AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
215 
1870.] 
and I spent two years on the farm where one 
thousand splendid Hampshire Down slieep were 
kept; I never heard the first intimation that 
there was any objection to having large flocks 
provided they had plenty of food and the requi¬ 
site care and attention. 
A wealthy New England gentleman writes : 
“Can you help me? I have an Elephant on 
my hands and do not know how to treat him. 
I have bought a run-down farm in Virginia of 
eleven hundred acres. It is a heavy clay loam, 
and was once considered one of the finest plan¬ 
tations in the country ; hut the ‘skinning pro¬ 
cess’ has done for it—wheat and corn all sold 
off the place and nothing brought on. The 
fields are now covered with a growth of young- 
pines and its meadows with briars. There is 
neither muck nor peat in the vicinity. Does it 
need underdraining? How about turning un¬ 
dergreen crops, or using lime, phosphates, etc.?” 
If I had this gentleman’s purse I should have 
no fears of being able to make the farm as 
productive as it ever wtis, and a good deal more 
so. And it would pay, too. It probably needs 
draining. This can easily be ascertained by 
digging holes three or four feet deep, and if 
water flows in and remains there, it needs un¬ 
derdraining. Then after shearing, I would buy 
sheep by the hundred, and bran by the car-load. 
I presume bran can be bought for $20 per ton, 
and the manure from it is worth at least $14— 
in fact, it is better worth $20 than almost any 
artificial manure we can purchase. Give each 
sheep a pound of bran a day and half a pound 
of oil-cake. Keep enough of them, and they will 
gnaw down every green thing they can reach. 
If you get overstocked at any time feed more 
I bran. The sheep will get very fat and can be 
, sold to advantage. The manure will pay from 
half to two-thirds of the cost of the food. Suc¬ 
cess will depend very much on feeding liberally. 
In the meantime, put in the plows, with strong 
teams of oxen or horses. It will be rough w'ork; 
but no matter. Keep the plow in where you 
can, and where you cannot, draw it through the 
briars on the surface, striking it in occasionally. 
Do not stop to back up. Set fire to anything 
that will burn. If grass grows as freely there 
as it does here, it will spring up on this partially 
plowed land and the sheep will eat it with avid¬ 
ity. Keep on plowing. Give up all idea of 
sowing any grain crop ; but sow grass seed in 
the fall. By stocking heavily with sheep, and 
fallowing at the same time, the land, in two or 
three years will be subdued and will yield an 
abundance of rich grass. Then you can do 
anything you like with it. The summer-fallow¬ 
ing and the manure from the bran and oil-cake 
will make it very rich. 
C. F. S. of Bucks Co., Penn., writes me that 
he “has been nearly all his life in a factory, but 
has always loved farming and wished to train 
up his children to it. So three years ago he 
bought a farm. He found it much poorer than 
it was represented, and also that money went a 
deal faster than he was led to expect.” I can well 
believe the latter. But he says he “ has faith in 
farming,” and if so, he will come out all right. 
He asks me a half-dozen questions in regard to 
the application of manure, rotation of crops, etc., 
which I cannot answer. I should adopt the ro¬ 
tation most convenient; having reference to 
cleaning the land, time of sowing, harvesting, 
etc. The aim should be to distribute labor 
throughout the year; not to have too much to 
do one month and nothing the next. When 
much land is devoted to corn and potatoes, we 
have generally more work to do in the autumn 
than we can accomplish—with comparatively 
little to do in the spring. With me the most 
leisure seasons of the year are from the 1st of 
March until the 1st of May; and from the mid¬ 
dle of August until the 1st of October. 
From the 1st of October until winter sets 
in, we have a great deal to do. Men are scarce, 
wages high, and days short. Our object should 
be to increase our early spring work, and ease 
off cn the late fall work. Sod land can be plow¬ 
ed earlier in the spring than corn stubble; and 
oats and peas do well on sod, and can be sown 
as fast as the sod is turned over. Barley seldom 
does well on sod land, unless plowed early the 
previous fall. We should sow this crop on the 
corn-stubble. Potatoes do well on clover sod, 
and can be planted before or after the corn crop, 
as we have time. After the corn and potatoes 
are planted, we have still time to plant beans. 
“ But you won’t catch me planting any more 
beans,” says one of my neighbors. “ It cost me 
more to pull them, harvest and pick them once 
than the crop was worth.” This is true; but 
he could not reasonably expect any other result. 
He planted on a tough sod, that was so wet as 
not to be dry enough in time to plant to corn, 
and was, besides, full of thistles. Last summer 
in this section was very wet; the beans could 
not be cultivated before the thistles were several 
inches high, and the labor of hoeing was so 
great, that a man had to work hard to hoe half 
an acre a day;—and this work had to be done 
in the midst of haying. By the time the beans 
were ripe, the land was again full of thistles 
and weeds, and it hardly needs to be said, 
that pulling was a slow and unpleasant opera¬ 
tion. The weeds too, retarded the ripening of 
the beaus, and it was difficult to cure them pro¬ 
perly. Many of them mildewed; some of them 
rotted; the yield was light, and the whole crop 
had to be hand-picked. This was his first ex¬ 
perience in bean culture and he is disgusted. 
Nevertheless, beans, when properly managed, 
are a profitable crop, and the bulk of the labor 
comes at a comparatively leisure season. They 
can be planted after all other grain crops are in, 
and are off the land in time to sow winter wheat. 
But you must have dry, clean land. Nothing 
is better than a two or tliree-year-old clover sod, 
top-dressed the fall or winter previous. Let the 
clover grow, or pasture it until the middle of 
June ; then turn over the sod carefully and drill 
in the beans, in rows 2’| 2 feet apart, and in hills 
12 or 15 inches apart, five or six beans in a 
hill. Use the cultivator freely and they will 
grow rapidly and mature early. Scarcely any 
hoeing will be needed, though nothing pays bet¬ 
ter than to go over the field and cut out every 
weed. Land so manured and well cultivated 
will be in splendid condition for wheat. 
Beans are one of the worst crops a negligent 
farmer can raise; but a very convenient and prof¬ 
itable one for the farmer who has clean, dry 
land. You can apply the manure on the sod 
during the winter, get its effect on the early 
spring grass and clover, and still have enough 
left (from the manure and from the clover and 
grass) to produce a heavy crop of wheat. 
C. N. D., who has written a book on farming, 
writes me: “ In the last Agriculturist you speak 
of a ‘ good superphosphate.’ What do you mean, 
whose is it, where is it, and what floes it cost ?” 
A good superphosphate is made by converting 
the insoluble phosphate of lime in burnt bones, 
phospliatic guano or mineral phosphate into sol¬ 
uble phosphate of lime, by decomposing it with 
sulphuric acid. It is a good article when it con¬ 
tains from 12 to 15 per cent of soluble phos¬ 
phoric acid. If it contains ammonia in addition 
so much the better. But I believe it is a mis¬ 
take for manufacturers to make superphosphate 
from unburnt bones. They cannot make it cheap 
enough. The bone-dust is itself worth too much 
as a manure They should look for cheaper 
sources of phosphate of lime. It is not for me 
to say, who makes a good superphosphate. 
No matter what branch of farming we discuss 
either theoretically or practically, we are brought 
back to the old, old story that, as a basis of suc¬ 
cessful operation, we must have dry, clean land. 
Everything must be directed to this one point. 
We can do nothing without it; we can do every¬ 
thing with it. 
“ For crossing with common Merino ewes, to 
raise lambs or sheep for the butcher, had we 
better use a Cotswold or a Leicester?” If we 
had any Leicester sheep, that had been kept 
pure since the days of Bakewell, I should prefer 
a high-bred Leicester ram. But I do not know of 
such a sheep in the United States nor in Canada. 
A dozen or more years ago, Mr. Stone imported 
some genuine Leicester sheep, but no one seems 
to have understood their value, and they have 
been scattered and lost. They were too small 
and delicate to suit the popular taste. But if we 
had them now, they would be of great value to 
cross with common Merino ewes. 
We have three breeds of long-w r ooled mutton 
sheep to select from: The Lincolns, Leicesters 
and Cotswolds. And the question to be deter¬ 
mined is, which of these three breeds is the best 
to influence our common sheep. They are all 
good sheep. So far as the breeds themselves 
are concerned, it would make very little differ¬ 
ence which we select. But when our object is to 
improve common flocks, pedigree is all impor¬ 
tant. We must select that breed which, other 
things being equal, has been kept pure for the 
longest period. The “ prepotency of transmis¬ 
sion ” will be strongest in that breed whose good 
qualities have been longest and most thoroughly 
established. As I said before, if we had pure 
Leicesters, these would be the best; but they are 
not to be had in this country, and probably not 
in England. In order to give them greater size 
and vigor of constitution, with more lean meat 
and better breeding and nursing qualities, the 
breeders are believed to have resorted to a dash 
of Cotswold blood. This has improved the 
sheep themselves, but weakened their power of 
transmitting their qualities'. The Lincolns I 
know r little about. Until within a few years, I 
had supposed that the Lincolnshire sheep had 
been so crossed with the Leicesters as to have 
become nearly or quite extinct as a distinct breed. 
It is claimed, however, that at least one flock of 
Lincolns was kept pure; and if so, I should ex¬ 
pect that a thorough-bred Lincoln ram would 
have great pow 7 er in improving a flock of com¬ 
mon sheep. In the absence of pure Leicesters, 
we shall have to select from Lincolns or Cots¬ 
wolds. As to whichis best, I cannot say. The 
decision must depend upon which breed has the 
most desirable qualities and on how long these 
qualities have been established. 
There can be no doubt about one thing. Many 
of the farmers, who last fall tried the long-wool- 
ed cross, will be disappointed, for the simple 
reason that they do not feed their Merino ewes 
well enough to secure a large flow 7 of milk; and 
secondly because in nine cases out of ten, or 
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, they used 
only common long-wooled, Canada rams. 
