254: 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July, 
Walks and Talks on the Farm—No. 127. 
I had a visit the other day from four of the 
agricultural students at Cornell University. I 
enjoyed it very much. They were so genuinely 
enthusiastic and so anxious to learn. They got 
into the underdrains, examined the surface soil 
and subsoil, looked at the stones, the weeds, 
the crops, the fences, the implements, machines, 
horses, harness, whippletrees, pigs, sheep, 
grades, thorough-breds, lambs, and wool. It 
made me feel ten years younger to talk to such 
bright boys. One of them spent his last vaca¬ 
tion on Dr. Hexamer’s farm. Don’t tell me 
that we have no young men who love farming, 
or that there is no call for agricultural colleges. 
There is a chance for Cornell to do something 
for agriculture yet. These young men speak 
highly of Mr. Roberts, the new professor of 
agriculture. I believe Mr. Cornell has always 
wished to give agriculture a leading position in 
the University. I hope he will yet do so. 
“You have been predicting better times for 
farmers,” said the Deacon, “but I don’t seem 
to see them. Winter wheat looks miserable. 
Clover has been badly winter-killed. Old 
meadows are far from promising. The weather 
this spring has been cold and dry, and the 
crops have been put in late, and the prospects 
are that we shall have a light yield of oats 
and barley.” 
“This is a gloomy picture, Deacon,” I re¬ 
plied, “ but, admitting all that you say, I do 
not feel discouraged. When you say I have 
been predicting better times for farmers you 
do not quote me correctly. I have been pre¬ 
dicting better times for good farmers.” 
The Deacon thought a moment, and then 
asked quietly, “ What do you mean by a good 
farmer ? ” 
This seemed a proper question to ask, but I 
knew the Deacon too well to suppose that he 
asked it with any other object than to get me 
into a corner. And so I thought I would touch 
the Deacon on some of his tender points. 
“ A good farmer is a man who feels that he 
was sent into this world to work and think. 
He has more faith in himself than he has in 
what some people call ‘nature.’ When the 
gooseberry saw-fly first made its appearance, he 
did not fold his hands and let the caterpillars 
strip every leaf from his bushes. He consulted 
the books, and found out that it was no new 
thing. He availed himself of the experience of 
those who had studied the subject. He set out 
some good varieties of currants in rows four or 
five feet apart, where he could keep the land 
clean and mellow with a horse hoe. He exam¬ 
ined the bushes, and found hundreds of bead¬ 
like eggs glued to the underside of the leaves, 
and these he killed with his thumb and finger. 
He found, too, that the insect laid its eggs on 
the leaves of the young suckers. He cut off the 
suckers, and in this way not only killed thou¬ 
sands of eggs and young caterpillars, but 
strengthened the bushes by removing a large 
quantity of useless growth. He found that the 
lady-bugs came to his assistance, and he felt 
encouraged to persevere, and the result is that, 
while your old hedge-row currant bushes are 
used up, he gets a big crop of large currants 
that bring him $5 per bushel. And so this in¬ 
sect, instead of being an injury, is in reality an 
advantage to him. He gets better prices and 
far greater profits than when he ‘let nature 
take its course.’ I use this only as an illustra¬ 
tion of a general principle. The coaling-moth 
is destroying thousands and tens of thousands 
of barrels of apples in Western New York every 
year. A good farmer adopts means to hold 
them in check, and gets better prices for his 
apples than he would if there was no such in¬ 
sect. During the ‘ bearing year ’ he thins out 
his fruit, and the next year, when there is a 
light crop, he gets an average yield of fine fruit 
and big prices. It is the extra price and the 
extra yield that a farmer must look to for his 
profits. Take, for instance, an orchard of two 
hundred apple-trees, that produce 1,500 barrels 
of apples this year and 200 barrels next year. 
The crop this year is large and the fruit small, 
and it sells say for $1.25 per barrel. Next year 
the fruit brings $3.00 per barrel. It costs say 
40 cents a barrel to pick, head up, and market 
the fruit, and 40 cents for the barrel. The 
returns are: 
1874.—1,500 hbls. apples, @ $1.25.$1,875 
Barrels, picking, and marketing, @ 80c. 1,200 
$675 
1S75.—200 bbls, apples, $3.$G00 
Barrels, picking, and marketing, 80c. 160 
$440 
“ On the other hand, suppose the orchard is 
in high condition, and instead of letting the 
trees overbear this year the owner thins out the 
apples and gets 1,200 barrels of choice fruit 
worth $2.50 per barrel, and the next year 
1,000 barrels worth $3.25 per barrel. The 
returns are as follows: 
1S74.—1,200 bbls. apples, @ $2.50.$3,000 
Barrels, picking, and marketing, 80c. 900 
$2,040 
1875.—1.000 bbls. apples, @ $3.25..$3,250 
Barrels, picking, and marketing, @ 80c. 800 
$2,450 
“ In the one case the returns in the two years 
from the orchard are $1,115, and in the other 
$4,490.” 
“ But you do not know,” said the Deacon, 
“that you will get $3.25 per barrel for apples 
next year.” 
“ Of course not, but I got it last year, and 
what has been will be. I am trying to give 
you my idea of a good farmer. What is true 
of apples and currants is equally true of other 
crops. I sold potatoes this spring at $1.25 per 
bushel, hay at $30 per ton, butter at 40 cents 
per pound, and good beef and mutton are so 
scarce that I judge, from what he brings us, 
our country butcher can pick up nothing but 
old Merino ewes and half-starved yearling 
heifers. A piece of good sirloin from a well- 
fattened three-year-old steer is a rarity.” 
“All this is true enough,” said the Deacon, 
“but by the time we have anything to sell 
prices will be lower. I tell you, fanning is a 
poor business, and if it was not for your fancy 
pigs you would not talk so cheerfully. If I 
could sell pigs at two months old for $40 a 
pah 1 1 could make money by farming too.” 
“Now, Deacon,” I replied, “that is what I 
call mean. Here you have been neighbor to 
me ever since I have had these pigs. And it 
was two or three years before I could persuade 
you to try the cross on common sows. Before 
this you had amused yourself and others by 
saying that they were too delicate for ordinary 
farm treatment, that they wei'e too small for 
profit and too fat to breed, and, above all, that 
they were black, and that the butchers and 
packers would not buy black pork. My first 
litter of pigs were all killed but two. I felt 
discouraged, and all the consolation I got was, 
‘ I told you so.’ I took my pigs to the State 
Fair. One of my neighbors was on the com¬ 
mittee. ‘ I hate a black hog,’ he said, and 
when the awards came out my sow was put 
last and a grade white sow first. The next 
time I exhibited I brought home half a dozen. 
or more first-prize cards, but my best sow 
shortly after she came back from the fair was 
stricken down with paralysis and never recov¬ 
ered. ‘Too fat, too high-bred, too delicate,’ 
were the kind remarks I heard on every side. 
After this I had two sows due the same day. 
One had a litter of eleven pigs. It was a ter¬ 
ribly cold night in March. I sat up with her 
myself until one o’clock, kept the sow and 
little ones warm by keeping them covered with 
a blanket. I raised nine of them. The next 
morning I found that the other sow had had 
ten pigs, and my men, not knowing how to 
keep them under the blanket, allowed them to 
get chilled, and finally carried them into the 
house in a bushel basket without any covering,, 
and left them there squealing. When I got up r 
and took them back to the sow, they were too 
far gone, and every pig died. I have lost a 
good many animals in my time, but do not 
recollect ever feeling the loss so keenly as I did 
this—because it was sheer carelessness. Far¬ 
mers all over the neighborhood lost a great 
many litters of pigs that spring from sows that 
were certainly not too fat or high-bred, but that 
did not matter. Mine died because they were 
too delicate. After this my luck turned. I had 
three sows that produced thirty pigs, and we 
raised every pig and sold them for $25 apiece. 
They are scattered all over the United States, 
and have, so far as I have heard, given a good 
account of themselves. In that litter of nine 
that I saved during the cold night in March 
there were four sows. Two of them I sold, 
one to Mr. Weed of New York for $100, and 
the other to Mr. Hardin of Kentucky for $200. 
The other two I have yet. One we call Favor¬ 
ite and the other Rainbow. Neither of them 
bred until over two years old. Since then they 
have bred regularly, and have brought me in 
more money than any other two sows in the 
herd. I believe neither Mr. Weed nor Mr. 
Hardin had patience enough to wait for their 
sows to breed, and have abandoned the busi¬ 
ness. And you would do the same, Deacon. 
There is not one man in ten thousand who has 
the qualifications requisite for success as a 
breeder. My men who left the litter of pigs to 
die in the basket went into the woods to chop. 
It was what they were adapted for. It requires 
the patience and gentleness of a woman to take 
care of high-bred stock. Some time since a 
lady in Illinois wrote me that she was carrying 
on a farm for her fatherless children, and 
wanted some pigs. I sent her some, and if I 
mistake not we shall hear from her. We have 
all read of Lady Pigot’s success as a Shorthorn 
breeder. I know a lady in Saratoga County 
who, without saying anything about it, is 
equally enthusiastic and skillful. Mark my 
words, Deacon, the coming farmer will be a 
woman.” 
Two years ago, J. A. W., of Center Co., Pa.,, 
wrote me that he wanted a pig to cross with 
his Chester-white sows. As he wanted a white 
breed, I recommended him to get a thorough- 
bi'ed Suffolk. He did so, and now he sends me 
the weight of one of the pigs he killed when 
exactly one year old. He weighed the pig 
every week for the last six weeks. The small¬ 
est gain in any one week was 6 lbs., and the 
largest 20 lbs. His average gain during the six 
weeks was 111- lbs. per week, or 1-1 lb. per day. 
