ftURfVV. 
PRICE SIX CENTS, 
N2.U3 PER YEAR. 
VOL. XXXII. No. 9, 
WHOLE No. 1335. 
[Entered accordls-tt to Act or Congress, in the year 1876, by the Rural Pu blishing Company, In the oflice of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.) __ 
,♦ practical farming in which a bold outlay, 
rCfjHtjttt ©ijOltOntft* guided .by judgment, proves in the end the 
^1 L T ^ truest economy. 
, — ■■ — : lb is true, in farming as in other matters, 
MAXIMUM CROPS—ARE THEY A SOURCE that a largo result is occasionally obtained at 
OF PROFIT 1 11 needless or unwise expense, perhaps even 
- at a positive loss ; and this fact, though it is 
Tk we assume that farming, as a general clearly only an exception to a general rule, 
rule, is a remunerative business, the question at, once disturbs add bewilders the timid, 
arises, Wherein does the proilt consist ? If half hearted farmer, who immediately infers 
money is made, from what source is it de- that a maximum crop means a loss of money, 
rived i Is it mainly the result of large yields, ' as if Occasional mistakes or exceptional cases 
as maintained by some, oi does it come from of imprudence or extravagance are sufficient 
a general system of retrenchment, as held by to outweigh the uniform experience of the 
others i This question has been long and most intelligent farmers 1 Yet this is the 
widely discussed, aud still divides the agri- kind of reasoning by which small crops are 
cultural community into two classes who defended, and by which farmers are taught 
represcut systems of farming essentially dif- to believe that u large yield per acre is to be 
forent. The theory of the former is that, regarded, not merely with suspicion, but 
profitable husbandry is nearly always the with positive alarm, as if it were something 
outcome of liberal yields ; that if the present full of danger and to be avoided, 
net income of farmers is small, on a general The real truth in this matter seems to be 
average, it is because the average product that these unprogresKive farmers do not 
per acre throughout the country is small ; rightly discriminate between thB cost of a 
and further, that no considerable increase in crop per acre and the cost per bushel ; and 
the present rate of profit is to be looked for, this is the pivotal mistake of their theory, 
except. In the direction of maximum crops. They do not realize that to increase the ex- 
The class of men who adopt this view are peuse per acre tends to diminish, and in very 
the true, progressive farmers, whose faith is many cases does diminish, the cost per 
very generally proved by their works. Those bushel. Their delusion is that every dollar 
who dilTer from them hold, with equal con- saved in the expense of each acre of corn or 
ildence, that economy and retrenchment are wheat or potatoes is so much added to the 
the great sources of profit, and that the less final profit, whereas the very reverse Is often 
money the owner pays out on each acre of true. 
his farm, the more profit ho will make at the The Hon. HARRIS Lewis of Herkimer Co., 
- -. . N. Y., raised 44 tons of beets per acre, at a 
r ~~~ " ' cost of less than 5>£e. per bushel, or a little 
,■! __ r -T-i---n_- r i—- i-. over $1.70 per ton, against a market value of 
A Ipr 1 $17 per ton. At this price the cush product 
1—1—, pJ . [ I jyl f per acre would be $74H. Deducting from this 
-* + ■*••*■ • —f [ nJ the cost of the acre ($78), it. leaves $<170 as the 
- 1 1 J ' J Tijt “J net profit. Now, if there is any doubt as to 
|*]4 . \ | L L J I 1 whether this profit is duo .to the yield or to 
jr"- 4 T something else, It is easily tested. Suppose 
DESIGN FOR A COUNTRY COTTAGE 
The homely and homelike homes of the 
masses of the people are far more important 
to their happiness and also to their artistic 
education than the few exceptional monu¬ 
ments of architectural beauty which men of 
good taste and unbounded wealth are en¬ 
abled to erect.. Four-fifth# of the forty mil¬ 
lions of these Great American people live in 
houses where use and comfort are the 
main considerations aud where matters of 
architectural beauty are held subordinate. 
To improve these homes of the masses not 
only in comfort but in design and appearance 
is a labor which may well be deemed worthy 
of every public spirited man or woman, and 
the best way to do this is to build such a 
home, not. so costly as to discourage imitation 
but so convenient, beautiful and cheap that 
hundreds more will be incited to go and do 
likewise. 
In addition to the artistic education which 
the building of beautiful homes implies, 
there is another consideration of equal im¬ 
portance — tho improvement of health, of 
character and of morals by houses that are 
comfortable, cleanly and homelike, rather 
than have men and women Hvo and little 
children reared in homes that arc the re- 
If Cleanliness is next to Godliness, 
verse. 
there is room for an immense amount of 
missionary work among the American peo¬ 
ple in their every-day surroundings. The 
country is better situated in this respect 
than the city, for around farmers’ homes 
there is no lack of pure air, and the fresh 
soil is a most wholesome absorbent of mala¬ 
rious odors. But both in city and country 
much remains to be done to promote health 
and cleanliness. All new houses especially 
should be built with reference to these pur¬ 
poses so important to the. future progress 
and civilization of the world. 
The accompanying illustration gives the 
elevation and plans of a very substantial 
and commodious country villa, which, at a 
comparatively moderate cost, afford# a great 
deal of room aud all the conveniences re¬ 
quired by families in moderate positions in 
life. 
As we have frequently remarked, designs 
of this kind are used chielly as studies, lb 
is very rare that a person about to build 
would servilely follow any published design, 
simply because each family has its own pecu¬ 
liar necessities which require to be provided 
for. Locatiou also sometimes exercises a 
controlling influence. But comparison and 
study enable us to produce much more con¬ 
venient and beautiful results than we are 
likely to attain by cflorts unaided by the 
previous work of others. 
The design given above has been reduced 
from one of the plates of a work just is¬ 
sued entitled “ Lakey’s Village and Country 
Houses.” This book contains eighty-four 
large quarto pages of designs, and is sold at 
the remarkably low price of $fi. It can be 
procured of the Industrial Publication Co., 
No. 170 Broadway, N. Y. 
rnr/ws? 
HINTS ABOUT FARMERS’ HOMES. 
After building a house the next thing is 
its setting-out buildings barns &c., including 
arrangements of lawn and shrubbery. On 
this subject, as well as on that of Rural 
architecture generally, we copy the following 
sensible remarks of Judge T. C. Jones in the 
many sheep bams anu caic statues, ute cueuv 
of which is exceedingly injurious, as these 
animals are very sensitive to bad air. 
For these reasons, all stables should be so 
constructed as to allow a free circulation, by 
opening doors or otherwise, at the floors—a 
thing almost Impossible in the bank barns. 
