1870.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
411 
For example, with the same land and the 
same manure I could have grown at least 7,000 
bushels of Ruta-bagas and Mangels, which would 
have been worth more money, (either to feed or 
to sell), would have left the land in better tilth 
and freer from weeds, and would have pro¬ 
duced in their tops at least an equivalent for the 
corn fodder. The cost of the labor would have 
been somewhat more, but not enough to com¬ 
pensate for the difference in other respects. 
Then again, I can easily buy corn for its feeding 
value; roots I cannot; and on a stock farm they 
are invaluable. Furthermore, on the same land 
I could, with the same manure and with much 
less labor, raise in 3 cuttings, at least 25 tons of 
hay of a quality that would be worth at least 
$30 per ton, probably more. Either of these 
crops would be much more advantageous for 
me than the corn ; and I have about made up 
my mind to raise but little, if any, corn after this. 
One thing seems to have been demonstrated 
by the above described experiment, and that is 
—contrary to the teaching of the Country 
Gentleman—that it is better to plow in No¬ 
vember the land that has been manured for 
corn in September, than to leave it until the 
spring. At least this is the case on my land, 
where the action of the winter’s frost on the 
upturned furrow of heavy soil more than coun¬ 
terbalances the spring growth of grass. On 
lighter land the case would possibly be changed. 
Referring to my previous commendation of 
my self-regulating windmill, it will be unfair not 
to tell the whole story and say that the rather 
sharp wind of the 18th of September brought it 
to grief. It had weathered the gale of Septem¬ 
ber, 1869, which was the most severe that has 
blown on this coast since 1S15, and I considered 
it good for any test, when this comparatively 
moderate wind broke its main casting. Perhaps 
it contracted* a fatal flaw a year ago. It will 
cost about $20 to replace the broken parts, and 
I lose its use for three weeks at a time when it 
is most necessary to have an abundant supply 
of fresh water to make up for the effect of the 
drouth. However, as it has run for twenty- 
eight months without the least breakage or in¬ 
terruption, giving us a water supply that is 
really invaluable, I do not at all regret the in¬ 
vestment, and if it were swept entirely away 
to-morrow, I would order another at once. 
The drouth continued with unabated fervor 
until the end of September, and has cut into my 
hopes at a fearful rate. Judging from 1869,1 
should have had 110 lbs. of butter per week in 
September, instead of that I had only from 65 
to 73. Corn fodder that should have carried us 
well through to the time when beet tops could 
take their place, failed early in September, and 
we had to commence topping the field corn be¬ 
fore the kernels were fairly glazed. The roots 
will be a very short crop. Millet that would 
have been—in an average season—three feet 
high in October, is heading at one foot. Vetches 
that were planted early enough to make an am¬ 
ple growth before frost, are hardly worth cut¬ 
ting. The after-growth of grass is almost noth¬ 
ing. In short, it has been such a drouth as 
makes any farmer of poor land sick of the 
whole business. At the same time the drouth, 
as I have before said, is not without its valuable 
lessons for the future. On the few tracts that 
have been superabundantly manured, and where 
the cultivation has been thorough, the growth 
of every thing has been so very much better 
than on the poorer and harder land as to make 
it manifest that, with land in the right condition, 
we could snap our fingers at the severest 
drouths. Not that we would not suffer by 
them, but our suffering would be vastly mitiga¬ 
ted. Some of my land that has had no manure 
of any kind, is considerably less burned than a 
neighbor’s adjoining field—a difference that can 
be attributed only to its being well underdrained. 
All this brings us around to the fundamental 
truths of High Farming. If there ever was a 
season when deep and thorough cultivation, 
rich and copious manuring, and the rapid suc¬ 
cession of crops were imperatively necessary, it 
has been in this year of Our Lord, 1870, and my 
experience has demonstrated it. My manure 
has been spread over about forty acres, and my 
work over sixty acres. If the whole had been 
concentrated on twenty acres, I should be to-day 
in much better condition; for, not more than 
about one-fourth of all my land will have pro¬ 
duced enough to pay the cost of its seed and 
cultivation ; while if I had concentrated my 
efforts with a judicious selection of crops, I 
should have made money by them. If the re¬ 
sult has been so unfavorable in my own case, 
it has probably been no better with thousands 
of others, who with even less manure and labor 
at command, have spread themselves—very thin 
—over twice as much land. 
It may be set down as an unfailing maxim 
that, in the long run, the only work that pags 
(in farming as in every thing else) is thorough 
work. If the season is good, if insects arc not 
troublesome, and if all go well from seed-time 
to harvest, any ordinary farming will pa}'. If 
one has broad acres that will support small 
herds or flocks in the wettest and dryest sea¬ 
sons, he may make a fair profit from their man¬ 
agement; but if he attempt to cultivate poor 
land with scant manure; wet land without drain¬ 
ing; or dryland without abundant cultivation 
and manure; lie will not absolutely fail, per¬ 
haps, and he may squeeze along and save a lit¬ 
tle money for his worn-out and disappointed old 
age, but he will not make money as he would if 
his land were deep, well drained, and fat with 
manure, and himself a wide-awake, active, in¬ 
telligent man, who is up to the times and eager 
to take advantage of every circumstance that 
can help him along. Had I my own way, I would 
yearly top-dress every acre of mowing land with 
five cords of good manure, not straw, until it 
had become so rich as to produce four tons of 
dry hay, whether the season were wet or dry. 
I would top-dress my pasture lands until they 
would carry two heavy steers to the acre through¬ 
out the season. I would apply an equally heavy 
dressing to corn land, root land, and wheat 
land, until their crops werewaised to the high¬ 
est possible point. I would neither plow nor 
mow an acre of land that needed draining, nor 
would I neglect the fullest measure of thorough 
cultivation necessary to keep crops fresh in the 
driest times. This would cost frightfully of 
course, either in money or in hard work or in 
both, but it would make-mc a perfectly independ¬ 
ent farmer sooner titan any thing else could. 
My crops would of course be affected by the 
vicissitudes of the weather, but they would al¬ 
ways be so absolutely gbod and so much above 
the average, that either in quantity or in prices 
I should get a sure reward for my work. If it is 
objected that these statements are not sustained 
by my experience at Ogden Farm I will confess 
that, and make the further confession that in 
none of my farming operations have I had pre¬ 
cisely such experience. But in addition to the 
farm, I have been cultivating an extensive mar¬ 
ket garden, in which farm crops have been 
sometimes grown on land that had received the I 
almost fabulous manuring and the extra prepa¬ 
ration that gardening requires. These crops 
have in no instance failed to pay well for the 
whole extra outlay ; an outlay so great, that few 
farmers would dare to encounter it. 
I have to-day visited a neighbor, whose farm 
contains only twenty-eight acres. He has own¬ 
ed it and managed it for many years. His stock 
this year consisted of several horses and oxen 
and twenty-eight cows, in addition to a consid¬ 
erable number of fowls. He grows no fancy 
stock of any kind; sells milk, cream, roots, 
poultiw, and eggs. He buys some grain for his 
poultry and some meal for his cows, though he 
has a good field of corn every year. All of the 
pasture required for his large stock, and all the 
hay and other long fodder consumed on the 
place, together with a good supply of apples, 
are the product of his twenty-eight acres of 
land. The great secret of his success is to be 
sought in plenty of manure and thorough work, 
managed of course in the most skillful manner. 
His cash sales for 1870 will fall but little, if any, 
short of $4,000. 
I have another neighbor, who begun with a 
fine farm of over one hundred acres, and capital 
enough to have made a first-rate farmer of an 
energetic man. He has probably never sold 
enough from his place to pay his yearly bills, 
and his land has run down to low-water mark. 
These two men, living in the same township, 
and with equal facilities, illustrate perfectly the 
truth I have endeavored to set forth above. The 
one went to work in an over-cautious, penny¬ 
wise way, scrimping here and scrimping there, 
trying to cheat Nature out of her just dues; 
and he has come to grief. The other went into 
farming as a business that was worthy of his 
best efforts, and wherever he saw an opportu¬ 
nity to invest a dollar in his farm to good ad¬ 
vantage, he made the investment as soon as he 
could get the dollar. He acted on the belief that 
no bank in the world will pay such good inter¬ 
est as well-farmed land; and, so far as the plain 
and simple farming he has followed afforded 
him the opportunity, he has omitted nothing— 
nothing that could add to his facilities. The 
result is, that he is more than forehanded, and 
that, if he had his life to live over again, he 
would turn his attention to farming as the best 
opening that offers itself to a young man of 
energy and ability. 
Neither of these men is a marked exception. 
There are in New England hundreds like the 
one, and thousands upon thousands like the oth¬ 
er; and the same contrast is common through¬ 
out the country. I wish that I might honestly 
gain popularity with the larger number of the 
readers of this paper by praising their economy, 
their shrewdness, their close figuring, and their 
endeavors to make a little go a long way. But 
it seems to me that I shall do them a better ser¬ 
vice by telling them frankly—even at the risk of 
forfeiting their approval—that their economy 
means a saving of money that entails a waste 
of all the glorious opportuities of their lives; 
that their shrewdness is really a persistent 
cheating of themselves, a holding of the finger 
on the spigot while the bung runs a’full stream; 
that their close figuring, however laudable may 
be its object, has for its effect the paralyzing of 
their best energies, and is daily grinding them 
down to the servile and ill-paid duties of farm 
laborers who are too often cheated even of their 
daily wages; and that their efforts to accomplish 
great results with scanty means lead to the run¬ 
ning down of their farms,—the running out of 
their live-stock,—the running away from home 
of their children,—and the slipping through their 
