426 
THE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER. 
July  2 
The  Future  of  American  Farming. 
I  asked  Mr.  Chapman,  with  whom  I  drove  about  the 
county,  what  farmers  had  to  say  about  the  fact  that 
the  population  of  New  York  rural  counties  is  not  in¬ 
creasing.  He  said  the  county  towns  gained  slightly 
while  the  farming  population  fell  off  or  remained 
nearly  the  same.  This  did  not  mean  that  farms  were 
being  “  abandoned.”  The  farmers’  families  were 
smaller  than  formerly  and  most  of  the  children  moved 
away  to  farm  in  other  places  or  to  go  into  other  busi¬ 
nesses.  There  are  just  so  many  farms  and  a  farmer  for 
each.  A  farm  won’t  support  more  than  one  farmer 
and  naturally  all  but  one  or  two  of  the  boys  must  make 
a  home  elsewhere.  We  shall  not  have  more  farms — 
that  is  the  big  ones  will  not  be  split  into  smaller  ones — 
until  the  demand*  for  farm  products  is  increased  or  a 
“home  market”  comes  nearer  the  farm  What  a  won¬ 
derful  thing  it  would  be  for  this  country  if  the  big 
manufacturing  interests  would  leave  the  great  cities 
and  locate  in  the  smaller  rural  towns.  They  would 
be  at  less  expense  and  the  change  would  tend  to  break 
up  the  vice  and  misery  of  our  great  cities,  while  with  a 
better  market  close  at  hand  the  farmer  could  afford  to 
practice  a  more  intensive  farming  and  adopt  new 
crops  and  methods,  besides  getting  out  of  the  middle¬ 
men’s  clutches.  Such  a  move  would  be  a  godsend  to 
the  farmers  in  the  “  back  counties.”  1  can’t  conceive 
of  any  industrial  growth  that  would  do  the  whole 
country  more  good.  Unfortunately,  we  common 
people  are  not  the  nurses  of  our  “  infant  industries.” 
There  are  few  “  abandoned  farms  ”  in  Tompkins 
County.  As  nearly  as  I  can  make  out  nine  out  of  ten  of 
such  farms  are  “abandoned” 
because  they  never  should  have 
been  farmed  anyway.  They  are 
so  located  that  present  civiliza¬ 
tion  does  not  need  their  products. 
It  will  not  pay  to  work  them 
until  there  comes  a  change  and 
prices  rise  or  the  cost  of  produc¬ 
tion  is  lessened.  Some  wise  theor¬ 
ists  have  been  telling  us  that  we 
are  rapidly  coming  to  a  point 
where  demand  will  reach  supply 
and  America  will  be  unable  to 
supply  all  the  grain  needed  by 
Americans.  It  seems  to  me  that 
this  is  great  nonsense.  There  is 
land  enough  standing  idle  in 
Tompkins  County  and  in  dozens 
of  others  to  double  the  grain  pro¬ 
duction.  This  land  is  in  woods 
or  rough  pastures — useless  or  of 
comparatively  little  value.  Let 
wheat  go  up  25  per  cent  in  price 
and  this  land  would  be  cleared 
and  seeded.  I  don’t  believe  we 
are  to  have  high  prices  for  farm  products  again  except 
as  natural  causes,  as  bad  seasons,  may  cut  down  the 
crop  and  thus  make  a  shortage.  In  fact,  I  believe  the 
tendency  of  the  times  is  all  towards  cheaper  prices  and 
I  think  we  all,  farmers,  city  workmen  and  others, 
have  got  to  get  along  with  smaller  incomes  or  wages. 
The  only  hope  that  1  can  see  for  the  average  farmer  is 
in  producing  what  he  has  to  sell  at  a  lower  cost.  We 
have  to  use  the  cows,  the  crops,  the  culture  and 
tools  that  will  give  us  the  biggest  product  for  a 
dollar’s  worth  of  labor. 
Some  Men  Make  Farming  Pay 
In  Tompkins  County  as  well  as  elsewhere.  Mr.  A.  G. 
Chapman  is  one  man  I  met  who  is  on  top  of  farming. 
He  has  paid  for  his  farm,  raised  a  good  big  family  of 
good  children,  and  is  now  in  comfortable  circum¬ 
stances— all  out  of  plain,  every-day  farming.  He  has 
about  100  acres  of  good  land.  He  makes  butter  from 
a  small  herd  of  dairy  cows,  keeps  a  few  Shropshire 
sheep,  about  000  head  of  poultry,  and  a  number  of 
hives  of  bees.  No  grain  is  ever  sold  except  wheat. 
Lots  of  Western  grain  must  be  bought  for  the  stock 
in  addition  to  what  is  grown.  Hig  crops  of  hay  are 
grown,  and  I  saw  one  good  field  of  peas  and  oats  sown 
together  for  cow  feed.  It  is  not  a  first-class  location 
for  corn,  but  they  always  grow  more  or  less  of  it  for 
the  grain  and  fodder.  The  cows  are  first-rate  butter 
animals.  Mr.  Chapman  has  a  fine  Jersey  bull  and  is 
working  towards  that  blood,  crossed  on  well-selected 
native  cows.  The  milk  of  every  cow  has  been  tested 
with  the  Babcock  tester.  It  is  mighty  encouraging  to 
hear  a  man  say,  “  That  cow's  milk  tests  six  per  cent 
fat!”  People  used  to  say,  “That’s  a  four-gallon  cow.”  A 
Babcock  tester  and  a  Jersey  bull  will  make  the  robbers 
in  a  dairy  herd  tremble  for  their  lives.  The  milk  on 
this  farm  is  set  in  large  pans.  The  cream  is  churned 
in  a  large,  square  box  churn  run  by  a  small  engine. 
Butter  is  low  now — 15  cents  a  pound  for  a  prime  article. 
Everybody  wants  to  know  why  it  is  so  low,  and  nobody 
seems  able  to  give  any  satisfactory  explanation.  I  be¬ 
lieve  it  is  largely  due  to  the  immense  quantities  of 
oleomargarine  fraudulently  sold  for  butter.  I  don’t 
believe  there  is  an  overproduction  of  pure  butter  fat 
at  all,  but  there  is  an  over-sale  of  cheap  hog  and  beef 
fats  doctored  up  to  imitate  pure  butter.  It  is  a  shame 
that  honest  dairymen  should  be  made  to  suffer  loss 
through  this  vile  fraud. 
Mr.  Chapman  is  a  very  ingenious  man  and  a  good 
mechanic.  All  over  the  farm  are  scattered  helpful 
contrivances  that  he  planned  or  made  himself.  His 
incubators,  brooders,  chicken  houses,  etc.,  are  all 
home-made.  The  engine  that  turns  his  churn  also 
runs  a  saw. 
The  poultry  business  pays  very  well.  Mr.  Chapman 
keeps  Leghorns  and  says  that  25  of  them  will  earn  as 
much  as  one  good  cow.  The  R.  N.-Y.  is  to  have  a 
special  article  on  Mr.  Chapman’s  poultry  business,  so  I 
will  say  nothing  about  it.  There  is  a  small  sugar  bush 
on  the  farm  where  several  hundred  pounds  of  sugar 
are  made  each  year.  Everything  is  neat  and  orderly. 
The  old  rubbish,  wood,  tree  prunings,  etc.,  are  not 
left  to  clutter  up  the  yard,  but  are  hauled  right  to  the 
sugar  bush  where  they  are  neatly  piled  all  ready  for 
spring  firing.  Firewood  is  cut  and  packed  out  of  sight 
in  a  dry  wood-shed — as  it  ought  to  be.  A  good  many 
years  ago  Mr.  Chapman  began  to  plant  apple  trees 
along  the  road  on  his  farm  in  the  place  of  maples  and 
other  forest  trees.  The  practice  spread  until  now  all 
the  farmers  seem  to  have  followed  him  and  all  over 
that  part  of  the  country  you  will  find  good,  tlirifty- 
looking  apple  trees  along  the  roadsides.  Trees  that 
are  weli  pruned  and  cared  for  give  plenty  of  shade  and 
yield  a  good  crop  too.  Winter  varieties  are  used — 
Baldwins,  Greenings  and  Kings.  Such  apples  are  as 
Old  agriculture’s  coming  for  a  bite  from  that  big  stack. 
And  all  the  middlemen  on  earth  can  never  keep  her  back  ! 
Fig.  187. 
salable  as  wheat  and,  on  these  square  farms  with  a 
long  road  front  the  income  from  this  “side-walk  farm¬ 
ing”  is  considerable.  It  is  a  first-rate  idea.  In  many 
of  the  German  States  this  practice  is  encouraged  by 
law  and  the  income  from  the  sale  of  the  fruit  is  con¬ 
siderable.  In  almost  any  live  community  some  enter¬ 
prising  farmer  could  easily  and  safely  start  this  plant¬ 
ing.  The  chances  are  that  within  five  years  two-thirds 
of  his  neighbors  would  follow  him. 
Profit  is  the  Difference  Between  Cost  and  Selling 
Price. 
I  told  Mr.  Chapman  about  the  big  money  some  of 
our  Jersey  farmers  get  for  an  acre  of  Limas,  sweet 
corn  or  melons.  “  Well,”  he  said :  “I  guess  these 
men  must  be  getting  rich  at  farming  !  ”  I  was  forced 
to  confess  that  nine  out  of  ten  of  them  complained 
bitterly  that  farming  had  “nothing  but  a  living  in  it.” 
That  made  me  think  a  little.  Here  was  a  farmer  over 
300  miles  from  his  chief  market,  with  potatoes  at  25 
cents  a  bushel,  butter  at  15  cents,  hay  at  $13  per  ton, 
and  300  miles’  freight  to  pay  on  his  eggs,  getting  better 
returns  out  of  the  soil  than  two-tliirds  of  my  neighbors 
who  are  within  four  hours’  horse  journey  of  New 
York  and  can  sell  potatoes  at  50  to  00  cents,  hay 
at  $20,  butter  at  25  cents  and  eggs  at  the  highest 
market  price. 
What  does  it  mean  ’?  Is  it  such  a  tremendous  ad¬ 
vantage  to  be  right  under  the  shadow  of  a  big  mar¬ 
ket?  Is  the  farmer  who  gets  the  fancy  “  home-mar¬ 
ket  ”  price  any  happier,  healthier  or  wealthier  than 
his  far  off  neighbor  in  the  “  back  country,”  who  has 
to  pay  such  a  big  tribute  to  middlemen  or  railroads  ? 
I’ll  give  it  up.  My  belief  is  that  in  the  long  run  profit 
comes  to  the  farmer  who  pays  best  attention  to  lessen¬ 
ing  the  cost  of  production.  The  man  who  raises  a  crop 
without  regard  to  cost  and  takes  the  risk  of  selling  it  at 
a  high  price  may  succeed  for  a  time,  but  in  the  long  run 
he  will  fail  seven  times  out  of  ten.  It  strikes  me  that 
this  is  a  big  question  and  I  would  like  to  have  it  dis¬ 
cussed.  I  will  have  more  to  say  about  it.  jerseyman. 
(To  be  continued.) 
Irrigation  in  Florida. 
The  subject  of  irrigation  is  now  attracting  the 
earnest  attention  of  all  intelligent  and  enterprising 
cultivators  of  the  soil,  not  only  in  arid  regions,  but 
also  in  those  sections  where  the  sum  total  of  the 
annual  rainfall  is  sufficient  for  the  needs  of  vegetation, 
the  trouble  with  the  natural  supply  being  that  the 
desired  quantity  of  moisture  is  unlikely  to  come  at  the 
most  desirable  times. 
To  secure  the  best  results  cultivators  find  it  neces¬ 
sary  to  supplement  the  supplies  given  by  Nature  ;  to 
make  themselves  independent  of  the  natural  rainfall. 
The  question  now  is  not  “  Shall  I  irrigate  or  shall  I 
not,”  but,  “  What  is  the  best  mode  of  irrigation  ?  ” 
In  Florida  a  considerable  number  of  irrigating  plants 
are  being  put  in  from  year  to  year,  especiallj'  in  the 
orange  groves.  The  devices  that  seem  to  meet  most 
fully  the  general  requirements  are  a  steam  pump  and 
distributing  hose.  Windmills  to  elevate  the  water 
into  tanks,  which  is  then  distributed  by  hose  or  pipes 
laid  along  the  ground,  have  been  tried  to  a  consider¬ 
able  extent,  but  are  not  satisfactory,  as  the  breezes 
here  are  so  light  that  the  wind-engines  develop  but 
very  little  power.  On  the  east  coast  flowing  wells  are 
very  common,  and  great  activity  is  manifested  in 
boring  them.  The  ordinary  system  is  to  pipe  the 
ground  desired  to  be  irrigated,  and  place  hydrants 
from  50  to  100  feet  apart.  The  ground  is  then  irri¬ 
gated  by  means  of  hose  attached  first  to  one  hydrant 
and  then  to  another,  the  character  of  the  soil  being 
such  that  the  water  cannot  be  carried  in  trenches. 
At  Daytona  a  system  of  sub-irrigation  was  devised  a 
few  years  since  especially  for 
vegetable  gardens  and  has  been 
adopted  to  a  limited  extent  in 
a  few  other  places,  particularly 
at  Ormond,  a  few  miles  to  the 
north.  The  plan  is  to  dig 
trenches  three  or  four  feet  wide 
and  12  to  15  feet  apart  to  the 
depth  of  about  20  inches.  In  the 
bottom  a  cement  reservoir  four 
inches  deep  is  made  the  width  of 
the  trench,  the  whole  being  per¬ 
fectly  level.  This  is  then  filled 
with  broken  stones  or  small 
blocks  of  wood,  or  boards  one 
inch  by  four  are  placed  edgewise 
about  three  inches  apart  length¬ 
wise  of  the  basin,  the  lengths 
being  frequently  broken  that  the 
water  may  circulate  freely.  These 
are  covered  by  cross  strips  on 
which  are  placed  palmetto  leaves, 
bushes,  grass  and  brush  generally 
to  the  depth  of  several  inches.  The 
earth  thrown  from  the  trenches 
is  then  replaced,  upright  wooden  tubes  4x4  inches  being 
placed  at  intervals  of  five  feet  to  give  ventilation  to 
the  reservoir.  A  very  small  stream  of  water,  just 
enough  to  keep  the  reservoir  filled  without  overflow¬ 
ing,  is  then  connected  with  the  latter  and  when  prop¬ 
erly  fertilized,  the  plat  thus  underdrained,  and  also 
supplied  with  sufficient  moisture,  is  ready  for  planting. 
The  advantages  claimed  are  very  rapid  growth  of 
vegetables  and  greater  power  to  resist  the  summer 
heats,  making  it  possible  to  grow  vegetables  that 
could  not  otherwise  be  grown  here  in  the  summer. 
An  income  of  $2,000  or  more  per  acre  is  claimed  from 
these  plots.  The  disadvantages  are  the  great  cost — 
from  $700  to  $1,000  per  acre— to  prepare  the  land  and 
the  probable  short  life  of  the  arrangement,  as  the  con¬ 
duits  soon  become  clogged  with  the  matted  roots  un¬ 
less  great  care  is  taken  to  prevent  the  mishap.  Much 
was  said  about  this  style  of  irrigation  a  few  years 
since,  but  it  has  not  as  yet  become  very  popular  in  this 
section.  sherman  adams. 
Fertilizers  for  the  Wheat  Crop. 
AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  1).  C.  LEWIS. 
On  page  313  we  gave  an  interview  with  W.  S.  Coombs, 
of  New  Jersey,  regarding  his  practice  of  sowing 
wheat  after  potatoes.  About  the  same  questions  were 
asked  of  D.  C.  Lewis,  and  his  answers  follow.  Lots  of 
farmers  may  be  startled  at  the  great  quantity  of  fer¬ 
tilizers  used  by  Mr.  Lewis ;  but  we  know  that  he 
really  uses  them,  and  is  convinced  that  he  is  paid  for 
doing’  so. 
“  How  do  you  prepare  .your  land  for  wheat  ?  ” 
“  We  sow  potato  ground  to  wheat ;  sometimes  we 
have  to  plow  where  the  growth  of  weeds  makes  it 
necessary,  otherwise  we  cultivate ;  we  prefer  the 
latter.  The  more  shallow  the  cultivation  the  better. 
With  a  pulverized  surface  we  cover  the  wheat  as  shal¬ 
low  as  possible;  we  may  even  prepare  the  ground  with 
a  spring-tooth  or  Acme  harrow,  then  roll  and  sow.” 
“  How  do  you  apply  the  fertilizer  and  the  seed? ” 
“  We  use  the  Empire  grain  drill  for  seeding  with 
wheat  and  Timothy,  and  apply  the  fertilizer  at  the  same 
time.  If  the  soil  is  dry  we  follow  the  seeding  with  the 
