©ORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
JULY 24 
ofjai[m dittoing. 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FOGY FARMING. 
Years ago, when slavery was dominant, a 
Southern gentleman and liis wife were visit¬ 
ing friends in Boston. At the breakfast 
table the host asked the Judy if she would 
take some of the famous Boston brown 
bread. “ No, indeed,” was the answer, in 
mingled horror and indignation. “ Would 
you have me become an abolitionist, a wo¬ 
man’s rights woman, a free lover and an in¬ 
fidel ? I don’t want to wear Bloomers and 
make speeches yet awhile.” “But,” said 
the husband, “no one wants you to adopt 
these extreme ideas ; this is a different 
matter. This brown bread is really excel¬ 
lent. Do take some.” “ Never,” said U\e 
lady, “at least while I have my senses. 
These fanatical notions all eo together. A 
man or woman who begins by eating brown 
bread, never knows where to stop till it leads 
them into all sorts of fanaticism.” 
The moral of this little story may account 
for the conservatism of so many with regard 
to improvements in farming. The slow- 
going, old-fashioned farmer sees clearly that 
all these “new-fangled notions” properly 
“go together,” and must each be supple¬ 
mented by the others to be entirely success¬ 
ful. High manuring, underdraining, soiling, 
improved breeds of cattle, horses, sheep and 
swine, clearing land of weeds and thorough 
culture, generally are each parts of a system 
known as High Farming. Any one of these 
adopted separately may, and probably will, 
result iu loss, as thousands of farmers have 
found to their cost. The average farmer 
doubts whether all together can be made to 
pay. He knows that he can’t or won’t adopt 
more t han one or two of these essentials to 
good farming. Very possibly ho is right in 
believing t hat ail he could or would do-in the 
way of farm improvement would Got pay 
liitn. It requires a great deal of thought, 
labor, hkill and patience, besides money, to 
be a sueces ful, thorough farmer. These 
qualities would insure success in any kind of 
business. If a farmer inventories himself 
mid finds these qualities lacking, what ia ha 
to do but to keep in the old ruts where his 
father and grandfather kept before him ? 
There at least he knows himself to be safe. 
By working hard all his life no can earn a 
comfortable living, and he ia sure not to lose 
much, for the excellent reason that he never 
has much to lose. The much-ridiculed con¬ 
servatism of old fashioned farmers ia founded 
in deeper wisdom than we know. Others 
might do better in their places, but they do 
wisely iu keeping in the safe old ruts. For 
men without skill, patience or thought to 
fitfully adopt one or two of the essentials to 
high farming might very easily result in loss. 
What arc the elements of High Farming ? 
Without doubt high manuring ia one of the 
most important. But what ahall men do 
whose farms are overrun with weeds and 
whose slovenly tillage gives weeds every ad¬ 
vantage l High manuring with such farm¬ 
ers means only increase of weeds — not 
increase of profit. Would thorough culture 
and high manuring combined be profitable 
on land cold and sodden till midsummer 
from too much water ? In exceptional sea¬ 
sons they might; but in others all the culture 
and half of the manure would be wasted for 
nought. Or, on land dry and reasonably 
free from weeds, can a farmer afford to spend 
twenty-five to fifty dollars per acre with the 
soil too sterile to produce a crop ? Obviously 
not. To be entirely and uniformly profit¬ 
able, manuring, underdraining und thorough ' 
culture must be combined. Each is im- i 
measurably increased by each of the others. I | 
The good farmer needs improved itnple- 1 
ments, but be cannot profitably use reapers ' 
and mowers on rough, stony or uneven fields. 1 
Often on undrained or sterile farms it may ( 
not pay to buy or use a reaper. Some farm¬ 
ers last year left their reapers under the j 
shed, or more likely by the roadside, while t 
they cut the few patches of grain in their t 
winter-killed wheat with an old-fashioned ti 
cradle. A man. cannot afford to buy costly n 
grain harvesters unless there is a fair pros- o 
pect that he will have a harvest. Soiling is n 
profitable, undoubtedly, on rich and high- u 
priced land. But if your fields are too poor ii 
to yield more than h°lf a ton of grass per “ 
acre, soiling is out of the question. You can’t <* 
afford, with high-priced labor, to cut over a t! 
field for such a crop when cattle in pasture «< 
will gather most of it without expense. Still U 
another question Can farmers afford, with di 
high-priced labor, to cut and carry green food 
in summer, and to cut and steam food in | b< 
winter, for ordinary or scrubby stock ? It is sh 
clear that soiling and high feeding must go, ed a good deal of filth. It is then well worth 
not only with improved farms, but with im- removing to use as a fertiliser. It is better 
proved stock as well. When you do your than running underground into a pit where 
best for a cow you have a right to demand the odors generally find some way of escape, 
that she shall be one that can do best for you often int " the kitchen, on account of some 
in the milk pail or cream pot. If you employ defect cl stoppage of the pipes. 
a great deal of skill and high-priced labor in 
feeding cows, you must lose unless you make 
“gilt edged ” and high-priced butter. 
Reverse the rule and it applies with equal 
force. A careless, slovenly farmer cannot 
afford to buy or keep improved stock. 
Neither his farm nor his methods are adapt¬ 
ed to them. Short-Horns, used for genera¬ 
tions to generous living, would starve where 
his scant stock don’t thrive exactly but do 
manage to get a living. The purest strains 
of Jersey blood would improve his butter in 
color and perhaps in quality ; but only a 
revolution in family methods could make his 
butter “gilt edged.” When one of bis steers 
or colts dies through sheer carelessness, he is 
not inconsolable, for the beast “ wasn't 
worth much.” But the carelessness after a 
very short time would be just the same, and 
far more costly if his stock were thorough¬ 
bred. 
In a great part of the country only inferior 
stock is kept by the majority of farmers, 
and only those crops most easily produced 
are grown. Possibly for many of these farm¬ 
ers this course may be wisest and best. Such 
farmer- keeping in the old ruts will work 
hard at increasing disadvantage in competi¬ 
tion with more skillful cultivators, and at 
last die with the old refrain on their lips that 
a farmer must needs work hard all his days 
and lead the life of a slave, to get neither 
honor nor profit in the end. 
It is all false. The life of a farmer is not 
necessarily hard or slavish. Thought, skill 
and care have their reward here as surely as 
anywhere, and in as large measure. Men 
who lack these find any business hard and 
slavish enough. But the fault is in the man, 
not in the occupation. It is rare to find men 
honest enough to see and confess the cause 
of their failures. Were they to do so the 
unskillful and therefore unsuccessful farmer 
would be compelled to say, “ Farming is not 
a bad business. It is, when rightly con¬ 
ducted, honorable and profitable. Money 
has been made in it by men who have the 
faculty of making money. Almost ary man, 
with average skill and industry, can make a 
comfortable and honest support bv farming. 
It is I who am a failure for undertaking a 
business which demands thought, skill and 
labor, when 1 have them not or am not will¬ 
ing to give them as the price of success.” 
When we have men in any business talking 
to themselves thus plainly of the cause of 
their failure, the world will have the first 
and most needed element in doing away with 
incompeteney and its natural result iu failure. 
The uie of dry earth is vastly better than 
to wash the filth into a sewer, thence into a 
river to contaminate the air and water. A 
little mouse, a dead frog or squirrel, ora few 
dead worms, will spoi I the water of a well 
so every one will smell it and refuse to drink 
it. The same subjects are compietly deodo¬ 
rized by a small shovelful of dry earth. 
IN PRAISE 
HOEING. 
The Maine Farmer believes in hoeing. It 
says : 
“It is a part of farm work that we fear, 
in these clays of horse hoes and power culti¬ 
vators, is apt to be slighted and neglected. 
While we believe in using the horse in every 
place where he can be used to advantge, and 
doing all the cultivating and horse hoeing 
possible, we yet believe that hoeing is one of 
those occupations for which no substitute 
can well be employed. The hand hoe must 
bo relied on for the greater part of that nice 
work needed in cultivating the ‘ hoed crops ’ 
of the farm. We believe in clean, faithful 
and frequent hoeing ; we believe the crops 
need it ; we believe the fields are cleaner 
aud the harvests heavier in consequence of 
it, and wo believe it should on no account be 
put by till after haying—that means it will 
not be done at all. lloeing should he done 
now. Put, it off till “after haying,” and 
many of the weeds will have seeded them¬ 
selves and i lie work will not be productive of 
so much good as if done in season. Keep 
the horse cultivator aud hand hoe in active 
use ‘about this time.’ ” 
LUCERNE AND ALSIKE CLOVER. 
EXPERIMENTS WITH CLOSETS. 
r - 
» Prof. W. J. Beal of tho University of 
, Michigan records the following which we 
I take from advance sheets of the forth¬ 
coming Report to the Michigin State Board 
of Agriculture. 
Several closets at; the agricultural college 
are built on ground slightly sloping, with the 
the back side toward the foot of the slope. 
No pits or holes are dug. Along tho back 
side are doors turned down horizontally aud 
hung on hinges by the upper edge. The 
doors usually hang down to the ground, but 
may be easily raised to remove night, soil 
when necessary. A small room in the same 
building is filled, iu dry time, with dry muck, 
loam, or dust from the road. Clay is better 
than sand. Every day, or every other day, 
or twice a day, a small quantity is shoveled 
into each closet. Copperas-water, lime, 
plaster, or other deodorizers, are also used 
in addition to dry earth. Every few weeks, 
or even once or twice a year for a small 
family, the night soil is carted away to the 
compost, heap. 
If cared for as above there is almost no un¬ 
pleasant order; nor is it more disagreeable 
to cart away than so much manure from a 
barnyard. The advantages of some such 
mode are: The closets may be cheaply 
made and kept nearly free from unpleasant 
odor; they may consequently be placed 
much nearer the house, or even connected 
with it; there is no pestilential filth filter¬ 
ing into adjacent wells, or otherwise causing 
“ mysterious epidemics” in the family ; the 
compost heap is increased in value. Some¬ 
thing like this, or better than this, must 
some day become the universal custom in all 
the best private houses, schools, railway 
depots and hotels. 
Slops from the kitchen can be run upon a 
heap of dirt which may be occasionally i 
shoveled over and changed after it ha3 absorb- 1 
i- Eyehy year or two we have some new r 
y forage plant proposed as being exceedingly 
e valuable. Somehow none of them attain 
;, great popularity, or if they do are speedily 
a set aside as being generally of little practical 
value. The editor of tho New England 
a Farmer relates his experience, which wo pro- 
1 surne is similar to that of many of our read- 
- ers. If not, let them write and tell us. He 
’ nays ? 
“ For the sake of the experiment rather 
f than with any expectation of success, we 
procured one year ago a quantity of lucerne 
i or alfalfa seed, and gave it, as we think, a 
pretty fair trial as a grass for growing hay. 
This grass is a species of clover, has a very 
long tap root, which in certain kinds of soil 
often goes down in search of moisture to the 
deptli of eight or ten feet, and makes excel- 
i lent fodder for feeding green or for curing 
for hay. It grows fast after the first year, 
and may be cut several times in a season, 
it is very feeble in its growth, when young, 
and it is claimed that the best method of 
raising it is to sow in drills, keeping the 
ground clear of weeds and other grass by 
hoeing during the first year of its growth. 
The land we selected for the trial was a rich, 
moist, deep loam, just such land as would 
grow good oats or grass, and had been used 
for fodder corn the year previous, and was 
in good condition for seeding down. 
“ After plowing and cultivating the ground 
till it was fine aud mellow, we sowed the lu¬ 
cerne in drills about a foot apart, with a seed 
sower. It, was a long time in germinating, 
but finally came up pretty evenly and thick¬ 
ly enough. When the plants could be seen 
in the row's, the ground between was raked 
over with a steel-toothed garden rake, ac¬ 
cording to the directions given by those who 
have been successful in the cultivation of 
this excellent forage plant, and in a few 
weeks a portion of the ground was gone over 
the second time, but with all the good treat¬ 
ment we gave it the lucerne could not keep 
out of the way of the weeds, clover and 
other grasses, which are generally bo ready 
to take possession of good soil when it is not 
otherwise occupied. It did, however, on 
that portion cultivated the most thoroughly, 
attain a hight of some eighteen or twenty j 
inches, and produce a few purple flowers. It j 
was cut twice during the season, with what 
weeds grew with it, and left to run its chance , 
through the winter without artificial protee- t 
tion, as recommended by some who have t 
grown it. This spring, contrary to our ex¬ 
pectations, a considerable portion of the lu- 
cei ne plants were found to be alive, and they s 
have grown and kept along about even in v 
i hight with the bunches of red clover which 
• came iu by self sowing, but the latter were 
s fully fo’Jr times as stout and vigorous as tho 
former, and it would seem that no further 
* trial was needed to show that lucerne, i n 
this climate at least, is very inferior as a for¬ 
age plant to many others already tried and 
proved valuable. 
“ The cost of weeding and hoeing it, when 
young, would be sufficient of itself to pre¬ 
vent it from coining into general use where 
labor is so dear as in Now England, even if 
it were equally valuable with our common 
red clover. If we should ever make another 
trial of it, we should sow it, broadcast with 
other grasses ; but we have no faith what¬ 
ever in it as a forage plant for New England 
soil and climate. 
“ AlBiko Clover is another forage plant 
which has been highly praised for several 
years past by many writers, and well it may 
be if it can be made to live and grow, for it 
is one of the most attractive clovers we have 
ever seen. It is twice as large as white 
clover, which it much resembles, and has 
beautiful pink flowers, which are higlily at¬ 
tractive to the honey bee and from which 
excellent honey is said to be obtained. But 
its one great failing is that, after it has been 
sown about two years, one must, look long 
and sharp to find a single plant of It left. It 
is a perenial, or would be if it would only 
live, but it does not. We have sowed it sev 
eral times with orchard grass and other 
clover, in the Bpring, and have cut fine crops 
of it the first summer, but the year following 
scarcely any could be found. Perhaps if the 
seed were sown in August instead of in the 
spring, (t would get such a firm foothold on 
the soil before tho next July that it might 
live past the first year’s cutting, but we have 
nevar tried this method of sowing.” 
-- 
ENRICHING LAND BY CLOVER. 
From a report of remarks made in the El¬ 
mira Farmers’ Club by Col. Brewer, we 
take the following :—“ 1 beg leave to criticise 
renat rks made by one of your members on 
tbe occasion of reading a letter I wrote your 
Club long ago. In treating of this subject of 
enriching land by the use of clover, i cited 
the case of a field too Hob for wheat. Some 
one asked, “ Can land bo too rich for wheat ?” 
I insist that it can ; such laud produces too 
great a growth of straw at tho expense of 
the grain. 1 have brought laud to this con¬ 
dition, and there is also the difficulty that on 
such laud the crop ia apt to lodge, and under 
the lodged straw the olover s ee<l cannot 
grow, or if it has made a good start, it gets 
smothered out. I had a piece of three acres 
on which there was raised in one crop 110 
bushels of wheat, but about half of the 
ground had no clover. 1 seeded the hare 
spots after harvest, scratching the surface 
slightly, ami the next season there was no 
difference to be seen between the portions so 
seeded and that which came from the spring 
sowing, except that the latesowiug remained 
green and fresh later in the mason. For 
many years I have made it a poiut to attend 
to such bare spots after harvest, aud with 
very certain success in most instances. 1 
have an acquaintance, a young farmer in 
Hector, Tompkins County, who raises four 
crops in his course, all good. His clover is 
cut early for hay, then the second wop for 
seed, then barley and wheat and clover again. 
He uses plaster on the clover. If the wheat 
is rather thin it will do to use plaster on that. 
It is my opinion that none of us sow plaster 
early enough.” 
-- 
CULTURE OF CORN. 
English agricultural journals contain nu¬ 
merous directions about the culture of corn 
—a new crop in that country. Some early- 
ripening varieties have been found w hich it 
is believed will give a crop. At all events 
there need be no difficulty in securing corn 
of the early sweet varieties for use while 
green. One important discovery our English 
friends have made, {. e., not to hill the corn, 
but keep the ground as nearly level as pos¬ 
sible. The only effect of hilling in the damp, 
cool climate of England is to mulch the roots, 
keepiug them still cooler and delaying ripen¬ 
ing. Even in our hot, dry summers corn 
does not want earth drawn around the stem. 
If it seems to do good, it is only because it 
necessarily loosens the soil, allowing the 
roots to spread better. Corn needs as tropi¬ 
cal weather as it can get anywhere, and 
would generally be benefited by drawing 
the earth away from the plants rather than 
to them. 
•» ♦ ♦--— 
The Main Field Crops should receive 
special attention about these days — such as 
wheat, ocr-n, barley, oats, eto. 
