NEW YORK, FEB. 4, 1882. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress. In the year 1882, by the Rural New-Yorker, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
PRICE FIVE CENTS, 
$2.00 PER YEAR 
f arm &omcs. 
“BONANZA SERIES” No. 3. 
Backsetting-. 
To any i me unaccustomed to the necessity 
and process of “breaking,” as described in 
our last, the term here used as a caption would 
be an enigma in the process of farming. In 
Eastern localities it is often the case that from 
ihe first cultivation of the soil, it is simply 
‘ stirred,” an ordinary stirring plow meeting 
every necessity ; and it is frequently the case 
that, where the soil is naturally poor, or has 
plowing or stirriug, which in most localities 
continues for many years before sub-soiling 
becomes a necessity Where proper judg¬ 
ment is exhibited by the farmers, and their 
land is allowed to rest a portion of the time by 
seeding it down to tame grasses, clover, etc., 
cutting these early in the season to permit a 
luxuriant second growth, and turning that 
under in the Fall, the fertilizing derived there¬ 
from is siifh‘eient,oa most of the Western laud, 
to defer sub-soiling indefinitely. 
As breaking commences usually about the 
middle of May, and ends about the first of 
July, backsetting commences at about the 
latter date, or immediately after the grass be¬ 
comes too high or the sod too dry to continue 
lustrating the method which has for many 
years been here practiced, and which is perhaps 
more generally in vogue now than any other. 
Each of these plows will backset about 21^' 
acres per day, turning furrows the width of 
the sod. A decided improvement in plowing 
has been introduced by the manufacture of 
riding gang plows, by Messrs. Deere and Co., 
of Moline. Ills., whose manufacture Mr. 
Dalrymple uses exclusively and which he has 
adopted upon his farms. These are illustrated 
by an engraving—Fig 36—and are so con¬ 
structed that either breaking or backsetting 
plow r s can be attached and used at pleasure. 
As may be noticed, they have also a rolling 
coulter, that the furrows may be uniform and 
the proprietors. Each team is expected tc 
average from 16 to 18 miles of travel per day 
with the gang plows. Each gang (two plows] 
will turn over five acres per day, or in the 
aggregate the 137 gang plows will turn 68f 
acres per day of backsetting. The wages oi 
men during this portion of the season’s work 
are $20 per month “andfound,”i.e, l>oard and 
lodging. The soil in the valley of the Red 
River of the North, where Mr. Dalrymple’s 
farms are located, is a dark, rich, alluvia] 
mold, averaging two feet in depth, with a 
sub-soil that will average probably forty feet. 
Of these soils Mr. Dalrymple said : “ We seut 
top and sub-soil to the best chemist in Phila¬ 
delphia, and had them analyzed ; he found 
BONANZA FARMING — PLOWING STUBBLE. (Drawn from a Photograph.) Fig. 36. 
become in a degree impoverished from suc¬ 
cessive croppings, the laud requires it year’s 
rest with summer fallowing to convert all the 
spontaneous growth into fertilizing material. 
I his process is rarely required in any of the 
Middle States, and is unknown as n necessity 
in the entire Northwest, 
On the prairie farms of this Western coun¬ 
try, the first process, as we have described, 
is breaking ; the second is backsetting, the 
tlurd, so far as the plowing is concerned, is 
cross-plowing. Alter that, comes the fall¬ 
breaking profitably. In backsetting, the 
course usually pursued is to commence 
where the breaking was begun, and conse¬ 
quently where the sod has become in a 
measure disintegrated and the vegetation par¬ 
tially decomposed, following the furrows of the 
breaking, and turning them back—(hence 
“ backsetting”) with about three inches of the 
soil. On the farms of Mr. Dalrymple he aims to 
have each successive year’s plowing about a 
half inch deeper than the one preceding. 
Fig. 36 shows the walking plows at work, il 
clean, whether the sods have grown together 
upon their edges or not. Four horses are 
employed and a gang of two plows is run. 
On Mr. Dalrymple’s farms he uses 137 gang 
plows, or one to each 200 acres (he raised 37,- 
400 acres of wheat in 1881,) working in crews 
of about 25 teams, each In charge of a “ Gang 
Foreman.” Ten of these gangs, or 250 teams 
and plows, constitute the charge of a “ Divis¬ 
ion Foreman,” cultivating or plowing 2,000 
acres, aud each division has its boarding and 
sleeping houses conducted and controlled by 
them to be rich in carbonate and lime, equal 
to the best wheat-growing soil in Europe, 
which is said to be in Austria. ” 
The same machinery, outfits and organiza¬ 
tion carry on the cross-plowing, (plowing 
cross-wise, or across the breaking and back¬ 
setting) or fall-plowing, immediately after 
thrashing is over, or on damp days durirg the 
thrashing season, covering about the same 
area or acreage as before stated for backset¬ 
ting. This prepares the ground for the next 
year’s crop. The wages for fall-plowing. 
