406 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[November, 
Walks and Talks on the Farm—No. 59. 
Three years ago we cu an underdrain through 
a field that is now in clover, and I observed that 
the clover seed on the drain was at least twice 
as good as on the rest of the field. It was not 
owing to the influence of the drain, or it would 
have extended for a rod or more on each side. 
It was just the width of the drain, say a narrow 
strip of about fifteen inches. The clover was 
as high again, thicker, heavier, and better every¬ 
way, distinctly marking the whole length of the 
drain. It can be owing to nothing but deeper 
tillage. The fact has satisfied me that we do 
not plow deep enough on my farm, whatever 
may be the case on others, and henceforth in the 
fall of the year, I shall aim to put three horseson 
the plow, and go an inch or two deeper than the 
land has ever been plowed before. IVe do not 
now plow more than six inches deep, on the 
average, fairly measured. Such plowing was, 
perhaps, all very well when the country was 
new and the soil full of “ natural manure,” de¬ 
rived from the decay of leaves, and the ashes of 
trees; but on the old fields this source of fertility 
is nearly exhausted, and we depend nowon the 
decomposition of the soil itself. When the sur¬ 
face soil was full of manure, there was little ad¬ 
vantage in turning up two or three additional 
inches of raw subsoil; but now the subsoil is 
often much richer than the six inches of surface 
soil that has been worked for years, and an ad¬ 
ditional two or three inches brought to the sur¬ 
face in the fall of the year, and left where Jack 
Frost can tear it to pieces, will soon make capi¬ 
tal land. The Deacon put down his new Wiard 
jointer plow ten inches deep in plowing this 
spring for oats. The subsoil, he had always 
supposed, was a stiff, raw clay, but he says that 
this fall, in working this deep plowed land for 
wheat, he was surprised to find that the three 
or four inches of new clay that he turned up 
was gone, and a rich looking, mellow loam left 
in its place. On my own farm I find that what 
the men call “clay spots” are not clay at all. 
Underdrain them, plow them well when dry, 
work them thoroughly, and they become the best 
wheat and barley land on the farm, and I think 
in a few years they will also produce good corn. 
The Doctor spent his vacation in Vermont, 
with some old friends who are farmers’ “ They 
all take the Agriculturist,” belaid, “and read 
the Walks and Talks, but they would like them 
better if you had more to sa}' about dairying. 
They charged me to ask you what was the best 
way to renovate their old meadows and pas¬ 
tures. On one farm there was a wet strip of 
land in a meadow that produced little but tall, 
coarse grass, and rushes, and I finally induced 
the son to dig a ditch through it, and the day I 
left he went to Rutland for tiles to lay it with. 
No land could lie better for draining. There is 
abundance of fall, and yet there are acres and 
acres, and that of the richest land, that are unpro¬ 
ductive, for want of a few ditches. I tried to 
persuade the young men that it would be far 
better to stay at home and improve the old 
farms than to go West, as so many are doing.” 
When there is much low, rich land on the 
farms, the way to renovate the meadows and 
pastures is to drain this rich, but now useless 
land, and with the large crops which it would 
afterwards produce, make manure for the poor¬ 
er portions of the farm. This is the first step, 
and when once taken the rest is easy. You can 
make double the quantity of manure. The next 
step is to improve the quality of the manure—• 
to make one load worth as much as two or three. 
This can be done by feeding more grain or bran 
or oil-cake to the cows, and using means to pre¬ 
vent the manure from running to waste. With 
plenty of rich manure it is an easy matter to 
renovate the old pastures and meadows. A 
good pasture ought to support a cow to the acre, 
with perhaps a little green corn fodder during 
the dry weather in August. If it would not, I 
would try hard to make it. Drain every low 
spot, irrigate wherever it is possible, make the 
yard or stable manure into piles, and mix with 
it, at the rate of 500 lbs. per acre, some good 
bone-dust, or 200 lbs. per acre of Peruvian guano, 
or perhaps better still, 400 lbs. per acre of some 
good fish manure, and turn over the pile two or 
three times, until it is well decomposed, and 
then top-dress the pasture with it in the fall or 
early spring, and my word for it the land in a 
year or two will carry double the stock. “ But 
will it pay?” At present prices of cheese and 
butter and beef, nothing will pay better. Sup¬ 
pose a man has a 200-acre farm, worth $100 an 
acre, that now keeps 50 cows, and he buys 200 
acres more for $20,000, and then keeps 100 cows; 
on the other hand, suppose instead of paying 
$20,000 for the additional 200 acres, he can suc¬ 
ceed in making his old farm keep 100 cows, he 
would have just as large an income, with less 
taxes, less fences, less roads, and less expenses 
generally. If the expense of renovating the old 
farm was $20,000, he would be just as well off as 
if he bought 200 acres more land. But it can 
be done for half the money, and have $10,000 
to buy additional stock and put up new barns. 
“What! spend $10,000 in draining and ma¬ 
nuring the old farm, and $10,000 in additional 
buildings and stock ?”—Why not ? But I know 
it is useless to propose such a thing. It seems 
easier for a farmer to find $1,000 to buy more 
land than to raise fifty to spend in draining and 
munuring. Farmers have capital enough— 
many of them, at least—but they have not faith 
enough in improved farming to use it in enrich¬ 
ing their land. As I have said, in the case sup¬ 
posed, it would pay to spend $20,000 in drain¬ 
ing and manuring a 200-acre farm, quite as well 
as to lay it out iu buying a new farm. But of 
course it would cost no such money. Let a 
j r oung farmer use $2,000 for this purpose, and 
in the course of a few years the old farm would 
produce double what it does now. In other 
words, he makes $2,000 go as far as $20,000. 
He would keep as much stock on the 200 acres 
as on the 400 acres, make as much manure and 
be able to put on double the quantity per 
acre, and thus permanently enrich the land. 
The Doctor believes in small farms, well tilled, 
and I knew this kind of reasoning would please 
him. “ The small farms,” he said, “ are being 
bought up by the larger farmers in Vermont, and 
they tear down the old houses, and this makes 
it difficult to support schools and churches.” 
The same tendency exists here, and it is use¬ 
less to argue against it. If the large farmers 
have capital enough, and are all able and will¬ 
ing to employ it to the best advantage, no great 
harm will be done. This kind of farming will 
be more attractive to young men of energy, in¬ 
telligence, and ambition, and they will be less 
likely to leave the farm for the excitements of 
city life. Some of our agricultural writers and 
speakers complain that the proportion of pro¬ 
ducers to consumers is rapidly decreasing, and 
they argue that this is an unhealthy state of 
things. Perhaps it is, but it is rather strange 
that fanners should complain of it. Who ever 
heard a grocer or a dry goods merchant com¬ 
plain that his competitors were leaving the bus¬ 
iness ? Do manufacturers complain that the de¬ 
mand for their products is increasing faster than 
the supply ? It looks now as though farmers 
were about to receive ample compensation for 
all the skill, intelligence, and enterprise they can 
bring to their business. Good farming will now 
pay as it has never paid before. Owing to the 
high prices, even a poor farmer, if lie has a large 
farm, and is out of debt, manages to make a liv¬ 
ing, though much of his profits is more appa¬ 
rent than real. A neglected corn crop may pay 
$100, and injure the land for future crops to 
double the amount. But let us figure what a 
good farmer can do with 400 acres of choice 
land, every acre capable of yielding large crops, 
and selling nothing except butter, cheese, meat, 
wheat, barley, potatoes, and clover seed. 
.$ 8,000 
$6,600 
$8,000 
$2,560 
$6,400 
SO acres Wheat, 
80 “ Barley, 
40 bushels per acre, 
50 
Potatoes, 200 
Clover seed, (2d crop) 4 bus 
Pasture, keeping 80 cows, 
Corn, roots, &c. 
First crop clover, say equal 160 tons hay 
$2.50.. 
$1.65.. 
$1 00 .. 
@ $ 8 . 00 .. 
“ * ~ 00 .. 
1,000 sheep fatted in winter, gain say, $5.00_$5,000 
_ $36,560 
The straw from the wheat, barley, and clover 
seed, with stalks from 40 acres of corn or roots, 
with 1G0 tons of hay, or its equivalent in green 
food for soiling, and the corn from 40 acres, say 
80 bushels per acre, or 3,200 bushels shelled 
corn, with say 50 tons of oil-cake, would support 
the stock named and the necessaiy horses. 
The expenses may be estimated at: 
Labor, $12.50 per acre.$5,000 
50 tons oil-calte, @$50.$2,500 
Artificial manures.... $2,500 
Incidental expenses. .. $2,560 
$12,560 
Profit.....$24,000 
This is a profit of $60 per acre, and you will 
observe that I have said nothing about sundry 
little perquisites, such as pork, poultry, eggs, 
etc. These, where so much grain is raised, and 
so much stock is kept, would amount to quite a 
little sum. Cannot such results be attained ? 
I know of more than one farmer whose wheat 
sold this jrnar for $100 per acre, and on my poor 
farm I raised on one field 50 bushels of barley 
per acre, and sold it for ll.GS’la per bushel. It 
is not a difficult matter to raise 200 bushels of 
potatoes per acre, and they are now selling at 
$1.00 per bushel. With the aid of guano, 300 
bushels might be obtained on good land, en¬ 
riched with manure a year or two previous. 
The clover seed is a little uncertain on account 
of the weather. On land as rich, and clear, and 
mellow, and deep as it should be, drought would 
seldom be injurious, but in a wet season the 
growth might be so great that the heads would 
not fill well. But in this case there would be a 
splendid second crop of hat', with seed enough 
in it to much more than pay for thrashing. A 
good cow, with liberal feeding in winter and 
summer, will make from 500 to GOO lbs. of cheese 
in the season, worth now from 17c. to 18c. per lb. 
—say $85 to $108 per cow, so that the above esti¬ 
mate of $80 is moderate. If we may judge from 
past experience it is safe to estimate that a good 
sheep, costing, say $4.00 in the fall, will be worth, 
if well fatted, at least $9.00 in the spring. And 
in fact, at current rates, the food will cost $5.00 
a head. All the above estimates, therefore, are 
quite within the bounds of probability. And it 
is equally sure that a farm once capable of pro¬ 
ducing such crops can be maintained at this 
high state of fertility. There will be consumed 
on the farm, say : 
50 Tons Oil-cake. 
90 Tons Corn meal (3,200 
bushels). 
640 Tons. 
100 Tons Wheat straw. 
100 Tons Bailey straw. 
80 Tons Corn stalks. 
160 Tons Clover hay. 
00 Tons Clover seed hay. 
This would make from 1,500 to 2,000 loads of 
good manure, which in connection with $2,500 
