134r 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[April,, 
pound. He remarked that lie was not sure it 
would pay to employ men on purpose to peel 
willows, but as it furnished occupation for rainy 
days, lie thought it paid. If the willows were 
worked up into home-made baskets without 
peeling, it might pay still better than to sell the 
rods at the present market price. They make 
a very durable basket, serving all farm purposes 
quite as well as those of oak or ash. The 
making of baskets is described and illustrated in 
the Am. Agriculturist for April and June, 1867. 
Walks and Talks on the Farm—No. 76. 
“I cannot afford to wait for clover and sum¬ 
mer fallowing,” writes an intelligent New York 
gentleman, a dear lover of good stock, who has 
bought an exhausted New England farm, “ I 
must have a portion of it producing good crops 
right off.” Very well. A farmer with plenty 
of manure can do wonders in a short time. Set 
a gang of ditchers to work, and put in under¬ 
drains where most needed. Have teams and 
plows enough to do the work rapidly. As soon 
as the land is drained and plowed, put on a heavy 
roller. Then sow 500 lbs. of Peruvian guano 
per acre broadcast, or its equivalent in some 
other fertilizer. Follow with a Shares’ harrow. 
This will mellow the surface and cover the 
guano without disturbing the sod. Follow with 
a forty-toothed harrow and roll again, if needed, 
working the land until there is three or four 
inches of line, mellow surface soil. Then mark 
off the land in rows as straight as an arrow, and 
plant corn. Cultivate thoroughly and kill every 
weed. If the ditchers cannot get through until 
it is too late to plant corn, drill in beans on the 
last drained part of the field. 
Another good crop to raise on a stock farm is 
corn fodder. This can be drilled in from time to 
time as the land can begot ready. Put on half a 
ton of guano per acre and harrow in, and then 
mark off the rows three feet apart, and drill in 
four bushels of corn per acre. Cultivate thor¬ 
oughly and expect a great crop. By the last 
of July the Ayrshire cows will take kindly to 
the succulent corn fodder, and with three or 
four quarts of meal a day, it will enable each of 
them to make 10 lbs. of butter a week. 
For the pigs, sow a few acres of peas. These 
will do well on sod land, sown early or late, 
or a part early and a part late, as most conven¬ 
ient. Sow broadcast and harrow in 500 lbs. of 
Peruvian guano per acre and 200 lbs. of gypsum. 
Drill in three bushels of peas per acre, or, sow 
broadcast, and cover them with a Shares’ har¬ 
row. Commence to feed the crop green as soon 
as the pods are formed, and continue to feed 
out the crop, thrashed, or unthrashed, until the 
middle of November. Up to this time the bugs 
do compar lively little damage. The pigs will 
thrive wonderfully on this crop, and make the 
richest and best of manure. 
I have little faith in any attempt to raise root 
crops on land not previously well prepared. But 
as it is necessary to have some mangel wurzel 
and Swede turnips for the Ayrshire cows and 
Long-wool siieep next winterand spring, select 
the cleanest and richest land that can be found 
that was under cultivation last season. If fall- 
plowed the chances of success will be doubled. 
Plow the land two or three times and cultivate, 
harrow, and roll till it is as mellow as a garden. 
Sow 400 lbs. of Peruvian guano and 300 lbs. of 
good superphosphate per acre broadcast and 
harrow it in. Ridge up the land into ridges 2‘| 2 
to 3 ft. apart, with a double mold-board plow. 
Roll down the ridges with a light roller and 
drill in the seed. Sow the mangel wurzel in 
May—the earlier the better—and the Swedes as 
soon afterwards as the land can be thoroughly 
prepared. Better delay till June rather than 
sow on rough land. The first point will be to 
attend to the grass land. This affords the most 
hopeful chance of getting good returns the first 
year. But no time is to be lost. Sow 500 lbs. 
of Peruvian guano per acre on all the grassland 
and on the clover, with 200 lbs. of gypsum in 
addition on the latter. If this is sown early 
enough, so that the spring rains dissolve it and 
wash it into the soil, great crops of grass may 
be expected. 
“But will it pay?” My friend in New York 
is a very energetic and successful business man, 
and he has a real love for farming, and I have 
no sort of doubt that, taking the New York 
business and the farm together, they will afford 
a very handsome profit. Furthermore, I have 
no doubt that if, after he has drained it, he would 
cover the whole farm with 500 lbs. of Peruvian 
guano per acre, or its equivalent, it would pay 
him better than any other agricultural operation 
he is likely to engage in. By the time it was on 
the land the cost would amount to about $25 per 
acre. If he sells no more grass or hay from the 
farm than be would sell if he did not use the 
guano, this twenty-five dollars may very prop¬ 
erly be added to the permanent capital invested 
in the farm. And in this aspect of the case, I 
have no hesitation in saying it will pay a high 
rate of interest. His bill for labor will be as much 
in one case as in the other; and if he uses the 
guano he will probably double his crops. His 
grass lands will carry twenty cows instead of 
ten, and if he raises the corn fodder and roots, he 
can probably keep thirty cows better than he 
could otherwise keep a dozen ; and, having to 
keep a herdsman in either case, the cost of labor 
will not be much increased. “But you think it 
will not pay ? ” It will probably not pay him. 
I do not think his business would pay me if I 
lived on my farm and went to New York only 
once or twice a week. If there is one business 
above all others that requires constant attention 
it is farming—and especially stock farming. 
But my friend is right in saying that he cannot 
afford to wait to enrich his land by clover and 
summer fallowing. His land costs too much ; 
he has a large barn and everything requisite to 
keep a large stock of cattle and sheep. The in¬ 
terest on farm and buildings and the money ex¬ 
pended in labor would run on while the dor¬ 
mant matter in the soil was slowly becoming 
available under the influence of good tillage. 
The large barn must be filled at once, and the 
only way to do this is to apply manure with an 
unsparing hand. If he lived on the farm, I 
should have no doubt that, by adopting this 
course and by keeping improved stock and feed¬ 
ing liberally, he could make monej'. Perhaps 
he can find a man who will successfully manage 
the farm under his direction, but the probabili¬ 
ties are that his present profit and pleasure will 
come from the gratification of his early love for 
country life. 
I had made up my mind to say no more about 
summer fallowing. But it is evident that the 
matter is not understood. An intelligent Ohio 
farmer writes me: “I see that you recommend 
fallow plowing, what are your reasons? Grant¬ 
ing that the immediate result is an increased 
crop, is not the land impoverished? Will not the 
thorough cultivation of corn or potatoes answer 
as well ? ” And a distinguished farmer, of this 
State, in a recent communication expressed the 
same idea—that summer fallowing would soon 
impoverish the land. But if this is the case, the 
fault is not in the practice of summer fallowing, 
but in growing too many grain crops and sell¬ 
ing them, instead of consuming them on the 
farm. Take twm fields; summer fallow one and 
sow it to wheat. Plant the other to corn and 
sow wheat after it in the fall. You get, say 35 
bushels of wheat per acre from the summer fal¬ 
low. From the other field you get, say 30 bush¬ 
els of shelled corn per acre, and 10 bushels of 
wheat afterwards. Now, where a farmer is in 
the habit of selling all his wheat and consuming 
all his corn on the farm, it is evident that the 
practice of summer fallowing will impwverish 
the soil more rapidly than the system of grow¬ 
ing corn followed by wheat—and for the simple 
reason that more wheat is sold from the farm. 
If no more grain is sold in one case than in the 
other, the summer fallowing will not impoverish 
the soil any more than corn growing. 
My idea of fallowing is this: The soil and the 
atmosphere furnish, on good, well cultivated 
land, plant-food sufficient, say for 15 bushels of 
wheat per acre, every year. It will be sometimes 
more and sometimes less, according to the sea¬ 
son and the character of the soil, but on good, 
strong limestone land this may be taken as about 
the average. To grow wheat every year in crops 
of 15 bushels per acre would impoverish the soil 
just as much as to summer fallow and get 
30 bushels of wheat every other year. It is 
the same thing in either case. But* in summer 
fallowing we clean the land, and the profits from 
a crop of 30 bushels per acre every other year 
are much more than from two crops of 15 bush¬ 
els every year. You know that Mr. Lawes has 
a field of about thirteen acres that he sows with 
wheat every year. On the plot that receives no 
manure of any kind the crop for twenty years 
averaged 16'U bushels per acre. It is plowed 
twice every year, and the wheat is liand-lioed in 
the spring to keep it clean. A few years ago, in 
a field adjoining this experimental wheat field, 
and that is of the same character of land, he 
made the following experiment. The land after 
wheat, was fallowed and then sown to wheat; 
then fallowed the next year and again sown to 
wheat, and the next year it was sown to wheat 
after wheat. The following is the result com¬ 
pared with the yield of the continuously unma¬ 
nured plot in the experimental field that is sown 
to wheat every year: 
1. Year— No. 1—Fallow.No crop. 
No. 2—Wheat after wheat.. .15 bush. 3J4 pecks. 
2. Year —No. 1—Wheat after fallow... 37 “ — “ 
No. 2—Wheat after wheat.. .13 “ 3 ’4 “ 
3. Year —No. 1—Fallow after wheat.No crop. 
No. 2—Wheat after wheat.. .15 hush. 314 pecks. 
4. Year— No. 1—Wheal after fallow.. .42 “ — “ 
No. 2—Wheat after wheat... .21 “ 0J4 “ 
5. Year —No. 1—Wheat after wheat.. .17 “ 114 “ 
No. 2—Wheat after wheat.. .17 “ — 
Taking the first four years, we have a total 
yield from 1 he plot sown every year of 56 
bushels 2’| 4 pecks, and from the two crops alter¬ 
nately fallowed a total yield of 79 bushels. The 
next year, when wheat was sown after wheat on 
the land previously fallowed, the yield was al¬ 
most identical with the yield from the plot that 
has grown wheat after wheat for so many years. 
So far these results do not indicate any ex¬ 
haustion from the practice of fallowing. On the 
other hand they tend to show that we can get 
more wheat by sowing it every other year than 
hy cropping it every year in succession. The 
reason for this may be found in the fact that in 
a fallow the land is more frequently exposed to 
the atmosphere by repeated plowings and liar- 
rowings ; and it should be borne (in mind that 
