9 4r 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Makcii, 
Improved Short-horns. 
Wc present a beautiful engraving on another 
page of a group of Short-horns taken from life. 
From time immemorial the counties of Dur¬ 
ham and York produced a race of fine, large 
cattle, the cows being famous as deep milkers. 
From these sprung the Teeswater breed, and it 
is from this original stock, grazing in the luxuri¬ 
ant meadows watered by the Tees and its tribut¬ 
aries, that the Short-horns come. The name 
“Durham,” or “Durham Short-horn,” was early 
attached to this breed, but by consent of the 
principal breeders, it has been dropped and that 
of Improved Short-liorn universally accepted. 
The breed, as it is, owes its celebrity, in fact its 
excellences, in a great measure neither to the 
Tees’ pastures, nor to the breeders of Durham— 
but all England has contributed to the one, and 
distinguished breeders of various parts of the 
kingdom have from time to time increased the 
other. The characteristics of the Short-horns 
have doubtless been borne by the stock of the 
best breeders in the section where they originated 
for a great number of years, but it was not until 
towards the close of the last century that they 
came to have such prominence among cattle 
breeders as their merits deserved. Early in the 
present century they were imported into this 
country, and from that day to the present have 
gained in favor with all breeders. The benefits 
which have already accrued to this count ry from 
the use of Short-horn bulls upon our common 
cows are beyond estimate. They have increased 
the size, rapidity of growth, aud fattening qual¬ 
ities of our stock, thus improving the beef and 
cheapening its production. They have improved 
our milch stock also in a very marked degree. 
In breeding for general purposes—beef, milk and 
labor—wherever the soil is rich and the grazing 
is fine, we think there is hardly a doubt that 
Short-horns are the best bulls to use with com¬ 
mon stock. Mow-a-days the farmer who breeds 
from either “scrub” (that is “native”) or 
grade bulls is shockingly behind the times, 
besides being blind to his own interests. 
Walks and Talks on the Farm,—Eo. 51. 
McAlister offered me $14 an acre rent for land 
to plant corn, provided I would plow it for him. 
I told him this was more than I should proba¬ 
bly get by planting it myself, but that I would 
not rent because no one who hires land for one 
crop would cultivate it as thoroughly as it 
should be. One neglected corn crop will injure 
land vastly more than the rent comes to. The 
weeds allowed to go to seed would affect the 
land for years. Our plan is to sow barley after 
corn, and Avheat after the barley. Look at the 
barley stubbles, and in five cases out of six you 
will see them covered with weeds. These weeds 
frequently reduce the following wheat crop 
eight or ten bushels per acre. And in this crop 
alone you lose more than the rent received for 
the land. But this is not the end of the mis¬ 
chief. The clover is not as good, and when 
you plow up the land the next time the weeds 
soon threaten the very existence of the crop. 
One year’s seeding makes seven years’ weeding. 
“ Do you not think you can make $14 an 
acre profit on a corn crop ?” At present prices, 
yes. At ordinary prices, no. Thirty bushels 
of shelled corn per acre is a good average crop 
in this section, worth, at 75 cents per bushel, 
$22.50; corn stalks, $5.50. Total receipts from 
the crop, $28. Preparing the land for the crop, 
$5; planting and seed, $1.50; cultivating 
three times, twice"in a row, both ways, $5; 
hoeing twice, $3; cutting up the corn, $1.50; 
husking and drawing in the corn, $4; draw¬ 
ing in the stalks, &c., $ 1 ; shelling and draw¬ 
ing to market, $2. Total, $23. Profit, $5.00. 
“Farming is a poor business.” Yes, poor 
farming is a very poor business; but good farm¬ 
ing is as good a business, at present prices, as 
I want, and withal as pleasant. A good farmer 
raises 00 bushels of corn per acre instead of 30 
bushels. He doubles the crop and realizes five 
times the profit. Ills land is cleaner, and he has 
twice the amount of fodder to feed out, and 
makes twice the amount of manure, and this 
doubles his future crops and quadruples his 
profits. Ilis land is getting richer and richer, 
while in the other case it will be likely to get 
poorer and poorer; ditto the farmer, and alas ! 
alas ! ditto his family. 
“ But what is a man to do who is poor and has 
poor land?” If he has good health, is indus¬ 
trious, economical, and is possessed of a fair 
share of good common sense, he need have no 
doubt as to his being able to renovate his farm 
and improve his own fortune. 
Faith in good farming is the first requisite. If 
this is weak, it will be strengthened by exercise. 
If you have not faith, act as though you had. 
Work hard, but do not be a drudge. A few 
hours’ vigorous labor will accomplish a great 
deal, and encourage you to continued effort. 
Be prompt, systematic, cheerful, and enthusi¬ 
astic. Go to bed early and get up when you 
wake. But take sleep enough. A man had 
better be in bed than at the tavern or grocery. 
Let not friends, even, keep you up late; “ man¬ 
ners is manners, but still your elth’s your elth.” 
“ But what has this to do with good farming ?” 
More than chemistry and all the science of the 
schools. Agriculture is an art and must be fol¬ 
lowed as such. Science will help—help enor¬ 
mously—but it will never enable us to dispense 
with industry. Chemistry throws great light on 
the art of cooking, but a farmer’s wife will roast 
a turkey better than Liebig. 
The cities are full of young men—many of 
them from the country—who arc out of employ¬ 
ment and are glad to work for enough to pay their 
board. They could save enough money by 
working on a farm for a few years, to buy one 
for themselves. But they think it more re¬ 
spectable to sell pins and measure tape. For 
my own part, I respect any man who is striv¬ 
ing to make an honest living by any kind of 
manual or mental labor. But I give the prefer¬ 
ence to agriculture, because it is in itself the 
main foundation of our national prosperity, and 
because it calls into exercise the best faculties of 
our nature. A clergyman can be a farmer 
without soiling his cloth. As I was coming 
home to-day a city man asked me to give him a 
ride. “Do you live on your farm now?” he 
asked, “and how do 3 r ou like it?” “Pretty well,” 
I replied. After a few remarks as to the scar¬ 
city of water, what good sleighing we had had, 
and how warm it was to-day, &c., he remarked, 
“ I wonder why } r ou would not be a good man 
to keep a tavern.” It seems that he and a few 
others had built a tavern somewhere and want¬ 
ed some one to take charge of it. “ If you had 
a few hundred dollars to buy furniture,” he said, 
“ you would get rich out of it.” I told him I 
did not know enough to keep a hotel and that 
Hiked farming. “But,” said he, “you could 
have a farm there, though I have known a^ood 
many fanners who went to keeping tavern that 
soon run the thing into the ground!” 
How, all this was intended to be very com¬ 
plimentary. In his eyes a tavern-keeper was 
considerable of a man, and in return for giving 
him a ride he wished me to go home with the 
comforting assurance that there was one man 
at least who thought I was fitted for something 
better than a farmer. It is to be feared that I 
did not thank him witli that degree of warmtji 
such kind intentions deserved. He will doubt¬ 
less conclude that “ these farmers are a boorish 
set; they don’t know enough to be polite.” 
One of the best farmers I ever knew used to 
say that he never remembered a season of 
drouth that was not followed by heavy crops 
the next year. The reason, in his case, doubt¬ 
less was that he availed himselfof the dry weath¬ 
er to cultivate his land thoroughly, and kill 
weeds, and of course better crops followed. 
But aside from this it is highly probable that a 
drouth enriches land by causing more water to 
rise from the subsoil, and, as it evaporates, the 
plant food which it contains is left near the sur¬ 
face. The country needs a heavy harvest this 
3 'ear, and we may reasonably hope for it. After 
the snow goes away the laud will turn up su¬ 
perbly. I presume the West will put in an im¬ 
mense area of spring grains and corn, and as 
the markets of the world are bare, and with the 
present premium on gold, there is a fair chance 
for remunerative prices. What our agriculture 
needs is more capital, but as long as 5-20’s bring 
in 9 per cent, there is little prospect of money 
being invested in farming operations. We can 
at all events, however, put in such crops as we 
do sow or plant in good order, and can subdue 
the weeds wherever the cultivator can be used. 
This alone would increase our crops enough to 
pay all our taxes, high as they are. 
The trouble is that nearly eveiy farm needs 
more or less draining, and till this is done, we 
lose half the benefit we should otherwise get 
from manure and good tillage. The system ad¬ 
vocated in Draining for Profit, of making a plan 
of all the draining necessary on a farm, and do¬ 
ing the work at once, is undoubted^' the most 
economical, but few of us have the necessary 
capital. Mr. Swan, whose farm adjoins John 
Johnston’s, underdrained in this systematic 
manner, and the cost was much less than Mr. 
Johnston’s. The farm contains 344 acres. It 
is high, rolling land, but the ridges' are full of 
springs, the water from which saturates the low¬ 
er portions. Most people would sa 3 '- that such 
high land did not need draining, but the crops 
told a different stoiy. The first 3 r ear after Mr. 
Swan bought the farm the wheat 3 uelded only 5 
bushels per acre. He then commenced to un¬ 
derdrain, stopping all other operations. He 
put in only six acres of avheat the first year, 
and this was on thoroughly drained land. It 
produced more wheat than he got from forty 
acres the previous year. He did pretty much 
all the work in two 3 'ears. The drains were 
dug by contract at 12 1 | 2 cents per rod; laying 
the tiles and filling the drains with plows cost 
3 cents per rod ; average cost of tiles and cart¬ 
age, 13 cents per rod ; total cost, 28‘| 2 cents per 
rod. There are over sixty-one miles of under¬ 
drains on the farm. The hills proved to be 
wetter than the valleys, and after the work was 
done it was found necessaiy to put an extra 
drain between the other drains on the hills. 
They are now about 27 feet apart on the high 
laud and double that distance on the low land. 
The drains are from 2 '| 2 to 3 feet deep. The 
whole cost was about $19 per acre. At the 
present time it would probably cost from $25 
to $30. Where a man has the capital it is 
doubtless best and cheapest to drain the whole 
farm in this systematic manner, but most of us 
