(Bconontu. 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HIGH FARMING. 
When Daniel Webster was asked if 
there was room for a young lawyer in Bos¬ 
ton, he answered, “ There Is always room 
at the top.” The reply is full of significance. 
Everywhere the highest skill and best work 
find appreciation and reward. This rule 
holds good in law, medicine and theology. 
Is it not equally true in man’s original add 
natural pursuit, the cultivation of the soil ? 
Is farming the exceptional business where 
nothing counts but dull, mechanical labor, 
and the highest skill has no effect'/ if an 
immense majority of farmers work hard for 
a bare living, is this, therefore, a necessary 
and inevitable lot of all ? Borry, indeed, 
must be the plight of all American fanners 
if these propositions be true. Our great 
staples, wheat, corn, <Src., are grown in com¬ 
petition with the poorly-paid laborers, the 
peasantry, late serfs, of Southern Russia and 
Midland Europe. If we adopt Russian 
methods of culture we may only expect the 
pay which the half-fed and half-clad Russian 
laborer receives. That our farmers do suc¬ 
ceed in this unequal competition is due to 
greater skill, the fruit of thought and brain. 
Is there any limit where thought and brain 
and skill count for nothing f 
The philosophy of high farming is that 
there is no such limit. All failures in fann¬ 
ing are due to lack of skill, care and indus¬ 
try. Here, as everywhere else, there is 
always “ room at the top,” and superior 
brain carries off the palm. No man ever yet 
knew too much to be a good farmer, and 
there is no item of practical knowledge 
which may not be an important help to suc¬ 
cess. Whatever is worth doing at all is 
worth doing well. This axiom is more true 
in farming than in anything else. Only the 
good crops pay. High manuring and thor¬ 
ough culture are essential to these. In the 
early history of the country, and on all new 
lands now, wasteful and unskillful methods 
are saved from ruining farmers by the fact 
that the soil had stored in it the fertility of 
ages of growth and decay. Farmers have 
used this stored fertility to offset the cheaper 
labor of the old world. It is like living on 
one’s capital, resulting only in postponing 
the evil day'. The exhaustion of our once 
fertile Eastern soils ha* forced the bulk of 
farming population to new lands at the 
West. The same process there is forcing 
farmers everywhere to new methods and 
improved systems of culture. 
High farming has not been adopted by 
speculators and fanciful farmers as a means 
of spending money, but alrnbst always by 
the shrewdest and best managers as a means 
of making it- Poor crops, such os too many 
farmers grow, give no profit even to men 
willing to work hard nil their lives for the 
fun of the thing and a bare living. Double 
and treble these crops, a* may easily be 
done. Hot thirty or forty bushels of wheat 
instead oi ten, and seventy bushels of oats 
instead of twenty-five, and there is a margin 
for profit, paying the skillful cultivator as 
much as the same skill would command in 
any other business, and with equal certainty. 
Prove that this is not true and farms will be 
speedly deserted by all men of energy and 
intelligence. And deservedly, too. Bay 
whut we may of the evil and mistake of 
leaving the farm for the city, this change 
will continue and ought to continue so loug 
as talent and skill arc worse paid on the farm 
than they are elsewhere. There is a natural 
law of supply and demand which political 
economists profess to believe in. Why should 
it not regulate the supply of farmers K For 
five hundred yeurs population has steadily 
tended to cities because everything has been 
done to make city life pleasant and profit¬ 
able. Till within fifty years almost nothing 
has been done to make farm work easier or 
more remunerative. It is no wonder that 
men have left the farm for other pursuits. 
Now the tide is turning Lhe other way. With 
improved machinery, horse and steam power 
does the work instead of human muscle. 
Drudgery and unpaid toil have driven the 
enterprising and energetic from the farm. 
Improved culture is bringing them back. 
There arc possibilities in farming such as 
no other business affords. No one has learned 
how much an acre of land is capable of pro¬ 
ducing. It is the business of the thorough 
farmer to find out, and that, too, making 
more money than ever before. High farm¬ 
ing is lhe best thought of the shrewdest 
farmers to make nature pay her utmost, not 
merely in pleasure but In dollars and cents. 
That, after all, is the final test. We cannot 
urge men to adopt improved systems of 
farming by any stronger argument than 
that addressed to their pockets. Any man 
can understand filled barns and granaries 
and a handsome surplus of receipts above 
expenditures. 
Yet after all, when we have settled the 
dollars and cents question satisfactorily — 
when it is proved that there is more profit in 
thorough culture and high manuring—a large 
item is still to be added in the satisfaction 
always found in doing perfect work. Wet, 
sterile and weedy fields are an eyesore to u 
neighborhood. Are not highly tilled fields 
with bountiful harvests rightfully classed 
with things of beauty which are a joy for¬ 
ever ? If it be not extravagance for the 
wealthy resident of a city to buy fine paint¬ 
ings of rural scenery, may not the owner of 
broad acres rightfully aspire to a greater 
pleasure in making his farm a landscape of 
equal beauty? Will he not feel a deeper 
satisfaction as he sits in a comfortable and 
possibly luxurious home, surrounded by 
those he loves best, and surveys this scene of 
beauty which is not only the work of his 
own hands but the enduring monument of 
his skill, patience and practical wisdom ? 
-- 
ECONOMICAL NOTES. 
Profit from Commercial Fertilisers.—We 
find in the Atlanta Ida.) Rural Southerner a 
valuable paper read before the State Agri¬ 
cultural’Society by Prof. Pendleton of the 
State University. It relates numerous in¬ 
teresting and instructive experiments in 
thick and thin planting and the use of ma¬ 
nures. In the last he found that, superphos¬ 
phate on cotton, e t the rate of 800 pounds 
per acre, yielded 288 per cent, profit the first 
year of the application, which was an un¬ 
favorable season. The next year the season 
was better, and the percentage was 510 per 
cent., giving a return in two years of $7,118 
for every dollar invested. Prof. Pendleton 
thinks that some of the phosphate remains 
in the sell to benefit the third crop. The 
cost of producing a pound of cotton is only a 
trifle more than half as much when super¬ 
phosphate is used, a* by the too common 
plan of using no fertilizer. 
cJl0rt([ttltui[Hl. 
WILD PLANTS OF THE HACKENSACK. 
BY E. S. CABMAN. 
One morning last week we strolled for 
half a mile or more along the west bank of 
the Hackensack—a river that, unlike its ad¬ 
jacent ami distinguished neighbor, the Hud¬ 
son, rises and falls unsung and unknown. 
Below the city of Hackensack are the mo¬ 
notonous meadows which, except that the 
Marsh-mallow (Althaea officinalis), the larg¬ 
est and prettiest of the meadow flowers, 
here, a little later, blooms in great profusion, 
perform their best service in providing a 
dustless, airy plane for the numberless rail¬ 
roads that cut up this expanse in every di¬ 
rection. Above, the city the river is interest¬ 
ing in a deserted, picturesque beauty that 
compensates somewhat for its meagerness of 
bold outlines and any notable approach to 
grandeur. 
A more crooked river never ran ! We 
have never seen many rivers, but the Hack¬ 
ensack does not run twice alike in any part, 
and so, after consideration, we will hazard 
the assertion. In some parts its course is 
through old woods. A shady grove, the re¬ 
sort of local picnics, orau abrupt, bank heav 
ily wooded to the water at intervals marches 
out at right-angles, so that the wilderness of 
trees and shrubs of either bank seems to 
meet and terminate the river in a lake. Pas¬ 
tures, corn fields, potato or melon patches 
thrive upon little peninsulas, while the water 
of the corresponding bays flows in upon the 
lower lands and iuundat.es them at high tide. 
Trees and Shuubs luxuriate in unusual va¬ 
riety for a habitat so confined. The swamp 
or pin Oak here assumes a perfectly conical 
form and a symmetrical drooping of the 
branches — especially the lower ones — that 
would put to blush the Fastigiatus and A tro~ 
purp umis of onr lawns and nurseries. Elms, 
from infancy to old age, are numerous. Oc¬ 
casionally a Tulip (Lirioderulron tuHpifem) 
tree, growing upon a higher bank, is met 
with, and many of the Maples are conspicu¬ 
ous among the Birches, Liquidambars, Planes, 
Willows, Ashes, Sassafrases, Chestnuts and 
Beeches that attain to unusual vigor and 
beauty along these banks. 
Aquatic Flowers. — The glimpses of 
meadows that are partly inclosed here and 
there by the wooded hills or, by gradual 
ascents, forming tillable lands, display at 
diff erent seasons many of the acquatic flow¬ 
ers that flourish in such situations. Thousands 
of the pretty Lilium Canadensr, some a 
dull red, some I ruff, some lemon—one color 
usually predominating in a cluster—resem¬ 
bling in their eringingly nodding flowers 
monstrous Ery throniums, dot these meadows 
or grow in clusters as thickly as possible. 
These Lilies, like L. superbum, thrive in any 
garden border, and like it, also, are seldom 
there seen. Europe esteems our Superbums 
and Canadmses and imports them largely ; 
ire almost ignore their existence. Possibly 
crosses between these lilies and Auralum, 
the Speeiosums, Longiflorum, etc., might 
be effected and desirable varieties produced. 
Pontedkria cordata contributes at this 
time (July 13) very lavishly it* cylindrical 
spike* of blue flowers—a color of which the 
meadow* are never surfeited—borne upon 
a one-leaved stera about two feet high. The 
leaves, smooth to silkiness and a sagittate 
shape if the apex and barbs ol' the arrow¬ 
head were rounded a little — are beautifully 
veined with a lighter and darker green that 
flowingly conform to the marginal outlines. 
The Portederia would not thrive in dry situ¬ 
ations, but for lake-banks, palustcr-gardens 
or aquaria, it is just the plant. 
Swamp Epilobiums, or “ Violets growing 
upon pods,” as the word signifies, grow in 
masses and coutri bute loug, showy racemes 
of rosy-purple flowers with which to vary 
the meadow colors. They are one or two 
feet high, with scattered leaves generally 
unon a single stem that resembles the com¬ 
mon Willow. 
Other Flowers.— The wild Convolvulus 
and the wild Pea (Lothymn palustriy or 
myrlifolius) are now blooming and often 
twined together, each supporting the other. 
Oenotheras, many of the Composite, Hyper¬ 
icums, Asclepias (o omnia and purpuraserns) 
and other flowers, which we call Weeds, eu- 
liven these wild, everlasting gardens — that, 
as they employ their own gardeners and 
conduct the institution at their own expense, 
with great liberality, are privileged to their 
own peculiar selections of plants. 
Among Shrubs many species of Erica are 
natives of the woods and thickets of Hacken¬ 
sack River, of which the swamp Azalea* are, 
perhaps, the most desirable for cultivated 
grounds. The red, rose and pure white—the 
last alone is blooming now — may here be 
found with little search and transplanted at 
almost any time if well cut back. This 
likewise insures an increase of foliage of 
which the swamp Azalea, if left to itself, 
stands a little in need. Mixed with the 
Ghent Azaleas, they are quite in keeping 
and, indeed, judged by our fancy, in no way 
inferior. 
With such a wealth of plants close at hand 
—but a i- mall proportion of which we have 
noticed — is it not singular that isolated 
homes and rows of laborers' dwellings in the 
immediate neighborhood of this river (as at 
Corona, e. g.,) should be enlivened by neither 
shrub, flower nor tree ?. Exposed to the 
broiling sun—naked, cheerless as these band- 
boxes are—the poor, lired mechanic leaves 
his "frying-pan” at the close of the day to 
jump into the “fire” at night. 
River Edge, Bergen Co., N. J. 
■ -»»» ■ - 
DESTROYING WILD MORNING GLORIES. 
I have a piece of ground entirely over¬ 
run with Wild Morning Glory. The roots 
are firmly matted together and completely 
fill the ground. 1 would inquire through 
your columns if there is any wuy of extermi¬ 
nating them. They seem wonderfully te¬ 
nacious of life. — A Subscriber, Bloominy¬ 
lon, IFfs. 
The only practical way with which we are 
acquainted for destroying wild morning 
glories or other noxious weeds is to summer 
fallow the land, or plant with corn or some 
crop requiring frequent culture during the 
summer. It is quite likely that you knew all 
this before, but sought some shorter and less 
expensive way of ridding your land of this 
pest. The vilest and most tenacious weed 
can be subdued by constant cutting away of 
the stems, for no plant can live for any con¬ 
siderable length of time without receiving a 
supply of assimilated sap from the leaves ; 
hence by constant denudation the roots must 
perish. If the land is not worth the clearing 
of such pests, then it may be abandoned to 
be worked by future generations, if they 
should happen to consider it worth the cost 
of culture. 
--- 
A recent number of Revue Horticole con¬ 
tains a figure and description of an Agave- 
Americana which flowered at the age of 
fourteen years, but, what is more remark¬ 
able, each of the lateral offsets which the 
plant produced when flowering also pro¬ 
duced small panicles of flowei-s. 
Jtulu. t iti[i;tl ©ops. 
“A LITTLE FARM WELL TILLED.” 
F. K. Kinney, near Worcester, Mass., 
commenced, in 1867, the cultivation of two 
acres of land, used until that time for 
pasture, within the limit* of that city, but 
three and a half or four mile3 from the 
business center, and adjoining the line of the 
town of Holden. This was one of the 
stoniest and most uninviting of hillsides for 
cultivation, but favorably located for build¬ 
ing and marketing purposes, it being on 
Olean Street, and in an excellent neighbor¬ 
hood. The first year he suhdued the soil by 
cultivation of a crop of potatoes, found a 
market in the city for the rocks, for cellar 
walls, and returning home took loads of ma¬ 
nure to compost for future crops. That fall 
and the following spring he set three-fourths 
of an acre to strawberry plants and com¬ 
menced building. The third season he real¬ 
ized $1,000 for the crop of strawberries from 
the three-fourths acre, and, having received 
enough from other crops to pay for cultiva¬ 
tion, completed hie buildings, &e. Since 
that time lie has taken the lead in the culti¬ 
vation of strawberries, and realized large 
profits on his investments in that branch, 
besides originating some new varieties which 
promise to be valuable additions to the list 
of that delicious fruit. At present he has 
over two acres of strawberry plants, in a 
fine state of cultivation ; and, having added 
land from time to time till his fruit farm 
contains some more than fifteen acres, he 
has set two acres of grape vines, of choice 
varieties, which he has aho cultivated quite 
extensively and successfully, constantly keep¬ 
ing the ground among them, and all square 
comers, and newly-plowed up land covered 
with vegetables for market, which yielded a 
paying income. 
The expense and difficulty o? procuring a 
sufficient supply of fertilizers and the want 
of employment upon the land during the 
winter suggested to Mr. Kinney the expe¬ 
diency of breeding and keeping fowls on an 
extensive scale, and in the spring of 1870 he 
commenced raising Brown Leghorn fowls 
from a small stock of that breed, which he 
had for many years kept purely bred from 
imported stock, secured by him at the time 
of their first introduction into this country. 
In this enterprise the Same remarkable suc¬ 
cess has crowned his efforts. Intelligent 
and careful breeding has gained for him fab¬ 
ulous prices for his best specimens — from 
$50 to $100 each—and last year his sales of 
fowls amounted to over $1,500, He has 
raised 1,000 chickens this year, and is in a 
fair way of realizing nearly double that 
amount for them. 
Another interesting feature of productive 
industry has been added—that of bee keep¬ 
ing—and even the sweets of the wild flowers, 
white clover pastures, and the blossoms 
of the cultivated fruits and flowers, are 
gathered for the market by those faithful 
little servants. Four years ago last spring 
he procured a small swarm, and now has 
twelve well-filled hives, which he has raised 
from them, besides having received over 
$250 for bees and honey sold. Being thus 
favorably situated and well-cared for, his 
bees have produced during the past season 
large quantities of honey of the very finest 
quality, which has been sold as high as half 
a dollar per pound. 
jSrietttifirj and Useful. 
USEFUL AND SCIENTIFIC NOTES. 
Cement for Fastening Wood to Stone.— 
Melt together four parts pitch and onepait 
wax, and add four parts brick dust or chalk. 
It is to be warmed, for us?, and applied thin¬ 
ly to the surfaces to be joined. 
To Remove Old Paint, cover with a wash 
of three parts quick lime, slaked in water, to 
which one part pearlash is added. Allow the 
coatiug to remain for sixteen hours, when 
the paint may he easily scraped off. 
By Moistening the Knife or borer with a 
moderately strong solution of caustic soda 
and potash, instead of with water or alcohol, 
it is said that India-rubber may be cut with 
as much ease as ordinary cork-wood. 
Stove Cement for the Joints of Ron 
Stoves.— Mica, together with finely sifted 
wood ashes, an equal quantity of finely 
powdered clay, and a little salt. When re¬ 
quired for use, add enough water to make a 
rioctp 
