1872.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
51 
erage American farmer, because it is an instance 
in which a laboring man, by the aid of the best 
processes, has worked out his own success with¬ 
out the aid of the large capital that, for our 
purposes, vitiates the experiment in so many 
instances of the more conspicuous farming in 
Canada as well as elsewhere. 
The case to which I refer is that of Thomas 
Irving, the tenant of Logan’s Farm, on the 
high ground immediately north of the city of 
Montreal. I was so much struck with his suc¬ 
cess as a farmer—I trust I shall not offend my 
patriotic readers by saying that he is a better 
fanner than I have seen elsewhere—that I have 
taken pains to investigate, so far as I could, the 
causes of his success; causes which may all be 
Summed up in the one expression, Thoroughly 
good and faithful high farming. He came to Can¬ 
ada a healthy, stalwart young Scotch plowman 
in 1848, with his trade for his fortune. He soon 
became the manager of the farm, and in 1860 
he commenced to carry it on on his own account 
as tenant. From that -time until now he has 
had, so far as I could learn, no special advan¬ 
tage that any honest, industrious, thrifty, and 
intelligent laborer can not always command. 
That is, he was trusted by his landlord, and 
was given facilities for carrying on his business 
in a profitable way, even before he became, as 
he is now, a rich man. How rich he is, what 
rent he pays for his farm, what profit he makes 
year after year, I had no means of learning, nor 
would I have a right to report it if I knew. I 
did learn that he is an entirely satisfactory 
tenant, and that he is considered, even among 
the larger farmers of Canada, as more than 
“ forehanded.” The impression I received was 
that he has probably accumulated more money 
than falls to the lot of one farmer in a hundred 
thousand in the United States, and the only 
source of income that he has ever had has been 
the savings of his own wages while he was 
laborer or foreman, and his legitimate profits 
as a farmer since he became a tenant. 
The exact amount of land under plow and 
in grass is 240 acres. Of this, 124 acres was 
last year in grass, and 116 acres under the fol¬ 
lowing crops: Wheat, 20; barley, 10; oats, 40; 
corn, 8; horse-beans, 2; flax, 1; potatoes, 30; 
carrots, 3; mangolds, 4; turnips, 3. The grain- 
crops had not been thrashed at the time of my 
visit, but there had been stored 8,000 bushels of 
potatoes (besides 5 acres sold green in August), 
2,400 bushels of carrots, 4,200 bushels of man¬ 
golds, and 2,100 bushels of turnips. The season 
for the latter was unfavorable. The stock on 
the farm consists of 15 horses and colts, 31 
head of the choicest bred Ayrshire cattle, 20 
Leicester sheep, and 15 swine. Of the horses, 
11 are enormous thorough-bred Clydesdales, 
weighiag some 1,500 pounds each. Three 'teams 
are kept for farm-work, and one for market. 
The number of hands, employed the year through 
is eight. In spring, hay-time,'and harvest, these 
are increased as tlie work may require, Some¬ 
times to twenty hands, including women. 
Mr. Irving has imported on his own account 
five Clydesdales — three stallions and two 
mares; two Ayrshire bulls, “Robbie Burns” 
and “Lord Douglass and several heifers. 
Being a good business man, Mr. Irving is a 
large exhibitor at agricultural shows, and he 
gave me a list of premiums taken at Kingston 
and Quebec in 1871. At Kingston he took 
seven first prizes on live-stock (including the 
herd premium for Ayrshires), and ten other 
premiums. At Quebec he took thirteen first 
premiums, and eleven others. He was also a 
large prize-taker at the Montreal Horticultural 
Show. It is by no means to be understood that 
he is such an exceptional farmer in Canadji that 
all these honors befell him asm matter of course. 
There are plenty of others as good as he, and 
the competition has always been so sharp as to 
give a real value to the prizes. Neither have I 
mentioned his case so particularly because it is 
a very unusual one in Canada; only because it 
is the one that seems to carry the plainest lesson 
for American farmers. Here is a man, brought 
up in the most laborious walks of his profes¬ 
sion, full of practical shrewdness and dearly- 
bought experimental knowledge, who, on a 
farm of 240 acres—acres that are for five months 
of every year buried under the snow—keeps a 
much larger force of men and teams than any 
purely practical farmer in the United States 
with whom I am acquainted would dream of 
doing, who studies his North British Agricul- 
turist as though he had never heard book-farm¬ 
ing laughed at, and who devotes his money and 
time and skill and energy to working out in his 
own business every suggestion he receives, from 
whatever source, that commends itself to his 
judgment as worth trying. If ever there was 
a “book farmer” and a “high farmer,” Mr. Ir¬ 
ving is one; yet his fields, and his barns, and 
his stables, and his root-cellars, and—if the 
stories that are told of him are true—his “ stock¬ 
ing-heel” especially, all mark him as a more 
thoroughly practical farmer, and a much more 
successful one, than we are accustomed here to 
see. I went more than once to his farm, and 
endeavored to find what “ secret” might under¬ 
lie all this success. For all that I could see, it 
is only the old, old secret of a good business 
well followed. The land is not very rich, and 
it lies so flat that, being heavy, it has all to be 
worked in narrow “lands” to keep it dry. 
It is more a Scotch farm than an American 
one. Scotch horses, Scotch harness, Scotch 
plows, and Scotch plowmen turn the furrows 
with a precision and uniformity for which the 
farmers of North Britain have always been 
noted; and all of the details of the business, in 
the fields and about the buildings, had to me a 
very foreign look. There was everywhere the 
evidence of a large capital being employed, and 
of far greater attention being given to a work¬ 
manlike completeness of all farming-operations, 
.that is at least unusual with us. It was really 
a source of regret with me that I was not so 
situated that I could commence my farming 
life over again, and learn the art in so sys¬ 
tematic a school. 
The crops are all good, and uniformly good, 
but none of them very remarkable, except for 
the absence of very poor yields; the average is 
very high, because there are no poor crops to 
reduce it. The animals are well chosen, well 
bred, well.cared for, and bountifully fed. The 
home-made manure is abundant, and purchased 
manure is easily accessible. If I were farming 
in Canada, ona'similar soil and in a similar loca¬ 
tion, I should be glad to do as well as Mr. Ir¬ 
ving does; yet I fail to see anything, either in 
the location or in the soil, any better than I 
have at home. It is true that labor costs him 
only half as much as it costs me, but the same 
products would bring nearly twice as much 
with me as with him. My buildings are 
as good as his, and I have as good facilities for 
obtaining manure. In applying his measure to 
my own results, I see no recourse but frankly 
to confess that lie is a very much better farmer 
than I am. My only consolation is a conviction 
that if ever I shall become as good a farmer as 
he is, my success will be as great. Consequent¬ 
ly, all that I saw and what I have tried to de¬ 
tail for the benefit of my readers is entirely 
applicable to the circumstances of us all; and 
it is a not inappropriate end of my reflections 
to think that the best way “ To Keep the Boys 
on the Farm” would be to have them realize 
that well-regulated and skillfully managed farm¬ 
ing is here shown to possess every advantage 
that they can hope to gain from professions 
which are erroneously considered to be more 
learned, more worthy of an intelligent mind, 
and more profitable^ than good farming. 
I came home from Canada late in Novem¬ 
ber to find the winter closed in, in dead earnest, 
a month earlier than usual, and the work we are 
accustomed to leave in our moderate climate for 
December, all thrown at sixes and sevens. We 
have had a hard time in saving some crops that 
we ordinarily gather at our leisure, after others, 
farther from the sea-shore, have gone into win¬ 
ter quarters. However, thanks to our facilities 
for steaming food, we have commenced our 
winter diet without much checking of our 
yield of butter, which, even in the coldest 
weather, did not fall below sixty pounds per 
week; and is now, as the cattle are eating their 
winter rations more eagerly, increasing week 
by week. 
I have arranged to have my cows come in’as 
far as possible in April and May, but some of 
them are always out of time, and three have 
calved since August. Two others are due in 
January, and although these are all young 
ones, and the better cows are fast going dry, I 
hope that copious feeding will enable us to 
keep up our full product. 
- 
I have found less trouble than I anticipated 
in curing my corn-fodder. It was bound in 
large stooks in the field, and we took pains to 
keep it up until winter feeding commenced. 
Then, in hauling in, we always took first that 
which stood the least securely and was in dan¬ 
ger of being injured; never hauling in more 
than five loads at a time; but this quantity, 
stored ten feet deep in the mow, has shown no 
tendency to heat. At this writing (Christmas) 
we have a month’s supply still standing in the 
field, where it has withstood many storms of 
snow and rain without the least injury, keeping 
in perfect condition. 
This corn was cut when in full bloom, much 
of it ten feet high, and when the stalks were 
so hard that as green fodder only the leaves 
and tops were eaten. Now, the rind seems to 
have been softened in,curing, the pith is almost 
as sweet as sugar-cane, and the cattle eat it 
greedily to the huts when it is given to them 
whole. Cut and"steamed with bran, they eat it 
to the last particle, licking their mangers clean. 
For a month past they have had no hay what¬ 
ever (as its price is inordinately high) only corn¬ 
stalks and cured oats cut up together as the 
basis of the steamed food_. They were never 
in better condition. 
An Egg Farm. 
bt h. n. stoddabd. — Tenth Article. 
When poultry are kept upon a large scale 
they can obtain but few insects, for the latter 
are attracted and supported hy vegetation, of 
which there is next to none near the adult 
fowls, though care is taken to rear a part of the 
chickens among growing crops. The ample 
grounds around each station house, and the 
areas inclosed by the yards for sitters and for 
breeders, give space to secure cleanliness and 
