The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-12-13 00:00:00

CORN AND CATTLE IN MINNESOTA.

Under the above heading, The Time. has publiahed a
letter from its Special Corresopudent, giving some Interest-
ing particulars relative to farming operations in Minnesota.
We make the following extracts :

Along the Blue Earth river settlement has been
made for upwards of a dozen years. The land is rich,
deep, and full of vegetable fibre; the banks are well
wooded; the prairie stretches away north-west full 500
miles towards the Rocky Mountains, still affording
location for some generations of settlers. The St. Paul
and Sioux City Railway has a branch line skirting
Lake Chry 8' al, begun in spring, now opened for nearly
40 miles to Winnebago. Along this line some good
towns are r• , ing. The farms vary from.l6o to 320 acres,
are genen y well laid out and enclosed, frequently
with the L. ibed wire so apt to lacerate stock running
against it. By this time next year the line, it is ex-
pected, will be completed 100 miles south to the coal.
fields of Fort Dodge, where coal can be put upon the
cars at about 94. per ton.. From Winnebago, where
ten years ago the only live stock were antelopes,
gophers, and prairie fowl, there has this season been
forwarded direct to New York 170 carloads of useful
fat cattle, and thcir production is everywhere on the
Increase, _ _

Regaining the main line, we run 30 miles to St.
James in 33 minutes, and shortly draw up at the pri-
vate aiding of Barden Barden in Cotton-wood county
100 yards from Mr. Barden's house and premises.
Mr. R. Barden, soci of a New York State farmer,
himself a wheat buyer and farmer, has 2,100
acres, 1,400 being under crop. The farm was
bought three years ago at 6 dole. to 7 dole an acre.
Two crops have been reaped, barns and stables
have been built, and commencement has been
made of a three•storied stone house, 1501 t. long
by 601 t. wide, in the excavated basement of which Mr.
Barden purposes to feed in 3ft. stalls 200 cattle, Over-
head, conveniently entered from a bank rising on one
side, calves and yearlings will be accommodated, while
the top story, which can also be reached by carts along
a winding ascent, will be devoted to hay, roots, and
grain, which will be sent down to the mangers by
shoots. From a well 30EL deep, worked by a windmill,
water will be forced to a tank in the top of the build-
ing, whence it is conveyed throughout the stalling,

Mr. Barden believes that the management of land,
generally successful in England must be successful
here. He approves diversity of cultivation and rota-
tion of crops; 12 or 15 years continuous wheat grow-
ing without manuce would exhaust, he believes, the
fertility of most land. With part of his wheat he pur-
poses sowing clover and Timothy griss, which will be
eaten or grazed, and after one year. ploughed up. The
newly broken prairie allowed to remain longer in grass
is apt to run to weeds and coarse herbage. Curiously,
however, both horses and cattle appear to be fonder
, of the natural prairie hay than of that made
from clover sown grasses. About 800 acres are
prepared for wheat which is spring sown;
bushel is a suffilient seeding. The total cost
for the raising of an acre of wheat is stated to
vary from 9 dole. to 10 dole., or. 365. to 40e. The
average yield is 20 bushels, but owing to the long
spring drought this year's crop has not generally
yielded more than 12 bushels at Barden. A hundred
acres are devoted to corn, which costs about 5 dole, or
20& an acre, and yields 50 to 60 bushels of shelled
grain, worth 20,3. to sell, but still more to use for feed.
A hundred acres oI oats make an acreable return of
60 bushels, weighing about 341 b. -Barley grows about
50 bushels of 36,b., but owing to the heavy dews gets
more discoloured than our English barleys. Unlike
most farmers here, Mr. Barden takes good care of
his manure, and carts and spreads it on his land almost
daily.
With lakes and streams and considerable ranges of
claimed but unoccupied Government and other
land, which are grazed for nothing or for the mode-
rate acknowledgment of lc. an acre, Mr. Barden
Is wisely availing himself of the opportunity of
rearing stock. He has already 150 scrub cattle, more
than half of -them useful, profitable dairy cows,
and purposes raising his beret of cows to 200. . . .
At Barden, as in other herds, large numbers of
cattle of various sorts and ages are run together.
In one large yard into which during the summer
and autumn they are driven at night, and where they
remain without feeding for ten or twelve hours, Mr.
Barden has cows, heifers, and sucking calves to the
number of 300; but they certainly agree well enough
together. The weaned calves also appear to be run in
big lots of such variable size and strength as would
suggest their distribution into several smaller yards.
More fortunate than British shorthorn breeders, Mr.
Barden says he has no difficulty in selling his bulls
when a few months old at 100 dole. to 200 dole., which,
relatively to the cost of rearing, is equivalent to 100
guineas in England. Prices for young bulls of good
lineage are said to be higher than they were two years
ago
Mr. Barden has a taste for horses as well as for
cattle. He has a useful, active Clydesdale and a
number of fashionably descended trotting-horses of
Hambletonian aud Squales lineage; but owing to
strangles having recently run through the stable, the
foals and yearlings are not in showing trim. For these
well-bred youngsters capital lofty, well-aired boxes are
provided, 12ft. by 10ft., with approved spared parti-
tions, iron rack and manger, and doors running on aft
iron rod overhead, no post or projecting object obtrud-
ing to tempt an idler to bite and crib.

As yet Mr. Barden has no sheep, but he purposes
starting a flock, probably of the ordinary merino-
graded stock of the country, and crossing them with
Leicester or other well-established English breed. He
has nearly 100 Berkshire pigs. The only purchased
food used is bran, of which the annual consumption is
about 100 tons, the price delivered at the farm being a
trifle over 4 dole. The corn and oats grown are all
used at home, part being thrashed, much of them
given in the sheaf.

Hitherto Mr. Barden has got a good deal of his work
done by small farmers, who undertake almost any
agricultural work. A man and a pair of horses can
be hired at the rate of is. an hour. Ploughing has
cost about 1i dole, to 1i dole, per acre, a furrow of
14in. by 41n. being turned over with two or three
horses; two and half to three acres are generally well
ploughed every day. With an eight-feet broad caster
10 to 12 acres are sown and about 14 harrowed
over once. Unlike some other managers, Mr.
Barden disapproves thrashing out his crop from
the shocks in the field, It entails, he considers, a
great deal of labour when the coat is at the highest it
Increases the risk of injury from bad weather; it
retards for ten days the men and horsees getting at the
ploughing of the stubbles ; while it diminishes the value
of the fodder for the stock. For thrashing wheat his
pays four to five cents, per bushel, the machinist find-
ing three men, water, and fuel, for an eight-horse
engine and thrasher capable 'of -doing up 600 or 800
bushels a day. The average price of wheat delivered
to the siding on the farm was last year 70 to 75 cents;
this year it promises to be fully ten cents, higher, but
the higher price will not pay for the diminished yield.
At present Mr. Barden has 20 farm horses, several
boys, but only ten men, who receive 16 dole. to 18 dole,
a month with their lodging and board, and are en-
gaged from the Ist of March until farm work ceases in
the end of October. About half the men will be
paid off during winter, the remainder will receive
12 dole, a month. Even with all the advantages of
labour-saving appliances, and without any of the
chaffing, root-cutting, mixing, or cooking which occupy
so much time during winter on an English stock farm,
it must take five good smart fellows and the manager's
sagacious planning properly to feed and attend to 400
cattle and 100 pigs, Certainly both farmers and agri-
cultural labourers work here with an energy, will, and
purpose now rarely seen in the old country. . ,

The Times of Tuesday published a further letter from the
same Correspondent, under the heading '' Prairie Farming
in Minnesota," from which we extract the following :

"Wisdom, in Jackson county, 150 miles southwest
of St. Paul, is a town of 700 inhabitants, with a smart
park laid out with trees—always pleasing in a prairie
country—several busy stores, two railway-etations, and
a capital hotel, capable of accommodating thirty or forty
people. Asia proverbial throughout America, the towns-
people sometimes, even with their families, board and
even live at these hotels. Catering for the public is hence
in small towns much better done in America than in
England. At the refreshment stations even in remote
western localities, and at these smaller hotels, in the in-
numerable little assiettes, at every meal a varied and
good repast is set forth, consisting usually of soup,
several sorts of butcher's meat, and fowl, costing, of
course, less than half what they do at home, usually
fairly cooked, although frequently one hears the order,
'As rare as you can, and the gravy red,' while the beef
sometimes proves refractory. Innumerable vegetables 7.--
potatoes, common and a weet, perhaps whole, and mashed
corn beans, tomatoes, &c.—are presented. Pastry, pud-
dings, and ice follow without stint; several descrip-
tions of bread, of wheat or corn, are offered, with tea,
coffee, and abundance of good milk, a glass of which
is ordered even at dinner much more frequently than
wine or spirits. At such hotels and refreshment rooms
these meals are charged at the rate of 2s. to 3s.
each. Drinking, if done at all, and it is rare among
the western farming population, consists in a 'straight
tip' of spirit before sitting down to meals or of a
nip ' after supper.
"Some of our party made a diversion in favour of
grouse, prairie chicken, ducks, and wild geese, which
abound on the numerous lakes; while others anxious
to see more prairie farming drove eight miles through
rather a bare country to Heron lake, where Messrs.
Thompson and Kendall have a farm of 5,000 acres,
fully half of it reduced within two years to cultivation.
The land is a strong loam, with the usual abundance
of organic matter, the accumulation of successive crops
of prairie grass; 2ft. to 3ft. down is the usual yellow
argillaceons clay. Three
to 7 dole." years ago the land cost 4 doh!.

The -Correspondent then describes the farms he
visited, giving particulars of the system of agriculture
employed, and showing by close calculation the coat at
which wheat can be produced in the district.

Th 4 row of Tuesday alsO gave the following leader