1872 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
15 
farm (of 285 acres) every year; and I would do 
so if it were not for the labor of harvesting. It 
is slow, tedious work. But one of my day¬ 
dreams is to have my farm (exclusive of garden, 
orchard, permanent meadow, grass and wood 
land, aud a few small lots near the barns) divided 
into ten fields of 20 acres each, with a neat 
stone wall round every field, the laud well 
drained, clean, aud rich. Then, I think. I could 
keep it rich and make it richer by some such a 
rotation as this: 
First Year — Field No. 1.—Clover sod the 
previous year, plowed early in the fall, and 
planted or drilled to com in the spring. 
Field No. 2.—Clover sod, heavily top-dressed 
the previous fall with well-rotted manure, 
plowed late in the spring, and corn drilled in as 
fast as plowed and harrowed. 
Second Year — No. 1.—Sown with rye the 
previous August among the corn. Rye fed off 
on the laud the next spring with sheep. Then 
plowed, thoroughly cultivated, harrowed, and 
made mellow, and then sown at different times 
with white mustard. This crop to be eaten off 
on the land with sheep, and the laud to be 
plowed, aud sown to winter wheat. 
No. 2.—Oats and peas sown together. The 
land having been heavily manured for com, 
and thoroughly cultivated while the com was 
growing, and then plowed in the fall after the 
corn was harvested, might be sown early with¬ 
out plowing in the spring—it would be rich and 
clean, and a great crop might be expected, and 
after harvest one or two plowings would make 
the field in splendid order for winter wheat. 
Third Year — No. 1 and No. 2.—Both in 
winter wheat, seeded in the spring with clover 
aud timothy. 
Fourth Year — No . 1. — Clover pastured 
close with sheep until the first of June, then 
left to grow up for seed. 
No. 2.—Clover, mown for hay, and then pas¬ 
tured the rest of the season. 
Fifth Year — No.‘l. —Clover seed stubble, 
pastured, aud heavily manured in the fall. 
No. 2.—Clover and timothy mown for hay, 
and afterward pastured until time to break tip 
in the fall for com. 
SixTn Year. —Com again. 
This would give me eveiy year 40 acres of corn, 
20 acres of oats aud peas, 40 acres of hay, 20 
acres clover seed, 20 acres of rye, 20 acres of mus¬ 
tard, 40 acres of pasture, and 40 acres of winter 
wheat. I should sell nothing but wheat and 
clover seed; but I should expect, at any rate 
after a few years, to get from 35 to 40 bushels 
of wheat per acre, and in a favorable season 5 
bushels of clover seed. I think I could keep 15 
grade Shorthorn cows, 12 calves, 12 yearlings, 
12 two-year-olds, and sell a dozen fat steers and 
cows every year. 
Then I should hope to be able to keep a flock 
of 100 long-wool ewes, 150 lambs, and sell 150 
fat sheep at from twelve to twenty months old 
every year. 
“You have left out the black pigs,” remarks 
the Deacon, “and I thought you considered 
them your most profitable stock.” 
I have not forgotten them at all. But I will 
leave the profits from them to pay my oil-cake 
and bran bills, and they will much more than 
do it. The receipts from such a farm we may 
estimate as follows: 
■ 40 acres -vfieat 35 bush, per aero, © $1.50.$2,100.00 
20 acres clover seed @ 5 bush, per acre, @ $6... 600.00 
12 head of fat cattle. 1,000.00 
Blitter from 15 cows. 500.00 
150 fat sheep, @ $10. 1,500.00 
Wool from 250 sheep, 8 lbs. each, @ 60c. 1,200.00 
5 acres of apple orchard. .. 1,000.00 
$7,900.00 
Feeding out such a large amount of stock 
would soon give me more than manure enough 
for 20 acres of corn every year; and, as soon as 
this was the case, I should take a few acres of 
the fall-plowed clover sod, manure it well, and 
sow mangold wurzel instead of corn. 
Manure is like money. The more you have, the 
easier it is to make more. You can not grow a 
big crop of mangolds without thorough cultiva¬ 
tion and a heavy dressing of manure. But 
when you have got the mangolds the laud is not 
only left in splendid condition for future crops, 
but the consumption of the mangolds, besides 
being of great benefit to stock, leaves a splen¬ 
did lot of rich manure. We can raise just as 
good mangolds here as lliej^ can in England— 
in fact, I think better, as our hotter climate ma¬ 
tures them more perfectly, and renders them 
more nutritious. We can easily grow twenty- 
five tons per acre, and as the manure from a ton 
of mangolds is worth $1.07, we have left from 
each acre of mangolds, besides the leaves, ma¬ 
nure worth $26.75. 
If we could grow 100 bushels of shelled corn 
per acre—aud the climate is capable of doing it 
—the manure from the corn and stalks would 
be about equal to that from 25 tons of man¬ 
golds. Aud, as I have said before, if it was not 
for the labor of harvesting I should aim to grow 
much more corn than I now do. It is the grand 
crop of this continent—the sheet-anchor of 
American agriculture. But what we want are 
larger crops per acre, and a cheaper and more 
expeditious method of harvesting them. We 
have made little or no progress in this respect. 
We harvest our corn crop just as we did thirty 
years ago. Great improvements have been 
made in drills, planters, and cultivators. We 
can raise corn much easier, but nothing has 
been done to lessen the labor of cutting and 
husking it. 
I believe corn will yet be harvested as we 
harvest wheat—cut with a reaper, bound into 
bundles of a convenient size for pitching, and 
then thrashed or husked by a big machine, driv¬ 
en by ten horses or a steam-engine. It must be 
powerful enough to take in a bundle at a time, 
strip off the ears and husk them, and the stalks 
as they pass through can be cut up and elevated 
by a straw carrier. I believe iu less than ten 
years we shall see hundreds of such machines 
traveling from farm to farm as thrashing-ma¬ 
chines now do, and we shall wonder how we 
ever got along without them. 
The late Robert Russell, of Scotland, the emi¬ 
nent meteorologist, farmer, editor, and author, 
whose recent death is a great loss to agricul¬ 
tural science, visited me shortly after his arrival 
in this country. He was not very favorably im¬ 
pressed with our soil or our manner of working 
it; but one charming afternoon in the early 
part of September, while standing in a recently 
sown field of wheat, with a note-book in hand, 
jotting down some facts for the book he after¬ 
wards published, he suddenly stopped, looked 
at a new made straw-stack, and then at the grow¬ 
ing crops of corn, and at a large peach orchard 
that happened to be loaded with fine fruit. He 
was silent for some minutes, aud then, thinking 
aloud, rather than talking, he remarked: “ Har¬ 
vest all gathered and thrashed; the next wheat 
crop now in the ground, and ten or twelve weeks 
of fine, growing weather before winter. IVe 
would like such a chance in Scotland.” And it 
is undoubtedly true that after harvest is finished 
and the wheat all sown, we have a splendid op¬ 
portunity for plowing and cleaning our land. If 
we could only expedite the corn harvest, and 
get the crop off the land, every acre of corn 
ground might be plowed and got ready for 
spring sowing before winter sets in. 
Autumn is the time to work land, and spring 
the time to drain it. Winter is the time to draw 
the tiles to make manure, and to do everything 
that will facilitate the work of the 'spring aud 
summer. In the spring, while the ground is wet 
and loose from the effect of the frost, an under¬ 
drain can be dug with one third less labor than 
in the fall. When the plans are all laid aud the 
tiles on hand, a good deal of draining may be 
done in the five or six weeks in spring before we 
need to plow for corn. Some one writes to W\e Ag¬ 
riculturist that he thinks “ Walks and Talks has 
under-draining on the brain.” If I have, and the 
disease is contagious, I should like to communi¬ 
cate it to half a dozen of the most intelligent 
farmers in every town and post-office where the 
American Agriculturist is taken. Underdraining 
will be the great farm work of the next quarter of 
a centuiy. Wherever draining is needed—and I 
have never yet happened to see a farm where 
some portions of it did not need draining—no 
real and permanent improvement can be effected 
until this work is done. J recommend no ex¬ 
travagant expenditure of money. Those who 
have the capital to drain their land completely 
at once, would find it to their interest to devote 
a year or two principally to this work. But 
there are few such men. Most of us must drain 
a few acres each year, as we can afford the time 
and money. Only commence and do the work 
thoroughly as far as you go, and there is scarce¬ 
ly a man who will stop until his whole farm is 
drained wherever needed. If I could induce 
every reader of the Agriculturist to make up 
his mind never to let a year go past without 
making a few rods of ditch, I should feel that 
I had accomplished something worth living for. 
Put in stone drains if you can not get tile; 
but the latter, where they can be obtained at 
any reasonable price, are far cheaper and better. 
I have some stone drains that work well, aud 
two or three brush drains that do more or less 
good, but I have one stone drain that is stopped 
up, and several brush drains, that are useless, 
while I have not a single tile drain that does 
not do good service. I have some that are not 
deep enough, but I was bothered to get a good 
outlet. Some of my neighbors have not “ un¬ 
derdraining on the brain,” and it is not always 
easy to persuade them to join in cutting ditches 
deep enough to carry off the water. The only 
cure for this is, more light, more agricultural 
papers, and more neighborhood Farmers’ Clubs. 
A Farmer’s Bog-Cart. 
The two-wheeled vehicle known as the “ Dog- 
Cart ” (from having a space under the seats in 
which dogs may be carried for hunting expedi¬ 
tions), is very useful for ordinary knocking-about, 
in a country that is not too hilly. It is capable 
of stowing away baskets, and bundles, and 
bags, to an almost unlimited extent—all out of 
sight. One reason why it has not been more 
generally adopted in this country is, probably, 
that the only specimens we have had have been 
imported or made here for fancy driving, and 
have been too heavy and far too costly for cam- 
mon use. The cheap imitations that some of 
our country makers have produced have been 
but very miserable imitations, with all the faults 
and few of the advantages of the foreign article. 
In Montreal, they have a cart that we might 
