298 
©ORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
M 
NOV. 
7 
(S^murmg. 
HOAD MAKING. 
More and more attention is being paid i*» 
the subject of road making. At a recent 
meeting in Utica ft discussion on this subject 
was had. Mr. J. V. 11. Scovillk made some 
sensible suggestions—among which was the 
statement that “one great lack inroads is 
the want of intelligence.” Of course it is 
not to be inferred that he meant that the 
roads lack intelligence. Evidently the road 
makers, or the path master, frequently do. 
He urged that the principles of road making 
should be taught in schools ! By whom ? 
By Sophronia Jane Hmitit who does not 
know enough to make out a school bill and 
who only knows enough about roads to deli¬ 
cately assert that they fire “ horrible ” when 
her prunella gaiters get soiled and her dimity 
gets wet. What do the “ school maidens ” 
of the country (or the “ school mistress,” for 
that matter) know of the “ principles of road 
making ?” It is easy to say that the princi¬ 
ples of road making should be taught in 
schools ; but who are the men (or women) 
that can properly be dubbed Professors of 
Road Making ? To say what should be is 
comparatively easy; but to distinguish be¬ 
tween what should be and the best thing 
practicable is a different matter. 
Mr. Scoville enters into practical details 
in this wise Roads should be made 
smooth so that the sides can be mown. The 
loose stones should bo gathered up and taken 
to a crusher, thus making good road mate¬ 
rial. Our roods are “crowned” too much. 
A country road should be 16 or 20 feet, wide 
and the “ crown ” should only be enough to 
carry off the water. The “ crown ” of 1 inch 
in 24 or one-half an inch a foot is said to be 
enough for a broken stone road. Our roads 
should be improved by securing a uniform 
grade on steep descents,” But Mr. Scovili.e 
makes one good suggestion when lie says the 
coming road will be made of crushed rock. 
This is especially true in the Eastern States 
where rock aboundsj and his suggestion 
that some of the very effective machines now 
made for crushing boulders, and lime and 
other available rock should be owned in 
every community. Not only for public road 
making, but for farm roads, drives and Walks 
they could be utilized. If t hey were so em¬ 
ployed in localities where coarse gravel is 
not available, and where boulders and rock 
abound we should soon have the best possi¬ 
ble roads. 
The fact is that good roads are as good in¬ 
vestments as a farmer or neighborhood of 
fanners can make. If such owner of a farm 
through which a road passes were required 
by law to keep that portion of the road in 
perfect condition, it would pay him to do so. 
While there are valid arguments to the con¬ 
trary, it is not a bad idea nor would it result 
badly in practice to compel each land-holder 
to keep up the road through or bounding his 
land. Of course such a law should be rigidly 
enforced ; and the law should prescribe what 
kind of a road should be made. In the dis¬ 
cussion referred to, Mr. A, 0. Wii.uams said 
roads should be made permanent. One year’s 
work should not destroy the preceding. He 
opposed the plan of paying road t ax in mon¬ 
ey instead of labor, because the money would 
be squandered. He advocated a general tax 
for building roads and that the work should 
be paid for by the State. He did not seem 
to be conscious of the fact that, the money 
would not be less likely to be squandered if 
it wore paid into the State treasury than if 
it went direct to the Road Commissioners of 
a town, whose re-election depends upon the 
manner in which they keep up the roads. 
The plan of requiring each laud-holder to 
keep up the road on his premises to a re¬ 
quired standard or to permit the Road Com¬ 
missioner to do it and tax the man’s proper¬ 
ty on whose premises the road is built is the 
better way in our judgment. The lands of 
non-residents must thus pay their proportion 
of the expense of keeping up good roads. 
This principle obtains in cities in the matter 
of pavements and sidewalks and there is no 
good reason, that we can see why it should 
not in the country. 
Mr. J. W. Jenkins of Vernon, spoke of 
Massachusetts road making. Tln-y formerly 
worked out their assessments. Now they go 
by a money rate, and the cost is no heav¬ 
ier. The road commissioners are practical 
engineers. They examine the roads and let 
out the buildings by contract to building 
companies. These companies own machines 
for breaking stone and do all the work. They 
go about in gypsy wagons, and work as they 
go. The commissioners determine how much 
work shall be on each road. The tax was 
heavier at first, but not burdensome. Now 
it is no heavier, and the roads are better. Z 
Mr. P. W. Moseley of Onondaga, spoke of 
the great importance of roads to the farmer. 
Farmers should take care of the roads. 
They will not pass a stone in the field, but, 
will get it out of the way if possible, but on 
this road will go around the stones. One 
yea* the stones will be thrown off the road, 
the nert year they will be put back to fill a 
mud-hob Farmers’ wagons break, and they 
curse the mechanics. The stones on the 
road do the it.jury. Striking a fast stone in 
the road hurts «. wheel as much as to hit it 
with a hammer. Farmers can keep their 
roads good by continual effort and care. 
Water hurts a road more than the travel. 
How shall the water be kept from the road ? 
Spread it over the road and let it evaporate. 
Tn the spring, when frost is oat, we take a 
plow and a good team and pass down one 
side of the road ar d back the other, throw¬ 
ing furrows to the center. We go over it 
with a smoother when the ground is dry. 
The smoother fillB all the ruts and the mud 
holes, working the earth toward the center. 
We have then a smooth road with a furrow 
along the side. The furrow' catches the sed¬ 
iment and the water rises over it into the 
ditch beyond. The earth is caught in the 
furrow ready to be used again for filling the 
holes next spring. The way to treat a fast 
stone is to break it down to the. surface. By 
this wav of working with a smoother, very 
little loose soil is thrown upon the road and 
the passing vehicles rapidly pack it down. 
In addition to this system, we are com¬ 
mencing at the village end of the road, 
where all pass, to build with broken stone. 
--- 
KEEPING FARM ACCOUNTS. 
Wn.i, you please reply to the following 
through your valuable paper, as soon as con¬ 
venient i I bought a good farm of 50 acres 
three years since, in this County, for which 
1 paid'$25,000 in c&sh. I paid also for stock, 
team and tools $1,000 cash. Myself, wife and 
children (two boys and three girls) do all the 
work. We pay out nothing for “ Hired help” 
and make our living off the farm, having no 
other resource or outside means. Wo live 
comfortably, but have to work hard. Be 
sides other crops, l harvested this season off 
20 acres, 400 bushels of marketable wheat 
which I have sold for $1.25 per bushel. I paid 
rash for seed wheat last fall $40 and 1 paid 
$10 to have it threshed. The point I want to 
get at and am very desiriou* of knowing is, 
the proper method of calculating and eliarg 
ing the actual cost to me of this wheat crop 
(the same- rule of course will apply to the 
Others) so as to ascertain exactly the profit 
on it,, if any. I consider myself a pretty good 
farmer (I know 1 am an industrious one) but 
am a poor accountant aud a worse book¬ 
keeper. According to my figuring, I am not 
making anything, aud would do better to 
devote inj'self to some other occupation or 
business and invest my capital in bond and 
mortgage at 7 per cent., which would pay 
me sure, regardless of all contingencies that 
crops are liable to.— Mento Galway, Herki¬ 
mer Co., A’. Y. 
Wk commend our correspondent’s desire 
to know whether he is making any profit off 
his farm or not. His question is simple and 
may be clearly and simply answered. He 
should charge his wheat crop with the inter¬ 
est (at 7 per cent.) on the valuation of the 
land devoted to wheat; with the manure, 
seed, value of labor and wear and tear of 
tools devoted to its production, harvesting, 
threshing and marketing, aud credit the crop 
with the market value of the grain and straw 
produced. The difference will he the net 
result or profit. Iu charging labor, many 
farmers neglect to charge only hired labor 
—not their own or their sons’. This is wrong. 
The proprietor’s labor is cash, just the same 
as if he hail to hire all the labor done for cash. 
Again, the net result or profit from his invest¬ 
ment may be really greater than his figures 
will shoiv ; for he may have so improved his 
land by the culture of a single crop as to 
have greatly enhanced Us future producing 
power aud hence its actual value. 
- ♦♦♦ - 
ECONOMICAL NOTES. 
Unhoused Manure .- (W. F. R.) You are 
correct iu saying that a large proportion of 
farmers do not house their manure. But it 
is equally true that thereby, when they let it 
lie under the stable window's until it is de¬ 
composed, they lose from one-third to one- 
half its value. We know of no way to pre¬ 
vent this waste. If the same men knew they 
were being defrauded of the same amount of 
money they lose in this way, by some “ mid¬ 
dleman,” they would raise a terrible hubbub; 
but so long as they don’t know this aud a;e 
alone responsible for their loss we do not 
know that it is anybody’s business but their 
own. Some of them do not believe they lose 
anything. But if you have manure, house 
it—protect it from sun and storm and mi x 
absorbents enough with it to prevent the 
escape of gases during the process of decom¬ 
position. it will pay you. 
Alkali Land .—I have what is termed, west 
of the Rocky Mountains, alkali land, some 
of which the soil is quite light-colored and 
some of it very black : both of which, how¬ 
ever, is strong in alkali of some kind and pro¬ 
duces exceedingly poor crops of com and 
wheat. Will the Rural New-Yorker, or 
some of its readers, advise me of some prac¬ 
tical method by which the alkali can be 
taken from a naturally rich soil, and also 
what known garden vegetable will flourish 
in a soilstroug with alkali ?—N. A. Wheeler, 
Washington Ter., Oct. b. 
We, not having had either experience or 
observation in the management of such lands, 
must submit the above inquiry to any of our 
practical readers who may have had such 
experience. 
The Tobacco Crop Throughout Kentucky 
and Northern Tennessee has been greatly 
injurad by frost. The market has advanced 
one cent a pound in consequence. 
JlltdttStltral 
FARM WORK vs. OTHER WORK. 
There has been a good deal said, pro and 
con, respecting farmers’ sons leaving their 
fathers and agricultural pursuits altogether 
for other employments, and when the long 
days and heavy labor is taken into account, 
it is no wonder they should do so. It is but 
right to admit at once that on the best farms 
there are many contrivances for lessening 
the most laborious jobs—as horso hay-forks, 
tedders, sulky rakes, &o., are added to the 
mowers and reapers ; but with all these 
helps, the many hours extra on the farms 
over any other employ ment are wearisome in 
the extreme, and doubtless the strain, com¬ 
bined with the one hour in the morning and 
the two hours at night over the usual time 
away from farming, tells on the constitution 
and brings on chills and fever and other 
troubles in the autumn. Where it does not 
do this, consider how it is to have no time to 
sit and read or rest an hour or two before 
lying down for the night. It would be better 
to have, the hours the. same on the farm as in 
Hie saw mill, the factory, or the shop, aud 
as in city or town work, in which case there 
would not be so much running from the 
Country to the populous places. 
In England the days in summer are much 
longer Ilian here, but, unless when hauling 
liay home, the men all leave work at G F. M., 
anil the teams only work when plowing or 
cultivating from 7 A. M. till! P. M. In Scot¬ 
land and in the County of Norfolk, England, 
there are stablemen who feed the horses, and 
those who work them go out at six, bringing 
them home at noon, and afterward keeping 
on till six. In almost all other parts of En¬ 
gland the hours are as above stated, the 
horses not coming home and having nothing 
beyond a ten minutes’ luuch at noon, which 
is eaten at the land’s end. The crust of bread 
and cheese the teamster and boys carry 
in their pockets, or iu a wallet, and the horses 
have hair nose-bags, with some oats and 
chaff, or have a bit of hay, which would be 
brought into the field with a cord around it 
and hung on the hatnes. Of course ten min¬ 
utes don’t allow of much being eaten, but 
many farmers’ horses neither eat nor drink 
till four o’clock; then they are not given 
more than a quart or two of water until 
they have had some hay or straw, which 
they eat while the men and boys have their 
dinner. This is generally eaten in the stable, 
unless the farm homestead is in the village, 
in which case they go home to their cottages 
to cat. after which they come back aud feed 
and clean the horses. The food after the 
horses are watered is chaff and oats, and 
often a small proportion of ^split beans, and 
this the teamster gives in small quantities, 
mixed, commencing with very little grain 
to the chaff, and increasing the oats and 
beans as the appetites become satisfied. 
I do not mention this English way of man¬ 
aging farm horses and feeding them to rep¬ 
resent it as better, but merely to show that 
the horn's are so much less in the day, and 
that there is cause why young men of spirit 
und who are fond of reading or of society 
aod rational recreation of any kind should 
become weary of one slavish round of labor 
from dawn till night, or say from sunrise till 
sunset, and perhaps seeing daily other men 
passing to their calling after they have been 
in the field an hour, and returning, with 
nothing to do after they get home, fully two 
horn's before the farm labor is over. 
As long as emigrants continue to flock to 
the United States, the leaving of farming for 
other pursuits by the native born will not be 
felt so badly, but a time may come when it 
will be well to make agriculture more 
attractive, for it is not wise to have such a 
leading interest supported by a force of men 
who stand the very lowest in the scale of 
social intercourse, and who have no time to 
improve their minds above the old time¬ 
worn belief in the moon’s influences, witch¬ 
craft or spiritual visitations, and in all man¬ 
ner of unfounded diseases and imaginary 
afflictions among live stock. A good deal is 
said at times to young men in New York 
and other cities by old men and by gentle¬ 
men who have succeeded in the world in 
making money, and very sharp and “ smart ” 
remarks are made to apply to the unfortu¬ 
nate young gentlemen for hanging around 
while there is the healthy and noble occupa¬ 
tion of farming open to them. Now, it 
would be the most pleasing spectacle imag¬ 
inable to have the advisers—the men who 
ure so hard on the youthful generations— 
turn out themselves and lead tne young fel¬ 
lows. Let these fine middle-aged gentlemen 
take a number of the clerks into the country, 
and rising with the sun, and on a pork and 
potato diet, continue day after day in the 
sun encouraging them to “come along ” and 
stick to work till there is no more sunshine 
for that time. Then, when at the home¬ 
stead, do the chores, aud lie down in a room 
with a nice sprinkling of nmsquitoes and an 
importation or bugs, &c., brougnt by some 
of the foreign help in their boxes or trunks 
across the water. 
It is all very well to write in nicely-chosen 
language about the handsome, athletic far¬ 
mers, their parties, their holidays and gen¬ 
eral good time, but reality proves a very 
different state of facta. Parties and neigh¬ 
borly gatherings are at a season of the year 
when the hired help is absent; but the farm¬ 
ers’ Bons might be very merry and the extra 
enjoyment might compensate for the drudg¬ 
ery of summer, only fever, &e., in the au¬ 
tumn, has taken so much of the cheerful 
share of the spirits out of the system. There 
is a groat variety in farmers’ homes, in their 
treatment of men, and in their disposition 
to create and produce a state of comfort and 
happiness. It ls but. justice to admit that 
there are farmers’ homes having all the ad¬ 
vantages and joyous surroundings depicted 
in novels ; but they are so few and far be¬ 
tween that they could not be found by the 
city youth, and those high-sounding writers 
who are so hard on what they term laziness 
have no connection with that class of farm¬ 
ers ; they belong to the high aud mighty men 
who have no laziness, only a constitutional 
unfitness for muscular exertion, and those 
who help to support these daily scribblers 
are leading agriculturists who pay some poor 
devil a little more than common wages to 
moil and toil and lead the hired help, all of 
which though, in most instances, ends in 
an auction sale of all the stock and imple¬ 
ments, with the farm to be rented. 
Work in agricultural pursuits is not di¬ 
rected with the same brain power as other 
great interests employ ; hence the long days 
and laborious straiuing till the back and 
limbs ache, and until those who have not 
been hardened to the work in their youth 
have to succumb, whereas were machinery 
and implements manufactured with an eye 
to saving the attendance from being so irk¬ 
some, and the labor and duties made as light 
and non-repulaive as in other business, there 
would be no cause for recommendations to 
country people uot to flock to the cities and 
for the city people to go into the country. 
Agriculture would be more remunerative 
to the. farmers and the laborers would be 
more settled and reliable if a system of 
cropping, grazing and wintering of live 
stock was adopted, so that a more uniform 
number of laborers could be employed all 
the year round. Men who could be em¬ 
ployed constantly would feel more like 
(■.n king an interest in their employer’s pros¬ 
perity, and if, as in England, each man was 
kept to the particular department he is most 
adapted for and which he feels the greatest 
pleasure in attending to, the whole organiza¬ 
tion would proceed and have a charming 
effect on the profits and prosperity of the 
farm. A great proportion of the men who 
run around boarding at the farmers and 
having no settled home are complete time¬ 
servers or eye-servants ; they “put in their 
time,” and that is all they care about. There 
is nothing of the sort in England ; there are 
no meals to cook for farm hands, excepting, 
perhaps, for one or two engaged by the year, 
or from Oct. 11 till that day next year, and 
there are always young men who, oftener 
than not, marry one of the servant maids 
and have a cottage after the wedding, and 
the man continue on at weekly wages with¬ 
out board. A Working Farmer. 
