14 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
Walks and Talks on the Farm.— No. 109. 
During the year I have complained more 
than once of “ hard times for farmers.” I do 
not like to grumble. It is far more pleasant to 
look at the bright side. It is also more profit¬ 
able. 'What a farmer needs is “ pluck.” There 
is much to discourage, even at the best, but in 
times like these it is specially necessary to 
guard against despondency. If a farmer has 
good health, if he has a good appetite and good 
digestion, and can sleep well, he i3 not much of 
a man if he can not keep up his spirits and go 
to work. There is one feature of the present 
depression that should not be overlooked. 
Labor never was in greater demand or com¬ 
manded better pay. It would seem that if a 
man can work he can certainly make a living. 
It is only the men who hire labor or who work 
for themselves that have any reason to com¬ 
plain. Those who work for others can not 
complain of hard times. Taking this view of 
the subject, it can not be doubted that the 
country, as a whole, is in a prosperous condition. 
There are thousands of farm laborers who 
have saved money enough to buy farms for 
themselves at the West or to rent farms on 
shares. As long as land is so abundant and 
cheap we can not expect to get good farm labor¬ 
ers at low wages. They prefer to farm their 
own land, even if they do not make half as 
much money as they would if they worked for 
others. This is one reason why farm produce 
sells for less in many cases at the present time 
than it costs to produce it. As the Deacon 
says, “ farmers have been working very cheap.” 
We have been working for the railroad and 
elevator men, and wherever they have had a 
chance they have shown us no mercy. I never 
talk politics, but I think the time is come for 
farmers to look after their own interests a little, 
and see if something can not be done to prevent 
railroads from charging us more for carrying 
our products 50 miles than they charge, where 
there is competition, for carrying them 500 miles. 
It is well to talk over the operations and re¬ 
sults of the past year, and lay plans for the 
future. Every year ought to teach us some¬ 
thing. It has taught me, what I knew before, 
that after a farmer has doue everything that is 
necessary to secure a good crop he may reap 
only a poor one. The “ scientists ” may laugh 
at our simple trust in Providence, and talk 
about inexorable “law,” but a farmer of any 
experience knows and feels that his crops are 
affected by rain and drouth, by frost and heat, 
by insects and mildew, by storms of wind and 
storms of hail, and by many other things over 
which he has no control. 
When I sowed my wheat in the fall of 1871, 
I thought I had made my wheat-field rich 
enough, and clean enough, and mellow enough, 
and dry enough to produce 40 bushels per acre. 
But I got only 22 bushels per acre, and some of 
that was of very inferior quality. This result 
was due to dry weather in the fall, severe frost 
and no snow in the winter, and cold winds and 
no rain in April and May. The wheat plants 
were not “winter-killed,” but many of them 
were so parched and chilled that they had not 
vitality enough to mature their seed. 
I had three or four acres of new “beech and 
maple land ” that was sown to wheat for the 
first time since it was cleared, and on this new 
land the crop was even worse than on my old 
land that has been cropped for forty years or 
more. And this land was certainly as well 
prepared as it was in the good old times when 
the country was new, and when the big crops 
■were raised that we read about. I have an idea 
that the poor crops were not reported. It is 
certain that this land had not been “ exhausted.” 
It was just as rich, just as well drained, and 
quite as well put in as it would have been if 
last year had been 1822 instead of 1872. And I 
do not believe the “seasons” have changed. 
There were good and bad seasons then, and 
there are good and bad seasons now. Last 
season happened to be a bad one. Let us hope 
that the next will be better. 
There is nothing in all this to discourage us. 
It is the normal condition of agriculture. I 
would like to have had 40 bushels of wheat 
per acre instead of 22 bushels. But I have just 
as much faith in good fanning as I ever had. 
My crop was more than double what the Deacon 
got on adjoining land, and of far better quality. 
The straw was also better, and the land is far 
cleaner, and the clover promises to be all that 
one could desire. It is so good, that the Deacon 
has made up his mind, he says, to do as I did 
last spring, and give his wfiieat a good harrow¬ 
ing before sowing the clover seed. 
I do not recollect whether I have or have not 
mentioned the fact that the clover and timothy 
seed that we sowed with the mustard and rape 
was a failure. Such was at any rate the case, 
and we plowed up the land last spring, and 
sowed it to oats, and seeded it down with 
timothy and clover. There was a capital crop 
of oats, but at the time of harvest there was 
very little clover and timothy to be seen. But 
after the fall rains, the clover, and especially 
the timothy, put in an appearance, and when 
winter set in there was a fair prospect for a crop 
of grass next season. 
The oatSAvhere we had mangel-wurzel turned 
out grandly. If it had been a wet season they 
would have lodged, and been worthless. So, if 
I had got my 40 bushels of wheat per acre, I 
should probably have had a crop of oats not 
worth the labor of harvesting. As it was, there 
was not a tenth of an acre in the field that 
could not be cut with a Johnston Reaper, and 
we have a stock of oat-straw, of good quality, 
that will greatly lessen the expense of wintering 
my sheep and horses. And there is a good catch 
of clover and timothy. 
This year (1872) my mangel-wurzel were an 
evener and on the whole a heavier crop than 
last year, although the season was so dry that 
they apparently got very little benefit from the 
manure put in the ridges. I say apparently, 
because the manure seemed this fall to have 
lain at the bottom of the ridges undecomposed 
and unappropriated; but, in point of fact, I 
have no doubt that the mangels woidd not have 
been half as good if the land had not been 
manured. I think there was over 1,000 bushels 
of mangels per acre. On part of the land Ave 
put no manure in the ridges, but sowed 800 lbs. 
per acre of the Manhattan Fertilizer Co.’s super¬ 
phosphate broadcast, and ridged it in. I think 
the mangels were nearly if not quite as good as 
Avhere manure was used. I ought to say, how¬ 
ever, that all the land had been top-dressed 
Avith manure a year or tAvo previous. 
I also soAved Sv\’ede turnips or ruta-bagas on 
ridges, some Avith manure and some AA'ilh super¬ 
phosphate, and could see very little difference. 
The land is near the barn-yard, and is in high 
condition. We had a tremendous growth of 
tops, and perhaps ten per cent of large, hand¬ 
some bulbs; but, owing I think to bad seed, 
nearly half the crop had large thick necks, and 
some of them as long as a cabbage-stalk! The 
crop, too, was injured more or less by plant- 
lice, that in many cases covered the leaves. 
In our dry climate, so far as my experience 
goes, mangels are the best root for us to raise 
for late Avinter or spring feeding. They will 
stand the drouth better than the Swede turnips, 
are seldom if eA r er affected by insects or mildew, 
produce more per acre, are more nutritious, can 
be kept longer, and do not impart any unplea¬ 
sant flavor to milk or butter. Pigs, too, are re¬ 
markably fond of them. Cooked with corn- 
meal, they ay ill fatten pigs rapidly. But this is 
not what I specially prize them for. I feed 
more or less of them to my breeding sows 
through the winter and spring, or until they are 
turned out to clover. 
I raised about three acres of Strap-leaved tur¬ 
nips. They Avere a great crop. The land had 
been pastured for four years. Two jmars ago I 
top-dressed it very heavily in the winter Avith 
manure—so heavily that the Deacon said I had 
killed the grass. But, so far from that being 
the case, I have rarely, if ever, seen a pasture 
that carried so much stock. The soil is some- 
Avliat sandy, and not at all naturally good pas¬ 
ture land. It lies high and dry, and yet after it 
Avas top-dressed the grass kept green during the 
severest drouth almost ever known in tins sec¬ 
tion. I think one acre of it supported as many 
sheep as any other three acres on the farm not 
similarly treated. But the sandy knolls were so 
full of stones that they could not be properly 
ploAved and worked, and they got full of thistles, 
and these spread so rapidly that I determined to 
break up the piece, get out the stones, and kill 
the thistles. So, late in the fall of 1871, avc 
plowed the land, getting out such stones as did 
not require too much labor. In the spring, the 
thistles came up by the thousand, and we ploAved 
the land again, although the sod, OAving to the 
dry weather, was scarcely rotted at all. We 
harrowed it, and as soon as we Avere through 
the spring Avork, ploAved it again, and got out a 
great quantity of stones. We could then use 
the cultivator to advantage, and this, Avith the 
harrows, reduced the soil to a tolerably fine 
tilth. About the last of July or first of August 
we plowed it again, and then soAved 200 lbs. of 
superphosphate per acre broadcast, and drilled 
in on the flat three pounds of Strap-leaved turnip 
seed per acre. I raise my oavii seed, and so can 
afford to seed liberally! The drills were tAvo 
feet apart, and Ave thinned the plants out in the 
roAVS to ten inches apart. They were hood 
twice, and cultivated three or four times. I 
.think I never saAV a handsomer or cleaner field 
of turnips. I think there Avas at least 700<bush- 
els per acre—and this is certainly a good crop 
for such late sowing. 
“But will it pay to bestow so much labor?” 
This is an ugly question! There are not many 
crops that afford very exorbitant profits at the 
present rate of Avages. But in this case I think 
I can safely say that if I had sold the turnips 
they would have paid far better than any other 
crop raised on the farm. Whenever I had a 
load to bring home from the citjq I sent doAvn 
35 or 40 bushels of turnips, and they sold readily 
at 30c. to 35c. a bushel. As a crop to feed out 
on the farm, I am not sure that a good crop of 
corn would not pay better. It depends on the 
stock Ave keep, and the conveniences Ave have 
for storing and feeding out. I have never been 
an enthusiastic advocate of root crops in the 
present condition of our agriculture; but it 
seems evident that Avith the introduction of bet- 
