Part 10

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?