Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1868-05-21
farmers 9epntmfllt.
From the Farmers Chronicle.
County Papers and the Agrieui'
tural Interests.

TIL. .a;tor of the Jackson (O.)
Standard, promises his reaoers
series of articles on "Farmlng In
Jackson County," and says:
.And as three -fourths of my sub
scribers are practical farmers, they
will no doubt be interested to some
extent in whatever pertains to their
profession. As / was brought up on
. farm, have some knowledge Of
the manner in which farming was
conducted in this county from 1925
up to the present time"
County papers as a rule are weekly
papers, and their chief circulation is
among farmers. We have thought
editors of those papers could greatly
increase their circulation, if they
would encourage their most intelli-
gent and successful farmers to write
for their papers upon such topics as
would be not only of general but 10
cal interest. If this were done there
would be no difficulty in organizing
and conducting Farmers Club in
every county as successfully as the
one here in Franklin county. Agri-
culture is "made up" mexe than any
other avocation, of purely >xperi-
mental operations; man learns howl
to make boot or shoe, 70 tan hide,
to distil whisky, or make coat, and
after he has once learned how to do
this he can at all times thereafter
make just as well fitting boot or
shoe, tan another hide precisely like
the first, can make million gallons
of whisky in which no difference Of
color or strength can be detected; or
make coats for regiment, each one
of which will be "a good fit" Butt
when it comes to farming-there's
the rub-one yesr an acre will yield
a hundred bushels of corn or thirty
of wheat, another year the farmer will
realize forty bushels of corn, or per
haps only ten of wheat. Ask why
the product of the two years are not
the came and we will be told SHE sea-
sons qpere different"
The farmer certainly is anxious
to obtain the greatest possible pro-
duct from the soil, and diminished
or short crop is as discouraging and
fills him with as gloomy prospects as
it does the speculator; certain it is the|
farmer does not aim to grow short
crops. But cannot the farmer do al
good deal toward modifying the eff
fects of the seasons? A tailor will
tell us that no two men are built alike
one is tall, aw-boned and lean;
another is short, bread shouldered
and ieshy, yet the tailor makes
clothes to fit both; if he had one in
flexible rule by which he cut gar
ments he perhaps would fit neither
one. The farmer seems to have one
rule only; he does his work by a Civ
en- rule and then expects the season
to do the remainder. Underdrain-
ing and sub. soiling, plowing SO as to
pulverize more completely may do
more or less to counteract the unfa-
vorableness of the seasons
The improvements made in New
York or New England in the culture
of crops may not be adopted in Ohio
the system of farming done in
Lawrence county may not be the best
for Lucas county. Therefore the
farmers should communicate for
mutual benefit their experiences to
their brother farmers in the same
county through the medium of their
county papers. There is no danger
of surfeiting farmers with facts in re-
lation to anything appertaining to
farming.