18 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Janctaky, 
Walks and Talks on tke Farm. 
NO. 25.* 
The Genesee Farmer.—City Farmers.—Wandering Farm¬ 
ers. — Mickie.—Sows killing Pigs.—Improved vs. com¬ 
mon Swine.—Grease for Wool.—Dairying versus Sheep¬ 
raising.—Roots and Cabbages for Cows.—The Doctor’s 
System of Feeding.—Soft Corn.—Farrow Cows.—Root 
Cellars.—Hens on a “ Strike.” — Sheep's Liver for Poul¬ 
try.—Draining High Land.—Money invested in Farm 
Improvements.—Wide Sheds for Animals. — Improv¬ 
ing Old Buildings.—Loss of Manure and How to Save 
It. — Barns, Sheds, and Barn-yards. 
“ So 3 'ou have really sold the Farmer," writes 
John Johnston. “ Many will be sorry. Will it 
be continued and shall you write for it ? ” 
I never knew our venerable friend come so 
near a compliment as liiis; for like all sensible 
men he never flatters. After all, you see, he 
does not say that 7ie is sorry. • 
The Genesee Farmer, as such, will not be con¬ 
tinued ; it has been united with the American 
Agriculturist. I shall continue to write for the 
Genesee Farmers, however, just the same. The 
thought of Avriting for the Agriculturist with , 
its “ hundred thousand subscribers and half a 
million of readers” may be pleasant enough to 
those who are accustomed to it, but I confess 
that it makes me feel a little nervous. I shall 
try to think that I am writing for the Genesee 
Farmer, and if all our old friends take the 
Agriculturist we shall get along as pleasantly 
as usual. We may be considered plain country^ 
people, but—in these times ten thousand good 
Genesee farmers and fruit growers are not to be 
despised. Let us go in a body, and the editors 
and proprietors of th« Agriculturist at least will 
give us a hearty welcome. 
“ There are many city people who take the 
Agriculturist ? ” Yes, there are many thousand 
copies sold each month in New York alone. 
But wh.'it of that; these city gentlemen who 
hare a taste for agriculture and horticulture, are 
about the most interesting and agreeable people 
I ever met. They are so delightfully enthusi¬ 
astic, and like to talk over their successes and 
failures in cultivating their land. With farmers, 
agriculture is an old story, and when you meet 
them, they seem to prefer to talk politics rather 
than about what is doing on their farms. But a 
city man rather likes to be considered a farmer. 
He has often the genuine love for agriculture, and 
sighs for the pleasures of country life. Of couree 
there are those who affect this, now that farming 
is becoming fashionable and I should not be 
surprised if, in their desire to be thought farm 
ers, some city upstarts should wear homespuil 
and dirty boots. ■ In London, a century or so 
ago, a machine was invented for spattering 
gentlemen’s boots with mud, and for a penny 
you could be converted into a country gentle¬ 
men who had ridden into toum! This was 
much cheaper than keeping a horse. And some 
New York fashionable tailor could get up a 
suit of farmer’s clothes for far less than it would 
cost to live in the country. 
* JUSS* These “Walks and Talks” are continued flom 
the Genesee Farmer, which is now merged into Ihe Agri¬ 
culturist. We have at the Agriculturist Office the stereo¬ 
type plates of the Genesee Farmer and can supply the 
yearly volumes for eight years past, beginning with 1S58. 
Price per volume $1.25 if bound, $1, if in numbers. Sent 
post-paid at the same price. The volumes'for 1854 and 
1865 contain the fir.st twenty-four Walks and Talks,” of 
which we liere give No. 25. These articles are narratives 
of actual experience on the farm. 
A man called to see me to-day who wanted a 
job at chopping by the cord. He was a Cana¬ 
dian farmer "and quite an intelligent looking 
man. I asked him what brought him over here. 
He said, a neighbor told him that in the oil 
regions he could get $5 a day, and as this was 
more than he could make on his farm, he con¬ 
cluded to rent it and started for ‘ Pithole City !’ 
“ But he deceived me; when I got there I could 
get nothing to do, and board ■was f 10 a week. 
So I started home again, but thought I would stop 
here and chop this winter if I can get a chance.” 
It is passing strange that so many farmers are 
willing to leave their homes to engage in some 
improbable scheme for getting an easier living. 
If a man has been so unfortunate as to settle in 
a swamp where there is no chance of di'ainage 
he had better pull up stakes and leave. But 
in almost every other case he had better stay 
where he is and “ fight it out on that line.” This 
man had left a wife and family, because he 
thought he could make a little more money, and 
here he is, wandering about, losing his time, and 
only anxious to get something to do. He is 
■nulling to live in a shanty in the woods and 
board himself. How much more coriifortabie 
he would be at home, -and even if he should get 
a little more for chopping, he will find that, 
after deducting his travelling expenses and his 
loss of time, he would have done far better to 
have sta 3 ’’ed at home. In this country, wages 
cannot be much higher, all things considered, 
at one point than at another. It may be the 
case for a short time at some place, but the fact 
soon becomes known and men rush there like 
air into a vacuum and wages find their level. 
A 3 'ear ago an Irishman informed me he had 
a friend in Ireland that wanted to come to this 
country, wlnf could do all kinds of fiirm work. 
I told him to come directly here and I would 
pay him all he was worth. He came and went 
to work without loss of time. He was a faith¬ 
ful fellow, and I gave him $15 a mdnth and his 
board, which I thought good pay for a raw boy 
not over eighteen. But Mickie had a cousin in 
“ Chickago,” as he called it, who wrote him 
that he could get $2 a day; and though I en¬ 
deavored to explain that though he might get 
such wages for a short time, the probabilities 
were that during the winter he would be thrown out 
of employment, and that he would make more, or 
rather save more, by staying here, he concluded to 
leave. Poor Mickie. He is like all the rest. He 
did not know when he was well off. He has gone 
to “ Chickago.” 
. Mickie loved pigs and took capital care of them. 
He met me at the gate one night as I came home 
from the city, and I saw from his excitement that 
something unusual had happened. “ The sow has 
got eleven little pigs, and such beauties !” A happier 
man than Mickie was not to be found in the town 
of .Yates. He wanted everybody to see his Suffolks. 
It was a proud day for Mickie. But alas for human 
joy. Next morning Mickie had to tell me that one 
of the little pigs was dead. Oh well, never mind, 
ten is enough; they will do all the better.” But 
the next night another -^'as gone. The sow had 
lain on it. “ You should not have fed her so miich ; 
she is too fat.” The next morning Mickie was 
sadder than ever. “The old baste has killed an-' 
other,” he said. “ Well, we must put a stop to it.” 
Sows kill their pigs not by lying on them, but by 
crowding them against the sides of the pen. We 
put some poles round the inside of the pen, about 
one foot from the board.?, so that the sow in lying 
down could not crush the little pigs against the 
sides, and we had no further trouble. It is a simple 
preventive, and did not take half an hour’s work. 
I Mickie had acquired one good trait on the Irish 
farm where he had been brought up. He had been ’ 
taught to do things at stated times ; his last request 
to his successor was : “ Be sure y.ou clean out the 
pigs and give them fresh litter every 3fonday morning. 
The 'doctor has often spoken to me about a r'e- 
markable pig he has, and to-day I went to see it. 
He has two pigs that he purchased last spring from 
different littere. One is a nearly’ thorough bred 
Suffolk, and the other has nothing but common 
blood in his veins. They are of the same age, and 
both have had the same food and treatment; and 
yet the Suffolk is nearly or-quite as heavy again as 
the other! Having been fed in the same pen, no¬ 
thing could more forcibly illustrate the value of 
good breeding. I think it will weigh 500 lbs. The 
doctor was not at home, but he has an intelligent 
“.contraband” who does tlie honors of the establish¬ 
ment, and is evidently proud of the pig. “ The 
Doctor can get a hundred dollars for him, Sah.” 
■ “ I guess not, Solomon ; ijork is down, and if every¬ 
body fed pigs as well as you do, it would stay 
down.” But even if he brings only $75, he will 
pay well for the pudding ’’ and milk ho has eaten. 
“ By the way, Solomon, how do you make this 
‘.pudding’that the Doctor speaks so highly of?” 
“ I put a quart of corn meal into a pail, and pour 
some boiling water over it and stir it up.”' 
“ How much water ? ” 
“ About half a pailful. It gets quite thick, you 
know, Sah, and 'sve fill up the pail with milk to 
cool it before giving it to the pigs.” 
Few farm products command a higher price or 
are more profitable than good butter. In 1861 but¬ 
ter was sold in Rochester for 10c. a lb.; now it 
brings 50c. At that time, and for a year or two 
afterwards, nothing was talked about but sheep. 
Cows were neglected. I urged farmers in the grain 
growing districts to p.ay more attention to the 
dairy. It is a safe rule to do just what others are 
jiot'doing; to buy when others sell, and sell when 
others buy. Sheep paid better than cows a few 
years ago, and everybody went into sheep hus¬ 
bandry. The papers were full of sheep. Books 
were published on the subject, and 'we had soon a 
full blown mania in regard to American Merinos 
and heavy fleeces. It will not be long before we 
shall look back in astonishment at the blind cre¬ 
dulity which seems to have seized even intelligent 
farmers. "Ye shall have no such mania in regard 
to cows, for the simple reason that there is no par-- 
licular breed that it will pay to get up an excite¬ 
ment about. "We have sheep that will produce 
fleeces weighing 25 pounds, twenty pounds of which 
is worthless matter, but which, for a time at least, 
sold as wool. Had we a breed of cows that would 
give five pounds a day of something that would 
sell for butter, but which contained only one pound 
of the real article, we should soon have an excite¬ 
ment that would equal in intensity the severest 
form of the sheep fever. 
But fortunately we have no such breed; and we 
may now safely feed our cows as much food as they 
can turn into milk, with the certainty that the but¬ 
ter will more than pay for the little extras that can 
be given them. There is nothing so good as cab¬ 
bages to keep up the flow of.milk during the early 
part of winter ; and for later use beets and man¬ 
gold wurzcls are invaluable. Of course, you want 
to feed some grain with them. Considered merely 
in relation to the amount of nutriment they con¬ 
tain, they are usually worth more to sell in the 
cities and villages, than they are to feed out on the 
farm. But fed with corn meal they give tone to 
the system, and enable the cow to extract more 
butter from the meal and hay, or corn stalks, than 
she could do' without some such succulent food. 
The Doctor adopts a good sj'stem. He has only 
four or five acres of land, but he manages to keep 
two cows and feed .a couple of pigs with'consider¬ 
able profit and with no small degree of satisfaction. 
He makes pets of all his animals, and usu.ally en¬ 
joys seeing them cat. He studies their comfort and 
nothing disgusts him so much as a farmer whose 
stock is exposed tO cold winds and driving storms. 
