Vol. LVII. No. 2513- 
NEW YORK, MARCH 26, 1898. 
81 PER YEAR. 
THE CLEVELAND MILK TRADE. 
HOW GOOD FARMERS FARM. 
Part II. 
The Wonderful Work of Mr. W. H. Stewart. 
As an instance of intense farming, the example of 
Mr. W. H. Stewart, of Solon Township, is a cheering 
one. Beginning upon a wornout, rundown farm, with 
a load of debt that few would wish to assume, he is, 
to-day, the possessor of a farm, intense in its fertility, 
and still being made annually more fertile, and sup¬ 
plied with fine houses and barns fitted with nearly all 
of the modern conveniences. At the age of 15, he left 
his native home in Ireland with only sufficient money 
to pay his passage across the ocean, and his fare to his 
point of destination in America. He had only six 
cents left when he reached the town adjoining the one 
in which he now lives, and that six cents he used for 
postage to send a letter back to his home in Ireland. 
Thus starting in life empty-handed, he worked upon 
farms until he was able to own horses and wagon, 
when he ventured into the huckster business with 
some success. He followed this until, with a small 
amount of savings, he purchased a farm upon which 
he had been formerly 
employed as hired boy. 
This farm consisted of 
about 132 acres, and 
was in about as com¬ 
plete a state of invalid¬ 
ism as a farm ever gets. 
The buildings were of 
little value ; the fences 
were settled down to a 
mass of rubbish that 
was overgrown with 
weeds and young sap¬ 
lings ; the plowed fields 
were irregularly laid 
out, and plowed in such 
a way as to leave un¬ 
plowed all low and wet 
places, which were very 
numerous. The natural 
fertility of the soil was 
about exhausted, and 
all in all, there was 
little to encourage a 
young and ambitious 
farmer. The one re¬ 
deeming feature, of all 
connected with the pur¬ 
chase of the farm, was 
its location. It lay within a half mile of the railroad 
station, and only 15 miles from the markets of the 
great and rapidly growing city of Cleveland. 
“ I purchased this farm,” said Mr. Stewart recently, 
“ in 1880. The price of the farm, and the amount I 
had to pay to stock it and purchase the necessary 
tools, etc., involved me in a debt of §5,000. While this 
heavy debt lay upon my shoulders, I undertook three 
other items of expense and heavy labor, viz.: the re¬ 
construction of the old buildings, the fences, and the 
systematic underdraining of my farm, all of which 
imposed a further indebtedness. But the tiling of the 
farm soon helped me, not only to pay this increased 
expense, but to discharge the huge debt I was then 
carrying. I purchased my tile by the car-load, and 
laid much of it myself.” 
“ How could you get credit for tile by the car-load, 
when you were so heavily involved ?” 
“ I went to the tile factory some distance from hex-e, 
looked over the manufacturer’s stock, and found just 
the sizes I wanted; though I was unknown to him 
personally or by reputation either, I told him I wanted 
a cax--load of his tile, but that I had no money to pay 
for it. He made but one inquiry of me, and that was 
to know whether I wanted it for my own farm. I 
told him that I did. ‘ Well ’! said he, ‘ you can have 
the tile, as I am never af raid to trust a man for tile wlw 
wants to lay it upon his own farm Other car-loads 
have come since then, have been quietly laid beneath 
the sod of m 3 ' farm, and are doing me a continuous 
service, the value of which is not easily estimated. 
“ Before I did much at milk shipping,” said Mr. 
Stewart, “potatoes were my chief money crop. I 
raised several hundred bushels every year, and sold 
them easily ; some years I obtained §1.25 per bushel. 
This counted up rapidly, and helped me to clear away 
the mortgage. I have paid some yeai’s as high as 
§ 1,000 in debts, paid all farm expenses, and carried on 
the farm improvements that I had under way. But 
as prices for potatoes kept going so low, I gradually 
made milk my chief money crop, and nearly all the 
energies of the farm are now tixrned toward its pro¬ 
duction. But I have not given ixp potatoes, by any 
means, as I raised 000 bushels last year, that I am now 
selling easily at 65 cents per bushel. Besides that, I 
raised 165 bushels of wheat, and year before last, I 
had 1,000 bushels of corn.” 
Mr. Stewart has adhered all the time to the idea 
that mixed farming brings safest and sxxrest results 
in the long run. But here is what, with characteristic 
Irish grit and determination, guided by intelligent 
management, he has accomplished on this farm of 132 
acres: “In 1892, 12 years from the pxxrchase of the 
farm, I bux-ned the last of the §5,000 mortgage, and 
cleared away all my other indebtedness, which, with 
the interest I had paid, and the improvements I had 
made, increased this sxxm vastly. In the reconstruc- 
tion of the old barns and other buildings. I obtained 
beneath them an even 100 loads of well-rotted manure, 
which partly paid for the work. 
“ Besides the pa 3 'ment of that §5,000 at that time, I 
put §5,000 into a new house and other buildings, and 
§350 into a system of water sxxpply for all the build¬ 
ings. This water is piped from a spring quite distant 
from the buildings. And all this money, besides 
several hundred dollars invested in one way and an¬ 
other in improvements, has been made from this farm, 
with the exception of £200 that I inherited from my 
father’s estate in Ireland.” 
This stoi*y was told me in a quiet, xinostentatious 
manner. As I walked through his capacious and well- 
filled daii-y barn, and saw the rows of sleek, fat milch 
cows, fat enough for the butcher, who always is 
anxious to get them, saw the well-filled silo and the 
gx’eat bins of feed that prodxices the fat and the milk, 
saw besides, a fine country home, complete with all 
the comforts and appointments of a modern city dwell¬ 
ing, and looked abroad over the fields that have been 
cleared, and drained and made fertile, I said to myself, 
“Farming does pay,” especially when carried on as 
Mr. Stewart has managed. But he does not take all 
the honor and credit to himself for his success. A 
wife who presides with dignity and grace over as fine 
a country home as I ever entered, has done her share to 
bring about all these gratifying and pleasing results. 
I asked Mr. Stewart for a statement of the earnings 
of his farm for 1897, and he went qxxickly to his books 
and gave me the following accounts of the chief 
soxxrces of income and expense : 
Income Account. Expense Account. 
29,000 gallons of milk.$2,750 Mill feed for milch cows — $600 
600 bushels of potatoes.. 350 Freight on milk shipped— 450 
165 bushels of wheat_ 130 All hired help for the year.. 700 
Calves. 100 One ton of fertilizer. 25 
Total.$3,330 Total.$1,775 
Credit balance..•. 1,555 
Numerous items both of credit and expense have been 
left out of this statement, which, if given, would tend 
to increase, rather than 
diminish the credit bal¬ 
ance. He milks a vary¬ 
ing number of cows 
throughout the year, 
but averages about 30. 
He employs two hired 
men the year around. 
Both are married men 
and live in a good house 
upon the farm. IIepa 3 'S 
one §28 per month, and 
one §25, and their wives 
assist at milking. They 
have their rent free, a 
half acre for their own 
garden, and manage the 
poultry on shares. They 
have their checks for 
their pay x-egularly 
every month, and are 
contented and happy. 
Here, at least, I thought, 
is the whole hired-help 
problem satisfactorily 
solved. 
One thing that seems 
remarkable about M r. 
Stewart’s farming is 
the large number of cattle and horses he is able to 
winter upon his farm. He has this winter 57 all 
told, but as there are only four yearlings among 
them, these are equivalent to 55 full-grown cattle. 
He produces from these soxxrces just about 300 loads 
of manure a year. But 300 loads of manure from 
cattle that are fed large grain rations, are an element 
that is having a very telling and salutary effect upon 
the fertility of his farm. It is constantly appreciat- 
ing in value under such libei’al dressings, and he has 
just about solved the commercial-fertilizer problem 
by being able to dispense with it almost entirety. 
He ixsually has under cultivation about 20 acres of 
corn, 20 acres of clover and Timothy, 10 acres of oats, 
to be followed by wheat, and 10 acres of potatoes and 
other crops. This makes 70 acres under cultivation, 
and leaves aboxxt 60 acres in pastxxrage. There are no 
woods upon the farm, llis silo holds 100 tons, and 
was filled last year, and refilled after settling, from 
eight acres. He informed me that he had filled it 
some years from six or seven acres, lie feeds a good, 
liberal amount of ensilage morning and night, with 
heavy grain rations, usually of corn meal and wheat 
or x-ye middlings mixed (bought by the car-load), and 
