Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1868-04-08
Making a Poor Farm Rich.

Some.tw enty five or thirty yearsago,
bought a farm containing about sohe
hundred and twenty acres of land. 1T
had been managed badly for many years
preceding the sale of'it. Fence rows,
where hundreds Of loads Of stone had
been hauled off, the adjacent fields, were
from ten to twenty feet wide, and were
filled with cedars, cherry trees, elders,
sassafras, briers, rotten rails, &c, Gut
tiers were washed in various places, ex-
posing stony, barren soil, that looked
like anything else than desirable farm
land. AN old farmer, on the day'of sale,
remarked, in reference to the gulleys iii
the fields, THAT itS mattered fbut little if
all such land washed away. The build
ipgs were old and dilapidated and needed
inn Immediate repairs, to render them at all
comfortable. for man or beast. This
property, however, had two redeeming
traits--it was well wooded and we'll wa
tered.
2 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 much hard work.
This had to be: done, and he had to do it.
Wood had to- be cut and hauled to the
kiln; lime to be burned, hauled and
spread fence-rows cleaned out, fences
made, &c. ] put one thousand bushels
of lime on two ten-acrc fields, in the fall,
before possession was given. These fields
were plowed 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
buckwheat, 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 clover and timothy on the
oats, and rolled themial in together. The
season was favorable, and seed took well.
moved these fields two summers in
succession. and had very good cropSof
hay. then put five hundred bushels of
lime.on zone of the fields, and in the
spring planted it with corn, which yielded
me four hundred bushels, without the
offal. No manure whatever was used for
the crop in addition to the lime, excep-
ing the corn was plastered in the hill.
Oats, wheat, manured from the barn.
yard,) and two crops of grass followed.
The ground was then lined again as be-
fore, and | gathered the ensuing season
sixty bushels of corn per acre. The
other fields on the farm have been worked
as this, with about the same results, ex-
cepting the corn, which | think has not
been equaled since. There were 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 horses, and upwards
of twenty-five head of cattle kept
kept. The manure they make is sufficient
for twenty acres of ground annually. BY
the increased productions Of my farm, !
have been enabled to pay my debts, erect
new buildings, and to give my children g
good, sound education.
So much for lime without this fertili-
zer could not have lived. 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 per acre.
paid s3l per acre for my farm, and
have refused sll0.
have written this to show that poor
land may be made good with lime, and
the increased amount Of manure obtained
as the 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+css grain,
require less expensive harness, can be
geared in halfsthe time, can be managed
more safely by boys, and in fine are pre-.
ferable in very many ways.-German-
town Telegraph.
Erom tbo Now Orlaons p;covune