44 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. JAN. i7 
will be double what it now is. The exigencies of the times 
are such that the laggard dairyman will be forced to 
greatly improve his present methods or quit the business. 
Carefully selected thoroughbred sires and comfortable 
quarters, with plenty of suitable feed for their progeny 
will, in a few years, secure an average of 10,000 pounds of 
milk per cow. 
Weeds. —If noxious weeds increase in the future as they 
have during the past few years, much pasture land will 
become worse than useless in a short time. A practicable 
method of fumigation may be devised whereby the vitality 
of all weed seeds contained in manure may be destroyed, 
and this, with thorough cultivation, would greatly lessen 
the amount of costly weed growth on tillable land. But 
with contiguous pasture or waste land overrun with 
thistles, daisies, golden rod, buttercups, devil’s paint¬ 
brush and a multitude of other weeds, complete immunity 
from these pests cannot be secured on other portions of the 
farm. The present methods are wholly inadequate to sup¬ 
press pernicious weed growth on such pastures or waste 
land. Perhaps the discovery of some cheap chemical ap 
plication destructive to all plant life will yet prove effective 
in abating this great nuisance. 
Potatoes.— For nearly 50 years potatoes have been more 
or less subject to blight and rot. The importance of the crop 
and the magnitude of the losses sustained have called for 
investigation and experiment. During the last few years 
knowledge of the origin and habits of the disease has been 
greatly increased. Some success has attended the trial of 
remedies and preventives, and recent developments war¬ 
rant the expectation that in a few years at most the dis¬ 
ease will be under perfect control. Failing in this, some 
way will be devised by which the surplus of a large, 
healthy crop can be preserved in perfect condition for any 
desirable length of time. 
Farm Power. —Advances made in the use of steam in 
the past do not warrant the belief that it will supersede 
the use of animal power for general farm cultivation in 
the near future, at least not in the Eastern States. It is 
possible that either electricity or some form of stored 
power may yet be used in place of horses on the farm, but 
the conditions of this service are such that there is little 
probability that any such change will take place in the next 
10 years. New applications and new com¬ 
binations of power already in use will 
continue to be made. There are good 
reasons for believing that natural forces 
hitherto unknown await discovery, and 
as there is no limit to Yankee ingenuity, 
so practically there are no limits to future 
improvements in agricultural implements 
and methods. 
A Bit of Ple\santry.— But I do not 
expect to see a cultivator operated by a 
power similar to that by which a rocket is 
propelled through the air, with gases 
driven through blow pipes into the soil 
with such force as to completely pulver¬ 
ize the same to the depth of eight inches, 
and at the same time destroy all weeds 
and weed seeds, as well as noxious in¬ 
sects in their various stages from the egg 
to the pupa. Neither do I expect that 
any rural editor, however profound his 
knowledge, will succeed In growing fine 
wheat on thorn apple bushes at the rate of 200 bushels to 
the acre. Neither can I discover any profit likely to arise 
from indulging in pure imagination far beyond the bounds 
of practicability or probability. Within such bounds 
there are no assignable limits to betterment, for the next 
25 years will witness as great Improvements as any former 
period of like duration. 
Business Methods —Granges in this vicinity unite in 
buying feed, seeds, and miny other articles for cash at 
wholesale prices. By this course and by Grange insurance 
they have saved many dollars in the last few years. It 
would result in great benefit to the farmer if the Granges 
would organize an advanced degree with members pledged 
to make all purchases for cash only, and, so far as prac¬ 
ticable, at wholesale prices. It is quite possible that with 
this beginning such progress might be made that by the 
year 1900 the credit system that is now doing such per¬ 
nicious work among farmers, might be abolished. The 
abrogation of all laws for the collection of debts contracted 
by farmers after five years from the present time, would 
tend far more to their benefit as a class than the building 
of government storehouses or the granting of government 
loans at low rates of interest. It is a strained and un¬ 
healthy credit system that makes possible and fosters the 
skinning process now practiced on a large area of farming 
lands greatly to the damage of the general interests of 
the farmers themselves. Production stimulated by such 
helps will be sure to end in ruinous competition and re¬ 
duced prices for farm products. It will be a sad ending if 
the so called “farmers’ movement” shall induce special 
legislation whereby men with little capital, or none at all, 
will be able through cheap lands and easy credits to in¬ 
crease the present competition and work further ruin 
among farmers themselves. Let us hope that the next 15 
years will witness the destruction of the credit system so 
far as it in any way conflicts with the interests of farmers 
as a class. 
The Dark Side. —For 20 years farmiug lands have been 
decreasing in value. During the last five years the de¬ 
crease has been more rapid than at any former time. If 
this depreciation continues in the same ratio for the next 
25 years, farms will have little, if any, money value. In 
the State of New York between three and four millions of 
dollars are raised annually by a general tax for school 
purposes. After this amount has been expended for 
schools many farmers pay for district school tax as many 
dollars additional as the whole of town, county and State 
taxes amounted to 35 years ago. Insanity in rural districts 
is greatly on the increase. If it continues to increase dur¬ 
ing the next 20 years as it has increased during the past 20 
years the result will be sad to contemplate. Figures might 
be given, but the facts are within the observation of every 
one. Taxes for the support of paupers, including the 
indigent insane, are now two or three times as great as 
they were 20 years ago, and that, too, without any increase 
in population. Pauperism depends largely on intemper¬ 
ance. Many more drunken young men are seen in our 
streets now than 30 years ago. Whether insanity, drunk¬ 
enness and pauperism will continue to increase for the 
next 20 years no one can tell. Let us hope that by some 
means the tide will be turned. 
Notwithstanding all these depressing circumstances, the 
sal tries of State and county offiiials have been greatly in¬ 
creased, and many new State offices have been created in 
the last 20 years, and now a whole army of officials are 
supportedatpublicexpen.se. During the last few years 
farmers have become alarmed, and are now awake and 
beginning to look after their own interests. What the 
result will be time only can determine. 
Lewis County, N. Y. C. S. RICE. 
A Pioneer Looks Forward. 
Those who have been actively engaged in agricultural 
pursuits during the past half century can note the won¬ 
derful changes and important improvements in almost 
every department of farm husbandry. Many of the pre 
sent day are inclined to murmur or complain of the dis¬ 
couragements of rural life, and would gladly exchange 
their position for what they regard as the easier life in 
city or town. This dissatisfaction exists, not because 
farm life has become more burdensome, but because we 
have learned so much of ease by the great improvements 
of the age, that we are almost disqualified for any active 
business pursuit. If those who murmur at the present 
could go back with the writer and view in contrast the 
ways and means of farm life 50 years ago, they would 
be fully satisfied with the better condition of farmers in 
the present age. 
Fifty years ago the farmer who did not labor early and 
late at all seasons of the year, was a dolt and could hardly 
expect a comfortable living for his family. The most 
that farmers as a class could expect was a plain, comfort¬ 
able living, without any indulgence in luxuries. No 
farmer was ever seen riding to town or church in a covered 
carriage or broadcloth suit. The man who owned a 
pleasure carriage was regarded a nabob. Agriculture had 
never in past ages been favored by scientific investigation 
or by genius in constructing machinery to relieve the 
hardships of farm labor. The idea prevailed that the 
cultivator of the soil must be a drudge, and little effort 
was made to relieve his toil. Ancient civilizations could 
boast of their great achievements in warfare, architecture, 
sculpture and painting, in the erection of mighty temples 
in which to worship their heathen gods, in embalming 
their dead and in the erecting of lofty statues with in¬ 
scriptions to commemorate the titles and noble deeds of 
kings and notabilities; but they never constructed a 
proper plow, or cultivator, or fanning mill, or a machine 
to cut the grain or grass, or to sow or thrash the grain. 
All the labors of the farm were done by the strain of 
human muscle. Neither has the light of modern inven¬ 
tion opened the eyes of the benighted descendants of those 
people, for the same implements of husbandry—if such 
they can be called—are now found in use as were used 
in the days of the Paaraohs, and the Caesars. 
Daring the past half century greater improvements have 
been made in the science of agriculture and the art of soil 
cultivation and crop management, as well as in labor-sav¬ 
ing machinery than in all former ages. During 15 years 
of my early farm experience progress had hardly made any 
improvements in the use of labor-saving machinery. Our 
grass was mown with a scythe, our wheat and other grains 
were cut with a cradle or sickle; our small grains were 
thrashed with a flail, or, later, with what would now be 
called a pepper-mill machine; hay and grain were raked 
with a hand-rake; our fields were plowed with wooden 
plows with shares only of iron, or, later, with the Jethro 
Wood cast-iron plows of very inferior construction; our 
harrows were triangular in shape with iron teeth inch 
square. Cultivators and gang plows, horse rakes, hay 
tedders, planters and seed drills were unknown. In the 
harvest of 1845 I worked one of the first successful grain 
reapers used m this country, or, it is said, in the world. 
It was of the McCormick patent. Such machines were 
successful then, but would be a failure now. From that 
time reaping and nabwing machines increased in use, but 
it was several years before the old modes of hand labor 
were discarded in full. Commercial fertilizers were not 
used or known to our country until a more recent date, 
nor were the elements of plant foods known to those who 
cultivated the soil; scientists alone could discuss the prop¬ 
erties of fertilizers and the needs of the soil. 
Have we advanced in knowledge and in the art of culti¬ 
vation, and are we still progressing ? and shall we still 
progress ? or are we satisfied with our present attainments? 
We have the perfect plows, the sulky and the hand plow ; 
the sulky harrow, the sulky rake, the sulky harvesters, as 
well as binders, seeders, potato diggers, manure spreaders, 
etc., etc., with thrashing machines that put in the granary 
1,000 bushels of grain per day, or more if required ; the 
dairyman, the stock breeder, the fruit grower, the wool 
grower, have attained a high degree of excellence in their 
several vocations. Such Is the condition of agriculture at 
present. 
Have we arrived at the apex—at the point where no fur¬ 
ther progress can be looked for? No, we have but just 
begun to advance. It took 6,000 years of man’s wisdom to 
construct a proper plow, a binder and a thrashing machine, 
and will the ages to come find no further improvements 
possible ? Are there no other combinations or inventions 
in nature to benefit the cultivators of the soil ? Yes, the 
field of invention is infinite, and until man has attained 
infinite knowledge and put it all in practice, improve¬ 
ments will be within his reach. The next 50 years will 
show greater progress in the useful arts than the same 
period in the past. Fifty years from now the farmer will 
be esteemed for his intelligence and not rated in public or 
social life by his occupation, and he who makes two blades 
of grass grow where but one grew before, will be more 
honored than he who commands an army. Fifty years 
from now farmers will not feel lonely in the halls of Con¬ 
gress because so few of them are there. Fifty years from 
now farmers will not send their brightest sons to the city 
to regenerate the city’s degeneration, and reinvigorate its 
failing powers, but will keep them on the farm, where 
there will be better chances for enterprise and greater use¬ 
fulness. In 50 years the farmer will cultivate his farm 
with pride and profit and will double, yea, treble his 
present crops. He will know what his soil may want to 
make a perfect crop, and will apply the fertilizers needed 
to produce thirty, sixty or a hundredfold. 
He will cultivate his field as does the 
professional man his garden—without a 
weed to mar its beauty and productive¬ 
ness. 
Fifty years hence the farmer will have 
learned to silo all his hay and other green 
crops, and will use his barns only as 
granaries and stabling for stock. The 
stables will be warmed, his feed and 
water will be tempered by steam that 
will run the mill for grinding grain, and 
the farmer who will not harvest 50 bush¬ 
els of wheat and 100 bushels of corn per 
acre will complain of a bad season and 
short crops. The dairymen will extract 
the butter from the milk by centrifugal 
motion and will alsvays have purely gilt- 
edged goods, which will bring in $100 per 
annum per cow. Steam power will be 
used on the farm in many ways; plowing, 
harrowing, reaping and thrashing will be 
done by it. The farmer from his office will direct the labor 
of his workmen by telephone, which will reach to all parts 
of his farm and also to his neighbors’ places, near and 
remote. All will ride on railroads, and the cars will be 
driven by electricity, but will be restricted by law to one 
mile per minute, a higher speed being regarded as in¬ 
jurious to respiration. 
The limit of progress in farming will depend largely on 
the encouragement it receives. Enterprise and progress 
in any vocation cannot long continue without reasonable 
rewards and unless more equal returns are made by agri¬ 
culture, as compared with those from other vocations, 
enterprising labor will not be encouraged to engage in it. 
Yet I believe the present depressed condition of agricul¬ 
ture in this country, as well as in Europe, will not long 
continue. There is no denying the fact that the farmers of 
Europe and America have during the past five years lost 
greatly in wealth; yet I do not regard the experience of 
the present as wholly evil. We are learning anew the 
lessons of the past most essential to true prosperity. It 
may be said that economy and frugality are amongst the 
lost arts—virtues on which former enlightenment and 
progress flourished. Necessity is a stern teacher, but 
thorough ; farmers are learning and must learn such econ¬ 
omy as is the foundation of all successful business pur¬ 
suits. The old economy of our New England grandsires, 
and that also which is imported with our European Im¬ 
migrants, will soon restore to our farmers the prosperity 
which, with all the appliances at our hands, will lead to 
almost unlimited progress. F. P. ROOT. 
Monroe County, N. Y. 
The Rural New-Yorker No. 3435. 
What improvements in farming have we a right to ex¬ 
pect will be made by the year 1915 ? In 1892 Congress will 
have enough farmer members to influence legislation, and 
in 1896 to control it. That will be the first and most im¬ 
portant step in advance. We can readily understand that 
the result will be the passing of laws that will give equal 
rights to all; there will be no favored classes. As a se¬ 
quence, there will be a greater number of farmers in pro¬ 
portion to population than now, because farming will be 
a business that will pay as well for the thought and capital 
invested in it, and the risks encountered, as any other in¬ 
dustry ; therefore many now engaged in other pursuits 
that pay better because of class legislation, will turn their 
attention to farming. On the face of it, it might seem 
