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VOL XLVIII NO, 2058 
NEW YORK, JULY 6, 1889. 
PRICE FIVE CENTS, 
$2.00 PER YEAR. 
rEntered according to Act of Congress, In the Year 1889, by the Rural New-Yorker, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.] 
of his soil as the best advertisement he can 
find. 
Which Is right? The conservative farmers 
will say, “ Neither.” Which is nearer right? 
Perhaps the condition of the soil and the crops 
at Cranbury may help to determine. The 
farms about Cranbury are mainly given up 
to a five-course rotation as follows: 
1. Potatoes on corn ground. The land is 
plowed in the spring and a liberal supply of 
complete potato fertilizer is applied. Farmers 
usually begin with a small amount of fertil¬ 
izer, but as its effects become more and more 
apparent the amount is increased until from 
1,500 to 2,000 pounds per acre are used. 2. 
The potatoes are dug in time and wheat is 
sown on the potato land with a seeding of 
Timothy. In the spring clover seed is sown 
and in some cases a top-dressing of fertilizer— 
200 or i-00 pounds per acre—is applied. 3. 
The ground after wheat, stands in grass two 
years. 4. After the last mowing in July, all 
the stable manure on the farm is spread on the 
sod. It remains there until spring when it is 
plowed under and the ground is planted to 
corn. The next year the corn field is planted 
to potatoes with the fertilizer and so the rota¬ 
tion continues. 
This, in a nutshell, is the system of farming 
that is making these farmers comfortably 
well off. It is a system that is based directly 
on fertilizers. Ask wbat sort of a farmer A, 
B or C may be and you will be told that he 
uses 700 pounds, 1,000 pounds or a ton, as the 
case may be. 
In Iowa a man is a 500-acre farmer, or 
a 1,000-acre farmer. In Michigan the farmer 
may be graded by the number of sheep or cat¬ 
tle he keeps; in Ohio by the number of acres 
of good wheat; on Long Island by the number 
of cauliflowers or the size of the asparagus 
plantation; in Vermont by the number of ma¬ 
ple trees tapped annually. Cranbury farm¬ 
ers seem to be graded by the number of 
pounds of fertilizer they use on an acre of 
potatoes. The farmers are full of fertilizer 
talk. It is impossible to start a conversation 
on any subject without being drawn into the 
great topic. There is good reason for this 
when we remember that each of these farm¬ 
ers pays all the way 
from $400 to $1,000 in 
cash each year for fer¬ 
tilizers. 
Perhaps the best way 
to give a fair idea of 
the way these farmers 
look at agriculture is 
to report the conversa¬ 
tion the R. N.-Y. held 
with them. 
R. N.-Y. “How long 
is it since you began the 
use of chemical fertil¬ 
izers ?” 
Farmer L. “I have 
used them in small quanj 
tities for years. For 14 
years now I have been 
gradually increasing the 
amount used per acre. 
I now use about 1,800 
pounds per acre, but I 
do not think the limit of 
profit will be reached 
until I reach 2,200 
pounds.” 
R. N.-Y.—“What in¬ 
duced you to put on your 
first heavy dressing?” 
Farmer L.—“ I vis¬ 
ited a farmer on Long 
Island, who had used 
over a ton on potatoes. 
I had never before seen 
such grass as he bad 
growing. He seemed 
like a close man, too, 
and I thought it it would 
pay him to use a ton it 
would pay me to try 
1,500 pounds. I tried it 
on the potatoes and 
sowed wheat and Timo¬ 
thy as usual. I could 
not see a great deal of 
benefit on the potatoes 
and not quite enough 
benefit on the wheat to 
pay; but when the grass 
came there was no ques¬ 
tion about it. I never 
cut such a crop before.” 
R. N.-Y.—“How large 
is your farm ?” 
FarmerL.—“ Just 100 
acres.” 
R. N.-Y.—“How much 
stock do you keep;” 
Farmer L. — “ Three 
cows and my working 
teams.” 
From Nature. Fig. 164. 
form Copies. 
NEW JERSEY FARMS THAT PAY. 
EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE. 
NO. I. 
Reference was made two weeks ago to a visit 
recently made to what the R. N.-Y. considers 
an ideal farming community. It is proposed 
in this and subsequent papers to give a record 
of this visit with such reflections upon the 
wisdom of the agricultural methods employed 
there, as were suggested to the mind of the 
writer. The point chosen for observation 
was Cranbury, Middlesex County. This 
place is situated some 50 miles from New 
York City. The railroad facilities are such 
that farmers near Cranbury are unable to 
raise and ship “ market truck ” successfully. 
The same may be said of milk. There are too 
many changes of cars to 
be made before the milk 
can be placed in New 
York. Strawberries are 
raised to some extent 
and efforts are being 
made to establish an in¬ 
terest in peach culture; 
but the main business 
of the community is the 
production of potatoes, 
hay, corn and wheat— 
crops that theoretical 
farmers would be least 
likely to recommend for 
a section within 50 miles 
of New York city. It 
was mainly because the 
farm practices of the 
Cranbury farmers 
seemed to throw the rec¬ 
ognized rules of agricul¬ 
tural economy out of 
joint that the R. N.-Y. 
was anxious to see how 
such farming paid. 
Here are two state¬ 
ments made in the R. 
N.-Y. office within the 
past month. 
i. “Within 40 years 
the farming lands of 
New England, New Jer¬ 
sey and Eastern New 
York will be reduced to 
the condition of a des¬ 
ert. The laud west of 
the Alleghanies can 'pro¬ 
duce more food than the 
people of the country 
can consume and rail¬ 
road transportation is 
being so perfected that 
the Western farmer can 
undersell the world in 
any market. Whenever 
a section of country be¬ 
gins to use large quan¬ 
tities of chemical fer¬ 
tilizers, Its agriculture is 
surely doomed—just as 
the man who begins 
the continued use of 
stimulants must bid fare¬ 
well to health. The fu¬ 
ture of Eastern agri¬ 
culture is easy to pre¬ 
dict. The majority of 
the manufacturing eu 
terprises must, sooner or 
later, go to the places 
where their raw mater¬ 
ials are produced. The great seaports will, of 
course, remain. The country for a few miles 
around them will support thousands of for¬ 
eign gardeners and fruit men, but back of 
this strip, lightning trains from the West 
will run through deserted farming sections 
given up to wilderness and desolation.” This 
dismal prophecy was made by a Western 
farmer who evidently meant what he said. 
2. “ In 40 years from this time, the rich 
lands of the country will be at the East, while 
the poor lands will be at the West. Every 
principle that is supplied to the soil in stable 
manure, can be supplied by a system of rota¬ 
tion, in which chemical fertilizers form the 
basis of fertility. The crops will grow larger 
and larger, the soil richer and richer, and the 
labor less and less exacting. The Western 
farmer of the future will have to perform all 
the drudgery of dairying and stock keeping. 
The Eastern farmer need do but little of this 
work, but may substitute tor stable manure 
the easily applied chemicals.” This bright 
picture was drawn by a farmer who sells fer¬ 
tilizers, and uses his crops and the condition 
HEAD OF A CALF. 
