Chapter V: Preface: To the First Edition (5)

Editors are not without blame for these actions and reactions. Many of our best agricultural papers are connected with agricultural warehouses which deal largely in all articles for which there is an agricultural demand. Without the slightest intention of deception, nay, with a desire to act cautiously, such pecuniary interest may sensibly affect the judgment of sanguine editors. But the wish to issue a spicy paper, full of life and surprise, inclines an editor to publish whatever is new, without a scrutiny of its truth. With a few honorable exceptions of standard periodicals, we scarcely take an agricultural paper which does not contain most absurd stories gravely indited without a word of comment. Now, it seems to us that agricultural papers ought not to be the common sewers of news, full of waste and refuse matter; but registers of rigid facts and scientific expositors of the principles deducible from facts. Farmers are at fault also in the matter. An editor who depends for his support upon the proceeds of his paper, must be a man of rare independence if he can shield himself from the selfish influence of those who are his best supporters. Men that have a novelty, a new and precious jewel of a flower, a heavy stock of nursery commodities, or large herds of fancy stock, sheep or swine, can afford to circulate widely and praise any paper that will circulate widely and praise their special interest. A sanguine editor inditing a eulogistic article, with a red-hot speculator whispering at each ear, will be very likely to lead many simple farmers astray. Such articles, copied by newspapers, spread the infection beyond the circle of subscribers. Farmers that take, and farmers that do not take the paper will be deceived.

Now, let husbandmen give to their agricultural papers such a support as shall leave the editors free from temptations to listen to interested persons; let them contribute so freely of their observations that editors will not have to draw upon their imagination for facts, and the agricultural press will become sober, stable, accurate, and so, profitable.

SINGLE-CROP FARMING.

It is extensively the practice of large farmers, to put their whole force upon one staple article; a style of farming as full of risk, as it would be to invest a whole fortune in one kind of property. At the South, we have cotton plantations; nothing but cotton is raised. If the market and the season happen to be propitious, enormous profits are made. If markets, or the planting or picking season are adverse, the year is lost; for it was staked on one article; all the risks of the year, instead of being distributed, were concentrated. Another plantation cultivates sugar exclusively; and the ambitious planter has his pockets full or empty, according to chances which he cannot foresee, calculate, or overrule.

At the North, some farmers put in nothing but wheat; others, nothing but corn. One relies on the hay crop; another makes or loses a year’s profits on cattle. In each case, if the staple raised happens to _hit_, in every respect profits roll in like a flood. But such operations leave no margin for those casualties, and annual changes, which are inevitable.

Ireland, relying upon the potato as a support for a large mass of its poverty-stricken people, is visited with famine if this crop is shaken. The failure of the grain crop, in England, strikes panic into the whole nation.

A perfect system of agriculture should have in itself, a balancing power. There should be such a distribution of crops that a farmer may have four or five chances instead of one. To be sure, a farmer cannot drive so large a business—cut such a swath—where five small or moderate operations take the place of a single great one. Five years of moderate profits are better than one gaining year and four years to eat it up. A farmer has 160 acres—sixty are in wood: of the one hundred cleared acres, say _twenty_ are used for home lots, pasture, corn, etc., and _eighty_ are in wheat. The fall may be bad for planting, the spring may be bad, the fly may take the crop or the rust may strike it; escaping all these, the weevil may damage it; and, after all this, it may not bring a justifying price when got to market. Is it wise for a man to put his yearly support or gains upon one crop and that one crop depending upon six or seven contingencies? If there is a large crop _and_ high prices, he makes largely. Eighty acres at thirty bushels the acre yields 2,400 bushels, worth, say, seventy cents, or $1,680 gross receipts. Elated beyond measure, the lucky fellow buys some forty acres more of cleared land, reduces his pasture, shaves of a portion from his meadow, plants a few acres only of corn, and puts every inch he can command into wheat; a good operation if he can find guaranty for as good seasons and as good market as before. But there are at least ten chances against for one in favor.

A farm which depends for its profit on butter, cheese, fruit, timber, cattle, hogs, corn, wheat, potatoes, flax, etc., makes, perhaps, but a little on each crop; but the rains that come in _drops_ are useful, while those that come in _torrents_ and raise freshets, leave great mischief behind.

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TICKS ON SHEEP.—A clergyman, who was early in life a regular-built shepherd, after the old-fashioned style, living with his flock, requests us to call the attention of all interested in sheep, to the prevention of ticks adopted “in the place he came from.” A trough, large enough to hold a sheep, was filled with a decoction of tobacco; as soon as the sheep are sheared, they are plunged all over in, except the nose and mouth (these organs being sacred to chewers and snuffers). The lambs are treated in the same way, and a world of trouble to the owner and yet more to the flock, is saved by this nauseous bath.

IMPROVED BREEDS OF HOGS AND CATTLE.

No farmer ever owns a fine animal without being proud of it. Yet, the same man will have an inveterate prejudice against what are called improved breeds. The “fancy” prices which have been extravagantly paid, the miserable failure which some have made in attempting to stock their farm with foreign breeds, together with a suspicion of whatever is new, and a lack of enterprise, have deterred many farmers from seeking a better stock than the common run. It is in this way that speculators, besides ruining themselves, which is of no great consequence, seriously retard the progress of enlightened husbandry.

Let us take a plain and practical view of the matter.

1. Every man who has had anything to do with cattle, horses and swine, knows very well what a difference there is between different animals, in respect to size, form, and aptitude to fatten. Among twenty steers there will be a few that without any reason that the owner can see, out-grow and out-fatten all the rest. A lot of fifty hogs gathered up from one neighborhood, will naturally divide itself into three sorts, those which fatten with remarkable rapidity and on little food; those that eat voraciously without taking on fat; and those that lie between these two extremes and are not remarkable in one way or the other. Every man that buys a horse knows that some horses require as much again food as others to keep them fat.

2. It is equally true that these qualities can be transmitted, by careful breeding, from parent to offspring; until the qualities become _fixed_ in the breed. A particular _strain of blood_, is then said to be established. By this process, English breeders of stock, with the greatest perseverance and with admirable skill, have established several truly improved breeds. It is not mere beauty of form that has been gained, although this has been eminently attained; but also all those qualities which make an ox valuable for the _yoke_ or for the _knife_; all that makes a cow good at the pail and afterwards for the butcher; all that makes a hog valuable in flesh and fat. It is a mistake to suppose that the improved breeds have been formed to please gentlemen farmers and amateur fanciers. They have been perfected with an eye mainly to their _profitableness_ to the farmer—the real farmer. Nor are they the stock for large farmers and rich proprietors alone. They are more peculiarly suited to farmers of small or moderate means than to any other; a rich farmer can afford to keep poor stock, if anybody can; but a small farmer is badly off indeed if the little that he has is poor.

3. No class of farmers are more interested in having good stock of all kinds than western farmers. Pork and beef constitute, probably, three-fifths of their exports. It is of the last importance that they should possess animals from which can be made the utmost profit. It is as much more profitable for an Indiana farmer to drive the very best cattle, as it is for a Massachusetts farmer. If improved breeds are found on the Mohawk to be vastly more profitable than common stock, they will be found to be just the same on the Wabash.

It does not follow, either, because we have more corn than we can feed, or more grass and hay than can be used, that we can make up for inferior quality by the greater quantity of cattle kept. A western farmer may winter a hundred head of cattle without positive loss, when a New York farmer would sink money by it. But that is not the question. Suppose two herds, of a hundred each, of four year olds, preparing for the shambles. They eat the same amount of grain, and hay or grass. But when weighing-time comes, one herd averages a fourth heavier than the other, and this is clear profit. With no more food, and no more labor, and no longer time in fattening, they yield the owner a fourth more profit.

Three men start a hundred hogs apiece for market.

The first lot is of the true land-shark breed, and will average, say one hundred and twenty-five pounds; the second lot are of a better breed, and will average two hundred pounds; the third hundred are of a choice breed and average three hundred pounds. If the market happen to be heavy, the first lot can hardly be sold; the second lot sells moderately well, the third lot goes promptly and at a shade higher price. Now what is the difference of profit? If pork is selling for two dollars the hundred, the first hundred hogs bring two hundred and fifty dollars. The second, four hundred dollars; and the third, six hundred dollars. That is, a difference of breeds makes a difference in profit, feeding and labor being the same in both cases, between the first and last lot, of three hundred and fifty dollars. But it will be more than this, for hogs averaging three hundred pounds will command twenty-five cents in the hundred more than those weighing a hundred and twenty-five pounds. The price which a farmer will get, then, for his hundred acres of corn, depends upon what his hogs can do for him. One sort of hogs can make up a fourth more fat than others, and another can make up still a fourth more than these. If you owned a mill, which of two millers would you choose—the one who could make forty pounds of flour to the bushel, or the one who could make forty-five—the quality being equally good? Of two acres of land, which would you choose—the one which would yield fifteen bushels of wheat, or the one which, with the same cultivation, would yield thirty? Our farmers are willing enough to hunt for good lands; but why, on the same reasons, should they not hunt for the best breeds of cows, cattle hogs, and horses?

4. As to the different varieties which are cried up, we have no interest in urging one more than another upon the public. It is all one to us whether Hereford, Devon, or Durham, prevail; Woburn, Byfield or Berkshire. All that we ask is that farmers should aim to procure _the best_. Their own experience must determine which that is. One kind will suit one range of land better than another. Beginning with moderation, a shrewd farmer will soon be able to tell whether any particular breed will suit his farm.

We presume that all farmers work for the sake of profit: we urge an improvement of stock simply on the ground of its _profitableness_.

ABSORBENT QUALITIES OF FLOUR.

It has long been known that flour gains in weight on being made up into bread. The English act of Parliament allowed 280 lbs. (a sack) of flour to make 320 lbs. of bread. But in fact it makes a much greater weight than this. The average per cent. of water, in English flour, naturally, according to Johnson, is 15 per cent. But good English and French wheat bread, according to the same author, contains 44 per cent. of water; i. e. twenty-eight pounds are absorbed in making. By this estimate, 280 lbs. would gain nearly _seventy four pounds_, while the act of Parliament allows only _forty pounds_.

It is understood that American wheat absorbs more water than English; and that United States southern wheat, absorbs more than northern. It is also true that good wheat gains more in baking than poor wheat, and old flour, more than new. It is not good _because_ it takes up water; but good flour has that property, and poor has not; and absorption is, therefore, an evidence of quality.

This absorption of water is in part mechanical and in part chemical. The difference between these may be illustrated; a bushel measure of shelled corn will admit a great quantity of water into its open spaces; it stands _between_ the kernels. When water is thrown upon lime, it does not exist _between_ the particles, but _combines_ with them. Flour absorbs water in both ways.

Absorption, mechanically, depends upon the coarseness of flour, either from the character of its growth, or from the manner of its grinding. The want of light and heat, in unfavorable climates, or in bad seasons, induces sluggish and imperfect action. The juices are but partially digested and assimilated. Many vegetable constituents exist, in consequence, in smaller quantities, or in a crude state. In such cases the texture is porous and spongy. Grinding breaks down the organized form without altering the essential nature of the texture.

It would seem, if this be true, that grain ripened under unfavorable influences would absorb _less_ rather than _more_ water, since the watery particles, from the want of rapid digestion and excretion, remain in the grain. But after grain is cut, and put to dry, a literal evaporation takes place; the water is, in a measure, exhaled.

We are not to suppose that a mechanical absorption predominates. By far the greatest proportion of water is supposed to _combine_ with the ingredients of the flour—starch, gluten, etc.,—chemically. And as flour is rich in starch and gluten, it will have the power of taking water into combination. It has been supposed that the absorbing power of flour depended mainly upon its gluten. But Johnson holds the position in doubt. Whereas, Webster (of England) states that it is with the starch, principally, that water combines. The per cent. of starch, sugar, and gluten, etc., in wheat, depends on the soil and climate;—on the soil, because it must derive from it, originally, the elements of its existence; on climate, because these elements require a certain temperature and quantity of light for their perfect elaboration. It is on this account, that the wheat of southern Europe is better than that of England; that that of Egypt is superior to the Italian. In each case there is a superiority of climate which produces the most perfect elaboration of all the elements of wheat.

PORTRAIT OF AN ANTI-BOOK-FARMER.

Whenever our anti-book-farmers can show us better crops at a less expense, better flocks, and better farms, and better owners on them, than book-farmers can, we shall become converts to their doctrines. But, as yet, we cannot see how _intelligence_ in a farmer, should injure his crops. Nor what difference it makes whether a farmer gets his ideas from a sheet of paper, or from a neighbor’s mouth, or from his own experience, so that he only gets good, practical, sound ideas. A farmer never objects to receive _political_ information from newspapers; he is quite willing to learn the state of markets from newspapers, and as willing to gain religious notions from reading, and historical knowledge, and all sorts of information except that which relates to his business. He will go over and hear a neighbor tell how he prepares his wheat-lands, how he selects and puts in his seed, how he deals with his grounds in spring, in harvest and after harvest-time; but if that neighbor should write it all down carefully and put it into paper, it’s all poison! it’s _book-farming_!

“Strange such a difference there should be
’Twixt tweedledum, and tweedledee.”

If I raise a head of lettuce surpassing all that has been seen hereabouts, every good farmer that loves a salad would send for a little seed, and ask, as he took it, “How do you contrive to raise such monstrous heads? you must have some secret about it.” But if my way were written down and printed, he would not touch it. “Poh, it’s bookish!”

Now let us inquire in what States land is the best managed, yields the most with the least cost, where are the best sheep, the best cattle, the best hogs, the best wheat? It will be found to be in those States having the most agricultural societies and the most widely-disseminated agricultural papers.

What is there in agriculture that requires a man to be ignorant if he will be skillful? Or why may every other class of men learn by reading except the farmer? Mechanics have their journals; commercial men have their papers; religious men, theirs; politicians, theirs; there are magazines and journals for the arts, for science, for education, and _why not for that grand pursuit on which all these stand_? We really could never understand why farmers should not wish to have their vocation on a level with others; why they should feel proud to have _no_ paper, while every other pursuit is fond of _having_ one.

Those who are prejudiced against book-farming are either good farmers, misinformed of the design of agricultural papers, or poor farmers who only treat this subject as they do all others, with blundering ignorance. First, the good farmers; there are in every county many industrious, hard-working men, who know that they cannot afford to risk anything upon wild experiments. They have a growing family to support, taxes to pay, lands perhaps on which purchase money is due, or they are straining every nerve to make their crops build a barn, that the barn may hold their crops. They suppose an agricultural paper to be stuffed full of wild fancies, expensive experiments, big stories made up by men who know of no farming except parlor-farming. They would, doubtless, be surprised to learn that ninety-nine parts in a hundred of the contents of agricultural papers are written by _hard-working practical farmers_! that the editor’s business is not to foist absurd stories upon credulous readers, but to sift stories, to scrutinize accounts, to obtain whatever has been abundantly proved to be fact, and to reject all that is suspected to be mere fanciful theory. Such papers are designed to prevent imposition; to kill off pretenders by exposing them; to search out from practical men whatever they have found out, and to publish it for the benefit of their brethren all over the Union; to spread before the laboring classes such sound, well-approved scientific knowledge as shall throw light upon every operation of the farm, the orchard and the garden.

The other class who rail at book-farming ought to be excused, for they do not treat book-farming any worse than they do their own farming; indeed, not half so bad. They rate the paper with their tongue; but cruelly abuse their ground, for twelve months in the year with both hands. I will draw the portrait of a genuine anti-book-farmer of this last sort.

He plows three inches deep lest he should turn up the poison that, in his estimation, lies below; his wheat-land is plowed so as to keep as much water on it as possible; he sows two bushels to the acre and reaps ten, so that it takes a fifth of his crop to seed his ground; his corn-land has never any help from him, but bears just what it pleases, which is from thirty to thirty-five bushels by measurement, though he brags that it is fifty or sixty. His hogs, if not remarkable for fattening qualities, would beat old Eclipse at a quarter-race; and were the man not prejudiced against deep plowing, his hogs would work his grounds better with their prodigious snouts than he does with his jack-knife-plow. His meadow-lands yield him from three-quarters of a ton to a whole ton of hay, which is regularly spoiled in curing, regularly left out for a month, very irregularly stacked up, and left for the cattle to pull out at their pleasure, and half-eat and half-trample underfoot. His horses would excite the avarice of an anatomist in search of osteological specimens, and returning from their range of pasture they are walking herbariums, bearing specimens in their mane and tail of every weed that bears a bur or cockle. But oh, the cows! If held up in a bright day to the sun, don’t you think they would be semi-transparent? But he tells us that good milkers are always poor! His cows get what Providence sends them, and very little beside, except in winter, then they have a half-peck of corn on ears a foot long thrown to them, and they afford lively spectacles of animated corn and cob-crushers—never mind, they yield, on an average, three quarts of milk a-day! and that milk yields varieties of butter quite astonishing.

His farm never grows any better, in many respects it gets annually worse. After ten years’ work on a good soil, while his neighbors have grown rich, he is just where he started, only his house is dirtier, his fences more tottering, his soil poorer, his pride and his ignorance greater. And when, at last, he sells out to a Pennsylvanian that reads the Farmers’ Cabinet, or to some New Yorker with his Cultivator packed up carefully as if it were gold, or to a Yankee with his New England Farmer, he goes off to Missouri, thanking Heaven that _he’s_ not a book-farmer!

Unquestionably, there are two sides to this question, and both of them _extremes_, and therefore both of them deficient in science and in common sense. If men were made according to our notions, there should not be a silly one alive; but it is otherwise ordered, and there is no department of human life in which we do not find weak and foolish men. This is true of farming as much as of any other calling. But no one dreams of setting down the vocation of agriculture because, like every other, it has its proportion of stupid men.

Why then should agricultural _writers_, as a class, be summarily rejected because some of them are visionary? Are we not to be allowed our share of fools as well as every other department of life? We insist on our rights.

A book or a paper never proposes to take the place of a farmer’s _judgment_. Not to read at all is bad enough; but to read, and swallow everything without reflection, or discrimination, this is even worse. Such a one is not a book-headed but a block-headed farmer. Papers are designed to _assist_. Those who read them must select, modify, and act according to their own native judgment. So used, papers answer a double purpose; they convey a great amount of valuable practical information, and then they stir up the reader to habits of thought; they make him more inquisitive, more observing, more reasoning, and, therefore, more reasonable.

Now, as to the contents of agricultural papers, whose fault is it if they are not _practical_? Who are the practical men? who are daily conversant with just the things a cultivator most needs to know? who is stumbling upon difficulties, or discovering some escape from them? who is it that knows so much about gardens, orchards, farms, cattle, grains and grasses? Why, the very men _who won’t write a word for the paper that they read_, and then complain that there is nothing _practical in it_. Yes there is. There is practical evidence that men are more willing to be helped than to help others; and also that men sometimes blame others for things of which they themselves are chiefly blameworthy.

GOOD BREEDS OF COWS.

There is hardly one thing which conduces more to the comfort of a family than a good cow. A family well supplied with rich milk twice a day cannot have poor fare; for, besides the use of pure milk by itself, there is no article, except flour, which enters into so many forms of cooking. Next in importance to the family, are the relations of the cow to the dairy; we say _next_ to the family, for it is more important that there should be good cows for private families than that dairies should have them. All the dairy herds might be destroyed, and if each family has its cow, the loss would be bearable. But take from families their one cow, and all the dairies in the land could not compensate.

The question of a good breed of milch cows is important, then, to the whole community; to the dairymen of course; but yet more to the families of laborers, mechanics, merchants, etc.

Everybody knows that it costs no more to keep a good cow than a poor one. But what is the use in talking so when good ones are not to be had? or to be had only at a price which not one in fifty can afford? But so far as we are concerned, and so far as ninety-nine in a hundred are concerned, of what use are these accounts except to make us dissatisfied with our poor old cow without enabling us to get a better? It was all right to publish them, but the sight of such facts reminded us of the low estate of our milk cows, and of the woeful carelessness of farmers about improving their stock.

It is high time that farmers should endeavor to procure a good milk breed. It is well known that horses and oxen are almost bred to order; if a fore shoulder is too slight, a breeder crosses so that in the next generation it comes out right; if the animal is too small he is enlarged; if too large he is condensed; if the back is too long, the leg too heavy, the muscle too spare, the head heavily or clumsily put on, the breeder has skill, in a great measure, to remedy the evils. Why then should it not be thought both possible and worth while to breed for good milking properties?

The least trouble, not the best stock, seems to be the question with most. The discouragement of debt, the low prices of all farm products, the habits of arrant carelessness which naturally belong to large farms, of rich lands, removed from a ready market, and on which there is more than enough for home use, and much waste of the surplus because a poor sale for it; these things are the causes why but little attention is paid to good stock. To be sure, in speculating times, large prices have been paid for animals of repute. And now, if fancy prices could be realized, there are thousands who would beg, borrow, or steal enough to rush madly into the raising of improved breeds. Even from such extravagance much collateral advantage results. Many, doubtless, are disappointed, as they expected angelic cattle, and got nothing but flesh and blood; those who are the most furious in one extreme, revolt to the other, and are as careless and neglectful this year, as they were cattle-mad the last year. But, some good, notwithstanding, remains. Good breeds have been brought in. Good blood will run longer in good stock, than perseverance, often, will in their owners. Here and there a man holds on. His stock improves. His neighbor’s herds are gradually leavened. By and by particular counties grow famous for their fine stock. The farmers feel some pride in it; and now the thing begins to work rightly. When once the best stock, of any kind, is a matter of hearty personal pride with the farmer, over and above the mere price of them in market, then there will be constant and solid improvement.

These remarks, applying to stock generally, are peculiarly applicable to the subject of milch cows with which we set out.

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DAHLIAS.—It is necessary to give your plants a strong support, for, in good seasons, they grow so thriftily, that rains and winds break down the branches even when the main stalk is strongly staked. Those who are willing to be at the trouble, should put three stakes so as to leave the stem in the middle. Take a pliant withe, or small hoop, and encircle the stakes at the top, the middle, and also about a foot from the ground. In this way the branches will lean on the hoops, and not be liable to split off; a few weeks’ growth will cover and conceal the stakes and hoops, leaving to the eye only a mass of foliage, apparently, self-sustained.

CUTTING AND CURING GRASS.

The question when grass ought to be cut, it seems to us, is to be answered by the purposes to which we mean to put it.

Do we wish it for the seed, or for the stem? Are we anxious to obtain the greatest weight from an acre? or are we desirous of gaining the largest amount with the least exhaustion of the soil?

1. If one, regardless of soil, wishes the greatest weight to an acre, let the grass ripen. It will have become perfectly developed; its juices will have perfected the solid matter, and less loss will ensue in curing. But the stem will be comparatively hard, and without nutriment.

2. Do we desire, without particular regard to economy, the most nutricious food for animals? The grass should ripen and _only the upper part of the stem_ and the head should be fed out; for, while the buts will be hard and juiceless, the grain and husk and neighboring parts will have received, in a concentrated form, the height of the plant’s juices. Chemistry has recently shown that plants prepare in themselves, the fatty matter which is afterward laid on the bones of the cattle. This fatty substance lies not in the grain, but the husk.

Johnston, the agricultural chemist, says “This fact of the existence of more fat in the husk than in the inner part of the grain, explains what often seems inexplicable to the practical man, why bran, namely, which _appears_ to contain little or no nourishing substance, should yet fatten pigs and other full grown animals when fed to them in sufficient quantity, along with their other food.” If for example, a horse is to be trained, it has long been the _practice_ (though hitherto the reason was not understood) to give the racers, the hunter, etc., only the top joint and head of hay. Now the principle on which a trained horse is fed, is to give the most solid nourishment in the most compact form—throwing as little unnutricious food as possible into the stomach consistently with a proper distension of it.

This fact also explains the value of old hay which has been well cured and well kept. It is known that freshly gathered nuts are not so oily as those which are old. All seeds perfect their oil after being thoroughly ripened by keeping. The seed of old hay will be richer in fatty matter, then, than new.

3. The most palatable hay for cattle is that which is cut before it ripens its seed. If the farmer has enough grain to feed with, he can afford to cut his grass early. Its want of nutriment will be made up by feeding grain, and his stock will relish their food better than if it had grown hard with age before cutting.

4. _But for general purposes_, grass should be cut when just out of flower. This is a compromise between the two extremes. It combines the two advantages of juiciness of stem and richness of grain more nearly than any other. The stem will be cut while yet in juice, and the seed will continue to fill and ripen _after it has been cut_. This is well known in respect to wheat, and the best farmers cut it before it is dead ripe.

The want of barns to store it, the want of markets in which to sell it, the want of profit in raising it, and lastly, the want of thrift in making it, has caused thousands of tons of hay to be most wretchedly put up—_curing_ as it is sarcastically called; cured, probably, on the principle of the following story: A physician in England went out with the gamekeeper to hunt; covey after covey was started, into which the doctor fired with a strange want of professional skill, without killing anything. The gamekeeper at length lost patience, and snatching the gun, said:

“Let me take it, I’ll doctor them.”

“What do you mean, sir, by _doctoring_ them?”

“Why, kill them, to be sure.”

Thus, we think, grass is too often doctored.

COUNTRY AND CITY.

A worthy friend recently said to me: “A gentlemen of observation from one of our principal cities of the West, stated to me, that in point of fact, almost all the leading men of the cities were from the country, and had been raised farmers’ sons. The reasons seemed to me quite obvious. The vigorous health, patient industry, thorough economy, and hard thinking necessary to success, are the product of the country and but seldom of the town or city. A large part of the best merit and talent of the country doubtless remains upon and adorns our farms. Another portion is drawn by a spirit for enterprise of a different kind to our towns. When they enter they find an active competition that brings out their best efforts. Success on their part takes away the necessity of effort on the part of their children; and the next result is, that their children become reduced in means and merit, and every element of success, and are driven to some refuge in vice or petty employment. It is therefore the duty of the man who has been successful in town, to retire to the country again that his children, who are to succeed him, may partake, as far as possible, of his advantages.”

The _facts_ stated we believe are undoubted; the business men—merchants, lawyers, physicians, and clergymen of large cities are, to a large degree, drawn from the country. And there is a system of _circulation_, if the facts could be well made out, worth attention. In travelling, one day last year, the rain drove us into a country tavern, where a fat man of some fifty years of age was waiting to entertain us with a dish of philosophy (of which, considering our accommodations, we had special need). But we were led to notice one part of his remarks: “You see, sir, everything comes round in about four generations. First comes the enterprising and hard-working fellow who gets the money; then his children begin to live in style; but their parents’ example and stamina keep them pretty well up; but _their_ children begin to run down; in their hands the property is wasted and they die poor; and the fourth race begin in poverty, and work upward again.” Now, if our fat and somewhat dogmatical friend has reasoned aright, there is a degenerating and rejuvenating process going on in society, having a period of about four or five years. We give the theory for what it may be worth.

LIME UPON WHEAT.

Lime is used either to prepare the seed for germination, or to prepare the soil for the better growth of the seed. This latter operation it does, either by adding itself as a new ingredient, or by acting chemically upon the ingredients already in the soil.

When lime is applied _to the seed_ (the seed being moist) the oxygen of the water, combining with carbon of the seed, forms carbonic acid; which, having a powerful affinity for lime, unites with it, forming a carbonate of lime. The escape of a portion of its carbon constitutes the natural preparation of a seed for growth; but why, chemists have not been able to explain.

Air-slaked lime, is lime which has combined with carbonic acid existing in the atmosphere. Unburnt limestone is a carbonate of lime; air-slaked lime is the same, and they do not materially differ. Air-slaked lime, having no longer an affinity for carbonic acid, withdraws none from the grain to which it may be applied; and in nothing helps the germinating process. Our readers will therefore see the reason why wheat does not sprout any quicker when it is limed, than when it is not. Precisely the same thing is true of other substances applied to grains. Magnesia, existing naturally as a carbonate, like lime, has its carbonic acid expelled by strong heat, and in that state applied to seeds, will assist the germination. If exposed to the air it attracts carbonic acid and becomes again a carbonate, and useless to seeds.

Where lime is employed _upon the soil_, it is either as a mere article of vegetable food, or, as a chemical agent, to change the condition of other ingredients of the soil. All good soils contain lime; of ninety-four different cultivated soils in Rhode Island, analyzed by Professor C. T. Jackson, _eighty-nine_ contained lime. Ruffin, in his essay on calcareous manures, says, after a large induction of fact, “that all soils naturally poor, are certainly destitute of calcareous earth.” When there exists in the soil, already, enough lime for the wants of vegetation, the addition of more will produce no effect upon the crop. New lands, and old land not run down, and naturally rich in lime, may require none. But lime is applied not alone as food directly offered to vegetation, but to act upon and change the soil itself.

It _neutralises_ free acids which exist in the soil. This is done with quick-lime or air-slaked; the first combining directly with the acid—the second by liberating its carbonic acid and then combining with the acid of the soil, leaving the carbonic acid to be food for plants. It is very well known by those accustomed to use peaty substances for manures, and meadow mud, that they will rather injure than benefit soils, until their acid has been neutralized.

Lime _decomposes_ vegetable fibre, and reduces tough ligneous substances, to a consideration in which they can be appropriated by plants. For this purpose _quick-lime_ should be used and may be applied at the rate of from twenty to thirty bushels to the acre.

Lime enters into combination with sand or silex, forming a substance different from either of them. Even strong clays will be found to contain much silex; and lime, by combining with it, makes the soil friable or crumbling.

CULTURE OF HOPS.

We shall state such facts as are within our reach, and leave each one to make his own calculations.

THE HOP PLANT.—The hop belongs to the natural order, Urticeæ, or the nettle and hemp family. Its root is perennial; its stem annual, twining to the height of from fifteen to twenty feet. They bear male and female flowers on different plants, and the female is the only one used for planting.

SOIL.—Rich, friable clay, and hearty loams, and vegetable molds are the best soils. A wet subsoil is fatal to their health. Any rich, light, dry (but not droughty) soil suits them. A large crop may be obtained from our rich alluvions, or bottom lands; but although uplands yield a less crop, the quality is regarded as decidedly superior. A wet clay subsoil is not good.

PLANTING.—Plants are set out in rows six to eight feet apart and six to eight feet from hill to hill in the row. Rooted plants, but more frequently cuttings from old plants are employed; five or six being planted to the hill. Poles from fifteen to twenty feet in length are placed to each hill. In England from three to six and even eight are placed to each hill. But three is about the average number.

HARVEST.—No crop is more variable than this; the yield per acre ranging according to the season from 300 to 2,000 lbs. On rich bottom lands 2,000 lbs. may be not unfrequently raised; but on an average, from 700 to 1,000 lbs. may be reckoned.

The plants bloom in July and are ready for harvest by the first of September. It is necessary to gather them promptly, as they soon deteriorate if allowed to remain after they are ripe. As soon as gathered they are kiln-dried, then placed from ten days to two weeks to cool, and, finally, they are baled for market.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.—A plantation will last in full vigor for ten years, and then will decline, but gradually, for ten more, when it is to be broken up. Fifteen years, perhaps, is the average duration of the hop plantations. They exhaust the soil, withdrawing much and returning little to it. Hops vary exceedingly in price in different years, not only on account of the varying supply arising from the uncertainty of yield, but from the quality of the article in different years. The average price in the United States is not far from sixteen cents per pound. Sometimes they rise to thirty, forty, and even fifty cents per pound.

From the moment of sprouting, in the spring, until the hop is ready for the kiln, they are liable to disaster from insects or disease. Nowhere has more experience been had in their cultivation than in England. Brown says, “they are exposed to more diseases than any other plant with which we are acquainted, and the trade offers greater room for speculation than any other exercised within the British dominions.” Parkinson, with a quaint play upon the word hop, says, “the _hop_ is said to be a plant very properly named, as there is never any certainty in cultivating it.”

If the crop is to be planted largely, it would seem plain, from the foregoing, that one should have capital enough to be able to bear some losses, at least, at first. For ordinary cultivators, if the experiment is to be made, it would be better to begin with a small plantation at first, embarking more largely as knowledge and skill increase, and as experience determines its profitableness.

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GRAPE VINES should be trimmed before the sap begins to rise, else they will bleed, to their great injury. If it be neglected till the sap is in motion, let the cultivator wait till the leaves are about the size of a dollar; then cutting may be performed without injury.

WHITE CLOVER.

We are inclined to suppose that the excellences of white clover have not been enough esteemed among our farmers; indeed, they have adopted a few grasses as special favorites upon whom all favors are lavished, and the rest are totally or very nearly rejected.

In regions where dairies abound, and where, therefore, the subject of pasturage is of vital interest, those grasses are sown which spring early in the year and continue late; which grow quickly, abundantly, and shoot again rapidly after being cropped; which are nutritious; which tend to produce milk, and impart to it high flavor. If any _one_ grass possessed all these properties, it would be perfect; and, for pastures, all others might be rejected. As it is, several grasses must conspire to form a _sward_ possessed of these diverse excellences. In this joint result white clover bears no mean place. It is, on congenial soils, of vigorous growth, eminently conducive to the production of milk, and milk of fine flavor. These are its peculiar virtues. Besides these, it possesses in common with other pasture plants, hardiness, tenacity of life, nutritiousness for beef-cattle. Thaër, the most eminent practical, and scientific cultivator of his day, says: “_It is certainly the most generally approved of all plants that are cultivated for this_ (pasture) _purpose_.” Sinclair, whose authority in grasses will not be disputed, says: “nor does it form a good pasture when sown _by itself_ … but, combined with other grasses, it is a valuable plant.” Great quantities of seed are annually sown in England by the best farmers. Fessenden, of New England, says, “it does not contain as much nutritive matter as red clover; yet its value as a _pasture-grass is universally admitted_.” This is the experience of Germany, England, and New England. Has experience determined that these good qualities are suppressed in western pastures? Or is there such a prejudice against it on account of its prying, intrusive disposition in arable lands, that our farmers are unwilling to give it a chance?

PLOWING CORN.

Many farmers, because their fathers did so before them, plow their corn lands very shallow before planting; but make up for it in deep plowing while dressing the corn crop. Why is corn plowed at all?

1. TO DESTROY WEEDS.—In this climate if a plow is not kept lively in the early part of the season, weeds will completely take the crop. The soil is like a table full of food. Every man who sits down to it makes it less. Every weed eats up a part of the soil, and takes away, needlessly, so much from the corn. But it is not merely the nutritive ingredients which are extracted—but what, on some soils, in some seasons, is even worse—weeds drink up the moisture. There are many soils which could afford to lose much mineral and vegetable substance without lessening the supply for corn; but, in this climate, in ordinary seasons, no soil can afford to squander its moisture.

But a corn crop is often put in to act as a cleanser of the soil when it has become foul. This end can only be answered by a rigid persecution and destruction of the weeds throughout the whole growing season. Some farmers, strangely enough, will deal thoroughly with their fields, but allow the edges and fence rows to swarm with weeds that luxuriate and ripen seed which the winds scatter all over the field. This is as if a man should busy himself all day long, in driving hogs out of his field, but leave all the holes open where they broke in. The soil should be thoroughly worked.

2. TO PREVENT DRYNESS.—Nothing is wider of the truth, than letting corn alone in dry weather for fear of “firing” it. If the plow begins early, and is kept going, no drought likely to occur in our climate can do much injury; especially if the ground has been broken up deep before planting.

Where the atmosphere is very dry, very hot and windy, the evaporation of moisture from the plant, and from the surface of the soil, is excessive. A hill of corn will exhale many pounds of moisture in a day. There is no remedy for excessive exhalation from plants; but this renders it yet more necessary that a supply should be kept up at the roots. If the soil therefore, is permitted to evaporate from its surface, the double draught upon its moisture—through the plant, and from the surface—will soon exhaust its water.

Everybody knows that if a board or cloth be put upon the ground, in dry weather, the earth under it will remain moist—its aqueous particles being checked in their passage upward. If a shovelful of fine manure be laid in a heap upon a spot of ground, the same effect will be produced. Gardeners are accustomed to cover the earth about shrubs with an inch or two of fine sand; experience teaching them that it preserves the moisture of the soil. Now, if the soil, instead of being covered with sand, or light manure, be itself pulverized, the same effect will be produced—and for reasons which will appear. When the soil is compact the moisture ascends from particle to particle without obstruction. Every crevice which separates the particles of earth, checks the passage of the moisture. This may be more readily seen in an analogous case—the transmission of heat. Take two nail-rods, lay the end of one in the fire; divide the other into inch pieces and lay them in a row from the fire, each piece touching the other. The transmission of heat in the rod made up of pieces will be checked at each point of division, while the uncut rod will heat rapidly. On this principle, an iron chain two feet long, with one end thrust into fire, will not transmit heat through its length near so soon as a solid bar of the same length.

If this reasoning be true, and experience bears it out, the plow should be kept running in dry times to save a crop from drought. But if the farmer has neglected his corn, waiting for rain, and begins to plow after his ground is very dry, and plows deep, _breaking the roots_ of his corn, the crop will be “fired;” for, in this case, besides the evaporation from the leaves and the dryness of the soil, he commences breaking the roots by which the crop drinks what little water there may be left for it. Of course it despairs when it is attacked on one side by the heat, and on the other by the foolish farmer, and underneath by a treacherously dry soil. Begin, then, early, and plow often, and you may defy dry summers and cram your crib with hearty crops of corn.

BREAKING THE ROOTS.—Many farmers study to break the roots of their corn. We have heard them boast of ripping them up with a big plow till they clogged it up like bundles of yarn. It is done by some because others do it; those who attempt to reason, say, that if a root be broken it immediately puts out many more from the point of breakage; and the practice of root-pruning fruit-trees is cited, to show that the fruitfulness of a plant is increased by reducing the root and checking the growth of the wood. It is not true that the fruitfulness of a tree is increased by root-pruning, but, it is made to yield its fruit _earlier_. It is a device to bring trees rapidly into bearing. A pear-tree (grafted) requires from five to eight years before it is matured enough to commence bearing. By mutilation of root, bending of branches, or by a poor gravelly soil, the tree is partially forbidden to grow, and obliged to ripen its wood and fit it for fruit-bearing. But had it grown to its natural size, it would then have borne even more fruit than when dwarfed.

No such practice is required upon annual plants, whose ripening is not delayed through years, but which come up and ripen and die within the limits of a single season. They need no artificial treatment to accelerate the fruiting, because it ordinarily makes no difference whether the corn crop comes in September or October. It is better to select varieties of corn which ripen within the limits of the season natural to the region where it is planted. Then there will be no occasion to break roots, or to apply any other artificial and violent process to accelerate maturation.

CLEAN OUT YOUR CELLARS.