358 
AMEKIOAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[OCTOBEK, 
fails. I have three neighbors. One came from 
the eastern part of the State, when the country 
was new. He took up 160 acres of land, cleared 
it, fenced it, lived, probably, at first in a log 
house, worked hard, but enjoyed himself. He 
is a capital farmer, up early in the morning, at¬ 
tends to his stock, alwaj's has his crops sown in 
good season, treats his land liberally, and gets 
ample returns. He commenced with little, has 
brought up a large family, given them a first- 
class education, and he is probably to-day worth 
$35,000 to $30,000. True, it has taken him 40 
years to accumulate this amount of property, 
and nearly all of it has been derived from the 
advance of real estate. Still he has had a good 
living, has enjoyed life, is an intelligent, public- 
spirited, energetic, and generous-minded gen¬ 
tleman, and enjoys the respect of all his neigh¬ 
bors. I am sure such farming pays. I have 
another neighbor who has a farm of equally 
good land. He is a well educated man, and 
seems to work hard, but he is always behind 
Avitli his work. Ho occasionally gets a good 
erop, but the general yield is hardly suffieient to 
pay even for the little labor bestowed in prepar¬ 
ing the land. He is in debt, and seems to de¬ 
pend more on chopping and selling wood to 
meet his payments than on raising crops. His 
fences are out of repair, and the land is full of 
weeds. Still he gets a living for himself and a 
large family, and, I supjoose, even in his ease,we 
must conclude that “ farming pays.” I have an¬ 
other neighbor, whose land is low, but would 
be very productive if attention was paid to sur¬ 
face drainage. The same creek runs through it 
that runs through the south end of my farm. It 
is choked up wfith old logs, branches, and fallen 
trees. The water sets back in the spring, and 
floods his land. But he makes no effort to clean 
out the creek. I offered to do it for him, if he 
would give me the wood,but no,he intended to do 
it himself. I presume he has been intending to 
do it for years. A good portion of his land does 
not produce enough to pay the taxes, and the 
dryer portions are not half worked, and yield 
the most meagre returns. I passed his house 
this morning. He Avas cutting some coarse 
hay on the low land. His oats AA^ere harvested, 
hut nearly half of them Avere still lying on the 
ground among the clods, and his wife Avas 
thrashing the other half iu the barn Avith a flail. 
Now this is rather poor farming, but as the fam¬ 
ily gets a living, I suppose it “pays.” 
But how much does it pay ? Does he make as 
much as he would if his son and himself Avorked 
as hard for some other farmer as they do for 
themselves, to say nothing of the Avife ? I do 
not believe they make half as much, and cer¬ 
tainly their land is not improving, though they 
probably persuade themseh^es that, owing to the 
improvements of others, it is increasing In value. 
How, I have no doubt that an intelligent em 
torpnsing man, Avith the necessary capital, could 
take tins farm, and increase its productiveness 
tourfold. But such a man cannot live in the 
style of its present occupant, and his wife Avould 
not want to thrash in the baim. And so the real 
question is whether farming will afford sutfleient 
profits to enable an educated man to live in a 
style suited to his necessities. I think it will 
hut there are those who contend that it will not.’ 
C;m an educated man get a suitable livin->- by 
nnakmg boots ? Can he make much more than 
ilhteiate man who sits on the adjoining 
bench ? Can an educated farmer dig more po 
tatoes m a day than a good stalwart Irishman ? 
Can he chop more wood than a French Cana¬ 
dian, or plow better than a Scotchman ? Can 
General Grant fight in the ranks any better than 
Patrick O’Flannagan? 
The educated shoemaker, as soon as he had 
learned the trade, Avould haAm others helping 
him, and by and by, if made of the light kind 
of stuff, he A\muld be the proprietor of a large 
boot and shoe factory, and call to his aid all the 
contrivances for saA'ing labor that modern 
science and invention can afford. 
“ This is all very well. I see the point. But 
you cannot make money by farming, unless you 
Avork yourself.” Very true. I never supposed 
you could. Heither can the educated shoemaker. 
He probably Avorks harder than any man in the 
establishment, although he does not Avax his 
OAvn strings, or hammer out his sole on the 
lapis. He knows hoAV to do all these things. 
And so must a farmer be acquainted wdth all 
the details of his business, and must give them 
his undivided attention. But must he neces¬ 
sarily do his OAvn plowing, dig his own ditches, 
and husk his OAvn corn ? Work he must, and so 
must a manufacturer and a professional man. 
But what AVork shall lie do ? If he has men 
husking corn by the bushel, he should see that 
they husk clean, and tie up the stalks Avell, and 
make the bundles into stooks that Avili shed rain, 
and not bloAV doAvn in the first wind. He must 
see that he is not cheated in measuring the corn, 
and that it is properly sorted. He can make 
more by attending to such things than by husk¬ 
ing himself. And so it is in nearly all the opera¬ 
tions of the farm. Especially must he see to his 
stock. He Avill find ten men that can dig po¬ 
tatoes, husk corn, hoe, plow, cultivate, and even 
build a stack, and dig uuderdrains, to one that 
can be entrusted to feed pigs or take care of the 
coAvs. To neglect to feed regularly and proper¬ 
ly—to starve this Aveek, and surfeit the next, 
Avill cost you half the feed. 
But I am AAmarying you. I am satisfied, how¬ 
ever, that this subject must receive the attention 
of farmers. Those who intend to make agricul¬ 
ture their business should study it thoroughly, 
and make themselves masters of every detail. 
They must know hoAV to do all kinds of firm 
Avork, and should study especially how to direct 
others. It is frequently easier to do the AVork 
one’s self than to show another how to do it, but 
it is better, in the end, to bear AAuth a bungler, 
than to let him stand idle Avhile you do the 
Avork. John Johnston is employing contrabands 
on his farm, and likes them AA’^ell, though he 
says, “they cannot set themselves to Avork.” 
That is precisely my idea. A man Avith a large 
farm must know how to set others to work, and 
see that they do it properly, and he will find 
that this will giAm him enough to do without 
going into the field to plow himself. Nearly all 
the labor we can noAV command is unskilled, 
and this state of things will continue. There 
are noAV thousands of Chinese at Avork on the 
Pacific Rail-road, and when Ave think that one- 
third the population of the globe is in the Chi¬ 
nese Empire, it will not be surprising if the high 
Avages paid in this country, should induce hun¬ 
dreds of thousands to emigrate to San Fran¬ 
cisco, and from there over the Pacific Rail-road 
to the mines of Colorado and the prairies of the 
Great West. They Avill not be able to “set 
themselves to work,” and the young farmers of 
the country should educate themselves for the 
task. There is not one farmer’s sou in a hun¬ 
dred that could do it at present. They have not 
been trained to direct others, and it is time this 
part of a farmer’s education received attention. 
If^ the drouth continues much longer, it Avill 
be diflicult to get in the usual quantity of Avin- 
ter Avheat. It is almost impossible to ploAV heavy 
land. I have heard of several farmers Avho have 
abandoned the attempt. We are ploAving up an 
old meadoAAq which, although somewhat mucky, 
is so hard on the dryer portions that a neAV cast 
iron point will not last longer than a day. The 
men say the point gets so hot from the friction 
that it will almost burn your hand. The high 
price of cast iron points Avill compel us to use 
steel points. These can be sharpened by a black¬ 
smith at little expense, and although the first 
cost is about three times as much as an iron 
point, they are cheaper in the end, and AAmrk 
easier. By taking a cold chisel, and putting it 
in a vise or having some one to hold it on the 
top of a large stone, 3'ou can, by putting the 
point on the chisel, cut or break off the worn 
end of the point, and it Avill then do almost as 
good Avork as Avhen ucaa^ Cutting it off square 
Avith a cold chisel is far better than trying to 
break it off Avith a hammer or a stone, as some do. 
I think I told j'ou that I proposed to seed 
doAvn this old meadoAV in September, as soon 
as it was plowed and harroAved. It makes rather 
a rough job of it, but then it is a rough piece of 
land, and at any rate it Avill be far better than it 
Avas before. 
I hav'e been consulting Flint’s valuable work 
on “Grasses and Forage Plants” in regard to 
the quantity of seed that should be sown per 
acre, but he merel3'-advises liberal seeding, AAuth- 
out saying hoAV much. This is a too common 
fault among agricultural Avriters, and I should 
have been apt to conclude that the author Avas 
not as “practical” as I had supposed, but for 
the folloAving sentence. Speaking of the im¬ 
provement of Avaste laud, he says: “ Tlie diffi¬ 
culty Avith most small farmers is to begin. Well 
begun is half Avell done; for the moment any real 
improvement is begun in earnest, the interest is 
excited, the mental activity is increased, the de¬ 
sire for improvement partakes of tlie nature of a 
passion; and hence, thougli the beginning may 
be small, the end may be tlie renovation of the 
OAvner as Avell as the land.” This is Avell said, 
and emiiiGnlly true, and the man that Avrote it, 
must have himself tasted something of the pleas¬ 
ure of renovating waste land. 
The chemistry of the book is a little out of 
date. For instance, he sa3’s: “Every keeper of 
stock knows that to feed an animal oilcake, 
xchich is hut slightly nitrogenous^ might fatten 
him, but it would not give him strength of mus¬ 
cle, or size; while, if the same animal be kept 
on the cereal grains, as Avheat or Indian corn, 
alone, his size rapidly increases, his muscular 
S3'stem develops, and he gains flesh Avithout in¬ 
creasing his fat in proportion.” Now, the fact 
is, of all the foods used for stock, oilcake is the 
most nitrogenous. It contains more than tAvice 
as much nitrogen as Indian corn or Avheat. 
In the same connection it is stated that Tim¬ 
othy contains more nitrogenous matter than red 
clover. This irray be so in the fresh state, be¬ 
cause the clover is more succulent than Timolh3^, 
and contains more AA'ater. But clover hay con¬ 
tains a good deal more nitrogen than Timothy 
ha3^—in fact, nearly double. It is for this rea¬ 
son that clover ha3'- makes so much richer jna- 
nure than Timothy ha3^ But it does not folloAv 
that it is more nutritious. The old notion that 
a food is nutritious in proportion to the nitrogen 
Avhich it contains, proves unfounded. Peas and 
beans contain tAvice as much nitrogen as Indian 
corn and Avheat, but they arc not twice as nu¬ 
tritious. But the3’- make manure tAvice as valu¬ 
able, and this is one of the chief reasons Avhy 
they deserve to be more extensively cultivated. 
