172 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
THE CHIEF AIM IN FARMING. 
There are many cultivators of the soil 
who seem to have no well-defined purpose 
in their husbandry. They have no plans 
laid far ahead, which they are seeking to 
realize in their practice. They exist rather 
than live, are listless in their efforts, and 
effect no beneficial changes in the soil they 
attempt to cultivate. Everything about them 
wears the aspect of decay. The farm build¬ 
ings are never repaired, while it is possible 
to get along without it. You can see the 
gaps in the roof, where the winds have 
blown off the shingles, and the missing 
boards and swinging clapboards from the 
sides of the building. The fences are never 
re-set, no stones are dug from the mowing 
fields, and no drains are made in the swamps 
and low lands. They simply contrive to get 
along, their land and themselves growing 
poorer every year. 
There is another class, who have purpose 
and energy enough, but it is not wisely 
directed. Their aim in farming is to get the 
most possible out of the soil, and to put the 
least possible back, in the shape of com¬ 
posts and fertilizers. Their whole farming 
operations are based upon the theory that 
the sod is a living well that will always send 
forth its waters as long as there is anybody 
to draw. They plant and sow as long as 
they can get remunerative crops, and then 
either sell out, or resort to concentrated fer¬ 
tilizers, which stimulate the soil to part with 
its last elements of fertility, and leave it 
nearly barren. They are generally ener¬ 
getic men, work hard, and push their help 
as hard as they do-their acres. They plant 
a very large breadth of land, and in a few 
years exhaust a whole farm. They do not 
believe in plowing in crops, or in making 
composts, or in saving the stable manures. 
They can not see any utility in carting dirt 
.n.o the barn-yard, and then carting it out 
agam. It looks like a waste of labor, if 
near the shore, they rely upon fish to stimu¬ 
late the soil when it fails to produce other¬ 
wise, and thus crop after crop of grain and 
grass is taken off, until the land is exhausted 
of its carbon, and runs to sorrel. If inland, 
they rely upon Peruvian guano, which in a 
few years serves the soil in the same man¬ 
ner. The theory of these farmers is to get 
great, crops, at whatever expense to the 
land. This is the skinning method of farm¬ 
ing, and the more energy these farmers have 
the sooner the land is ruined. 
Now, we believe the chief aim in all good 
farming to be the improvement of the soil 
until it reaches the point where maximum 
crops are produced at the least expense. 
Wise husbandry regards the farm simply as 
a machine for turning out crops. The ma¬ 
chine is the matter of first importance. 
This is always to be kept in good running 
order, and its efficiency is to be increased 
by all economical methods. The man who 
farms upon this system will never sacrifice 
soil for a great crop. His aim is to have 
every crop taken off, leaving the land in a 
better condition than he found it. He aims 
in every working of the soil to increase its 
depth, and to add to it more elements of fer¬ 
tility than he removes in the crops, and to 
make the crops not only pay for themselves, 
but to pay for the improvement of the acres 
upon which they are grown. 
In carrying out this aim, so as to realize 
these results, a man shows his skill as a 
cultivator. It is a comparatively easy thing 
for any one, who has money, to improve the 
soil so that it shall produce crops paying for 
the labor of growing them, and the interest 
on two or three hundred dollars an acre. 
Stable manure enough well plowed in will 
do this. But it is altogether another matter 
to make this improvement pay for itself. 
Yet it is a possible thing to do this, and there 
are farmers skillful enough to accomplish 
this result, and this we hold to be the true 
aim in the cultivation of the soil. 
All good farming, then, must look to a 
permanent occupation of the soil. Eco¬ 
nomical improvements can not be made in 
a single year. The most judicious improve¬ 
ments, those which finally pay the largest 
profits, require several years to bring in 
their full returns. It is a matter of great 
importance that our farming population 
should not only be settled, but that they 
should feel settled, and plan all their opera¬ 
tions upon the farm as if they expected to 
spend all their days upon it. 
Here is a ten acre lot now in mowing, cut¬ 
ting ten tons of hay, worth one hundred dol¬ 
lars. It has in it some stumps, more boul¬ 
ders, some brush by the wall, and a few wet 
places, growing nothing but sour grasses 
and flags. It can be cleared of all obstruc¬ 
tions, be underdrained, subsoiled and ma¬ 
nured, so as to produce three tons of hay to 
the acre for the sum of say one thousand 
dollars. It will not pay the present occu¬ 
pant to do this the coming year, if he is 
going to sell out. the year following. But he 
may accomplish all this economically in five 
years, furnish profitable employment for his 
help, introduce the mowing machine, and 
cut more fodder upon the field than he now 
cuts upon the whole farm. He may get 
crops enough from the field during the five 
years to pay for all the improvements, leav¬ 
ing the increased value of the land, certainly 
not less than a hundred dollars an acre, as 
the reward of his skill in husbandry. 
This is an illustration of what a fanner’s 
aim should be, and a good example of the 
kind of improvements that are needed upon 
most farms, at least upon the seaboard. 
The fields want to be cleared of rocks, the 
swales need deep underdrains cut through 
them, with smaller side drains running into 
them at right angles; old walls want remov¬ 
ing, and the fields enlarging to ten or twenty 
acres ; the whole surface needs to be tho¬ 
roughly worked and manured, so as to pro¬ 
duce maximum crops. By this thorough 
method, horse labor may be substituted for 
that of man, so as to save full one half of 
the present expense of raising and harvest¬ 
ing the crops. In smooth land, nearly all 
the planting and hoeing can be done by a 
horse; all the mowing, reaping, cradling 
and raking can be done by the same method. 
The man who will lay his plans wisely to 
improve his soil, making this his chief 
object, and who will judiciously expend his; 
capital in the improvements we have indi¬ 
cated, is in a fair way to gain a competence. 
This kind of farming, in the long run, wilt! 
pay amply, and we believe more surely than 
any other business. The skinning process, 
which is reckless of the soil, and looks only 
to the crops, is bad policy both for the farm 
and its owner. Let it be abandoned. 
HINTS FOR THE SEASON. 
At this season of the year, many of our 
readers are, with us, noting the results of 
good farming. The dog-star is in the as¬ 
cendant. Long, hot, dry days succeed each 
other, rapidly carrying off the moisture or 
the soil which many plants need for their 
healthy growth and maturity. In some 
places the corn crop is checked in its growth 
before the ears are filled out; pastures are 
turning brown, and crisp under the tread of 
the foot; some fruit trees are in a suffering 
condition, and gardens and ornamental 
grounds are less attractive than in more fa¬ 
vorable seasons. 
1st. But we have observed one thing dur¬ 
ing this dry weather which, though not new, 
yet needs frequent mention, viz.: that the 
best tilled lands suffer least from drouth. 
We daily pass several fields which were 
subsoiled and thoroughly manured last 
Spring, and the crops on them continue to 
grow with great luxuriance, their waving 
leaves seeming to beckon defiantly to the 
drouth to come on and do its worst. Fields 
near at hand, with as good natural position 
and soil as the other, but which were hasti¬ 
ly and superficially tilled, are now drying 
up for lack of moisture. They looked about 
as well during the plentiful rains of Spring 
and early Summer, and seemed to offer a 
premium for poor farming; but now, alas, 
they are a sorry sight! They are a mortifi¬ 
cation, a reproach, and a pecuniary loss to 
the man who owns them. 
We are by no means disposed to push this 
matter of high farming to an extreme, and tc 
insist that every field shall be trench-plowed 
and manured regardless of expense ; but we 
do say that most land should be more thor¬ 
oughly plowed than they now are, and that 
what is annually taken off in the shape of a 
crop should be returned in the shape of ma¬ 
nure. Lands well treated dry sooner in 
Spring, retain their moisture! and fertility 
better in midsummer, and yield larger and 
better crops. No observing man can open 
his eyes without seeing this. Brother farm¬ 
er, the present we know is not the time 
to remedy any mistakes you may have made 
in tillage, but it is just the time to feel them 
deeply, and to make note of them for future 
profit. Bear, then, with our “ line upon 
line,” and while the aspect of the farms 
around you enforces our exhortation, resolve 
to practice accordingly the next season. 
2d. Our second hint lor the times grows 
out of the first, and relates to the gathering 
of materials for the compost heap. It is oft¬ 
en recommended to collect muck in Winter, 
because that is a season of comparative leis¬ 
ure. It is well to draw it from the swamp 
