1872 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
375 
the rock from 12 to 20 feet. Mr. B. says he 
sowed seven bushels clover-seed on 35 acres of 
wheat, but it did not catch, and he is now plow¬ 
ing the stubble to sow to wheat again. His 
wheat this year was badly injured by the Hes¬ 
sian-fly, but his crop nevertheless -was two thirds 
of an average, or 15 bushels per acre. The 
weather was so dry that the w'lieat cut off 
by the fly filled as it lay on the ground wdthout 
damage. One fourth of his crop was rakings. 
He got 1G0 bushels from the first raking, and 30 
to 40 bushels the second time. “We ordinarily 
raise straw,” he sa 3 7 s, “five to six feet long, and 
get no wheat. This year the straw was not 
over three feet and well headed, and although 
very thin on the ground gave ns two thirds of a 
crop. Tell us why it is so.” On rich land wheat 
always does best in a dry season. 
Mr. B. says he uses 00 bushels of slaked lime 
per acre every four years. He sows it on the 
clover after the wheat is harvested. He says he 
would pay 30 cents a bushel for the unslaked 
lime if he could not get it cheaper. It costs 
him 20 cents a bushel,-which, as one bushel in 
slaking makes about two bushels, is equal to 
10 cents a bushel of slaked lime, or $0 per acre. 
“Try it,” he adds, “it will pay you better than 
anything you have ever used.” I have never 
used lime on clover, and the plan strikes me 
very favorably. Here, plaster (sulphate of 
lime) is quite cheap, and is our main depend¬ 
ence for increasing the growth of clover, and 
thus ultimately enriching the land for wheat. 
J. A. Clark, Jefferson Co., Wis., writes: “We 
have always grown spring-wheat here, and are 
this year harvesting about five bushels per acre. 
Don’t let the Reports from the Agricultural De¬ 
partment fool you. There never has been so 
poor a year for spring grain in Wisconsin as the 
present.” I am very sorry to hear it. I know 
the winter-wheat is very generally a failure. In 
this section the wdieat on thrashing turns out far 
worse than we expected—and we did not expect 
more than half a crop. I was in hopes that the 
spring-wheat would turn out well. If it does 
not, we shall see high prices for wheat before 
next harvest. 
I do not believe the climate is changing, or 
that the seasons are any more unfavorable than 
formerly. I question if Western New York ever 
produced a better crop of peaches than this 
year. And I can imagine horticultural writers 
thirty years hence in the twentieth century 
telling what magnificent crops of peaches we 
used to grow here when they were young men. 
They will forget or say nothing about the many 
years when we have scarcely a peach. 
A young friend of mine went to Illinois some 
years ago. He bought a farm for a few dollars 
per acre; put in forty or fifty acres of wheat 
the first year, and got 30 bushels per acre, and 
sold it for $1.50 per bushel. “And that crop 
ruined me,” he said. “ How so ? ” I asked. “ I 
have been trying to do the same thing again 
ever since, and this year scarcely got my 
seed back.” 
The truth is, there have always been good 
seasons and bad seasons, and will be until the 
end of time. He is the wise man w 7 ho under¬ 
stands this, and acts accordingly. I should not 
like to go to sea with a captain who expected 
nothing but fair weather. I have little respect 
for any man who hopes to get good crops 
without labor. I do not think such a man 
would succeed any better in a shop, or store, or 
factory. But be this as it may, he certainly can 
not make a good farmer until this kind of non¬ 
sense is driven out of him. Wet springs and 
dry summers, rust and insects, weedy land and 
poor wheat, floods and hail, milk-fever and 
floating curds, footrot in sheep and sickly 
lambs, colic in horses and liog-cholera—one or 
all will pay him a visit, and urge him to think, 
and work, and plan. If anything can make 
a man of him, it is farming. It can not be 
said, however, that farmers do not work hard 
enough. The great trouble is that we under¬ 
take to do too much. But I think this fact is 
now fully admitted by all intelligent farmers, 
and I feel confident that a great improvement 
in our agriculture will soon be apparent. The 
weeds, if nothing else, will compel us to culti¬ 
vate the ground more thoroughly. 
Peart, the butcher, was telling me to-day that 
this spring he bought two lots of grade lambs 
from two farmers, with the privilege of taking 
them “when fit.” Both lots when he bought 
them were equally good, and both had good 
pasture; but one lot had constant access to 
water, and the other had not. The former grew 
finely and got fat, and by the middle of August 
weighed from 60 to 70 lbs. each. The latter 
only -weighed from 40 to 45 lbs., and were so 
thin that he could not kill them. It seems 
passing strange that any one should expect ewes 
to furnish milk for their lambs during our hot 
summer weather without water. 
The people in England are holding meetings 
to see if nothing cau be done to lower the price 
of meat. All we can do to help them is to send 
them plenty of cheese and pork. Our exports 
of bacon, hams, lard, and pork to Europe for 
the past few months have been and still are 
enormous, and must soon it would seem put up 
the price here to something near the cost of 
production. A j 7 ear from this time the indica¬ 
tions are that there will be a great falling off in 
the number of pigs. 
I think the farmer who has fall pigs will do 
well to keep them and take good care of them. 
A year from now they will be wanted. I believe 
in the West it is thought that fall pigs are not as 
profitable as spring pigs. But with me I can 
make cheaper pork from early fall pigs than 
from spring pigs. The great point is to keep 
them well through the winter. If well wintered, 
they will keep fat bn clover during the sum¬ 
mer, and a very little corn in the fall will make 
them ready for market. 
My plan is to give my young pigs all the 
cooked corn-meal, with a little bran, that they 
w r ill eat and digest until they are four months old. 
After that I aim to keep them on cheaper and 
less concentrated food. There is nothing better 
than clover. In this way pork can be produced 
at a comparatively cheap rate. 
- -» n —-■ 
The Hatching- of Eggs. 
There seems to have been something abnormal 
in the condition of the atmosphere or of the 
hens last spring that prevented successful incu¬ 
bation. The complaint of bad luck is very 
general, or the unlucky ones have reported 
more generally than usual. It comes not only 
from novices, but from poultrymen of orthodox 
standing, who could count their chickens, as 
they thought, before they were hatched. “ Con¬ 
necticut” thinks the trouble lies in the prevalent 
custom of crowding hens into small yards, re¬ 
serving nineteen reasons Until this shall have 
been proved insufficient. “Ohio” thinks this 
can not be the cause, inasmuch as many hens 
in small yards hatch triumphantly, while some 
hens running at large make an entire failure. 
Another very plausible theory attributes the 
cause to the uncommon dryness of the month 
of May and the early spring. Some breeders 
who practice sprinkling the eggs every other 
day when the hen comes off to feed, succeeded 
as well this season as in any former jrnar. It 
may be doubted whether this theory has any 
sound basis. The hen left to herself does not 
wet her feathers, and her eggs do not get wet 
during incubation. Her first impulse on leaving 
the nest is to roll in dry dust, and the drier the 
better. The thunder theory is no more reason¬ 
able. Hardly a season passes without thunder 
in the spring, and yet the eggs hatch. There 
was no unusual display of electricity this season. 
With all the shortcomings of the hens from 
whom we have heard, we suspect that the great 
majority of quiet non-cackling birds have had 
about the usual success in hatching, and that 
the price of poultry, except among the amateur 
breeders, will not be affected the value of one 
mill in the dollar by any peculiarity of the 
hatching season. As to the fancy breeds, we 
suspect there has always been a slight discrep¬ 
ancy between the chickens counted before and 
after hatching, and that narrow quarters is 
likely to increase this difficulty. * 
Road Fences. 
One of the admirable features of the landscape 
in the new States and Territories is the freedom 
from fences. In some of the prairie States they 
have begun right by compelling every man to 
take care of his cattle, and holding him respon¬ 
sible for all damage to his neighbor’s crops. 
The fences mainly are on the boundary lines of 
farms, and these are often omitted. This gives 
full sweep to all the modern implements of 
husbandry — the cultivator, the horse mower 
and reaper, the tedder—and prepares the way 
for the steam-plow, which can not be far in the 
future. There is a great saving of time in the 
cultivation of large fields free from all obstruc¬ 
tions. One great want of Eastern farms now 
is to get rid of the heavy walls that our fathers 
have built at so much expense. The two, three, 
and four-acre fields want to be thrown together, 
and the fields arranged with reference to the 
system of rotation to be pursued upon the farm. 
If it is a four-years course, quarter that part of 
the farm that is to be devoted to tillage, simply 
marking the corner bounds with permanent 
stakes or stones. What, then, is to be done with 
our cattle ? On the frontier the neighborhood 
make one herd of their cattle, and a boy or 
herder takes care of them at so much per head. 
They are fed upon the public lands. In the 
older States pastures are already inclosed, and 
these need not be disturbed until the tillage land 
is arranged. In cases of radical reform the 
remedy is found in soiling. Arrange the barn 
with reference to keeping all the cattle in stalls 
the year round, and to making the largest 
amount of fertilizers possible. This is what we 
arc coming to in the Eastern States. If we com¬ 
pete with the West successfully, we must put 
our fences out of the way, use more machinery, 
make more manure, and cultivate the products 
consumed in our own markets. A farmershould 
be able to tell what crops are grown at a profit, 
and what bring him in debt. C. 
