428 
AMERICAN AG-RIGULTURIST. 
[Decembek, 
ciple, and it is tlie kej- to their success. They 
make it a settled, invariable rule, to enrich the 
land, in proportion as they crop it, and to invest 
their surplus money in the soil if they can be 
sure of a fair interest for it. 
And this brings ns to the old question, how 
to enrich the soil? Few farmers have the 
means to bring up their lands at once. AVhen 
the land-holder and his land are both poor, the 
farmer is in a pretty tight jtlace. There is so 
little to begin with. Tlie great reliance must be 
on the barn-yard, pig-pen, poultry-house, privy 
and green crops, and the muck bed. 
By some means, let him contrive to raise 
more grass and fodder croiis; this will enable 
him to keep more stock, and this, of course, 
brings the increased manure. buying a 
few e.xtra tons of manure to start with, this will 
give the first increase in the grass, and so the 
ascent will surely follow. Grain and root crops 
will then come in for a share of the land, and 
produce a share of the profits. The importance 
of draining, of deep plowing, etc., we need not 
now dwell upon. No good farmer will neglect 
them. It must also be understood, at the out¬ 
set, that the work of renovating an old worn- 
out farm is the work of years, and must be 
prosecuted with patience. 
Y/alks and Talks on the Farm.— No. 36. 
I made a great mistake in not cutting up m 3 " 
corn immedialelN' after the frost. It was hardly 
glazed, but the frost was so severe that there 
was no probabiliiy of its ripening any better for 
being left standing. I cut up about tliree acres j 
and intended to have finished the field. But j 
the beans wanted pulling, the clover seed had ! 
to be cut, the potatoes on the low land were 
rotting, and what few apples we had needed 
picking. And c.vtra hands were more difficult 
to get than I ever knew. Labor was at a pre¬ 
mium. Everybody wanted men and bid high 
to get them ; and it seems as though the scarcer 
men are, and the more 3 ’’ou pay tliem, the less 
they do. I have been I'nying $1.50 a day for 
men, $1.00 for women, and 50 cents a da)'for 
boys, and at tliis season the)' do not average 
more tlian nine hours a da)'. 
No, we cannot afford to pay such wages; but 
what can we do? It is better to pay them than 
to let the crops rot in the ground. And then, 
everytliing is high that the men have to buy, 
and judged by this standard, wages, after all, 
are not mucli, if any higher, tlian before the 
war. I sliould not complain if they would only 
worl'. Our National del)t and high taxes must 
be paid out of the industry of tlie nation. We 
shall all be obliged to work harder; but few 
will do it until compelled by absolute necessity. 
Well, I stopped cutting the corn in order to 
pull the beans. These I was fortunate in secur¬ 
ing in capital order. We have had glorious 
weather. Nothing could be finer. But one 
night we had a shari> frost, and a few potatoes 
that were exposed in the liill were nipped a lit¬ 
tle. The next day all my Dutch hands, men 
and ■women, stayed at home to dig their own 
potatoes. For more than a week none of them 
came to work. Then one of my own men who 
is engaged by the year was taken sick, and I 
could do little but worry and fret. Tlie result 
was that my corn was not finished cutting until 
about the first of Novembt'r. In the meantime, 
we had a high Avinil, and the corn stalks being 
very dry it stripped off tlie leaves, lilew down ■ 
the stalks—making it tedious tvork to pick up 
and cut up the corn,—and destroyed the best 
part of the fodder. I shall know better next 
time. I should have cut up the corn at once, 
and stuck to it until it was done, no matter 
how pressing other matters were. 
I am now paying six cents a bushel for husk¬ 
ing, and may have to pay more, but I am tired 
of bidding high in order to secure men. It is 
of no use. I saw at the State Fair a husking 
machine that did the work adniirably, and I 
hope by another season it will be generally in¬ 
troduced. If there ever was a time when “la¬ 
bor-saving machines ” were needed, it is now. 
My potatoes are all dug. My Flukes on the 
low land were more or less decayed, but the 
yield was good. Tlie Peacli Blows on the low 
land were sound, but the yield was very light. 
The wet, cold weather in August cliecked tlieir 
growth, just at the time when dry, warm weath¬ 
er was most needed. The Flukes, being two 
weeks earlier, suffered far less. On the dry up¬ 
land, the Peacli Blows were excellent in quality, 
but there were more small potatoes than there 
should have been. As it was, however, the 
yield -was very fair. I did not measure the 
whole, but I measured off seventy yards of one 
row and found it gave 4| bushels, full measure. 
And as the rows are 3 feet 4 inches apart, this 
is at tiie rate of 294 bushels per acre. 
Tlie crop, in tliis section, as a general rule, 
turns out much more than was anticipated from 
the growth of the vines in summer. Mercers 
have rotted badly, and the Peacli Blows are not 
as large as usual, though sound. Farmers ex¬ 
pect good prices for potatoes in the spring. 
They argue that as New York has hitherto re¬ 
ceived large supplies from Nova Scotia, and as 
there is now a duty on them, we ought to get 
the benefit of it. Everything else is high, and 
the consumption of potatoes this winter, while 
they are cheap, will be greater than usual, and 
create an active demand in the sirring. 
I am trying to buy some sheep to fatten this 
winter, but they are higher here than in New- 
York. Grain is advancing, and John Johnston 
says he has always found most profit in fatten¬ 
ing sheep when grain was highest. The reason 
of this of. course is, that farmers hesitate to 
feed grain when they can sell it at a high price. 
Few sheep are fatted, and consequently in the 
spring they command higli prices. The profit 
of fattening sheep in winter is not due so much 
to the increase in the weight of the sheep, as to 
the improvement in the quality of the mutton, 
and to the increase in the price per lb. Last 
winter there was no money made in fattening 
sheep. The price in the fall was as high as in 
the spring, and the sheep did not pay for the 
food consumed. He was fortunate who obtained 
reasonable pay for the food, and got the manure 
for his trouble. 
One of my neighbors has sold his farm for 
$100 an acre. On asking him how he came to 
sell, he replied, “I am going West, and intend 
to buy a small farm that I can work alone. 1 
am tired of paying hired help tico thirds of all 
I can raise." 
I told him I should be quite contenled to do 
so, provided I could raise enough. Tliirty-threc 
per cent, profit would do very well. A friend 
of mine ■who lives in tlie city and rents out a 
farm on shares, says he sluinld be iierfectly sat¬ 
isfied if tlie man would only steal one-quarter 
more than his share; but he steals the tchole ! 
Shall we ever be able in this country to earry 
on farming in the same way that other business 
is conducted—I do not mean amateur farming, 
but real, practical farming, with an experienced 
man to direct and furnish the capital, and others 
to do the labor? It must be confessed that 
there are few instances of success in this direc¬ 
tion, and many of failure and disgust. The gen¬ 
eral opinion among practical farmers is, that 
such a system cannot profitably be carried out. 
And the majority of them think that a farmer' 
who pays two-thirds of all Jie receives from his 
crops for hired help and expenses, will soon get 
tired of agriculture. A man who undertakes 
the business and who lias tlie necessary person¬ 
al qualifications, witli sufficient capiud, can usu¬ 
ally carry on a manul'actitring establisliment 
with profit. Wiiy cannot farming be carried on 
in the same way. If it cannot, ii must be owing 
to the difficulty of getting intelligent labor, or 
of making it, from the nature of farming, effi¬ 
cient. If tills is really the case, we must have 
small farms, and much of the work must be 
done by tlie farmer himself and his family. It 
would seem difficult to have a high order of 
farming on this principle, or to use machinery 
to advantage. 
What proportion of the money obtained for 
the produce of a farm is expended in labor? 
The late John Delafield, kept accurate accounts 
of his receipts and expenses on his farm of 350 
acres, near Seneca—273 acres under cultivation, 
and 77 acres woodland, for five years, from 
1847 to 1851. The income from all sources in 
1847, was $3,044.05, and the amount paid for 
labor, $804.62, or about 26'|2 per cent. In 1848. 
it was 31 per cent., and 1849, 29 ])er cent. In 
1850 (the receipts being $3,338.88), it xvas only 
21 i^ter cent. Tlie average cost of the labor was 
‘ about 40 cents per day. 
At the present time, labor is about 2‘|a times 
as high, and produce, on the whole, is also 
about 2‘|3 times as high as at that time. If our 
crops were as good now as then, this would do 
very well. Instead of receiving $3,000 from 
the farm, the sales would amount to $7,500, 
while the labor, instead of costing $800, would 
cost $2,000. The profits in the one case would 
be $2,200, and in the other, $5,500—or 2'I 2 times 
as large. “Other expenses” would probably be 
about 2‘|2 limes as large now as then. If it 
took all the balance then and now, there is no 
difference. If anytliing was saved, there ought 
to be 2'|o times as much saved now. Tlie pres¬ 
ent high prices do not helpa poorfarmer atall— 
it is only the good farmer, who receives more 
than he spends, that derives any benefit. 
The prices obtained in those days read oddly 
enough at the present time. Thus one item of 
the receipts is: “6 pigs.$3.00.” 
The same pigs, say six weeks old, would now 
bring $15. I know of a litter that were sold at 
two months old for $5 each, and I sold some 
myself at $4.00. It is not many years ago since 
such pigs could have been bought in the fall at 
from 50c. to $1.00. Milch cows have advanced 
almost as much. At an auction sale near here 
a few days since, the cows brought over $100 
each, and one ran up to $125. Before the war, 
$30 to $40 would have been a good price for 
such cows in the fall. The advance on .bi.’cf 
cattle is not as great as on milch cows. Sheep, 
{ mutton, wool, buckwheat and potatoes are now 
I comparatively low. Sixteen years ago I sold 
good cider for $1.00 a barrel. It now is $10. 
There is one cause of high prices of farm 
produce, which is seldom alluded to—the in¬ 
crease in population. It is said that, from the 
