JUNE <5 
^[arm (grottomg. 
FARM ACCOUNTS. 
PROFESSOR LEVI STOCKBBIDOE. 
The question “ Does Forming Pay ?" is 
almost uDiversally answered by fanners in the 
negative, though they can rarely, if ever, make 
a detailed exhibit of their debits and credits, 
which will prove either side of the question. 
Yet it is a self-evident fact that fanning pays 
the nation. It is our groat producing industry, 
the main-spring which keeps all the machinery 
of transportation, oommerco and manufactures 
in motion, creating a value of untold millions 
out of materials which have no commercial 
worth until transformed by labor. If therefore 
on the one hand, farmiug does not pay the in¬ 
dividuals who pursue it, there mu 3 t be some¬ 
thing wrong in the system by which the wealth 
created by its labor is divided; or if on tho 
other, it does pay the individual, there must be 
something wrong in the system by which his 
business accounts are kept, or he could show 
by his balance-sheets, his exact business income 
and expenditure, the amount of his profit or 
loss. The latter is probably the general fact; 
or more properly, it is the fact that the farmer 
has no business system, and does not keep his 
accounts in such form and with snob accuracy 
as to exhibit tho true results of his business 
operations. 
Business enterprises in their income and ex¬ 
penditure are one thing, and the support of a 
family with all its incidental costs, another and 
very different one. The farmer usually does 
not notice this, but assumes that tho gross sum 
of his yearly expenses are farm expenses, 
though these may bo but a moiety of the amount. 
In Lis calculations ho is prone to error in stating 
the capital invested iu his business, iu both its 
real and personal branches, by treating the en¬ 
tire value of each as a business investment. 
Just here tho farmer Bbould act on the same 
principle that would be adopted by a manufac¬ 
turer to determine tho amount of his business 
capital. Iu it would be included all buildings 
used for manufacturing, and the laud and 
privileges occupied by the same, the machinery, 
implements, vehicles and teams employed ex¬ 
clusively in the business, cash and both raw 
and manufactured stock ou baud, and tho 
credit balauce botween bills receivable and bills 
payable. But ho would exclude from it his 
dwelling house and everything thereto belonging 
both real and personal, because they have 
nothing whatever to do with his business but 
ate an outside expenditure distinctively differing 
from it. 
Tho fanner Bbould take an annual inventory 
and it should include all his farming lands, 
aud if ho owns it, enough wood-land to keep his 
farm fences and exclusively farm buildings in 
repair, all his buildings ereoted and used ■exclu¬ 
sively for the business of the farm, stock of all 
kinds kept, all teams kept for farm work, all 
cash crops and manures on hand, and the credit 
balance between farm bills payable and receiva¬ 
ble. From this inventory ho should exclude his 
dwelling-house and all attached buildings and 
grounds not used for farm purposes, and all im¬ 
plements, vehicles, teams and fixtures pro¬ 
vided for the pleasure or comfort of his family, 
because, as in the case of the manufacturer, 
they are all an outside expenditure and not 
essentially connected with his strictly business 
operations. Iu the transaction of bis affairs 
he should charge to the farm all labor, including 
board, whether it bo on the farm or attending 
to its business abroad, or whether performed by 
persons hired, or by the farmer, his wife, sons, 
or daughters. But he should bo very careful 
to oharge only for service actually rendered. 
It is quite common for the farmer to say 
that himself and family have labored tho whole 
year, when tho fact is, some or all the members 
have spent woekB and even months in other busi¬ 
ness, attending school, in travel, recreation or 
amusement; aud it would be a manifest injustice 
to the farm to charge it for timo thus occupied. 
He should charge all seeds, manures aud fertil¬ 
izers used, whether produced on the farm or pur¬ 
chased, all new implements purchased, and for 
all repairs of exclusively farm buildings, fixtures, 
tools aud vehicles, aud also for taxes and interest 
ou all real and personal farm property. Contra: 
He should give the farm credit for every kind of 
crop or product sold from it, at the price re¬ 
ceived, and for all tho grain, meat, vegetables, 
milk, butter, cheese, eggs and other products 
taken by his family, at their value on the farm, 
and whether wasted or consumed. This last 
item is of the utmost importance, aud should bo 
as rigidly adhered to by Ihe farmer as by tho 
country merchant who charges to his family all 
the dry goods, groceries and necessary supplies 
taken by them from his store. At tho expira¬ 
tion of the year, a new inventory should bo 
taken, embracing exactly the same items as the 
original, and tho sum of this inventory aud cred¬ 
its balanced with tho sum of the debts, and the 
first inventory will show him his gains or losses 
for the year. To many, perhaps most, farmers, 
the keeping of books is irksome and perplexing, 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
and therefore neglected; but it is absolutely 
necessary if farming is a business pursuit, and is 
to be conducted by those principles which pre¬ 
vail in other business enterprises. 
No person, neither a farmer nor anybody else, 
can say that his business does or does not pay, 
unless the exhibit is made by a regular, correct 
account kept by the above or some similar 
method, aud if thus kept he might, probably 
would, find that his business was a good one, 
the trouble with his final bank account being 
caused by a deficiency of labor debits and excess 
of family expenditures. 
The person engaged iu general farming, is 
really pursuing several distinct kinds of business, 
each of which requires special operations and 
has its own income and expenditure. He may 
be growing or fattening neat stock, raiaing 
horses of swine, growing the different kinds of 
grain, roots or vegetables, producing milk or 
butter as a market product. Some of these 
branches may be very profitable, others unprofit¬ 
able. To ascertain this, separate debit and 
credit accounts should be kept with each de¬ 
partment, so that ho may know the source of 
his profit and losses, and know which department 
to abandon or improve, and which it may be for 
bis interest to enlarge. It is wise, oftentimes, 
to keep accounts with the separate fields of the 
farm, and always an exaot detailed record of the 
expenditures of tho farmer's family, including 
in the latter all it reoeivea from the farm 
Complicated and laborious as all this may seem, 
it is no more so than the accounts of intelligent, 
accurate business men, whom it often saves 
from failure, and guides to success. 
Farming, in every sense, should be managed 
on strictly business principles, and only when 
so managed have we any right to expect that it 
will pay. 
Hampshire, Co., Mass. 
-*-♦"*-. 
ABOUT PASTURING LAND. 
W. J. FOWLER. 
“ Pastured land increases in fertility.” The 
foregoing assertion has so long passed current 
that it may seem vain to controvert it. Undoubt¬ 
edly, too, it has s ome degree of truth; is, in fact, 
as true a saying as most of the wholesale general¬ 
izations which are frequently hoard about farm¬ 
ing. Comparatively speaking, pasturing prob¬ 
ably is more favorable to fertility than growiug 
grain or other products, to be sold from the 
farm. It exausts the elements of fertility less 
rapidly. The droppings of animals fed on the 
land return to tho soil something of what has 
first been taken from it. To this extent pastur¬ 
ing is not exhaustive. Aud this is all the truth 
there is in the old saying above quoted. To 
what extent this return of fertility is made to 
pastured laud, depends entirely on the kind of 
stock kept, aud what is done with them. Mature 
animals remove less from the soil than those 
which are growing, and fattening animals less 
than cows giving milk, or sheep on which wool 
is always growing. Fat is carbon, aud carbon 
is not a very valuable or important plant-food 
in the soil. Hence fattening animals or selling 
butter does not take much of value from the 
farm in proportion to what is received from their 
sale. 
But other questions are involved. The me¬ 
chanical condition of the soil is a matter of 
great importance. Air, rains, dews and tbe 
warmth of sunshine, all impart fertiliiy or make 
it more available. How does pastured land 
compare with other soil with regard to these 
agencies? Is it not everywhere true that it is 
less favorable to fertility? Air aud raius will 
not penetrate tho uutilled soil. Even the dews, 
wbioh fall ou its herbage, do not touch a particle 
of soil but are evaporated iu oarly morning. So 
then we have, as tbe result of pasturing, that tbe 
soil loses less of what is taken from it, and it 
also gains less from the agencies of nature by 
which tbe losses of fertility are restored. To 
those who know how important these are, the 
balance seems against rather than in favor of 
pasturing. 
One other point is important. Exhausting 
the soil is not necessarily a bad result, provided 
the produot will enable its owner to restore 
its fertility. It is the farmer’s business to take 
from aud add to the soil. If he is successful, he 
is so by selling fertility at a dear rate, and re¬ 
storing it at a cheaper rate. No men exhaust 
tbe soil so rapidly as the market-gardeners of 
New York city; hut every year they add 50 to 
100 loads of manure per acre and keep the bal¬ 
ance more than even. Bat let them intermit 
this manure a single year, and tbe failure of 
their crops will indicate the exhaustive system 
of their cropping. But practically, m&rket- 
gardoniug does not injure laud, because its 
profits enable the owners of such lands to ma¬ 
nure so heavily. Is this the case with the 
owners of laud in pasture ? Iu grain growiug 
regions thoro are large and increasing sales of 
commercial fertilizers. This may prove that 
those soils are becoming exhausted; but it also 
proves that their owners make money enough 
to help to retain the fertility of their lauds. 
Who knows of places where owners of pas¬ 
tured lands are buying fertilizers with which 
to fertilize them ? 
- - — w 
In most dairy sections soils are becoming 
exhausted of their phosphates from sales of milk 
and cheese. The danger is seen and felt in a 
decreased production of grass, which only ex¬ 
pensive phosphates can restore to its former 
productiveness. It is time that the old saying, 
“Pasturing increases fertility ” was thoroughly 
examined, and tho sonous error which it con¬ 
tains, exposed. 
Monroe Co., N. Y. 
THE TRUTH ABOUT IT. 
[Under this heading, a number of articles 
have been prepared by able writers. These wNI 
appear from time to time. Their object is not 
at all to deal with “ humbugs’’—but with the 
many unconscious errors that creep Juto the 
methods of daily country routine life.— Eds ] 
THE IMAGINARY DISEASES OF ANIMALS. 
No. 1. 
D. E. SALMON, D. V. M. 
Althouou the United States is a country of 
schools and education, and its inhabitants are as 
intelligent and refined as those of any country, 
there are many beliefs and practices which have 
a foot-hold among ua, handed down as they have 
been by tradition from the days of ignorance 
and cruelty, that are unworthy of our education, 
a blot upon our intelligence, and a shame to our 
refinement. And in no direction are these tra¬ 
ditions so far from truth, so opposed to the in¬ 
terests of those who believe in them, so barbar¬ 
ous, and 1 may say. inhuman in their effects, as in 
the treatment of the diseases or supposed diseases 
of our animals. Occasionally, or semi-occasion- 
ally, a voice is raised in tbe interests of humanity 
and truth; but it is hardly beard before it is 
drowned by tho cries of the multitude, who cling 
to their opinions with a pertinacity worthy of a 
better cause, and with whom antiquity of inheri¬ 
tance is tho most plausible argument. And so, 
from one extremity of our broad land to tho 
opposite, the first symptom of disease in an ani¬ 
mal is a signal for torture of the worst descrip¬ 
tion, to be continued till tho disease has run its 
course, or tho sufferer’s powers of resistance are 
exhausted by the so-called remedies ; tbe mouth 
is burnt to a crisp with red-hot irons, the teeth 
are knocked out by blows of a great hammer, tho 
eves are out aud mutilated, the stomach, and 
often the laugs are poured full of nauseous 
compounds, sometimes iunocent, but ofteuor 
deadly in their effects ; or, if it should be a cow-, 
a gimlet is forced through the highly sensitive 
parts of the horns, aud to add to the intense pain 
thus inflicted, salt, pepper, and other irrifants 
are applied; and then the operator, in search of 
new opportunities to display his skill, seizes Upon 
the tail, and either outs it ofl entiiely or slits it 
open for an indefinite length, never forgetting to. 
apply the salt and pepper. All this time tli*s# 
people are as innocent of a knowledge of the 
real trouble and as unable to determine it, as is 
tbe poor animal which is obliged to suffer tbe 
consequences. 
The groat prevalence of those practices, their 
ridiculous character, their demoralizing influ¬ 
ence, and last, though not least, their absolute 
cruelty lead mo to take this opportunity to re¬ 
view them once more in tho hope of doing 
something towards reducing their frequency. 
LAMPAS. 
This is a torm applied to a swelling of the soft 
parts behind the upper front teeth ; It is some¬ 
times a real disease, though one of little couse- 
seqnence, but oftonor exists only iu the imagi¬ 
nation. It is caused in young animals by 
teotbing—jnst as a similar congestion of the 
gums originates in children; in adult horses, it 
sometimes occurs with disease* of the stomach 
and bowels, from sympathy with these •l’gana. 
It is, therefore, generally aeon in such animals 
as have been poorly fed; in those that have been 
wintered on coarse, iuuutritious feed—in such 
animals the digestive organs are always more or 
less impaired, and intestinal parasites multiply 
to a surprising extent. We can therefore under¬ 
stand why frizzly hair, near the root of the tail, 
is considered a symptom of lampas, since para¬ 
sites cause au irritation aud itching of the rec¬ 
tum, wliioh leads the animal to rub its tail 
agaiust the sides of tho stall or other objeots, 
and this rubbing, in turn, causes a frizzly ap¬ 
pearance of tho hair. Very often such horses 
have a capricious appetite, and when put to hard 
work in spring lose it entirely at times ; again, 
when the spring work comes ou, their feed is in¬ 
creased, they eat more than their stomach is 
accustomed to. and more than it can properly 
digest, causing disease of this orgau and conse¬ 
quent loss of appetito. Iu all these cases of 
diminished appetite, the mouth is examined for 
lampas, and it is not hard for the owuer to con¬ 
vince himself of its existence; for, since ho has 
hoard of no other cause for the trouble, he do- 
oides this must be present. And, then, to cure a 
supposed tenderness and soreness of the part, 
he goes to a blacksmith and has a red-hot iron 
held against the roof of the poor animal’s mouth 
till it is burnt in a terrible manner! 
It iB scarcely necessary for me to add that in 
real eases of lampas a slight scarification (not 
cuts a half inch deep) will prove a relief; but in 
adult animals, where the trouble arises from di¬ 
gestive disturbance, this must be treated accord¬ 
ing to its nature. Again, when horses lose their 
appetite from any serious disease, it is generally 
decided to be lampas, aud so, whether there is 
inflammation of the lungs or liver, whether there 
is fever or a carious tooth, the first treatment is 
apt to be the hot iron. 
WOLF TEETH. 
These are small, supplemental teeth, called 
from their position premolars; they ate very 
common, but in a majority of cases drop out 
wiieu the first pair of milk molars are replaced 
by permanent teeth or soon after; they are, 
consequently, generally seen in young horses. 
As horses are quite subject to superficial inflam¬ 
mation of the eyes while teething, from the in¬ 
creased flow of blood to the head at this time, 
these teeth have beoome associated with such in¬ 
flammation and are considered its cause ; in the 
South aud West where “ big head ” is prevalent, 
these teeth are also often charged with originat¬ 
ing tho bony enlargements which constitute this 
disease; as a consequence, horse-owners look 
upon wolf teeth as they would upon a rattle¬ 
snake—as something to be feared and destroyed 
as Roon as possible. 
Tbe removal of these teeth causes little pain 
when properly done with forceps, but when they 
are punched ont by placing a bar of iron against 
them and hitting this with a heavy hammer, as 
is usually the case, it not only causes severe and 
useless pain, but it so frigh'ens the animal as 
to sometimes make it vicious for life. Wolf 
teeth have no effect on the eyes directly or indi¬ 
rectly, nor do they cause the enlargements of 
bones of the nose attributed to them. Dr. 
Horne, of Janesville, Wis., who formerly be¬ 
lieved that these teeth caused blindness, was 
induced to examine the mouths of a large num¬ 
ber of horses, to satisfy himself of their influence. 
The results of this examination, to say nothing 
of tbe almost unanimous opinion of the veteri¬ 
nary profession, founded on many years of ex¬ 
perience, should convince any intelligent man. 
Of 1,073 animals examined, 216 had wolf teeth, 
and of this 216 all but one were perfectly free 
from any disease of the eyes or any other part; 
of the whole number of animals examined, 37 
had affections of one or both eyes, but with the 
Bingle exception mentioned, they did not have 
wolf tcoth. Such an observation, made by one 
who believed tho contrary, cannot be doubtful 
evidence, and as it confirms what veterinarians 
have always taught, it should prove conclusive. 
HOOKS (HORSES ANO CATTLE.) 
The belief in " hooks " is not so widespread as 
tfcat in lampas and wolf teeth, but what it lacks 
in prevalence it makes up in absurdity. Horses 
and cattle are. in some eectious of the country, 
kept ou such starvation diets during the winter 
that when spring comes, or before, they are 
t*#re walking skeletons; their digestive organa 
are deranged, their strength exhausted, they are 
scaicely able to drag themselves along, and this 
is clone with swaying back and staggering gait. 
How this condition came to be charged to the 
-•membrana niditans of the eye, it is impossible 
to say; but the belief exists that this is the 
cMfce. and that it must be ent out to effect a 
cuae. And tho belief has extended tillnow when 
a horse or ox sprain ■) its back by hard work, a 
fad, or iu any other way. the attention is at once 
directed to the eyes, and these are mutilated in 
a most barbarous manner. I have not space to 
dwell upon this false opinion, but “a word to 
the wise is sufficient.’' and a little reflection must 
convinoe auy one of the ridiculousness of at¬ 
tempting to remedy a conditiou of starvation or 
a sprained back by auy amount ol' ocular surgery. 
The diseases of animals are not so different from 
those of meu, bat that it is safe to ask one’s-self 
what he would think if a physician proposed to 
institute such a treatment for a similar disease 
in people. 
SELECTION OF VARIETIES OF FRUITS 
TO BE PLANTED. 
T. T. LYON. 
South Haven, Mich., May 22 , 1S7S. 
It is by no means safe to conolude, because a 
variety of fruit is found successful and desirable 
iu a given soil or locality, that it can theiefore 
be relied ou to succeed in other and untried situ¬ 
ations. 
The planters of fruits have shown themselves 
very slow to acquire, aud slower still to act upon 
the knowledge of this fact. Many of my readers 
will, doubtless, be able to recall the fact that the 
earliest National assemblages of fruit-growers 
occurred in the autumn of the year 1848, and 
during the next few months thereafter; and 
that, at such conventions, committees were ap¬ 
pointed, charged with the duty of framing lists 
of fruits to be recommended for gen ual cultiva¬ 
tion ; but, to the great surprise of all, it was 
soon discovered that no varieties can be said to 
be more than locally successful; although an 
occasional one, such as the Bartlett and Seokel 
