374r 
AMERICAN AGKEtrCULTURIST, 
[October, 
Among the Farmers.—Ho. 9. 
BT ONE OP THEM. 
It may seem strange, or rather like a too oft told 
tale, to read in October about the drouth of August, 
but as I walk oyer the parched grass, which 
crackles under foot, or poke about after a shower 
in the grain stubble, to see if I can find a single 
plant of red clover or of timothy out of the many 
which expanded their seed-leaves, or shot up their 
delicate spears, under the benign influence of May, 
or watch at night-fall to see if the dew and the 
moist sea-breeze will unroll the close-curled com, 
I can think of hardly anything else. "We had one 
blessed and all-blessing rain near a fortnight ago, 
and upon us and our thirsty acres it came down 
gently and tenderly at first, and then, after the sur¬ 
face was moistened, and the shingles swollen, and 
when all nature waited with open, open bosom, 
how it was poured out!—Not with blinding flashes 
and crashes of thunder, not in floods and with tem¬ 
pestuous winds—but quietly and bounteously, as 
it were lovingly—all day and all night, and longer 
—every thing seemed to give thanks—even many 
men ; but some said, “ too late to do much good.” 
—“’t won’t save the corn.”—“ It all stopped in the 
soil, and won’t help the wells any.”-—There are 
folks who would not be suited, if they had their 
heart’s wish as soon as they knew it. Their wants 
would grow faster than their wishes, and they 
would always find something to grumble about. 
Even the morning greeting of neighbors develops 
character, and it is not hard to “ spot ” the grum¬ 
blers. “Good morning, neighbor! How are you 
to-day ?”—“First rate ; how’s yerself ? ”—or, “Bul¬ 
ly.”—-That is one class—cheerful and positive. An¬ 
other probably answers the same greeting, “Can’t 
complain.”—As if to complain was the great privi¬ 
lege of life, and as dear to the heart, as the right 
to grumble is to a Jack Tar. 
Pine, Deep Tillage. 
In some years simple tillage does not seem to be 
of great use. We can turn over a good sward, fur¬ 
row out, and plant corn, and with a,little fertilizer 
in the hill, and once or twice horse-hoeing, it does 
very well. All the better it would be, if a good 
dressing of manure were plowed in when the sod 
was turned over. In dry seasons, how different! 
tillage tells wonderfully, and the neighbors are 
quite agreed that it has never shown such results 
as this year. 
Corn on Stubble Land, 
or twice on the same ground, does far better than 
on sod. Potatoes were under suspicion this spring, 
and no one about here planted so many as usual; 
the result was, we hardly knew what to do with 
our last year’s corn ground. Much of it was planted 
again with corn, trad has uniformly stood the 
drouth well, and will give nearly a full crop, against 
half a crop on sod. I attribute this to two facts. 
One, that the soil which had been under the plow 
one summer, and exposed to the frost one winter, 
was in a finer condition of tilth, than that which 
was but once plowed, after lying for years in grass ; 
the other, that the drouth came on so early that the 
roots of the corn were still only in the sod, and had 
not formed connection with the subsoil, where no 
doubt there was a store of moisture, which would 
have been of great benefit. We had not rain 
enough after corn was planted, to rot the sod, 
and the heat of June and July was so severe, that 
it was dried out with the soil and crops upon it. 
Peaty Soils. 
When black or peaty soils—those which contain a 
great proportion of organic matter in that condition 
of arrested decomposition, which renders them of 
all sour soils the sourest in a wet season, and if in 
good tilth, and in a dry season, of all sweet soils 
the sweetest—when these soils, I say, after having 
been a year or two under culture, are well tilled, 
they become fine as dust, and apparently dry as 
ashes, but any thing almost will grow well on 
them, com, oats, cabbages, roots, potatoes for 
feeding, etc., and it is wonderful to see how ob¬ 
viously the moisture is absorbed from the hot air, 
and conveyed down deep into the soil. On even 
such soils, corn curled in the day, but opened broad 
and fresh every night, so far as I observed. 
But it was tillage that did it. On that which was 
not cultivated, but left lumpy, and not frequently 
stirred, the crops suffered worse than ou other 
soils. No doubt the black color made it hotter, and 
if hotter, then surely dryer by day, and of course, 
unless in a state of minute subdivision, no moisture 
would be absorbed day nor night. 
Summer-Fallowing to Kill Weeds. 
As I said, we have not planted so many potatoes 
as usual, and some of us—one near neighbor in 
particular—has been summer-fallowing with the in¬ 
tention to follow with roots next year. All the 
first part of the season the crops of weeds would 
start as soon as the ground was plowed and harrow¬ 
ed, and I notice both on his land and on mine that 
plowing alone is not enough—only a few weeds 
start after plowing, but after a good harrowing, in 
one week weedy spots would be green with them. 
In moderately dry weather, and upon soils that 
would not hake to form a crust, I am inclined to 
think the harrow might be well followed by a 
roller. "When there is moisture in the soil, rolling 
tends to keep it there, and pressing moist soil 
around seeds causes them to sprout. After the 
drouth became serious, weeds ceased to grow ; no 
more germinated, and even some of those which 
had a good start stood still, so it has been on the 
whole a grand weed-killing year. 
Where the good Crops are. 
In a season like this, and may we never see 
another, it is not hard to tell beforehand where the 
good crops may be found. They will not be on 
farms or in gardens where the proprietor goes to 
the city every day. Plowing and hoeing among 
baked clods, and in dusty ash-heaps, is discourag¬ 
ing. Weeding mangels and carrots, even though 
you do not begin until four o’clock in the after¬ 
noon, when you see every plant where the earth is 
disturbed wilt down as limp as a rag within ten 
minutes, takes the pluck out of men, aud so there 
are plenty of discouragements that keep men from 
hoeing, plowing, and the general tillage of growing 
crops. It is where men do their own work, are not 
set back by trifles, and manage by working late Into 
the evenings, and on cloudy days, to get clean and 
well tilled crops. These are even now looking 
very well in deep soils, and not badly anywhere 
that I have seen. Tomatoes show this remarkably, 
melons and squashes not less, peas and beans also, 
and with potatoes it makes all the difference tills 
year between half a yield and next to none. 
Pork. 
How many people inveigh against pork! “As 
unfit for a Christian to eat as it is fora Jew .”—“ The 
source of all the scrofula in the country.”—“Un¬ 
healthy in every form, and proinolive of all sorts of 
diseases.”—Forty years of pork-eating has led me 
to a very different view of the matter. No form of 
animal food, exept locusts or grasshoppers, is so 
easily reared. No flesh of any domesticated animal 
is so flavorous, none so rich, so tender and delicate, 
none so white and beautiful, and none takes salt 
and smoke so well. The fat can well be substituted 
for lard for most uses. Fresh, or salted, or smoked, 
or rendered, it is unequalled. Pork is no food for 
babes—that I admit, nor for sedentary dyspeptics. 
It may be too hearty for delicate females, but it is 
real man's meat. There is no disagreement be¬ 
tween salt pork and bard work; if anything goes 
wrong, depend upon it, the pork is not seasoned 
with sweat enough. 
Porlc and Apples— labials, linguals, and palatals, 
unite in one thrilling cord at the bare mention. It 
matters little how they are combined—the pork 
and the apples. Roast pork and apple sauce, pork 
and apple dumplings, fried salt pork and fried sour 
apples, boiled salt pork and baked sweet apples. 
These are farmers’ stand-bys and luxuries, and 
alternating with boiled, baked, broiled, or fried 
bacon, fill up admirably between the twice or thrice 
a week that the butcher calls. Besides all this, as 
if this was not enough almost to make a man take 
off his hat to a nice porker—and certainly to a three 
hundred pounder ; besides all this, no quadruped 
reaches maturity so rapidly, none multiplies so fast, 
none makes so good use of the food fed to it, and 
none fattens so readily at all ages. I fell in with 
General Kilpatrick 
the other day, and had an interesting talk with him 
about his farm horses, grade Short-horns, and pigs. 
I’ll not attempt to repeat it, for I hope some day to 
visit his farm, and can then make a better story of 
it; hut as an illustration of the amount of pork a 
good feeder may make, will mention that he kills 
at four mouths old almost uniformly, which is just 
as soou as the pigs will weigh 100 pounds, and 
shipping to New York, his returns average 100 dol¬ 
lars a month, about equally divided throughout the 
year, and is the best return that lie can get for liis 
skim-milk and corn. Now, 100 lbs. for a porker 
four months old is no unheard of weight; such 
pigs are not very rare, but when a man breeds and 
feeds so as to make it a uniform thing, it is remark¬ 
able. I think it was the General who said deplorhagly 
How little out People know about tlic Use of 
Grade Animals. 
There is, and there ought to be, a great deal more 
profit to ordinary farmers in raising grades—especi¬ 
ally grade cattle, grade sheep, and grade pigs— 
than in raising thorough-breds; yet, how few know 
it. Kilpatrick’s pigs are grades of small, compact, 
thorough-bred sires, and out of strong, deep milk¬ 
ing sows. In the same way, by using a first-class 
Short-horn bull with excellent common cows, he 
secures grades of extraordinary excellence. 
Cutting Brush. 
There is something terribly discouraging about a 
protracted drouth. It seems as if work was of no 
use, and it is so very hot at mid-day that our people 
seem to take things rather easy. Men hired by the 
day are not so closely followed up, and with one 
consent extra long noonings are taken, and the time 
is not made up. The result is, work drags. The 
com is not properly hoed and “ laid by ” in good 
season. Haying holds on. There are corners, aud 
swampy spots to cut long after all should have been 
done and sucli work out of the way. The result of 
course is that brush-cutting is neglected just in the 
most killing time. The time to cut elders and 
alders, as well as bayberry and huckleberry, aud 
hardback, notwithstanding the late Mr. Greeley’s 
advice, is just when a summer drouth is fairly- 
established. There are very few things that can 
recuperate from the shock. I was particularly im¬ 
pressed with this the other clay while taking 
A Horse-Back RUle to Town. 
Twenty-five miles is an unusually long ride for 
me, and so, wishing to reach New York by business 
hours, I started at day-break and went slowly. My 
journey lay through a part of the country mostly 
held either by large landowners who have inherited 
it, or by speculators. It is all within easy reach of 
New York, and was valued a few years ago at from 
two to ten times its agricultural value. Here, you 
may depend, was use for the bush-liook and hatchet. 
The whole country for several miles near the sub¬ 
urbs of the cily, seems given up to nature. Where 
well cultivated farms were a few years ago, there is 
now a wilderness of cedars and white birches, on 
the poorer soils, and all sorts of hard wood growths 
on better land. I saw one recent clearing; the 
brush having been cut off within a month, was 
still lying in heaps ready to be burned, and it was 
surprising to see how little had grown a second 
time. I turned in and had a good look at the field. 
A few little sassafras shoots were struggling up, 
looking pinched and poor; chestnuts were sprout¬ 
ing again with some vigor, and blackberries hardly 
at all. The ground was so dry and baked out that 
there seemed no more vitality left in all surface- 
rooted shrubs, and only trees sending deep tap¬ 
roots into the ground, survived the dispensation. 
When I could do so without making too great 
detours, I left the highway and took the hack roads, 
hut even then I could not avoid the well nigh 
Omnipresent Tramp. 
He was seen tucked under hedge-rows along the 
turn-pike, just waking, perhaps, from lialf-a-night’s 
