250 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July, 
Walks and Talks on the Farm—No. 67. 
In answer to a letter asking his opinion in re¬ 
gard to summer-faiiowing for spring barley, 
Jolm Johnston writes me: “I think you would 
do better to plow your two-year-old clover sod 
only once this fall for barley, and the later you 
plow it, the better. If you fallow it, it would 
be too line, and the spring might be such that 
it would be difficult to get the land in good con¬ 
dition for barley. Fallowing as you propose 
would answer well, if, after that, you would 
throw it into two furrow ridges before frost set 
in. Then it would work to perfection in spring. 
I never saw such barley grown hereabouts as I 
raised by throwing corn stubble in three furrow 
ridges in November, and barrowing and plow¬ 
ing the land again in spring before sowing. 
The last crop I raised in that way was 40 bush¬ 
els per acre, and over 51 lbs. per bushel.” 
This is undoubtedly a capital plan. My own 
idea was to plow it up as late as possible in the 
fall, and leave it rough for the winter; but 
plowing it into ridges must be better. 
Mr. Johnston’s land is now so clean that it is 
difficult fin- him to realize the position in which 
those of us who have neglected farms are placed. 
We must do something to kill the weeds. Plow¬ 
ing the clover sod late in the fall may give as 
good a crop of barley as if we summer-fallowed 
it. But I doubt it. And at any rate bjr plow¬ 
ing it about the first of August, and again after 
we are through wheat sowing, and again just 
before winter sets in, we can do a good deal 
towards cleaning the land, and we lose no crop, 
except a little fall pasture. Aud there can he 
little doubt that this thorough stirring and ex¬ 
posure of the soil for eightor nine months (from 
August to May) will do much towards enrich¬ 
ing it by developing the latent plant-food. 
Perhaps a better rotation would be this: 
Mow your young clover for hay and the second 
crop for seed. And as soon as the crop of seed 
clover is drawn in, spread twenty loads of 
rich, well-decomposed manure per acre on the 
sod. Then go over the field once or twice with 
a set of J. J. Thomas’ slanting-teeth harrows, 
for the purpose of breaking the lumps of ma¬ 
nure and making it as fine as possible. It is 
said that manure makes grass rank, and imparts 
a disagreeable flavor to it, so that cattle do not 
like it. I think this is due simply to the fact 
that manure is seldom spread evenly over the 
land. When it lies in lumps the grass has a 
bad flavor, but if it is evenly spread and 
worked over with Thomas’ harrow, no such 
effect will he observed. In fact, if the ma¬ 
nure is well rotted and properly applied, the 
grass will be very sweet and succulent, and the 
cattle will greatly prefer it to grass that has not 
been top-dressed. This I know to he a fact. 
The next spring, after top-dressing the clover 
the previous fall, you will have a great growth 
of clover and grass. Pasture it until the mid¬ 
dle of June, and then plow it up as you have 
leisure. Fallow the field as thoroughly as you 
can, and the next spring plant it to corn. Cul¬ 
tivate the corn about once a week for two 
months, and kill every weed. If any thistles 
show themselves in August, cut them out with 
the hoe. After the corn is harvested, plow the 
stubble, and sow the land to wheat, barley, or 
oats, the next spring, and seed down with a 
peck of clover seed per acre. If the manure 
is good, I think this plan would give a big crop 
of corn, say 80 or 90 bushels shelled corn per 
acre, and 40 or 50 bushels of barley, and a 
great growth of clover afterwards. Aud the land 
would be as “ clean as a garden ” should be. 
Do not tell me that it will not pay. I know 
better. As you farm it now, you get about 30 
bushels of shelled corn per acre, on the best 
parts of the field, 15 bushels on the sandy knolls, 
and 5 bushels on the “ clay spots,” and some¬ 
times nothing. Is it not so ? Then you get 15 
bushels of barley per acre, or if the season hap¬ 
pens to be very favorable, 20 bushels. Your 
wheat afterwards is about 12 bushels per acre. 
And you are now paying a man $28 a month and 
his board and washing, to help you put in and 
cultivate and hoe these crops, and you will have 
to pay $2.50 to $3.00 a day for help to harvest 
them. And furthermore, your land is getting 
poorer and more weedy every year. A sum¬ 
mer-fallow, followed by a well-cultivated corn 
crop, would clean it thoroughly and put it 
in shape for further and rapid improvement. 
The fact is, our farms are suffering for want 
of thorough tillage. We ouly half work the 
land. We spend a great deal of time and labor 
in attempting to kill weeds, but we do not quite 
accomplish the object. The weeds recover 
from the blows we have given them, and our 
time and labor are lost. Another hoeing, or 
another cultivating, or another plowing, would 
have made an end of them, and for want of 
this we lose all that we have done. Our land 
is no cleaner than it was a dozen years ago, 
and it will be no cleaner a dozen years hence, 
unless we change our system of cultivation. 
As long as labor is so high we cannot afford 
to employ it in raising poor crops. And there 
is not much prospect of labor being permanent¬ 
ly cheaper. It is advancing all over the world. 
And certainly no man whose heart is in the 
right place can be sorry that such is the case. 
The problem which the American farmer has 
to solve is, how to raise cheap grain, cheap 
meat, and cheap wool, with high-priced labor. 
We have an almost unlimited extent of land, 
and there is no necessity for cultivating it so 
excessively. We can afford to let half of it 
rest two years out of three. And the solution 
of the problem will be found in this direction. 
It should never be forgotten that our profits 
come from labor and not from land. And our 
chief aim should be to use labor to the best ad¬ 
vantage. To use it in raising a crop of wheat 
of 10 or 12 bushels per acre is certainly not 
using it to the best advantage. 
I wish every young farmer in the United 
States would read Thomas’ work on Farm Im¬ 
plements and Farm Machinery. It gives the 
clearest explanation of the principles of mechan¬ 
ics I have ever read, while the illustrations, be¬ 
ing taken from practical farm life, add greatly 
to the interest and usefulness of the work. A 
knowledge of these principles would be of the 
greatest use to every one who works on a farm. 
It would save a great amount of time and la¬ 
bor. And it certainly would not hurt our in¬ 
ventors and manufacturers to study the work. 
We should not then be so often annoyed by 
breakages. They would know where the strain 
comes, and provide for it. Now, we frequently 
have great strength where it is not needed, and 
a rotten bit of casting in the most important 
part of the machine. 
A few months since I tried a new ditching 
implement, the frame of which was a heavy piece 
of cast-iron, with holes in for strong wrought- 
iron teeth. It appeared exceedingly strong. We 
put on a pair of horses and had not gone ten rods 
before we struck a stone, when the casting snap¬ 
ped like a pipe stem. Why ? The last, outside 
hole was drilled about half an inch from the 
end, and about a quarter of an inch from the 
outside, and that was all there was to hold it. 
Any other tooth in the implement would have 
stood one hundred times the strain. The cast¬ 
ing could, just as well as not, have been made 
six inches long, when it would have been as 
strong as the other parts of the implement. 
The extra cost would not have been twenty-five 
cents. Take another case. Three or four years 
ago I bought a gang-plow. The frame is made 
of cast-iron, and it runs on wheels which can 
be readily moved so as to regulate the depth 
and width. It is an ingenious thing, well built, 
and of the best materials; the points, mould- 
boards, and landsides, are all that can be desired. 
In short, it is a capital implement—only it won’t 
work! Each plow, if drawn singly through the 
soil, would do good work,—as good as could be 
desired; but when three or four of them are 
attached to a triangular cast-iron frame, and the 
line of draft is in the center of the first plow 
instead of in the center of the set of plows, the 
whole machine has a tendency to draw out 
straight, and the last plow will take no land. In 
other words, the side draft is so great that all 
the plows have a tendency to run into one fur¬ 
row, with the points of the plows merely rim- 
ning sideways to the land. It seems to me that 
a little study of the principles of mechanics 
would have enabled the manufacturers to have 
avoided this error, and given us a good gang- 
plow. There appears to be no reason why a 
set of gang-plows cannot be made to do good 
work, and yet it seems to he the general opinion 
that, so far, all the gang-plows we have had 
have proved unsatisfactory. I think this is owing 
to two reasons; not making the shanks high 
enough to avoid clogging, aud not properly ad¬ 
justing the line of draft. They should be made 
so as to take three furrows only, and to be 
drawn by four horses abreast. Let them be 
made of steel and provided with coulters, when 
necessary. Such an implement would certainly 
be very useful for working over our summer- 
fallows, and for plowing in the spring, for bai ley, 
or oats, or wheat, any land that has been well 
and deeply plowed the fall previous. 
It seems to be proved that merely stirring the 
soil is not so beneficial as turning it over with 
the plow. And it appears that the power re¬ 
quired to lift and turn over a furrow is far less 
than the power required to cut it. It would 
seem, therefore, that a gang-plow, if prop¬ 
erly constructed and made of steel, with sharp 
cutting edges, would require no more power, 
and do far better work, than a cultivator. 
At the Farmers’ Club, yesterday, we had a 
talk about weeds and how to destroy them. It 
was admitted that something must be done, or 
our farmers would soon be overrun with this¬ 
tles, red-root, and quack grass. One gentleman 
stated that on some of the light sandy soils in 
Irondequoit, the quack grass had obtained en¬ 
tire possession, and that he thought the laud 
would have to be given up to it. It made 
pretty fair pasture. He thought it impossible 
to kill it on sandy soils. 
Five years ago, I had a field of sandy land 
that was full of quack. It was in wheat, and I 
did not seed it down with clover, but immedi¬ 
ately after harvest I plowed the field, and har¬ 
rowed and cultivated it; then plowed it again, 
and harrowed and cultivated; and about the 
first of December plowed it again, and left it 
rough for the winter; the next spring culti¬ 
vated it, and plowed again; then cultivated it 
once or twice more, and harrowed repeated^. 
By this time it was as loose as an ash heap, and 
