The native Virginian. [volume] (Orange Court House, Va.) 1867-187?, 1868-04-17
Farttt an6 GarSttt.
sPECIALITIEs IN FARMING:

Under this head the Massachusetts
Ploughman has along article, in which
it sets forth the advantage to the farm
er in studying what particular branch
their farms are best adapted to, and
urges them to give their attention to
some special culture, and not have too
many irons in the fire. The conclud-
ing portion reads as follows:
"Let us take one or two illustra-
tions. A friend in Fitchburg has two
or three acres of Concord grapes. He
raises poultry, too, and he had 4,6Oo
eggs from an average of twenty-six
hens from the first of January of last
year to the last of December; but
grapes and small fruits are his special
hobby. Year before last, from less
than an acre, then in bearing, which he
tended himself, he sold very nearly
eighteen hundred dollars worth OF
grapes. But if he had frittered away
his time on forty different crops, and
now and then ran to town with doz-
en- eggs, or a peck of turnips, or BUSH
ell of peas, or few years OF green corn'
or string of onions, or box OF butter
or few other lots of garden truck, Is
it to be supposed that he would have
realized seventeen or eighteen hundred
dollars from less than an acre OF vine
yard?
1t is only few months since we vis-
tied that vineyard in company with two
or three gentlemen, and on leaving
one of them remarked, "There, ia
rather own that two acres OF vineyard,
than the best farm in Worcester coun-
ty." And he was right. Why! Be-
couse with less cost of machinery and
management, less wear and tear, it
would pay a far larger percentage OF
income than the best farm in Worces-
ter county. and hence, as an invest
ment, as a matter of dollars and cents,
it was more desirable.
Again, we know man in Connecti-
cut Valley, who bought his place, built
a large tobacco shed and made some
other improvements, and paid for the
whole by the single crop of tobacco the
first year. But he gave his mind and
attention to it, and didn't try to culti-
vate much corn or many potatoes.
And again I'VE know man in
Duxbury, who began to reclaim one OF
the hardest looking brush swamps that
we ever saw, and set out cranberles,
now four or five years ago. The cost
per acre of cutting the bushes and the
brakes, grubbing up the hassocks, and
tangled roots of trees and high blue
berry bushes, parting and levelling the
surface, carting on sand and setting
out the vines, exceeded four hundred
dollars. Last year was the third OF the
experiment and the first crop of any
extent, on about an acre then in bear
ing; the crop yielded between seven
and eight hundred dollars net income.
We have another friend who owns a
large cranberry yard in the town Of
Franklin. 1t has cost him, on an aver
age, more than five hundred dollars an
acre, some OF it nearly a thousand dol
lars an acre to set. because he had eve
rything to contend with. 1t was an old
overgrown swamp, almost inaccessible
He now has about twenty acres in full
bearing, and when we were there, a few
months ago, he pointed to one meadow
of about twelve acres and said, ''There,
am offered twenty thousand dollars
| for that meadow, not over fourteen
acres at the outside" .......
"Why don't you take it ?" ...r 20
"Take it why, it pays me the inter-
est on over fifty thousand dollars; anu
has done for several years. can't at~
tord to sell it for twenty thousand !"
At the time Of our visit, instead Of
wishing to sell any of his extensive
plantation, he had three or four work.
men in the mud and water up to their
knees extending the area of his vines,
at an enormous cost per acre.
We mention these instances not to
recommend every farmer to 60 and do
likewise that is, to run into grapes or
cranberries or tobacco, but simply ito
show the importance of studying and
taking advantage of the natural capa-
cities Of the farm. .s.