AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
65 
1883.] 
dressing of plaster (sulphate of lime), at the 
rate of 2 bushels to an acre. Good phos¬ 
phate will make turnips grow, if harrowed 
into the ground with the seed, using 100 
pounds to the acre. The advantages of a 
crop of turnips for the latter part of autumn 
.are many-fold. If the farmer does not wish 
to harvest them, he can turn on his entire 
stock, and the hungry animals that might 
have roamed over frost-bitten, barren fields, 
will luxuriate in plenty. The turnips in the 
cellar will make beef and mutton, and keep 
the young stock in a thriving condition. No 
crop of proportionate value can be given at 
so little cost. During 
the winter the prepara¬ 
tions should begin. The 
manure for the turnip 
lot should be put by 
itself, so that it may 
be thoroughly rotted, 
and the foul seed de¬ 
stroyed by its fermenta¬ 
tion. Ashes should also 
he collected. All of 
these preparations will 
he for the benefit of 
the future corn crop 
as well as the turnips. 
A turnip crop .has be¬ 
come a necessity on my 
farm. There is no dan¬ 
ger of animals hurting 
themselves feeding in 
the turnip field. All 
kinds of stock are fond 
of turnips when allowed 
to help themselves, and 
eat leaves and all. They 
will soon fill themselves, 
and if the weather is cold, seek a sheltered 
place and chew the cud of contentment. This 
is not the case when in October, and perhaps 
well into November in our northern climate, 
they are forced to depend on what they can 
pick of grass which has lost its succulence, 
and is almost worthless as food. The loss 
which stock generally sustain in flesh at this 
time of the year is far more than the cost 
of a good turnip crop. 
About High Farming. 
BY JOSEPH HARRIS, AUTHOR OF u WALKS AND TALKS ON 
THE FARM,” ETC. 
We now have far better tools for cultivating 
land than formerly. In fact, our tools are 
better than our agriculture. And we may 
rest assured that so soon as we adopt im¬ 
proved methods of farming and gardening, 
our inventors and manufacturers will furnish 
all the tools, implements, and machines 
necessary to do the work. 
But will it pay to adopt high farming? 
That depends on what we mean by high 
farming. High farming, if we confine our¬ 
selves to the production of hay, Indian corn, 
wheat, oats, and other ordinary farm crops, 
will not pay in this country. And Sir John 
Bennett Lawes once wrote a paper, or gave a 
lecture before a Farmer’s Club in Scotland, 
in which he demonstrated that high farming 
was no remedy for the low prices of agricul¬ 
tural products of Great Britain and Ireland. 
I think, however, he would admit that thor¬ 
ough cultivation and heavy manuring could 
be profitably used for the production of what 
we usually term garden products. 
Some years ago I was at an agricultural 
dinner in England, when the late J. J. Mechi, 
who had for many years recommended high 
farming, stated that, notwithstanding the 
low price of agricultural products, he was at 
that time picking several acres of peas for 
the London market, and he found the crop a 
very profitable one. Dr. Gilbert, one of the 
ablest agricultural chemists of the world, 
called out: “ But, Mr. Mechi, this is not farm¬ 
ing, it is market gardening.” Mr. Mechi, 
though always ready, made no reply. He 
seemed to think the argument unanswerable, 
and therefore let the case go by default. 
But not so the co mi ng generation of farm 
boys—and I hope of English boys also. What 
does it matter whether you harvest your 
peas dry or pick them green ? What does it 
matter whether you raise cabbages, com, or 
carrots, and other roots, to be fed out on the 
farm to other animals, or to be sold in market 
to our fellow citizens, who can not grow them 
for themselves. 
The advocates of high farming make a mis¬ 
take. Neither Old England nor New England 
will ever raise all the wheat required by its 
population. Even the great State of New 
York, I hope, will not long continue to raise 
on its own soil all the wheat it annually con¬ 
sumes. Commerce is the feature of the age, 
and wheat is carried ten thousand miles to 
market. Cheap bread is what the world 
wants, and what the world wants, the world 
will get. Cheap wheat can never be furnished 
by high farming. It must and will be grown 
largely on land manured only by nature. There 
may be places in which wheat can be profit¬ 
ably grown, where many of the constituents 
of the plant must be applied to the soil, just 
as there are places where we can profitably 
use chemical processes for the production of 
ice. As a rule, however, nature and com¬ 
merce will furnish ice cheaper than even 
modern science can manufacture it. We 
shall have two kinds of farming. One will 
consist largely in the production of wheat, 
corn, oats, barley, cotton, sugar, and rice. 
The other, while it will not entirely neglect 
these great products, will aim to produce 
crops which can not be kept from year to 
year, or ordinarily be transported long dis¬ 
tances. 
The one system of farming will be carried 
on with little labor, and little or no manure, 
and what manure is used will be for the pur¬ 
pose of enabling the plant to abstract as 
much food as possible from the soil. In 
other words, our wheat growers may use 
superphosphate, because the application of 
phosphoric acid may enable the wheat plant 
to get a larger quantity of potash, nitrogen, 
and other constituents of plant food from 
the soil, and thus produce larger crops. This 
is the very reverse of high farming, though 
it is often very profitable farming. The 
other system of farming is the one which I 
want our young men to adopt. The change 
will be gradual, but it will surely come. It 
will be adopted in Eng¬ 
land, and also here. It 
is absurd to suppose 
that the soil of Eng¬ 
land, or of the New 
England or Middle 
States, can not be prof¬ 
itably cultivated, ow¬ 
ing to the low prices 
at which the cheap 
land of the West and 
North-west, aided by 
cheap transportation, 
can furnish our peo¬ 
ple, and the people of 
New England, with 
bread. Let the bread 
come, and let us pro¬ 
vide good Jersey but¬ 
ter to eat with it. The 
world as a world spends 
all it can get, and the 
less it spends for bread, 
the more it can pay 
for butter and bon¬ 
nets, and the bonnet- 
makers will buy our fruit and vegetables. 
A Covered French Compost House. 
-O-- 
Herewith we present a cut and description 
of a new style of compost house recently 
erected in France. The building has the fol¬ 
lowing dimensions: length, 27 meters; 
breadth, 21, and hight, about 3. A meter 
is nearly 40 inches of our measure. The 
building accommodates 30 head of cattle at a 
time. The roof is placed upon a frame-work 
of spruce, sustained by stays, resting upon 
a foundation of masonry, a meter in depth, 
and which serves to enclose the animals. 
The cribs for the cattle are movable up and 
down, as occasion requires, with the increase 
or removal of the compost. There are breaks 
in the wall for the introduction of food for 
the animals, and a wide opening for the en¬ 
trance and exit of the manure carts. The 
advantages claimed for this system, are shel¬ 
ter from the weather, the continual settling 
of the mass under the animals there confin¬ 
ed, the steady addition of new material, and 
the preservation of the compost in good con¬ 
dition. In the figure, A represents the breaks 
for the admission and distribution of straw 
and food in the mangers; B is the place for 
the entrance and departure of the carts that 
carry away the compost; c shows the cribs 
for the feeding cattle, and d the chains by 
which the cribs are lifted as the compost 
rises under the feet of the cattle. This 
building is a novelty in France, where it has 
attracted the attention of the agricultural 
journals. The description given here may 
lead to the construction of similar buildings 
in this country, with improvements. 
A covered FRENCH COMPOST HOUSE. —Dravm and Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
