1873.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
131 
Virginia or tlie Carolinas, are believed to be 
worthy of an experiment, even in New England. 
We have no question that this information is of 
the greatest value for those living at the South 
who care to try the system of soiling, or who 
find it difficult to obtain sufficient butter-mak¬ 
ing forage for winter. Whether the Southern 
pea will fill the wide gap in Northern practice 
and give as good succulent vines for. our driest 
weather, can only be determined by experiment, 
Our information on the subject is only sufficient 
to justify us in recommending a trial. 
Ogden Farm Papers—No. 38. 
One principal effect on my mind of what I 
saw in England, was a reinforcement of my be¬ 
lief that it rests with farmers themselves to de¬ 
termine whether they shall take as good a posi¬ 
tion, socially, financially, and personally, as 
men of other professions. In conversing with 
the agent of a large estate in the eastern part 
of England concerning the renting of the lands 
under his charge, I was informed that while 
there are always large numbers of excellent 
tenants with ample capital anxious to hire such 
farms as may become unoccupied, the sort of 
men to whom it is considered desirable to rent 
land will not take a place unless the house and 
domestic offices are in good condition. That is 
to say, they must have pleasant rooms, agree¬ 
able views, one or two bath-rooms, butler’s 
pantries, conservatories, and much that is here 
considered entirely too fanciful and luxurious 
for a plain farmer. 
The meaning of this is that these are men of 
character, who are proud of their position, and 
are accustomed to have their families as well 
quartered, and to bring up their children with 
as good advantages, as though they were pros¬ 
perous merchants or manufacturers. I passed 
some time in the hunting-field, and was struck 
with the fact that a large number of those who 
“follow the hounds”—well-dressed and well- 
mannered gentlemen—are practical farmers, 
who consider themselves as much entitled as 
their landlords and their richer neighbors to 
the enjoyment of this luxurious and costly 
sport. In fact, throughout the country, travel¬ 
ing on the railways and elsewhere, it was evi¬ 
dent that the farmers consider themselves, 
generally at least, as good, if not rather better, 
in position than manufacturers or shop-keepers 
of the same wealth. 
I am well aware that many American farmers, 
and perhaps some of my own readers, will ex¬ 
claim, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” etc., 
and will think that this comparative extrava¬ 
gance of life, and the devotion of two or three 
days a week throughout the winter to galloping 
across the country after a pack of fox-hounds, 
is a very Unworthy standard for an agricultural 
writer to suggest to his readers. With due re¬ 
spect to their prejudices, I do not think so. I 
wish there was a good deal more attention 
given to field sports in this country than there 
is, bub-I notice this only as an example. The 
main point is, that so long as a farmer is con¬ 
tented to drudge away six days of every week, 
and to think of nothing but the making of 
money, the improvement of his farm, and the 
establishment of his sons in some position 
where they may make money, we need never 
expect a very high development of what alone 
is entitled to be called civilization among our 
agricultural classes. Life is not made up of 
hard rules-and hard work. Recreation and a i 
certain amount of luxury iu the household are I 
civilizing influences to which I am always glad 
to see our farmers subjected, so far as their cir¬ 
cumstances allow; and it will be an encouraging 
sign when those who are obliged to drudge 
from year’s end to year’s end set before them¬ 
selves the aim and hope of more elegance and 
comfort in their living, and more amusement 
for the entertainment of their unoccupied hours. 
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull 
boy,” and the greatest preventive to the ad¬ 
vancement of American agriculture is that the 
average American farmer is such a frightfully 
dull boy. 
Another thing that struck me in England, 
and which indicated an encouraging frame of 
mind on the part of English women, was the 
almost uniform tidiness, comfort, and beauty of 
English farm-houses. It is difficult in that cli¬ 
mate to have a house, of whatever sort, that is 
not made more or less picturesque by the luxu¬ 
riant growth of ivy and ornamental plants, 
which come almost unbidden. The traveler 
sees everywhere, in the well-kept vines and 
shrubs, even about the old straw-thatched, low- 
studded, diamond-paned farm-houses that have 
been brought on from the last century, and 
more especially about the modern farm resi¬ 
dences, great evidence that an exhibition of 
comfort and taste is considered a very essential 
part of'the management of the establishment. 
English women do not confine themselves to 
wearing flowers iu their Sunday bonnets—they 
have them about them, in their door-yards, and 
in their windows and conservatories, as though 
they considered them as necessary to their self- 
respect and to the proper tidiness of their estab¬ 
lishments as any mere personal decoration. 
We in America are very proud of our large 
barns, and I have been always in the habit of 
patting myself on the back over what I con¬ 
sider a very good one at Ogden Farm. I was 
surprised at first to' see an almost entire absence 
of barns for storing hay and grain in England, 
where rain probably falls on twice as many 
days iu the year as it does with us. The more 
I saw and thought about it, however, the more 
I came to the conclusion that there is much to 
be said on their side of the question. They save 
the cost, and it is a very considerable cost, of 
building hay-barns. Their stacks are far enough 
apart for the rest to be saved if one takes fire. 
They are very handsomely made, placed on 
wooden or iron frames about two feet above the 
ground, are considerably larger at the top than 
at the bottom, and are nicely thatched with 
wheat-straw. Some are round and some are 
square. I saw in one instance a very hand¬ 
somely-made and well-thatched stack of hay 
containing over one hundred tons, and on the 
Earl of Warwick’s Sewage Farm there was a 
row of twenty-two stacks, containing each 
about five hundred dollars’ worth of wheat, ail 
so well built and so closely thatched that they 
might stand there for ten years without the 
least danger. Whether the stacking of hay in 
England accounts for its superior quality I do 
not know, but although the last season was an 
unfavorable one, it seemed to me that all the 
hay I had occasion to observe was better than 
the best we usually see at home, greener, and 
more savory. Owing to the projecting top and 
thatch of the stack, there seemed no appreci¬ 
able injury to the hay from weathering. 
One universal custom in England, which 
must be of great value, is denied to us of the 
North by reason of our severe winter climate, 
but I commend its consideration to those of my 
readers who live south of Pennsylvania, where 
snow and frost are infrequent and are of short 
duration. I refer to the feeding of turnips and 
other roots on the land, the entire cost of har¬ 
vesting being saved, and the manure being ef¬ 
ficiently distributed without labor. When the 
crop is grown, a small part of the field is fenced 
off with hurdles, which are very simple frames 
(made generally of rough poles) about eight 
feet long and three feet high, the posts being 
pointed to be driven into the ground with ease. 
The area to be fed off is inclosed, and a certain 
number of sheep are confined within the hur¬ 
dles. They get their chief living from the tur¬ 
nips, and are kept on that piece until they have 
eaten down into the ground, consuming root3 
and all. In addition to the turnips, they are 
usually fed twice a day with Iudian-meal, oat¬ 
meal, or some other grain, and they occasion¬ 
ally receive a little hay. When the piece occu¬ 
pied has been eaten over, three sides of the 
inclosure are removed so as to take in the next 
section, and that is treated in the same way. A 
greater or less proportion of the food consists 
of grain, according to the degree to which it is 
desired to manure the land. Mangel-wurzel is 
frequently fed in the same manner, though only 
during the early part of the season, before there 
is danger of frost. Mangel-wurzel itself is often 
used in the place of grain for feeding sheep in 
hurdles, to manure the laud, and even land on 
which these roots themselves have been grown 
is hurdled with sheep, the roots being taken 
out of the banks where they are stored and fed 
in the iuclosure. When the piece occupied 
has been sufficiently manured, the sheep are 
moved as though there were turnips to feed, 
and the land is thus manured section by section. 
This part of the treatment it is quite open to 
all of us to adopt, and there is no reason why 
we may not make a very important use of the 
service of sheep in the distribution of manure 
in this way; though in our severe climate it 
would be necessary to furnish some sort of 
shelter. I have seen a plan, I think iu the 
Agriculturist , of a movable sheep-shelter, a sort 
of shed built on runners, which, when empty, 
may be drawn by a horse from place to place. 
In addition to this, there should be two or three 
troughs in which to put the feed, and these 
should be daily moved from one part of the in¬ 
closure to another. At the same time, locks of 
hay should be thrown about iu different places, 
to cause the sheep to spread, and prevent their 
dropping their manure mainly by the shelter 
and near the troughs. The floor of the shelter 
should be solid, so that the manure which, 
would naturally accumulate there in greater 
quantity may be thrown about with shovels. 
My notion of English plowing was some¬ 
what changed by my observation. It must de¬ 
light any farmer to see absolutely straight 
furrows stretching across wide fields, along 
mile after mile of liis journey. Nothing more 
beautiful in the way of mechanical work could 
be imagined, and such exactness is hardly pos¬ 
sible except in a climate where the plowman 
is allowed to continue his task throughout every 
month ot the year, rarely doing any other 
work. Whether these very straight lines have 
any economical value is doubtful; as encoui- 
aging neatness and skill, they are certainly im¬ 
portant. My admiration w y as a good deal 
modified by a constant observation of the per¬ 
formance of the work. The English plows, 
made of iron, are probably more than four 
