Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1866-11-01
farm&r's B&aamg.
An Invalid's Farming Operations.

At the close of the war, being almost
Frustrated with chronic disease of the chest,
with an invalid wife and family to support,
and not dollar in anything available, moth
ing in the shape of money except few
hundred in "CoDfederate," I was at loss
to know how would be able to "make both
ends meet" Various schemes of making
living presented themselves to my mind,
but my health was too much impaired to
undertake any of them Making a virtue
of necessity, I concluded to stay on my
farm, consisting of about three hundred
acres of third quality land-about forty
acres which had been in cultivation barely
yielding its former occupant support. I
hired black man regularly last year, and
paid him out of the crop; hired my corn
gathered and husked ; bought seed at 81. so
per bushel hired it sowed and harvested ;
have had considerably more land cleared up,
ditched and fenced, large garden newly
and substantially inclosed, which is now
filled with cabbage, beets, onions, peas,
beans, potatoes, parsuips, carrots, okra and
tomatoes. 1 have not been able to do a
weeks work in eighteen months, except the
lightest sort of jobs-consequently have had
to hire my teamwork done, paying for it
entirely out of the proceeds of the farm
1 have kept the stock, most of which l had
on hand, two horses, nine head of cattle,
fifteen sheep, fourteen hogs, and eleven
pigs. My "out hogs" have been we'll fed
on corn twice day, and are now good pork;
have pigs about seven months, that have
kept up six months-have fed them twice
day on corn and buttermilk; they are
now fine porkers, and will, I think, make
my next years meat, besides nine hogs
eight months old at killing-time, that ex.
pect to fatten for market. I have sold e.
nough bacon to purchase my sugar and
coffee. Besides what have paid out for
work, I have sold twenty bushels Of corn
for cash, and have now on hand thirty bush.
els of corn and enough old bacon to supply
my family until next summer. From tbir-
ty hens 1 have sold fifty dozen eggs since
early in the spring, and We have had as
many as We wanted for use; have sold g.
nough poultry to buy my wife's dresses,
and have now one hundred nice spring and
summer chickens; I have old sweet pota-
toes as nice as when fresh dug, and the
finest prospect for crop of sweet and Irish
potatoes I ever had; fine crop of sugar.
cane (sorghum), tobacco, etc., growing.
think I will have at least seventy.6ve
bushels of wheat and rye, judging from the
yield already threshed. This year l am
having cultivated by freedmen thirty acres
in corn and about five acres in oats, the lat
ter nearly all cut and shocked, and yielding
about one hundred dozen About one-half
of the corn is now laid by in fine condition,
having been ploughed and hoed five times
each. About one,h half of the corn is drill
ed, with COW. peas between the hills of corn,
which, think, will nearly fatten my hogs.
1 have enough leather on hand (home.tan-
ned) to supply my family year or two; al.
so the greater portion of my fall and spring
wool not yet made up, and enough home.
made silk to supply my family. do my
self all the milking, aod from the same
COWS that our servant-girl formerly milked
about gallon per day, I now milk about
three or four gallons. l have COW now
that my old mixer used to always dry up
at the end of six months. She is now with
a calf almost old enough to give milk, and
in fine beef order, but yields more milk now
than she ever did before I took up milk.
ing her. have thus given you the opera
tions of an invalid farmer, as an evidence
that farming can be made self sustaining at
least.-Southern Cultivator.