88 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Makcii, 
Tim Bunker on Getting the Best. 
“I can’t afford it,” said Jake Frink, as lie 
looked into my flock of sheep, and declined to 
take a Cotswold ram that I offered him for $100. 
“That’s a smashin’ price for a sheep, Squire,” 
said Uncle Jotliam Sparrowgrass. “ Never 
lxeerd the like on’t on the Island. A hundred 
dollars would buy a decent horse.” 
“ Can you afford to keep the sheep you’ve 
got now ?” I asked. 
“Well, I never thought much about that,” 
said Jake. “ I keep ’em, and I guess it pays 
about as well as any thing.” 
“ Your scrub sheep,” said I, “probably pay 
you a dollar a head above the cost of keeping. 
Mut ton and wool are all you get out of them 
for market, and not much of either. The Cots- 
wolds will give you these, and a prime article of 
stock to sell, which will give you more profit 
than the flesh and wool. With this breed you 
get a carcass two or three times as large, and 
the meat will bring a higher price in market. 
By using a thoroughbred rain, if you do not 
want to raise them for stock, you will get larger 
lambs, and they will be ready for market in 
June, when the butchers will give you big 
prices. It pays much better to get six dollars 
for a lamb than three, especially if you don’t 
have to keep him so long. That hundred dol¬ 
lar ram would serve your forty ewes, and if you 
only got a dollar a head more for the lambs, it 
would make a difference of forty dollars in the 
j'ear’s receipts from your flock. If you raised 
the ewe lambs and got a bigger stock to breed 
from, it would pay you still better. Here, in 
New England, where almost every farm is 
within an hour’s ride of a good market, and 
where the butchers come to your door to pur¬ 
chase every animal you can raise, size in a calf 
or lamb is a veiy desirable quality. Lamb, as 
meat, retails for 35 cents a pound, and they can 
afford to pay well for lambs that will dress thirty 
or forty pounds. There is no more trouble in 
getting large lambs than small ones, if you only 
have the right stock to start with.” 
“ That’s so, Squire,” said Seth Twiggs, “ but 
them big sheep are hard on feed. The quanti¬ 
ty of hay and turnips they’ll make way with is 
astonishing to hay-mows and root cellars. 
“Well,” I replied, “ what is fodder good for 
but to be eaten? And if you get more for feed¬ 
ing a hundred pounds of hay to one animal than 
to three, better feed one, and save the care and 
risk of two of them. A sheep is a machine to 
turn fodder into wool and mutton, and that is 
the best breed that will give me the most for 
my fodder, sold in this form. As a rule, the 
more a sheep eats, the more mutton and wool 
it makes, and the better it pays.” 
Jake Frink could not exactly see this, though 
it must be clear enough to people that have 
brains. The “ Saleratus man” has got hold of 
the true doctrine in farming. “Get the best” 
should be hung up as a motto over every farm¬ 
er’s door. Here lies, mainly, the secret of suc¬ 
cess. This makes the difference between thrifty 
and unthrifty farmers. A man down in Shad- 
town last year bought a wild gander to put with 
one of his common geese. He started for some 
mongrel geese, which he knew brought the 
highest price in market. He fed them well, and 
got the goose to laying early. The first laying 
of eggs he set under liens, and the second the 
goose hatched herself, twenty-one goslings in 
all, which all grew up, and were sold in the 
fall for $80. The feathers were sold for $11, 
[flaking $91 as the proceeds of a single pair of 
geese for the season. The high price of the 
mongrel geese, as well as skill in rearing, effect¬ 
ed the result. It paid to “get the best” in this 
case, although he had to pay a high price for 
the gander. Good Rouen ducks will dress eight 
pounds. The common ducks of our yards will 
not average four. These birds get the most of 
their living from the ponds and brooks near 
the farm-house, and very little is fed out to them 
until they are put up for fattening. The Rouens 
will bring for poultry four or five dollars a pair, 
the others less than half that sum. If a man 
has to pay fifteen or twenty dollars for a trio of 
Rouens, he makes a better investment than to 
buy the common ducks at cheap prices. “ Get 
the best ” in any kind of poultry or farm stock. 
There is one very good reason for doing this, 
which most farmers overlook. They will al¬ 
ways have the best to sell. It is surprising to 
notice what a difference there is in the price of 
farm products, even in the small market of 
Ilookertown. The good name of some farmers 
will sell any thing they have to put off. They 
can get their own prices, always a little above 
the market, because everybody knows they sell 
nothing but the best. If Deacon Smith drives 
down to Shadtown with a load of hay, he don’t 
have to wait long on the street, before it is sold. 
In fact, it is generally spoke for beforehand, for 
the livery stable men all know the Deacon’s 
brand. He cuts his hay early, cures it just 
enough, and stores it in the barn. It comes 
out in the best condition, and every pound is 
available for fodder. I don’t suppose he would 
sell a lock of mouldy hay any sooner than he 
would go into his neighbor’s hen-roost to steal 
chickens. It is just so with the Deacon’s but¬ 
ter. He keeps grade Alderneys for the most of 
his herd, though he has some pure-bred animals 
that he raises for stock. Every thing about the 
milk-room is kept in the neatest order, and the 
butter is thoroughly worked. He supplies the 
same families year after year, though they have 
to pay him about ten cents a pound above the 
market price. Some of the Deacon’s neighbors, 
I am sorry to say, don’t believe in his doctrine, 
and they find it rather hard to sell any thing ex¬ 
cept upon its own merits. Squire Bentham 
lives up a piece beyond the White Oaks, has a 
large farm, a fine white house with green blinds, 
good barn, and good fences, and you would 
think the farm always turned off the best prod¬ 
ucts. But it don’t. The Squire is streaked. 
He comes to our meeting and pays his pew 
rent, but somehow Mr. Spooner’s preaching 
never took the meanness out of him. About a 
dozen years ago, he sold the parson a skim- 
cheese, as an offset to a part of his pew rent. 
He sold it for the best, and it came so near be¬ 
ing theAvorst, that Mr. Spooner has never found 
the like of it. He never said any thing about it, 
but it leaked out through the servant girl that 
the White Oak cheese went into the swill pail. 
Squire Bentham will never hear the last of it. 
The boys got hold of it, and he rarely got out 
of Ilookertown without being asked the price 
of skim-clieese. I suppose that little meanness 
has cost him hundreds of dollars in the way of 
trade. He can’t sell any thing by sample where 
he is known. He has smelt of skim-cheese for 
a dozen years, and the odor will never get out 
of him. Josh Butler lives out on the Shadtown 
road a couple of miles, and used to make quite 
a business of bringing in lamb, mutton, and 
poultry, to sell around to our families. In an 
evil day, some disease got among Josh’s sheep, 
that ho was fattening, and one of them died. 
It was too much for him tp think pf losing, 
and the diseased meat was dressed, and sold on 
Ilookertown street. It got out through the hired 
man, and Josh was in trouble every time he 
came to market. Mysterious “balls” were 
heard about the houses when he knocked at the 
doors, and Ins trade tapered down to nothing. 
Josh has probably repented of that a great many 
times, but he never will get over it. It spoiled 
him for Ilookertown. Now it may not be always 
possible for a farmer to have the best articles to 
sell, but he can refuse to sell any thing that is 
bad. His reputation he should never put in the 
market. If he goes upon the principle of get¬ 
ting only the best seed and stock upon his 
farm, he will be quite sure, with ordinary care, 
to have the best to sell. The thoroughbred ar¬ 
ticle costs a good deal, and it requires more 
capital to do business with, but it pays much 
better in the end. I think this kind of invest¬ 
ment begets habits of carefulness, that tell upon 
all his business. He puis more money into a 
thoroughbred Devon or Durham, than into a 
scrub, and it very naturally gets carded oftener, 
and has better fare. Our hearts go with our 
treasures in farming, as in other things. One 
first-rate animal prepares the way for others, 
and the business grows in this direction, until 
the motto of the farm becomes, “ Get the best.” 
Hootcertoum, Conn, i Tours to Command, 
Jan. 15, 1869. | Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
Want of Success with Wheat. 
Mr. Shaw, of Indiana, who has a farm about 
two miles from the Ohio River, says he has not 
for the last five years been able to raise a pay¬ 
ing crop of wheat. Fifteen bushels per acre 
was formerly considered a fair average, but now 
as soon as the head comes out, the Rust strikes 
the blade, and by the time the grain ought to 
be ripening, there is none in the head. It is 
only in a section of four or five hundred acres 
that the rust is so bad. These are situated on 
the ridges which lead to the branch of the creek. 
In the valley of the creek, and even on the 
ridges and hillsides nearer the mouth of the 
branch, the wheat is not affected so badly, and 
often escapes altogether, though the soil is 
neither so good nor so well tilled. 
There is no known cure for rust. The great 
point is to get early wheat, so that it shall be so 
far advanced when the rust strikes it that little 
damage will be done. A barrel of salt per acre, 
sown in the fall with the wheat, has frequently 
a good effect on wheat liable to rust from over¬ 
luxuriance. It is curious that the wheat on the 
ridges should rust, while that in the valley es¬ 
capes. The probability is that these ridges arc 
full of springs and need underdraining. This 
can be easily ascertained by digging a few holes 
three feet deep. If water comes in and remains 
there for a week or two, the land needs drain¬ 
ing, and no other cure for rust need be looked 
for until this is accomplished. The main pre¬ 
ventives of rust are underdraining, good, clean 
culture, thorough pulverization of the soil, the 
liberal application of lime as a manure, and, 
in case the soil abounds in organic matter, the 
use of a barrel of salt per acre sown broadcast 
before putting in the crop. Then select an early 
variety for sowing and trust to Providence, 
Mr. S. adds that “wheat rusts just as badly 
on land recently cleared as on land that has 
been in cultivation twenty-five years,” so that 
it is not caused by exhaustion of the soil. But 
the fact that 15 bushels per acre was formerly 
considered a fair yield indicates that the land 
was never very productive. All the facts here 
giyen would seem to indicate a want of draining, 
