Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1869-10-12
Rev. H. w. Beecher- His Farming
Experience.

Everyone to his trade" as some
one has wisely said. Great preacher,
are not always great farmers, as
shown Of Boecher by Mark Twain
in the following
Mr. Beeeher's farm consists of Sc
acres, and is carried on on strict
scientific principles. He never puts
in any part Of a crop without con
sulting his book He plows ard reaps
digs and sows according to the best
authorities-and the authorit ties cost
more than the other farming i'm Pile
ments do. AS soon as the library is
completed the farm will begin to be
profitable Investment But book
farming has its drawback. Upon
one occasion, when it seemed moral
" certain that the hay ought 10 be
cut, the hay book could not be found
and before it was found it was too
late, and the hay was all spoiled
Mr. Beecker raises some Of the finest
crops 81 wheat ii the country, but
the untavorable difference between
the cost Of raising it and and its
market value after it is produced,
has interiered considerably with its
success as a commercial enterprise.
His special weakness is hogs how
ever.
He considers hogs the best game
a farm produces. lie buys the orig
inaI pig for one dollar and a half,
and feeds him forty dollars worth Of
corn, and then sells him for about
nine dollars. This is the only crop
he makes any money on. He loses
on the corn, bnt ne makes seven dol
lars and a half on the hog He does
not mind this, because he never ex-
poets to make anything on corn,
anyway. And any way it turns out
he has the excitement of raising the
hog any how, whether he gets the
worth Of him or not. His straw
berries would be comfortable sue
cess if The robins would eat turnips,
but they won't, and hence the diff
Guilty.
One Of Mr.. Beecher's most harass-
ing difficulties in farming operations
comes Of the close resemblance of
different sorts Of plants and seeds to
each other. Two years ago his far
sightedness warned him that ther6
was going to be a scarcity Of water
melons, and therefore he put in crop
Of twenty-sevon acres of. that fruit.
But when they came up they turned
out to be pumpkins, and dead loss
was the consequence. Sometimes q
portion Of his crop goes into the
ground the most promising sweet
potatoes, and comes up the Internal
ist carrots-though | never heard
him express it just in that way
When he bought his farm be found
just one egg in every hens nest on
the place lie said that here was
just the reason Why 50 many farmers
failed-they scattered their forces
too much-concentration was the
idea.
SO he gathered those eggs together
and put them all under one expert
enced old hen. That hen roasted
over the contract night and day for
eleven weeks, under the anxious SUI
pervision Of Mr. Beecher himself,
but she could not "phase" those eggs.
Why Because they were those
infamous porcelain things which are
used by ingenious and fraudulent
farmers as "nest eggs" But perhaps
Mr.. Beecher's most disastrous ex-
perience was the time he tried to
raise an immense crop Of dried apples.
He planted fifteen hundred dollars
worth, but never a one of them
sprouted lie has never been able
to understand, to this day, what was
the matter with those apples.
Beechers farm is not triumph.
1t would be easier on him if be work
ed on shares with some one; but be
cannot find anybody who is wiling
20 stand half the expense, and not
many that are able. Still, persist
ence in any cause is bound tosucceed.
He was very inferior farmer when
he first began, but a prolonged and
unfinchiug assault upon his agricul-
tural difficulties has had its effect at
last, and he is fast rising from afflu-
enco to poverty.