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ALBANY, MAY, 1858. 
No. Y. 
Management and Economy. 
T is a subject worthy of in¬ 
quiry, why some farmers, 
with only moderate means 
and with the growth of no 
extraordinary crops, make 
handsome yearly profits, 
while others with equal or 
superior means, and often 
perhaps with larger products in certain 
cases, accomplish little or nothing as an 
aggregate gain. The answer to this problem will 
doubtless be afforded by the superior management 
in the arrangement of the complex machinery, in 
conducting the multifarious work of the farm. 
We believe that a bird’s eye view of an entire 
year’s operation, would often greatly assist the 
farmer in improving his farm arrangements, and 
perhaps a few very brief suggestions may, at the 
present season of the year, afford some valuable 
assistance in accomplishing this purpose. 
The first great object in all farming, is., of course, 
to obtain from a given quantity of land, the lar¬ 
gest product with the least outlay or consumption 
of capital. > To secure this result, the following 
points should be attended to: 
1. The land must be in such condition as to ad¬ 
mit of working at all times, or nearly so, so that 
men and teams may not be standing idle, in wait¬ 
ing for the land to acquire a suitable degree of 
dryness. Hence, if naturally wet, it must be well 
under-drained. 
2. Its condition should be such as to admit of 
the application of manure to good advantage, by 
thorough intermixture and otherwise—-and not to 
render it useless by being enveloped with water or 
water-soaked earth. 
3. A high degree of fertility should be main¬ 
tained—as the same labor in that case will yield a 
larger result. 
4. A thorough eradication of weeds and their 
seeds, will save much subsequent labor in con¬ 
tending against them, as well as save much of the 
fertility of the soil from waste in their useless 
growth.. 
5. A saving of the materials of manure should 
be carefully attended to, as one-lialf at least of the 
solid and liquid portions are usually wasted by a 
neglect to provide absorbents or reservoirs. 
6. Selecting crops, and selecting a proper pro¬ 
portion of each, is of the highest consequence. 
The market value of one crop may be higher than 
that of another, but if it draws hard on the strength 
of the soil, or costs much labor, or if the labor re¬ 
quired be at a time when there are other impor¬ 
tant drafts upon it, such a crop should not be of¬ 
ten repeated. 
7. Everything should be done as cheaply as pos¬ 
sible, for which purpose crops should be arranged 
so as to distribute the labor equally through the 
year, that men and teams may not be idle at one 
period, and hardly driven at another, or in other 
words, that too much business may not at times 
accumulate for its thorough completion in season. 
It frequently happens that the difference bet ween 
profit and loss depends on this alone. 
8. Nothing is more important than the distri¬ 
bution of crops in a rotation, as they exhaust the 
soil differently, or what one takes from the land, 
another leaves; hence the greater variety of farm 
products, the more perfectly the balance will be 
maintained in the soil. For example, wheat, bar¬ 
ley and oats, are regarded as silica plants, or those 
which consume more largely the soluble flinty 
portions; peas, beans, and clover, are lime plants; 
potatoes and turneps are potash plants; these diffe¬ 
rent classes should be distributed so as to preserve 
the ingredients of the soil, if we may use the term, 
in equilibrium. To preserve, also, a clean state of 
land, sowed and hoed crops should be alternate 
with each other. 
9. A system comprising a proper intermixture 
of tillage and grass crops and raising domestic ani¬ 
mals, should be carefully made out and adopted. 
Grain crops often afford the highest immediate 
