 
turity, and then be slaughtered or sold. The 
porkers will pay as long as you can make them 
gain a pound or two a day. Lean squealing hogs 
are as unprofitable as they are disgraceful. 
Many farmers starve their sheep, so that they 
are unable to bring forth healthy lambs ; starve 
their cows, so that they come out in the Spring 
looking more like skeletons than milkers. It 
takes a whole season of good pasturage to re¬ 
trieve the ill treatment of the winter. Every 
animal kept upon the farm should have all the 
food he can digest, and as a rule, the more he di¬ 
gests the more profitable he will be, whether you 
take your pay in labor or flesh. And in this item 
let it be remembered that good quarters for your 
animals, warm dry stalls, stables, and styes, will 
save twenty-five per cent and upwards in fodder. 
Another sound maxim is, treat your vegetables 
as well as your animals, keep them thriving un¬ 
til harvest. Use all the labor you need to culti¬ 
vate your crops thoroughly, and to harvest them 
seasonably. Oftentimes, a large part of the 
profits of a farm go to make up the losses of de¬ 
ficient or unseasonable labor. Corn is planted 
two weeks too late, and the frost cuts off ten 
bushels in the acre. It is not hoed late enough, 
a crop of weeds takes possession, and another 
ten bushels are lost. Many a farmer with two 
hundred acres, tries to get along with a hired 
man and a boy, when he has business enough for 
six able bodied men. As a rule, labor upon the 
farm pays as well as capital, if it be skillfully di¬ 
rected. With many, the chief cause of unprofit¬ 
able farming is deficient labor. 
Then, most important of all, is the saving of 
manures. Their waste is the besetting sin of our 
husbandry. Not one farmer in a hundred makes 
the best use of his means for increasing the 
stock of his fertilizers. The majority waste 
more than half of these riches of the farm. 
“ Study to have a large dunghill” was the exhor¬ 
tation of Cato two thousand years ago, and no 
sounder maxim was ever laid down in agricul¬ 
ture. If twenty-five cords of good farm-yard 
manure from each well fed ox or cow is an at¬ 
tainable result, everyone can easily estimate the 
waste in his own practice. The liquid and solid 
droppings of all domestic animals are the farmer’s 
silver and gold, and should be as carefully 
watched as the contents of his purse. Save all 
the vegetable wastes of the farm, bog hay, straw, 
leaves, weeds, small brush, peat and muck, and 
work them into the compost heap with the animal 
manures. He who observes these maxims, holds 
the key to profitable farming, and in enriching 
his acres will enrich himself, 
■-«» ♦ --- «■ - ■ 
How to use Rough. Fodder. 
Every farm produces a large supply of coarse 
material, the straw of the grains, the slallts 
and blits of corn, and the hay from swamps and 
marshes. These all contain more or less nourish¬ 
ment when well Cured, and are available for food. 
It is a common practice in many parts of the 
country, to fodder them out from the stack-yard 
upon the frozen ground, where half starved cat¬ 
tle are constrained to eat them, or perish. This 
is the poorest use they can he put to. Better use 
the whole for bedding and manure, than make 
them the means of tormenting brutes, with the 
pangs of hunger. 
All this coarse material should be kept under 
cover, and run through a hay cutter before it is 
fed out. It should then be mixed with Indian 
meal, or some concentrated food. The most of 
it will then be eaten, and while the coarser por¬ 
tions give bulk to the food, the finer parts and the 
meal will furnish nourishment —two essential qual¬ 
ities in the fodder of the ruminating animals. It 
will be better still, if the commingled mass can 
be steamed or boiled. This process softens the 
coarse, hard stalks and straw, and enables the an¬ 
imal to digest them more perfectly. The use of 
steamed food is increasing among those who 
have sufficient capital to carry on the business of 
farming. It enables one to work up all the rough 
fodder, and to pass it through the stomachs of 
thriving cattle. It gathers up the fragments so 
that nothing is lost. 
If the steaming apparatus or a large boiling 
kettle, be not yet ready, and the meal is not to 
be had, it is a good plan to mix sliced roots with 
the coarse fodder cut up short. Turnips, beets, 
carrots, parsneps, and mange! wurtzels, are rapid¬ 
ly reduced to fine chips with a root cutter, and 
are highly relished by cattle. They ought to bo 
used in connection with hay or straw. Animals 
will thrive much better upon this mixture, than 
upon either used separately. 
In any one of these ways, rough fodder may be 
turned to good account, and all stabled animals 
be kept full fed from the close of the grazing sea¬ 
son until Spring. This careful preservation ot 
fodder will greatly increase the manure heap, and 
add to the riches of the farm. Stuff the animals, 
that they may stulf the soil. 
A breeder of fowls says one of his shanghais 
when eating corn, takes one peck at a time.— Ex. 
That’s nothing, Mr. Exchange ; we have an old 
sow that, when eating swill, takes a hogshead full 
at a gulp. 
