AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
411 
1800.] 
opinion that the work must be done principally 
in the winter, when other farm work is not 
pressing. I paid the best men only $1.00 a day 
for ditching last winter, and some of the poorer 
ones only 75 cents, without board. If I had 
put it off until spring not a man of them would 
have worked for less than $1.50 or $1.75. But 
being through with the ditching and having lit¬ 
tle work that must be done, they worked all 
spring for $1.25 per day. If a farmer who hires 
men by the day gets behind with his work, the 
men will do all they can to get him in a 
tight place and then put the screws on. 
To ditch in winter, we must get all ready be¬ 
forehand. The tiles can be drawn when we 
have good sleighing, but it is necessary to order 
them previously. Make up your mind in the 
fall where the drains are to be cut. If the main 
drain is to discharge into an open ditch, the 
ditch should be cleaned out, or “scoured,” as 
the English farmers call it, so that the water 
will pass off freely. This should be done in the 
summer or autumn, before heavy rains set in. 
Make sure of the outlets to the drains. There 
is dangerofthe land freezing on the sidesoflhe 
open ditch, and it is well, after you have plowed 
out the furrows, to dig out the underdrain from 
the open ditch as deep as you intend to have it 
for half a rod or so. Then, when the corn is all 
husked and the stalks in the barn; when the 
potatoes are dug and in the cellar, or if put in 
pits, when the second layer of straw and dirt 
has been thrown on to make sure of their not 
freezing; when the sheep and cattle are in their 
winter quarters and the fat pigs are in the pork 
barrel; when you have plowed the last furrow, 
and the implements and machines are all housed; 
when you wake up some morning to find a foot 
of snow on the ground, and the atmosphere 
bright, dry, cold, and stimulating, get a good 
warm breakfast, and put on a well-oiled pair of 
‘boots, and then “ what larks !” Chopping has 
its pleasures, doubtless, because it calls for the 
exercise of skill and energy, but underdraining 
far more. The operations are essentially alike. 
A dull, slow, plodding man never makes a good 
chopper or a good ditcher. In ditching, as in 
chopping, it is the “big chips” that count. An 
energetic man will thrust a sharp, narrow spade 
into ground where a plodder would think he 
must use the pick. Men who are riding past 
on a load of wood, slapping their hands, may 
think it cold work to dig underdrains with the 
thermometer near zero. But they know nothing 
about it. Let the work be performed with the 
necessary energy, and there will be no necessity 
for extra wrappings. But good men should not 
work more than eight hours a day—and poor 
men have no business in an underdrain. 
Two gentlemen from South Carolina came to 
see my farm a short time since, and the thing 
which seemed to impress them most was the 
quantity of grass along the sides of the roads. 
They seemed to have expected that with our 
high-priced land, we should economize every 
inch. One of my neighbors, a thriving German 
farmer, has made the sides of the road smooth 
and level, and this year mowed quite a nice 
crop of hay from them. Too many of us make 
tfie road the receptacle for all the stones, 
sticks, and rubbish of the firm. The thistles 
come up between the stones. Mowing the 
grass is out of the question. The best we can 
do is to top off the thistles occasionally. I 
know of few things that would add so much 
to the beauty of the country as to have all the 
road-sides made smooth and level, and have the 
grass cut with a mowing machine twice a year. 
The thrifty German alluded to is doing too well 
to have any thought of selling, but if he had I 
am sure his farm would sell for $10 an acre 
more for having such a lawn-like road-side, and 
for the general air of neatness and thrift which 
it imparts to the establishment. 
These gentlemen said the negroes were doing 
much better than they expected. The more 
intelligent of them were working the land on 
shares, and the others worked for $8 or $10 per 
month and board,—the board consisting of a 
peck of corn meal and four pounds of pork a 
week. Another year it was supposed they 
would demand and obtain higher wages. In 
reply to a question regarding the profits of 
farming, they said: “IVe calculate to make 
$200 to each hand. A farmer who employs 
twenty-five hands ought to make $5,000 a year.” 
This mode of stating the matter strikes one 
strangely here at the North; but after all, is it 
not the true idea? It is from our labor and not 
from the “acres,” that we obtain our profits. 
Jason Smith, a well-known farmer of Seneca 
Co., writes: “Your Walks and Talks in the 
Agriculturist are attracting considerable atten¬ 
tion, and are read with interest and avidity. I 
would like to throw out a few hints and sug¬ 
gestions to strengthen your cause. I highly ap¬ 
prove of your advocacy of the practice of sum¬ 
mer-fallowing, which, if done thoroughly, is a 
sure, if not the only economical, means of de¬ 
stroying troublesome weeds, such as the Canada 
thistle, cockle, Mayweed, white and yellow 
daisies, pigeon weed, plantain, burdock, rag¬ 
weed, mustard, quack grass, with a host of 
summer weeds too numerous to mention. Near¬ 
ly all of these, except quack grass, can be killed 
by thorough summer-fallowing in a dry season. 
Unless we adopt a better system of farming, the 
weeds and insects will drive us from our farms. 
The law requiring path-masters to cut the weeds 
on the road-side at least twice a year is a dead 
letter on the statute books, and where the law 
prohibiting cattle from running at large has 
been enforced, the road-sides during the past wet 
summer became a perfect swamp of weeds and 
grass, I think we should petition the Legisla¬ 
ture to allow sheep to run in the highways. 
They are peaceable animals and easily fenced 
against, and if kept on short allowance, will de¬ 
stroy nearly all kinds of weeds. If this is not 
done the fences should be dispensed with, and 
the farmers allowed to cultivate the land up to 
the road-side. * * There are two methods of 
eradicating weeds or keeping them in check. 
The best is thorough fallowing, and the next is 
keeping the laud in grass and cutting the weeds 
often enough to prevent them from going to 
seed. They cannot germinate or take root to 
any extent in a stiff sward. Every farmer 
should fallow at least one field every year, 
which, in time, would clear his farm of these 
pests. In witnessing the operation of a new 
steam thrashing machine recently, it was dis¬ 
gusting to see how much bulk the feeder had to 
put through for the quantity of grain. As a 
general rule, about one-third of the bulk was 
weeds—and this on farms the owners of which 
make some pretensions to being model farmers.” 
Mark you, this is from Seneca Co., N. Y., the 
home of such farmers as John Johnston, Robert 
J. Swan, the lamented Ten Eyck Foster, and 
John Delafield,—a County which has produced 
more wheat per acre than any other in the 
State. I fear the picture is not overdrawn. It 
is certainly true of this section. I think my 
corn field is tolerably clean (the result of two 
corn crops in succession five years ago, and the 
thorough, almost the excessive, use of the culti¬ 
vator at that time, together with its free use this 
season). But with this exception, I do not 
know of a single field of clean corn, or clean po¬ 
tatoes, or clean beans. Even the Deacon’s 
wheat stubble, though there is a fine growth of 
young clover, is far from clean. This is in 
Monroe Co., “ the center of the garden of the 
Empire State,” where good farm land is sup¬ 
posed to be worth, and actually sells for, $125 
to $200 per acre. The remedy is “fall-fallow¬ 
ing,” for spring crops, to be seeded down with 
clover; fall-plowing followed by summer-fal¬ 
lowing for wheat, also to be seeded with clover; 
planting two hoed crops, such as corn and po¬ 
tatoes, in succession, and the constant use of 
the cultivator between the rows; and plowing 
or cultivating in the fall, after the crop is re¬ 
moved. If the wheat or barley stubbles that 
are seeded with clover throw up weeds, pass the 
mowing machine over them to prevent their 
going to seed, and keep down the weeds along 
the fences, and in waste places and road-sides. 
A few years of such treatment will clear our 
farms and do much to enrich them and our¬ 
selves at the same time. 
Cattle in the Road. 
A correspondent complains bitterly of his 
thriftless neighbors who allow their cattle, geese, 
and hogs, to run in the road—starving them on 
their own premises that they may get a starv- 
ling living on the highway. They dodge into 
every open gateway, plunder the garden, tear 
down the roses from the trellis, mar the flower 
borders, break the shrubbery, eat the turnips, 
destroy the paling, and are the pest of the 
neighborhood. Patience, my good friend. 
There is a remedy. Your neighbor, who thus 
torments his friends, is influenced solely by the 
love of gain. He thinks all that his cattle steal 
from the highway and from the fields of his 
neighbors is so much gain to him. You have 
only to make him feel that it is loss in money 
and in self respect, to reform him. In most 
civilized communities you have the law on 
your side. There is a pound for stray cattle, 
geese, and hogs, and if they are put in, he can¬ 
not get them out without paying the fines and 
fees. A little faithfulness on the part of the 
afflicted will soon open his eyes, as well as his 
purse. He will keep his cattle at less expense 
upon his own laud. There must be no tender¬ 
heartedness shown him under the misapprehen¬ 
sion that he will make reprisals. Let him it' 
he dare. You are unmanly if j-ou wiil not de¬ 
fend your own property by all legal measures. 
He is as fall of conceit as an egg is of meat, and 
as long as he finds that his cattle can steal from 
the highway with impunity, he will keep them 
at it. He thinks it is smart to get ahead of the 
public in this way, and until you can take this 
conceit out of him, and show him that it is 
wicked rather than smart, there is no hope of 
his reform. The pound for his cattle will be a 
means of grace that he cannot slight. If the 
law is against you it will take a little longer to 
reach your result, but it is equally sure. By 
sufficient painstaking a law can be secured in 
any township, clearing the highway of cattle. 
The proposition that a man should pasture his 
own cattle is so just that few men will argue 
long against it. Public opinion can be reformed 
and made right on this subject, and with the 
law on your side, it will be your own fault if 
your neighbors thrust their surplus cattle upon 
your premises. Try the effect of the pound. 
