The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1867-05-10
Making a Poor Farm Rich.
From the Germantown telegram


Some twenty-five or thirty years ago, |
nought farm containing about one hun
dred and twenty acres of land 1t had been
managed badly for many years preceding
the sale of it. Fence rows. where hun
dreds of loads Of stone had beer. hauled off
the adjacent fields, were from ten to twenty
ry trees, alders, sassatrass, briers, rotten
rails &c Cutters were washed in various
| places. exposing a barren, stony SOIL that
| looked ike ANYTHING else than desirable
farm land. An old farmer, on the dav of
sale, remarked. in reference to the guleys
in the fields, that it mattered bnt little if
all such lands were swept away. The build
isgs were old and dilapidated. and needed
| immediate repairs to render them comfort
able for man or beast This property had
two redeeming traits, however-it was well
watered and wooded.
| AS was the farm. so was the farmer
poor. To better this state of things was
the aim of the writer, which could NOT be
accomplished without hard work. This had
to he done. and he had to doit. Wood had
! to be cut and hauled to the kiln; lime to
be burned, hauled and spread, fence rows
I to be cleaned out, fences made, &c. put
one thousand bushels of lime on two ten
acre fields. in the fall, before possession was
given. These fields were ploughed in the
following spring, and put in with corn,
which yielded, when husked, not over fifty
bushels of sound corn altogether. From
one of them. however, | got one hundred
bushels of buckwbcat. having sown some
seed among the sparse and puny looking
stalks of corn about the middle OF July
The next season both fields were put in
with oats averaging forty bushels per acre:
| sowed timothy and clover on the oats, and
rolled them all in together. The season
was favorable, and seed took well. | moved
these fields two summers in succession. and
had very good crop of hay / then put
FIVE hundred bushels OF lime on one of the
fields, and in the spring planted it with
corn, which yielded me four hundred bush
els without the offaI No manure whatever
was used for the crop, in addition to the
lime, executing the corn was plastered in
the hill. Oats, wheat, tmanured from the
barn-yard) and two crops of grass followed.
The ground was then lined again as before,
and the ensuing season [ gathered sixty
bushels of corn per acre. The other fields
on the farm have been worked as this with
about the came result, executing the corn,
which has not been equalled since. There
we're but two acres OF wheat on the place
when [ bought it, as all the manure made
would not cover greater extent than this,
after sufficient was taken out for potato
patch and garden. Two horses and three
cows constituted about all the stock. Now
there are five COWS and upwards of twenty
head of cattle kept. The manure they
make issufhcient for twenty acres of ground
annually. By the increased productions of
my farm, I have been enabled to pay my
debts, erect new buildings and give my
children good, sound education.
So much for lime without this fertilizer
I could not have lived I have never sold
more than three or four loads Of hay, nor
bought more than three or four loads of
manure Several times the wheat crop has
yielded thirty bushels to the acre | paid
sl3 per acre for my farm, and have refused
$40
Ihave written this to show that poor land
may be made good by lime and the increased
amount of manure obtained in consequence
of liberal application, Two good horses
and yoke of oxen were all the working
stock used on the farm for several years.
Young farmers will do well to remember
that oxen will do as much work as horses,
eat less grain, require less expensive har.
ness, can be gcared in half the time, can be
managed more safely by boys, and, in fine.
are preferable in many ways.