Chapter LII: Summing Up (1)

In the foregoing essays, I have set forth, as clearly as I could, the facts within my knowledge which seem calculated to cast light upon the farmer's vocation, and the principles or rules of action which they have suggested to my mind. I have been careful not to throw any false, delusive halo over this indispensable calling, and by no means to induce the belief that the farmer's lot is necessarily and uniformly a happy one. I know that his is not the royal road to rapid acquisition, and that few men are likely to amass great wealth by quietly tilling the soil. I know, moreover, that what passes for farming among us is not so noble, so intellectual, so attractive, a pursuit as it might and should be--that most farmers might farm better and live to better purpose than they do. Of all the false teaching, I most condemn that which flatters farmers as though they were demigods and their calling the grandest and the happiest ever followed by mortals, when the hearer, unless very green, must feel that the speaker doesn't believe one word of all be utters; for, if he did, he would be farming, instead of living by some profession, and talking as though his auditors did not know wheat from chaff. I regard the Agriculture of this country as very far below the standard which, it should ere this have reached: I hold that the great mass of our cultivators might and should farm better than they do, and that better farming would render their sons better citizens and better men. If a single line of this little work should seem calculated to cajole its readers into self-complacency rather than instruct them, I beg them to believe that their impression wrongs my purpose.

I am fully aware that others have treated my theme with fuller knowledge and far greater ability than I brought to its discussion. "Then why not leave them the field?" Simply because, when all have written who can elucidate my theme, at least three-fourths of those who ought to study and ponder it will not have read any treatise whatever upon Agriculture--will hardly have yet regarded it as a theme whereon books should be written and read. And, since there may be some who will read this treatise for its writer's sake--will read it when they could not be persuaded to do like honor to a more elaborate and erudite work--I have written in the hope of arousing in some breasts a spirit of inquiry with regard to Agriculture as an art based on Science--a spirit which, having been awakened, will not fall again into torpor, but which will lead on to the perusal and study of profounder and better books.

In the foregoing essays, I have sought to establish the following propositions:

1. That _good_ farming is and must ever be a paying business, subject, like all others, to mischances and pull-backs, and to the general law that the struggle up from nothing to something is ever an arduous and almost always a slow process. In the few instances where wealth and distinction have been swiftly won, they have rarely proved abiding. There are pursuits wherein success is more envied and dazzling than in Agriculture; but there is none wherein efficiency and frugality are more certain to secure comfort and competence.

2. Though the poor man must often go slowly, where wealth may attain perfection at a bound, and though he may sometimes seem compelled to till fields not half so amply fertilized as they should be, it is nevertheless inflexibly true that bounteous crops are grown at a profit, while half and quarter crops are produced at a loss. A rich man may afford to grow poor crops, because he can afford to lose by his year's farming, while the poor man cannot. He ought, therefore, to till no more acres than he can bring into good condition--to sow no seed, plow no field, where he is not justified in expecting a good crop. Better five acres amply fertilized and thoroughly tilled than twenty acres which can at best make but a meager return, and which a dry or a wet season must doom to partial if not absolute failure.

3. In choosing a location, the farmer should resolve to choose once for all. Roaming from State to State, from section to section, is a sad and far too common mistake. Not merely is it true that "The rolling stone gathers no moss," but the farmer who wanders from place to place never acquires that intimate knowledge of soil and climate which is essential to excellence in his vocation. He cannot read the clouds and learn when to expect rain, when he may look for days of sunshine, as he could if he had lived twenty years on the same place. Choose your home in the East, the South, the Center, the West, if you will (and each section has its peculiar advantages); but choose once for all, and, having chosen, regard that choice as final.

4. Our young men are apt to plunge into responsibilities too hastily. They buy farms while they lack at once experience and means, incur losses and debts by consequent miscalculations, and drag through life a weary load, which sours them against their pursuit, when the fault is entirely their own. No youth should undertake to manage a farm until after several years of training for that task under the eye of a capable master of the art of tilling the soil. If he has enjoyed the requisite advantages on his father's homestead, he may possibly be qualified to manage a farm at twenty-one; but there are few who might not profitably wait and learn, in the pay of some successful cultivator, for several years longer; while I cannot recall an instance of a youth rushing out of school or a city counting-house to show old farmers how their work ought to be done, that did not result in disaster. It is very well to know what Science teaches with regard to farming; but no man was ever a thoroughly good farmer who had not spent some years in actual contact with the soil.

5. While every one says of his neighbor, "He farms too much land," the greed of acquisition does not seem at all chastened. Men stagger under loads of debt to-day, who might relieve themselves by selling off so much of their land as they cannot profitably use; but every one seems intent on holding all he can, as if in expectation of a great advance in its market value. And yet you can buy farms in every old State in the Union as cheaply per acre as they could have been bought in like condition sixty years ago; and I doubt their selling higher sixty years hence than they do now. No doubt, there _are_ lands, in the vicinage of growing cities or villages, that have greatly advanced in value; but these are exceptions: and I counsel every young farmer, every poor farmer, to buy no more land than he can cultivate thoroughly, save such as he needs for timber. Never fear that there will not be more land for sale when you shall have the money wherewith to buy it; but shun debt as you would the plague, and prefer forty acres all your own to a square mile heavily mortgaged. I never lifted a mill-stone; but I have undertaken to carry debts, and they are fearfully heavy.

6. I know that most American farms east of the Roanoke and the Wabash have too many fields and fences, and that the too prevalent custom of allowing cattle to prowl over meadow, tillage and forest, from September to May, picking up a precarious and inadequate subsistence by browsing and foraging at large, is slovenly, unthrifty, and hardly consistent with the requirements of good neighborhood. It is at best a miseducation of your cattle into lawless habits. I do not know just where and when _all_ pasturing becomes wasteful and improvident; but I do know that pasturing fosters thistles, briers, and every noxious weed, and so is inconsistent with cleanly and thorough tillage. I know that the same acres will feed far more stock, and keep them in better condition, if their food be cut and fed to them, than if they are sent out to gather it for themselves. I know that the cost of cutting their grass and other fodder with modern machinery need not greatly exceed that of driving them to remote pastures in the morning and hunting them up at nightfall. I know that penning them ten hours of each twenty-four in a filthy yard, where they have neither food nor drink, is unwise; and I feel confident that it is already high time, wherever good grass-land is worth $100 per acre, to limit pasturage to one small field, as near the center of the farm as may be, wherein shade and good water abound, into which green rye, clover, timothy, oats, sowed corn, stalks, etc., etc., may successively be thrown from every side, and where shelter from a cold, driving storm, is provided; and that, if cows could be milked here and left through night as well as day, it would be found good economy.

7. I know that most of us are slashing down our trees most improvidently, and thus compelling our children to buy timber at thrice the cost at which we might and should have grown it. I know that it is wasteful to let White Birch, Hemlock, Scrub Oak, Pitch Pine, Dogwood, etc., start up and grow on lands which might be cheaply sown with the seeds of Locust, White Oak, Hickory, Sugar Maple, Chestnut, Black Walnut, and White Pine. I know that no farm in a settled region is so large that its owner can really afford to surrender a considerable portion of it to growing indifferent cord-wood when it would as freely grow choice timber if seeded therefor; and I feel sure that there are few farms so small that a portion of each might not be profitably devoted to the growing of valuable trees. I know that the common presumption that land so devoted will yield no return for a life-time is wrong--know that, if thickly and properly seeded, it will begin to yield bean-poles, hoop-poles, etc., the fifth or sixth year from planting, and thenceforth will yield more and more abundantly forever. I know that _good_ timber, in any well-peopled region, should not be _cut off_, but _cut out_--thinned judiciously but moderately and trimmed up, so that it shall grow tall and run to trunk instead of branches; and I know that there are all about us millions of acres of rocky crests and acclivities, steep ravines and sterile sands, that ought to be seeded to timber forthwith, kept clear of cattle, and devoted to tree-growing evermore.

8. I do not know that all lands may be profitably underdrained. Wooded uplands, I know, could not be. Fields which slope considerably, and so regularly that water never stagnates upon or near their surface, do very well without. Light, leachy sands, like those of Long Island, Southern Jersey, Eastern Maryland, and the Carolinas, seem to do fairly without. Yet my conviction is strong that _nearly all land which is to be persistently cultivated will in time be underdrained_. I would urge no farmer to plunge up to his neck into debt in order to underdrain his farm. But I _would_ press every one who has no experience on this head to select his wettest field, or the wettest part of such field, and, having carefully read and digested Waring's, French's, or some other approved work on the subject, procure file and proceed next Fall to drain that field or part of a field thoroughly, taking especial precautions against back-water, and watch the effect until satisfied that it will or will not pay to drain further. I think few, have drained one acre thoroughly, and at no unnecessary cost, without being impelled by the result to drain more and faster until they had tiled at least half their respective farms.

9. As to irrigation, I doubt that there is a farm in the United States where _something_ might not be profitably done forthwith to secure advantage from the artificial retention and application of water. Wherever a brook or runnel crosses or skirts a farm, the question--"Can the water here running uselessly by be retained, and in due season equably diffused over some portion of this land?"--at once presents itself. One who has never looked with this now will be astonished at the facility with which some acres of nearly every farm may be irrigated. Often, a dam that need not cost $20 will suffice to hold back ten thousand barrels of water, so that it may be led off along the upper edge of a slope or glade, falling off just enough to maintain a gentle, steady current, and so providing for the application of two or three inches of water to several acres of tillage or grass just when the exigencies of crop and season most urgently require such irrigation. Any farmer east of the Hudson can tell where such an application would have doubled the crop of 1870, and precluded the hard necessity of selling or killing cattle not easily replaced.

Of course, this is but a rude beginning. In time, we shall dam very considerable streams mainly to this end, and irrigate hundreds and thousands of acres from a single pond or reservoir. Wells will be sunk on plains and gentle swells now comparatively arid and sterile, and wind or steam employed to raise water into reservoirs whence wide areas of surrounding or subjacent land will be refreshed at the critical moment, and thus rendered bounteously productive. On the vast, bleak, treeless Plains of the wild West, even Artesian wells will be sunk for this purpose; and the water thus obtained will prove a source of fertility as well as refreshment, enriching the soil by the minerals which it holds in solution, and insuring bounteous crops from wide stretches of now barren and worthless desert. Immigration will yet thickly dot the great Sahara with oases of verdure and plenty; but it will, long ere that, have covered the valleys of our Great Basin and those which skirt the affluents of the savage and desolate Colorado with a beauty and thrift surpassing the dreams of poets. And yet, its easiest and readiest triumphs are to be won right here--in the valleys of the Connecticut, the Hudson, the Susquehanna, and the Potomac.

10. As to Commercial Fertilizers, I think I have been well paid for the application of Gypsum (Plaster of Paris) to my upland grass at the rate of one bushel per acre per annum, while my tillage has been supplied with it by dusting my stables with it after each cleaning, and so applying it mingled with barn-yard manures. Lime (unslaked) from burned oyster-shells, costing me from 25 to 30 cents per bushel delivered, I have applied liberally, and I judge, with profit. Bones, ground, (the finer the better) I have largely and I think advantageously used; but my land had been mainly pastured for nearly two centuries before I bought it, and thus continually drained of Phosphates, yet never replenished: so my experience does not prove that the farmers of newer lands ought to buy bones, though I advise them to apply all they can save or pick up at small cost. Pound them very fine with a beetle or ax-head on a flat stone, and give them to your fowls: if they refuse a part of them, your soil will prove less dainty. I am not sure that it pays to buy any manufactured Phosphate when you can get Raw Bone; though I doubt not that, for instant effect, the Phosphate is far superior. As to Guano, it has not paid me; but that may be the fault of careless or unskillful application. I judge that any one who has to deal with sterile sands that will not bring Clover, may wisely apply 400 pounds of Guano per acre, provided he has nothing else that will answer the purpose. After he has produced one good stand of Clover, I doubt that he can afford to buy more Guano, unless he can apply it to better purpose than I have yet done.

I have a strong impression that most farmers can do better at making and saving fertilizers than by buying them. Lime and Sulphur (Gypsum), if your soil lacks them, you must buy; but a good farmer who keeps even a span of horses, three or four cows, as many pigs, and a score of fowls, can make for $100 fertilizers which I would rather have than two tuns of Guano, costing him $180 to $200. If he has a patch of bog or a miry pond on his farm--any place where frogs will live--he can dig thence, in the dryest time next Fall, two or three hundred loads of Muck, which, having been left to dry on the nearest high ground till November or later, and then drawn up and dumped into his barn-yard, pig-pen, and fowl-house, will be ready to come out next Spring in season for corn-planting, and, being liberally applied, will do as much for his crop as two tons of Guano would, and will strengthen his land far more. If he has no Muck, and no neighbor who can spare it as well as not, let him at midsummer cut all the weeds growing on and around his farm, and in the Fall gather all the leaves that can be impounded, using these as litter for his cattle and beds for his pigs, and he will be agreeably surprised at the bulk of his heap next Spring.

I am an intense believer in Home Production. We send ten thousand miles for Guano, and suffer the equally valuable excretions of our cities to run to waste in rivers and bays, poisoning or driving away the fish, and filling the air with stench and pestilence. No farmer ever yet intelligently _tried_ to enrich his land and was defeated by lack of material. He may not be able to do all he would like to at first; but persistent effort cannot be baffled.

11. Shallow culture is the most crying defect of our average farming. Poverty may sometimes excuse it; but the excuse is stretched quite too far. If a farmer has but a poor span of horses, or a light yoke of thin steers, he cannot plow land as it should be plowed; but let him double teams with his neighbor, and plow alternate clays on either farm; or, if this may not be, let him buy or borrow a sub-soil plow, and go once around with his surface plow, then hitch on to the sub-soil, and run another furrow in the bottom of the former. There are a few intervales of rich, mellow soil, deposited by the inundations of countless ages, where shallow culture will answer, because the roots of the plants run freely through fertile earth never yet disturbed by the plow; but these marked and meagre exceptions do not invalidate the truth that nine-tenths of our tillage is neither so deep nor so thorough as it should be. As a rule, the feeding-roots of plants do not run below the bottom of the furrows, though in some instances they do; and he who fancies that five or six inches of soil will, under our fervid suns, with our Summers often rainless for weeks, produce as bounteous and as sure a crop as twelve to eighteen inches, is impervious to fact or reason. He might as sensibly maintain that you could draw as long and as heavily against a deposit in bank of $500 as against one of $1,500.

12. Finally, and as the sum of my convictions, we need more thought, more study, more intellect, infused into our Agriculture, with less blind devotion to a routine which, if ever judicious, has long since ceased to be so. The tillage which a pioneer, fighting single-handed and all but empty-handed with a dense forest of giant trees, which he can do no better than to cut down and burn, found indispensable among their stumps and roots, is not adapted to the altered circumstances of his grandchildren. If our most energetic farmers would abstract ten hours each per week from their incessant drudgery, and devote them to reading and reflection with regard to their noble calling, they would live longer, live to better purpose, and bequeath a better example, with more property, to their children.

* * * * *

My self-imposed task is done. I undertook to tell What I Know of Farming through one brief essay for each week in 1870; and, in the face of multifarious and pressing duties, and in despite of a severe, protracted illness, the work has been prosecuted to completion. Had I not kept ahead of it while in health, there were weeks when I must have left it unaccomplished, as I was too ill to write or even stand.

I close with the avowal of my joyful trust that these essays, slight and imperfect as they are, will incite thousands of young farmers to feel a loftier pride in their calling and take a livelier interest in its improvement, and that many will be induced by them to read abler and better works on Agriculture and the sciences which minister to its efficiency and impel its progress toward a perfection which few as yet have even faintly foreseen.

INDEX.

ACCOUNTS--ACCOUNTS IN FARMING, chap. xxxv, 207;
the causes of pecuniary failure, 207;
loss from waste of time, 207;
the author has found all successful farmers rigid economists of
time, 208;
farmers urged to keep a rigid account of how they dispose of their
time, 208;
keeping a diary recommended, 208;
what it should contain, 209;
accounts with neighbors, 209;
the farmer should keep an account of the expenses of his farm, and
the receipts therefrom, 209;
importance of keeping an account with the several fields and crops,
210;
complication and uncertainty in account-keeping considered, 210-211;
the advantage of keeping careful accounts, 211.

AGRICULTURE. _See_ FARMING: books on practical, referred to, 30.

ALABAMA, 50.

ALDER, 53.

ALKALIS, as fertilizers. _See_ FERTILIZERS, COMMERCIAL.

ALLEGHANY RIDGE, 39.

ALLEGHANIES, the, 45, 49, 79, 81, 156.

ALPS, 75.

ALPS, AUSTRIAN, 75.

AMERICA, 44, 170.

AMHERST. N. H., 52.

AMMONIA, 104, 306.

AMMONOOSUC, the river, 194.

ANTELOPE, 278.

APENNINES, 267.

APPLE, the, 53, 118, 129.
FRUIT-TREES. THE APPLE, chap. xxix, 139;
fruit-trees form a distinguishing feature of Northern farms and
holdings, 139;
unequaled in that respect elsewhere, 140;
our country north of the Potomac excels, in its supply of
tree-fruits, all other portions of the earth's surface of equal
area, 140;
the Northern States admirably adapted to the apple and kindred
fruit-trees, 140;
effects of such adaptability, 140;
give an orchard the northern slope of a hill where possible, 140;
the one which blossoms latest, yields, on the average, most fruit,
141;
storing ice to place under trees, not recommended, 141;
importance of drainage, 145;
some reasons for choosing sloping ground for an apple-orchard, 141;
the soil for such, 142;
preparation of the soil, 142-3;
treatment and care of the land devoted to an orchard, 143-4;
MORE ABOUT APPLE TREES, chap. xxv, 145;
apple trees are planted too far apart, and allowed to grow too
tall, 145;
consequences, 145-6;
trees should be set diamond fashion, 146;
pruning should be attended to annually, 146;
sprouts valueless, 147;
the demands which apple-trees make on the soil should be supplied,
147;
apple-trees in the township of Newcastle, Westchester, N. Y., 147;
causes of their unproductiveness, 147-8;
caterpillars and their ravages, 148;
duties of farmers and fruit growers, 149;
the abundant apple-crop of 1870, 149;
establishes the capacity of our regions to bear Apples, 149, 191,
232, 291, 294;
the apple-crop of 1870, as an illustration of the imperfect means
of exchanging farm products, 297-8-9;
loss to consumers and producers, 299-300.

ARIZONA, 48.

ARKANSAS, State of, 25, 36;
the river, 73, 261;
the upper river, 274.

ARTESIAN WELLS, 77, 277-8, 316.

ASHES as fertilizers, 108-9, 127, 128;
use in preparing for an orchard, 142, 174.
_See_ also FERTILIZERS, COMMERCIAL.

ATLANTIC, the coast, 156, 178;
seaboard, 220;
slope, 76, 157, 213.

AUSTIN, 46.

AUSTRALIA, 138, 200, 238.

AUTUMN, 89, 97, 99, 116, 124, 173, 178, 179, 192, 193, 202, 262.

BABYLON, 266.

BALSAM FIR, 58.

BALTIMORE, 165.

BARLEY, 245, 265.

BARN, the use of stone recommended in building a, 216

BATAVIA YAMS, 271.

BATTENKILL, 75.

BEANS, 210, 271, 296.

BEECH, 19, 53, 60, 287.

BEEF, 37, 118, 220, 294.

BEETS. _see_ ROOTS, also 143, 232, 264, 271.

BELGIUM, 70, 238.

BERRIES, 90.

BIRCH, 60.

BIRDS--INSECTS, BIRDS, chap. xxii, 129;
birds our best allies against insects, 129;
the destruction of birds not the sole cause of insect ravages, 130;
birds should be protected and kindly treated, 132;
associations should be formed to do so, 132;
artificial nests, 133;
legal measures to protect birds, 133.

BLACK ASH, 30.

BLACKBERRIES, 90, 158.

BLACK WALNUT, 314.

BLACKWELL'S ISLAND, 87.

BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS, 81.

BOARD OF WORKS (London), 269.

BOISSIERE, E. V, DE, 253-4.

BONES. _See_ COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS, also 118, 119, 192, 317.

BONE-DUST, 174.

BONES, flour of, 121.

BONE FLOUR, 167.

BONES, raw, 317.

BOSTON, farm near, 15, 289.

BOTANY, 30.

BUCKEYE, 260.

BUCKWHEAT, 21, 189, 191, 210.

BUFFALO, 278.

BUFFALO GRASS, 153.

BURLINGTON, N. J., 166.

BUTTER, 38, 164, 167.

BRIDGES, 250.

BRITISH ISLES, 178, 245.

BROCCOLI, 271.

CABBAGES, 264, 271, 296, 300.

CACHE-LA-POUDRE, the river, 82, 262, 263.

CALIFORNIA, 26, 76, 80, 159, 181, 260.

CANADA, 48, 165, 289;
creek, 75.

CANALS, 105.

CAROLINAS, the, 166, 315.

CARROTS. _See_ ROOTS, also 143, 271.

CARSON, the river, 81, 83.

CATTLE, 15;
Pasturing, 19-20;
Soiling, 20;
treatment of herds of, in the Mississippi and Missouri Valleys, 20;
rearing of, referred to, 35, 132, 150, 157, 219, 220, 224, 293.

CATSKILLS, the, 172.

CENSUS: the Seventh, 150;
the Eighth, 150;
the, of 1870, 286.

CHAMPLAIN, the, basin, 72;
lake, 279.

CHAPPAQUA, 62.

CHAUTAUQUA Co., N. Y., 287, 288.

CHEESE, 38, 164, 167.

CHEMISTRY, 30, 119, 196, 231.

CHERRIES. _See_ FRUITS, also 129, 139, 294.

CHESTER CO., Penn., 110.

CHESTNUT, 54, 55, 60, 135, 136, 215, 314.
_See also_, TREES.

CHEYENNE, 262.

CHICAGO, 164.

CHICKENS, 295.
_See_ FOWLS.

CHLORINE, 114, 235.

CHLORIDE OF LIME, 128.

CHOLERA, 268.

CHURCHES, 250.

CINCINNATI, 156.

CLIMATES, American, for the finer fruits, 156.

CLOVER, 120, 153, 167, 318.

CLUBS. _See_ FARMERS' CLUBS.

COAL, 109, 288.

COLONIES, advantage of settling in, 28;
the course to adopt in organizing one, 28;
Union Colony, 262;
its location, 262;
the City of Greeley, its nucleus, 262;
irrigation canals of, 262-4;
fertility of the soil at, 264.

COLONISTS, English, 171.

COLORADO, 181, 206, 317;
river, 46.

CONGRESS, 46.

CONNECTICUT, 27, 171, 299;
river, 194, 279;
valley of the, 317.

COMO, lake, 75.

COMMON SCHOOLS, 196-7.

COMMUNISM: Differs radically from Co-operation, 248.

CONCLUSIONS, General, SUMMING UP, chap. lli, 308;
the facts set forth in the essays, 308;
common misrepresentations, 308-9;
object of the author in writing these essays, 309;
the propositions sought to be established therein, 310;
good farming must ever be a paying business, 310;
thorough tillage advocated, 310;
a location should be permanent, 310;
the too great haste in incurring responsibilities, 311;
the greed for land, 310;
common abuses in fencing and cattle-raising, 312-13;
tree-cutting and tree-planting, 314-15;
underdraining, 315;
irrigation, 316;
commercial fertilizers, 317-8-9;
shallow culture, 319-20;
the need for study and inquiry, 320-21;
concluding remarks, 321.

CO-OPERATION, reference to, in regard to wild lands, 24;
CO-OPERATION IN FARMING, CHAP. XLII, 248;
Co-operation is the word of hope and cheer for labor, 248;
its meaning, 248;
differs radically from communism, 248;
the difficulties of a young farmer who migrates to Kansas,
Minnesota or one of the Territories, 248-9;
the different circumstances consequent on settlement by
co-operation, 250;
advantages of co-operation not limited to colonizing distant
tracts, 250;
would benefit colored men, 250-1;
fencing as an illustration of the loss consequent on want of
co-operation, 251-2;
how co-operation would remedy it, 252;
further application of the system, 252-3;
Mr. E. V. de Boissiere's co-operative farming, 254-5.

CORN, 20, 21, 22
growing of bread-corn eastward of the Hudson, 37, 43, 67, 68, 81,
86, 88, 92, 94, 99, 103, 107, 113, 114, 115, 118, 147.
GRAIN GROWING--EAST AND WEST--chap. xxviii, 162;
hoeing is of no use to Corn, 162;
the best and cheapest way to cultivate corn, 162;
the fields of the Mississippi Valley are the most productive in the
world, 163;
the tillage, in some places, seemed susceptible of improvement, 163;
the West is the granary of the East, 163;
a change imminent, 163;
changes since twenty-three years ago when the author visited
Illinois, 164;
the course the West will ultimately adopt, 164;
exhaustion of the soil in New England and Eastern New York, 164;
in the Genesee Valley, 165;
Eastern Pennsylvania profits by a provident system of husbandry, 165;
the States this side of the Delaware will yet have to grow a large
share of their breadstuffs, 165;
can it be done with profit now, considering, also, if the East has
wisely, so largely abandoned grain-growing, 165-9;
the places not taken into account, 165;
the "Pine Barrens" of New Jersey selected to illustrate the profits
of grain-growing in the East, 168;
their nature, 168;
estimate of expenses thereon, 167;
the product anticipated, 167;
the favorable conditions the cultivator would enjoy, 168;
the money value of his crop, 168;
great economy could be achieved in the cost of cultivating, 169;
conclusions, 169;
also 177, 191, 192, 193, 210, 228, 238, 242, 246-7, 264, 265,
271-2, 290.

COTTON, 107, 200.

COTTON-GROWERS, Southern, 118.

COTTONWOOD, 261.

CREDIT, buying a farm on, 25.

CROPS, Fall, 97.

CURRANTS, 129.

DAIRYING, 288.

DANA'S MUCK MANUAL, 199.

DELAWARE, the State of, 165;
the river, 152, 165.

DENVER, 264, 277;
Pacific Railroad, the, 262.

DEPOPULATION, (RURAL)--RURAL DEPOPULATION, chap. xlviii, 286;
the alleged decrease in the relative population of rural districts,
286;
no increase since 1859 in the number of farmers in the State of New
York, 286;
probable slight decrease in that of New England, 286;
consolidating farms, 286;
small farmers are selling out and migrating, 287;
reasons therefore, 287;
the changed character of the tillage, 287-8;
the general use of coal has reduced the demand for labour, 288;
labour-saving implements, 288-9;
the supposed degeneracy of the New England Puritan stock, 289;
the migration from New England, 289-90;
the assumption that Americans prefer other pursuits to farming, 291;
the rock and bog of New England form a discouraging impediment to
agricultural progress, 290;
compensation therefor, 291.

DIARY, the keeping of one recommended, 31.

DICKINSON, Andrew B., 105, 106.

DISTRIBUTION (of farm products). _See_ EXCHANGE.

DOCK, 232.

DOGWOOD, 314.

DOGS; their depredations on sheep, 203-4.

DRAINING--
DRAINING--MY OWN, chap. x, 62;
the author's farm, 62;
situation of the land thereon requiring drainage, 62-3;
difficulties it presented, 63;
blunders, 66;
how repaired, 66;
condition of the marsh before draining it, 61;
how success was retarded, 67;
evidence of success, 67;
the crops of 1870 on the reclaimed land, 68;
DRAINING GENERALLY, chap. xi, 69;
general conclusions from the author's experience, 69;
extent of land to be drained, 69;
_all_ swamp lands and nearly all of some other kinds must be
drained to be well tilled, 69;
the many uses of underdrains, 69-70;
no one should run into debt for draining, 70;
tile and stone drains, 71;
draining by a Mole Plow, 72;
general direction, 72-3;
covered mains recommended, 73;
the question of labor, 73;
a case where the rudest surface drains would have changed bog into
decent meadows, 152;
the stone drains on the author's farm, 214;
the author's summing up on, 315.

DROUTH--habitually shortens our Fall crops, 98;
A LESSON OF TO-DAY (1870), chap. xxxii, 189;
the popular view of hot and cold seasons, 189;
the Summer of 1870, effects of the drouth, 189-190;
general character of each Summer, 190;
proof that drouth need not be feared by those who farm prudently,
190;
the author's observations during a trip through Warren Co., N. Y.,
191-2;
results to be attained there by right cultivation, 192;
the inquiry: how are the people there to obtain fertilizers? 192;
answered, 193;
irrigation might be applied profitably, 194.

EARTH CLOSET, 123.

EASTERN STATES, pasturing in, 19.

EASTERN STATES, the, 23, 25-6, 37, 179, 189, 204, 215, 279, 311.

EDINBURGH, 269.

EGGS, 294-5.

EGYPT, 164, 167.

ELECTRICITY, 285.

ELK, 278.

ELM, 59.

EMERSON, R. W., 44.

ENGLAND, 70, 89, 164;
(Western) 170, 178, 268.

ERIE Co., Pa., 23.

EUROPE, 35, 74, 156, 163, 170, 171, 178, 180, 219, 238.

EXCHANGE: EXCHANGE AND DISTRIBUTION, chap. l, 297;
the machinery for disposing of surplus farm products imperfect, 297;
the abundant apple crop of 1870 as an illustration thereof, 297-8-9;
apples should have been as common as bread or potatoes, 298;
the actual facts, 298;
cause of both the waste and dearness of apples, 299-300;
consequent loss to producers and consumers, 299-300;
turnips as a further illustration, 300;
disappointments of inexperienced farmers, 300-1;
hucksters and middlemen, 301;
suggestion to have a railroad purchase and sell farm products, 301-2;
results to be expected, 302;
an objection answered, 302.

EXHIBITIONS (AGRICULTURAL)--AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS, chap. xxxviii,
225;
author has attended at least fifty, 225;
concludes they were not what they might and should be, 225;
the reform must begin with the people, 225;
the lot of the public speaker, 225-6;
what is needed to render our annual Fairs useful and instructive
detailed, 226;
each farmer should hold himself bound to make some contribution to
his, 226;
an interesting and running commentary should given, 227-8;
liberal premiums should be given for proficiency in farming, 228-9;
need for improvement in the character of the public speaking, 229;
counties should be canvassed to enrol exhibitors, 230;
all in a locality should feel a common interest in their fair, 230.

EYE-SMART, 125.

FABRICS, 200.

FAIRS. _See_ EXHIBITIONS.

FALL, the, 126, 173, 174, 193, 318.

FARMING--
WILL FARMING PAY, chap. i, 13;
will it pay considered, 13;
the case of a man without capital, 13;
difficulties common to all pursuits, 13-4;
Astor referred to, 14;
earning the first thousand dollars, 14;
instance of remarkable success in farming, near Boston, 15;
case of a farmer in Northern Vermont, 15-6;
Professor Mapes's success, 14;
profitable return from a fruit farm on the Hudson, 15-6;
that shiftless farming don't pay admitted, 17;
good farming profitable, 17;
farming not recommended as a pursuit to every man, 17;
it can never be dispensed with, 17;
it is the first, and most essential of human pursuits, 17;
all are interested in having it honored and prosperous, 17;
if unprofitable, it is from mismanagement, 17;
the author's aim in these essays, 17.
GOOD AND BAD HUSBANDRY, chap. ii, 18;
good and bad farming considered, 18;
necessity master of us all, 18;
dictates the line to follow in farming, 18-9;
application of the principle to pasturing, 19-20;
illustration of good farming, 20-21;
excuses for waste insufficient, 21;
truths on which good farming depend, 21;
good crops invariably practicable, 21-2;
rarely fail to pay, 23;
increasing productiveness of the soil the fairest single test, 22;
where to farm considered, 23;
experience of the author's father regarding the East and West, 23;
circumstances qualifying it, 23;
the difficulties of the pioneer's life, 23-4;
purchase of an "improvement" recommended in certain cases, 24;
civilized places are to be preferred for settlement, 24;
co-operation may change matters, 24;
good farming will pay everywhere, 25;
no one having a good farm advised to migrate, 25;
money is made by farming near New York as fast as in the West, 25;
where migration is advised, and its advantages, 25;
troubles attendant on buying on credit, 25;
the West will grow more rapidly than the East during the next
twenty years, 26;
the South invites immigration, 26;
great inducements offered, 26;
combined effort recommended, 26;
good farming land cheapest in the United States, 27;
an incident in Illinois farming, 27;
counsel to intending purchasers, 27;
land cheap in every State, 28;
advantages of settling in colonies, 28;
the first steps toward doing so, 28;
division of the lands, 28;
laying out the town, 28;
the progress it ought to make, 28;
economy of capital accomplished, 28;
PREPARING TO FARM, chap. iv, 29;
counsel intended for young men unaccustomed to farming, 29;
patience recommended, 29;
penalties of over haste, 29;
value of experience illustrated, 30;
an inexperienced young man advised to hire out, 30;
procure books, 30;
general counsel, 31;
how the course advised differs from running into debt, 31-2;
experience and practice essential, 32;
circumstances where theoretical study is approved, 32;
qualifying remarks, 32-3;
he who has mastered farming is competent to buy a farm, 33;
exceptions, 33;
a young man should not wait until he can buy a large farm, 33;
twenty acres ample for $2,000 capital, 33;
that extent is sufficient to test his aptitude, 33;
BUYING A FARM, chap. v, 34;
it is better to buy good land than poor, 34;
poor land can be turned to account, 34;
the smallest farm should have its strip of forest, 34;
advantage of New England and countries of like surface over very
fertile regions, 34;
cannot be divested of forest, 34;
"Five Acres" or "Ten Acres" not sufficient, 35;
exceptions, 35;
genuine farms, the general want, 35;
the remark "he has too much land," 35;
some men specially adapted for large farms, 35;
individual circumstances control, 35;
counsel to a young man intent on buying a farm, 36;
means of buying to be the main guide, 36;
capital the true limit, 36;
New England farms comparatively as cheap as Western, 36;
migration urged only for those who cannot buy farms in the Old
States, 36;
success of the butter-makers of Vermont, 36;
also of New York cheese dairymen, 36;
insuperable barriers in the East to effective cultivation, 37;
cultivation by steam must render large farms necessary, 37;
grain growing not likely to be extended in the East, 37;
the West to be the source of supply of bread-corn to the East, 37;
main considerations in buying land in the Eastern States, 37;
in the West the case is different, 37;
social considerations, 38;
make a permanent investment, 38;
have confidence that industry will be rewarded, 38;
LAYING OFF A FARM, chap. vi, 39;
the surface and soil of a farm should be carefully studied, 39;
misconception of the similarity of prairie farms, 39;
a Northern farm selected for illustration, 40;
preparatory steps in laying off, 40;
care necessary, 40;
a pasture to be first selected, 40;
what it should be, 41;
the one great error in relation to this matter, 41;
weeds inseparable from pasture, 42;
treatment of a pasture, 42-3;
it should have a rude shed, 43;
fodder to be brought to cattle, 43;
"too much" land and tree planting, 50;
farming in Westchester County, N. Y., 51;
management of grass lands a test of farming, 152;
THE FARMER'S CALLING: chap. xxxi, 183;
merits of farmers as a class, 183;
the author would have advised one of his sons if spared to attain
manhood to become a good farmer, 183;
difficulties attending the farmer's calling, 184;
author's reason for recommending farming as a vocation to his son,
184;
no other business in which success is so nearly certain as it,
184-5;
farming conduces to a reverence for honesty and truth, 185-6;
it is conducive to thorough manliness of character, 186-7;
advantages the farmer enjoys in that respect over persons in other
pursuits, 187;
incidents of the author's experience as a journalist in this
regard, 187-8;
independent position of the true farmer, 188;
difficulties a young farmer encounters as a pioneer, 248-9;
considerably obviated be co-operation, 250;
co-operation admits of wider application, 250-1;
fencing as an illustration of the want of co-operation, 251-2;
wide adaptability of co-operation, 252-3;
Mr. E. V. de Boissiere's co-operative farm, 253-4;
farming in Colorado, 265;
mistaken calculations of inexperienced farmers, 299-300;
summing up: the farmer's calling, 308;
American farming, 309;
good farming is and must ever be a paying business, 310;
thorough tillage, 310;
choosing a location, 311;
prudence enjoined, 311-2;
the greed for land, 312-3;
shallow culture, 319;
need for study and inquiry, 320.

FARMS: LARGE AND SMALL FARMS, chap. xlix, 292;
naked magnitude has fascination for most minds, 292;
some men can farm a township, 292;
large farmers, 293;
the opportunities and expectations of the small farmer, 293;
making money from small farms, 293-4;
large farming can never enable us to dispense with small farms, 294;
evidence thereof, 294;
fruit culture, 294;
the production of eggs and the rearing of fowls, 294;
the inducements offered to fowl-breeders, 295;
this industry should comment itself to poor widows, 295;
the growing of market vegetables, 296;
the profits realized therein; 296;
general conclusions, 296-7.

FARMERS' CLUBS--FARMERS' CLUBS, chap. xliii, 254;
farmers divide into two classes, 254;
characteristics of those who do too little work, 255;
the farmers who work too much, 255;
illustration thereof, 255;
value of the club to them, 256;
who should form the club, 256;
its rules, 256-7;
the chief end to be attained, 257;
habits of observation and reflection, 257;
evidence of the need thereof, 257;
a genuine interest in their vocation is needed by farmers, 257-8;
false fancies to be removed, 258;
the officers of the club, 258;
grafts, plants or seeds for gratuitous distribution, 258;
an annual flower show, 259;
an exhibition of fruits, 259;
the organization of a farmers' club is the chief difficulty, 259;
how removed, 259.

FARM IMPLEMENTS--FARM IMPLEMENTS, chap. xli, 237;
labor arduous enough without adding inefficient implements, 237;
improvements therein during fifty years, 237;
proofs thereof, 237;
the inferior implements used in the greater part of Europe, 237-8;
the claim of inventors or their agents to attention, 238-9;
the stock of an implement warehouse, 239;
a co-operative plan will be found necessary to secure the needful
implements, 240;
reasons therefor, 240;
greater inventions are certain to be made, 241;
inventions for plowing, 241.

FENCES, 100-1. FENCES AND FENCING, chap. xxxvii, 219;
excessive fencing general, 219;
fences are commonly dispensed with in France and other parts of
Europe, 219;
drivers must there keep their cattle from injuring the wayside
crops, 219;
American railroads have largely superseded cattle-driving, 220;
fresh meat will ultimately come from the Prairies, in refrigerating
cars, 220;
owners of animals should be responsible for their care, 220-221;
fencing bears with special severity on the pioneer, 221;
fences, where necessary, are a deplorable necessity, 221;
obstacles to introducing ditches and hedges, 221-2;
wire fences, 222;
stone walls, 222;
rail fences, 222-3;
posts and boards are the cheapest material for fences, 223;
Red Cedar posts, 223;
Locust posts, 223;
posts set top-end down last longest, 224;
general conclusions, 224;
forms one of the pioneer's many trials, 251;
it is different, but not better, with settlers on broad prairies,
251;
co-operation would secure an immense economy in, 252, 287;
should be scrutinized in winter, 306;
most American farms east of the Roanoke and Wabash have too many
fences, 313.

FERTILIZERS, Commercial.
COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS--GYPSUM, chap. xvii, 102;
Gypsum might be generally applied to cultivated land, with profit,
102;
the case where it costs $10, or over, per ton, considered, 102;
it should be used in all stables and yards, 102;
on meadows and pastures, 102;
_time_ and mode of application, 103;
_how_ Gypsum impels and invigorates vegetable growth, referred to,
103;
its value practically demonstrated in and around Paris, 303-4;
the nature of Gypsum, 104;
the chemists' theory of it, 104;
its actual effect assumed as the basis of these remarks, 104;
Gypsum ought to be extensively applied to pastures and slopes,
104-5;
a farmer's observations on its effects, 105;
it may be easily procured, 105;
its trial requested, 105-6;
soils can be improved by means of calcined clay, 105;
a successful trial thereof, 106.
ALKALIS ... SALT--ASHES--LIME, chap. xvii, 107;
all our country's surface might be improved by the use of suitable
fertilizers, 107;
not many acres but might be made more fertile by their use, 107;
comparative exhaustion of the soil soon renders them necessary,
107-8;
the good farmer's inquiry on the subject, 108;
the state of each soil respectively, the true guide in using
fertilizers, 108;
alkaline substances might be universally applied with profit, 108;
the use of ashes considered, 108-9
Marls of New Jersey, 109;
Salt, 109;
Potash, 109;
the author's trial of, 109-10;
Lime as a fertilizer, 110;
careful tests of the value of Alkalis suggested, 110-11.
SOIL AND FERTILIZERS, chap. xix, 112;
the farmer a manufacturer, 112;
the opinion that some lands are naturally rich enough, 112;
the great wheat product at the Salt Lake City Plain, 112;
the author's experience regarding the imperfect manuring of land,
113;
more manure and less seed should be applied by most farmers, 113;
the richest soils deteriorate after successive crops, 114;
Nature's law of inflexible exaction, 114;
rich soil from the West exhibited at the N. Y. Farmers' Club, 114;
chemical analysis made of same, 114;
Professor Mapes' remark thereon, 114;
the mistake of fertilizing poor lands only, 115;
better to produce the same quantity of Corn from a small than a
large area in certain cases, 115;
barn-yard manure, and its use, 115-6;
no farmer ever impoverished by making and using manure of his own
manufacture, 117;
Lime has been used without advantage, 111;
reasons therefor, 111;
adulteration of Lime, 111;
farmers advised to be discriminating, 111;
experiment recommended where there is doubt, 111;
BONES--PHOSPHATES--GUANO, chap. xx, 118;
wasteful outlay for fertilizers, 118;
fertilizers needed and used in Westchester Co., N. Y., 118;
where not needed, 119;
unprofitable use of Guano, 120;
exceptions to the general rule, 120;
the other fertilizers, 120;
author's trial of Guano, 121;
not of general application, 121;
experiments and careful observation recommended, 122;
results that may be expected, 123;
the earth closet, 123;
importance of it and kindred devices, 123;
oyster-shell lime is the best, 128;
the fertilizers to be used in preparing for an orchard, 142-3;
treatment of swamp muck for potatoes, 173;
fertilizers for potatoes when muck cannot be had, 173-4;
supposed inquiry of the people of Warren Co., N. Y, "How shall we
obtain fertilizers?" 192;
answered, 193;
a Maine essayist on sourness of the soil and its remedy, 232-3;
necessity for scientific knowledge on the effects of, 232;
importance of some standard to go by in using, 234-5;
the digging and drawing of clay as winter work, 306;
value of clay for grass land, 306;
procuring commercial fertilizers, as winter work, 306.

FRUIT: a profitable fruit farm on the Hudson, 14;
culture of, 35, 37, 107;
ravages of insects on fruits, 129-30.
PEACHES--PEARS--CHERRIES--GRAPES, chap. xxvii, 156;
adaptability of American climates as regards fruit-growing, 157;
why the climates of some sections are unfavorable for the most
valued tree fruits, 156-7;
author's personal observations, 157;
difficulties attending the growing of finer fruits, 158;
counsel thereon to farmers mainly engaged in the production of
grain and cattle, 157-8;
grape-growing, 159;
the mistake of neglecting vines, 159;
experiment recommended, 159;
necessary precautions, 160;
the course recommended to a farmer who proposes to grow pears,
peaches, and quinces, 160-1, 168, 228, 232, 259;
the descriptions of fruit grown by small farmers, 294;
fruit culture would decline should small farms be generally
absorbed into larger, 294;
treatment of fruit-trees in winter, 307.

GAMMA GRASS, 261.

GARDA, Lake, 75.

GENESEE, Valley of the, 163, 165, 292.

GEOLOGY, 30, 190, 231.

GERMANY, 289.

GRAIN, 22, 35, 40, 107, 110, 118, 125, 126, 132, 157, 167, 186, 206,
228, 235, 239, 264, 266, 291, 293, 294, 296.
_See also_ CORN.

GRAPES, 16, 59, 140, 226, 294.
_See also_ FRUITS.

GREAT BASIN, the, 138, 278, 317.

GREAT BRITAIN, 179, 238.

GRASS, 22, 40, 43, 67, 68, 95, 107, 110, 121, 152-3, 191, 232, 238,
239, 264.
_See also_ PASTURING AND HAY.

GREELEY, Horace--Arrival in New York, 13-4;
own experience of the difficulties of securing a good start in life,
14;
remark of his father to, on migration toward the West, 23;
own evidence of the value of experience, 30;
is descended from several generations of tree-cutters, 44;
engaged for three years in land clearing, 44;
reference to Amherst, N. H., his birthplace, 52;
description of his farm, 62;
drainage thereof. 63-8;
observations in Italy, 74-6;
experiments in irrigation, 76-7;
observations in Virginia, 80;
experience of the plowing of his plat in New York city, 87-8;
tries deep plowing, 88;
plowing of the hill-sides on his farm, 94;
benefits thereof, 94;
judges that the gravelly hill-sides of his farm would repay applying
200 tons per acre of pure clay, 108;
experience of guano, 121;
raising locust from seed, 134;
hay product of his farm, 151;
helps in hay-making from swamps, 152;
hoed corn in his boyhood, 162;
observations on the corn-fields of the Mississippi valley, 163;
observations at Chicago twenty-three years ago, 164;
finds potatoes less prolific on his farm than in New Hampshire, 173;
speaks as a journalist's and farmer's calling, 187;
observations in Warren county, N. Y., 191;
the stone wall on his farm, 218;
experience of agricultural exhibitions, 225;
the plowing on his farm, 281;
mentions the sale of his apples as an illustration of the imperfect
means of exchanging farm products, 298.

GREELEY, the city of, 262.

GUANO, 116, 120, 121, 192, 318.

GULF STREAM, 178.

GYPSUM, 120, 121, 122, 174, 233, 317, 318.
_See also_ FERTILIZERS, COMMERCIAL.

HARLEM RAILROAD, 62.

HAWK, the, 132.

HAY, 20, 68, 78, 95, 119, 122, 147.
HAY AND HAY-MAKING, chap. xxvi, 150;
importance of the grass crop, 150;
the portion made into hay, 150;
its quantity, 150;
the product and quality should be better, 151;
author's experience, 151;
the management of grass lands is a criterion of farming, 150;
hay-making in New England fifty years ago, 152;
too little grass-seed is now used, 152;
too little discrimination used in sowing grass seeds, 153;
the variety of good grasses will be increased, 153;
grass is cut in the average too late, 153;
consequences, 153-54;
the plea that our farmers are short-handed in the summer harvest,
154;
treatment of grass when cut, 154;
the author's anticipation of how hay-making will yet be carried on,
155;
the need for improvement in hay-making insisted on, 155;
explanation thereof, 155. Also 167, 189, 191, 211, 235, 288, 291,
306.
_See also_ GRASS.

HAY-MAKING, _See_ HAY.

HEMLOCK, 19, 58, 60, 66, 223, 287, 314.

HICKORY, 53, 54, 55, 59, 135, 136, 215, 291, 314.

HIGHWAYS, 249.

HOES, 237.

HOGS, 143.

HOLLAND, 238.

HOMESTEAD LAW, 249.

HOPS, 164.

HORSES, 132;
carrots as food for, 182.

HUDSON, the, 16;
a fruit farmer on the, 16;
the valley of the, 165;
banks of the upper, 191;
the valley of the upper, 190, 191, 317.

HUMBOLDT, the river, 81.

HUMBOLDT, the, or Canada Creek, 75.

HUNGARY, 164.

ILLINOIS, State of, 37;
Northern, 163, 164;
prairies of, 164, 246, 264, 289.

INDIANA, 37, 163.

INSECTS--INSECTS--BIRDS, chap. xxii, 129;
the serious loss to farmers from insects, 129;
birds our best allies, 129;
what good they can do, 130;
ravages of insects not entirely due to the scarcity of birds, 130;
degeneracy of our plants largely causes their ravages, 130;
Gov. Packer of Pennsylvania's observations thereon, 130-31;
the case of wheat and other plants, 131;
a war against insects must continue for a generation, 131;
the destruction of birds, 132;
the measures to be adopted against insects, 132;
birds should be preserved, 132;
associations should be formed to do so, 132;
artificial posts, 133;
legal measures proposed, 133;
their ravages in Newcastle township, Westchester, N. Y., 147-8;
caterpillars, 148;
numerous from neglect, 148;
duties of farmers and fruit growers, 149.

INTELLECT (in Agriculture)--INTELLECT IN AGRICULTURE, chap. xxxiii,
195;
years of rugged manual labor essential to success in hewing a farm
out of the forest, 195;
value of education to the farmer, 196;
our average common schools defective in not teaching geology and
chemistry, 196;
the leading principles and facts of these sciences ought to
constitute the reader of the highest class in the common schools,
196;
counsel to the young farmer on agricultural books, 197;
their value demonstrated, 198;
a two-hundred acre farm will be found to give ample scope, 199;
instructions regarding particular books, 199;
men of the strongest minds and best abilities will be attracted to
farming so fast and so far as it becomes intellectual, 199.

INTEREST, relatively high in this country, 202.

IOWA, 27, 163, 164, 168.

IRELAND, 170, 175, 289.